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85c3e7583ccbcd54473da7c3c831056e | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/09/jerusalem-embassy-move-ceremony-tel-aviv/594478002/ | U.S. Embassy to open in Jerusalem amid Palestinian outcry | U.S. Embassy to open in Jerusalem amid Palestinian outcry
JERUSALEM – On the road to the soon-to-open U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, groundskeepers planted red, white and blue flowers underneath American and Israeli flags for Monday's inauguration of the controversial new location that has sparked Palestinian outrage.
For all the commotion over President Trump's decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv, the operation involves few changes to the U.S. consular compound in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Arnona — other than new street signs and a plaque marking the status change of the stone building.
The move’s initial phase includes relocating U.S. Ambassador David Friedman and a small staff to the Arnona site, modifying the compound for his future office and additional security. Total cost: about $400,000, the embassy said.
Most of the 850 embassy workers in Tel Aviv will not move to Jerusalem until a new building is constructed, which could take up to nine years. American consular services such as issuing visas will continue at the Arnona site.
About 800 guests are likely to attend Monday’s ceremony, including members of Congress. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan will lead the U.S. delegation, along with Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and adviser; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; and U.S. Middle East peace envoy Jason Greenblatt, the White House said this week.
The residential neighborhood is lined with American flags and dotted with patrolling police and security guards.
Last month, a group of 20 Arnona residents petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to block the move. They oppose the added security and planned construction of a wall 10-15 feet high that would block the residents’ view of West Bank hillsides and, on clear days, Jordan. The court rejected the petition May 1.
“The neighborhood has really suffered,” said Daniel Jonas , 36, who grew up in Arnona and was one of the residents who petitioned the court. “I’ll walk in the street and say hi to my dad and get stopped by a big, flashing American (police) car.”
More:Trump says he may visit Israel for opening of U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem
More:U.S. plans to move embassy to Jerusalem on May 14
More:Trump will begin process to move U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, officials say
Israel views Trump’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as a symbolic triumph. Trump broke with decades of U.S. foreign policy that withheld such recognition until the city’s final status was worked out by Israelis and Palestinians in a peace agreement.
Palestinian diplomat Saeb Erekat called on foreign leaders this week to boycott the embassy opening. He said attending will “encourage flagrant violations of international law and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”
The embassy ceremony will occur on the 70th anniversary of Israel declaring its independence, adding to what could be a tense week for Israelis and Palestinians. A day later, on May 15, Palestinians will mark the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” commemorating land lost to the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Israeli police braced for demonstrations in Jerusalem as Palestinian leaders expressed their anger before the move. Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, including the walled Old City, as the capital of their future state.
Senior Palestinian official Ahmad Majdalani called for "a huge, popular day of rage everywhere" Monday. "Our people will express their rejection of relocating the embassy to occupied Jerusalem," he told the Palestinian Authority's radio station, Voice of Palestine, this week.
The Israeli army geared up for the culmination of six weeks of demonstrations called the March of Return along the Gaza border. More than 40 Palestinian protesters have been killed by Israeli fire during the protests.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Israeli police coordinated security measures for the embassy opening with American personnel.
The Arnona compound is between predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem and mostly Palestinian East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in from Jordan in a war in 1967. The annexation of East Jerusalem was never internationally recognized. It sits on the armistice line drawn between Israel and Jordan after the Israeli-Arab war in 1948.
By the end of 2019, the embassy compound will house Ambassador Friedman’s full staff.
Trump said he negotiated the price of the new embassy down from a $1 billion estimate to $300,000-$400,000.
Moussa Mahmed, 35, of East Jerusalem, was one of the workers laying soil and beautifying the grounds around the compound this week, but he expressed bitterness about the embassy move.
“What is the difference between here or in Tel Aviv? America is playing a big game, and we won’t play it,” he said. “Sure, there will be a U.S. Embassy in East Jerusalem, Palestine, one day — once we achieve peace.”
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c17cc59446936cac00f60cf552c984f4 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/09/north-korea-kim-jong-un-free-3-american-citizens/582094002/ | 'God Bless America': Freed American prisoners thankful after being released from North Korea | 'God Bless America': Freed American prisoners thankful after being released from North Korea
The release Wednesday of three Americans once held as prisoners by North Korea is the latest goodwill gesture by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before he holds a historic summit with President Trump in the coming weeks.
The three men — Kim Dong-Chul, Kim Hak-Song and Tony Kim — walked on their own from a van and onto the waiting plane of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to begin their journey home to U.S. soil.
On their way back to the U.S., the men described their "deep appreciation" for Trump, Pompeo and the U.S. government for freeing them.
"We thank God, and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return," a statement from the men provided by the State Department reads. "God Bless America, the greatest nation in the world."
Pompeo met with the North Korean leader during his nearly 13-hour visit to Pyongyang to plan the meeting with Trump about denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
Pompeo called Trump as soon as the plane cleared North Korean airspace to tell him the men were in good health. Other officials then notified their families, according to the Associated Press.
The president tweeted the exciting news about "3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting." Trump also said he would welcome the Americans early Thursday when they land at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, just outside the nation's capital.
"They all walked up the stairs themselves, with their own power, so good enough to do that," Pompeo told reporters.
The three men, seized between 2015 and 2017, were sentenced to years in North Korea's brutal camps for anti-state offenses.
Tony Kim's family issued a statement on Twitter thanking Trump, God and everyone who helped secure his release.
"We ... want to thank the President for engaging directly with N. Korea. Mostly, we thank God for Tony’s safe return," they said. They also called for prayers for “the people of North Korea and for the release of all who are still being held."
The White House commended North Korea for the move, saying in a statement, "President Trump appreciates leader Kim Jong Un’s action to release these American citizens, and views this as a positive gesture of goodwill."
South Korean President Moon Jae-in also welcomed the action. “North Korea's decision will be very positive for the successful hosting of the North-American summit,” presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said.
Moon had asked Kim during their April 27 meeting to release six South Koreans detained in North Korea. “I hope that our detainees will be repatriated as soon as possible in order to further spread the reconciliation between the two Koreas and the spring of peace that has started on the Korean Peninsula,” Yoon said.
Who are the three Americans?
Kim Hak-Song was accused of "hostile acts" in May 2017. He had been doing agricultural development work at the research farm of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and was living in Pyongyang.
He is an ethnic Korean born in China. He studied in California and became a U.S. citizen in the 2000s but never forgot his roots. "He was a very diligent, hardworking man determined to help people in North Korea," his friend David Kim told CNN.
Tony Kim was detained at the Pyongyang airport in April 2017 as he was set to depart the country. He subsequently was accused of "hostile acts."
He had spent a month teaching accounting at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and most recently had been living in North Korea with his wife, still believed to be there. He supposedly had been volunteering at an orphanage. The university is funded largely by evangelical Christians from the United States and China.
Kim Dong-Chul of Fairfax, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C., was arrested in October 2015 and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in April 2016 on charges of spying and other offenses.
A month before his trial, he supposedly apologized for trying to steal military secrets for South Koreans. He had been living in Rason, North Korea, in a special economic zone where he ran a trading and hotel services company.
Plans for Trump-Kim meeting
Trump on Wednesday repeated that a time and place for his meeting with Kim has been set, but he did not give the details other than to say it won't be at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
Pompeo, before he met with Kim, said the U.S. will not provide economic relief to North Korea, which is under some of the strictest international sanctions in the world, before it achieves Trump's goal of denuclearization.
"We’re not going to relieve sanctions until such time as we achieved our objectives," Pompeo said. "We are not going to do this in small increments, where the world is essentially coerced into relieving economic pressure. That won’t lead to the outcome that I know Kim Jong Un wants and I know President Trump is demanding."
Pompeo said he would describe the conditions "that will give them this opportunity to have a historic, big change in the security relationship between North Korea and the United States, which will achieve ... complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization."
While the president's goal for the nuclear program is clear, Trump's objectives on other concerns for the U.S. and allies South Korea and Japan have not been described in depth.
South Korea's Moon and North Korea's Kim issued a joint declaration after their April summit that the two countries would seek a formal end to the Korean War, which ended in 1953 without a peace treaty. In addition, the two countries would hold a family reunification event Aug. 15.
More:Meet the three American prisoners being held by North Korea
More:Trump-North Korea summit: Details get more complicated by the day
Contributing: Marco della Cava, Thomas Maresca and Christal Hayes
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c7cba014ae5933c90b5a9794b7c929f6 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/09/trump-iran-nuclear-deal-withdrawal-fallout/593490002/ | Iran lawmakers shout 'death to America,' burn U.S. flag after Trump nixes nuclear deal | Iran lawmakers shout 'death to America,' burn U.S. flag after Trump nixes nuclear deal
Iranian lawmakers shouted "death to America" and set fire to a paper U.S. flag during angry scenes at the country's parliament in Tehran, a day after President Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal.
The protest came as Iranian officials, including parliament speaker Ali Larijani and President Hassan Rouhani, said Wednesday they hoped European leaders will work with them to preserve the deal between Tehran and world powers — without the U.S. — but stressed that the nation could now decide to resume its nuclear program.
"If necessary, we can begin our industrial enrichment without any limitations," the Iranian leader said. "Until implementation of this decision, we will wait for some weeks and will talk with our friends and allies and other signatories of the nuclear deal, who signed it and who will remain loyal to it. Everything depends on our national interests."
Iran’s supreme leader, who has the final say on all state matters, struck a more defiant tone. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directly challenged Trump, saying "you cannot do a damn thing" after Trump announced he was renewing sanctions on Iran.
During the demonstration in parliament, lawmakers held up the flaming U.S. flag as their fellow parliamentarians joined in anti-American chants. They also burned a piece of paper representing the nuclear deal and stomped on the papers’ ashes. Larijani, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency, said Trump lacked "mental capacity."
Later Wednesday, Trump warned Iran against resuming its nuclear weapons program.
“I would advise Iran not to start their nuclear program,” Trump told reporters when asked about the potential consequences. “I would advise them very strongly. If they do there will be very severe consequence.”
European diplomats meanwhile insisted that the 2015 accord would not suddenly collapse despite the U.S.'s withdrawal. Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, the European Union’s representative to China said Wednesday during a press briefing in Beijing that the EU strongly believes "that this is an agreement which belongs to the international community. This is not an agreement that will fall apart if you just walk away."
France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French radio that the deal "wasn't dead yet" and that European countries would hold talks over how to keep it alive.
Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia were all signatories to the 2015 accord under which Iran pledged to limit its stockpile of enriched uranium for 15 years and its number of centrifuges for 10 years. Both are needed to make nuclear weapons. The EU, U.S. and United Nations lifted economic sanctions as part of the deal.
More:Who wins, who loses in Trump's decision to pull the U.S. from the Iran deal?
More:5 ways Donald Trump's decision to tear up the Iran deal just made us less safe
The International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran was complying with the terms of the agreement, but Trump and other hard-liners in his administration have repeatedly insisted that Iran's government could not be trusted and that it should be abandoned. Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans favor staying in the deal.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was quoted Wednesday by Iran's semi-official Fars news agency as saying: "We welcome Trump’s decision on pulling out of the deal. This is not a new event and has no effective role in any field." Jafari said that "it was clear that the Americans are not trustworthy."
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f5d8d115f9aa25954958bdbeb5c114fe | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/10/south-korea-moon-jae-approval-rating-popularity-north-korea/597557002/ | South Korea's Moon Jae-in is more popular than ever | South Korea's Moon Jae-in is more popular than ever
SEOUL — South Korean President Moon Jae-in and President Trump are working closely on diplomacy with North Korea, but the two leaders are starkly different in their approaches.
Trump has built a career on being a boastful, over-the-top presence. Whereas, Moon has cultivated a soft-spoken and humble image.
And while Trump has bobbed in the popularity polls, Moon Jae-in celebrated his one-year anniversary in office Thursday riding the highest numbers a South Korean president has ever seen in his first year.
Moon garnered an 83% approval rating, buoyed by his April summit meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, according to an opinion poll released Thursday by KBS, Korea's national public broadcaster.
The numbers echo several other polls released in recent days, with Gallup Korea showing Moon with a 83% favorable rating.
Moon's handshake with Kim and steps across the border in North Korea culminated a year of stunning progress on the diplomatic front for the South Korean leader.
Moon won the presidency with pledges to improve relations with North Korea and clean up government and business corruption scandals that took down his predecessor, Park Geun-hye. Park, who was impeached in December 2016 after months of street protests, was sentenced to 24 years in prison last month.
The charismatic, square-jawed president also has a personal appeal to many in the country, and his administration has made efforts to communicate more openly with the public than his predecessor.
“Moon’s government is really transparent,” said Bae Jin-ho, 49, a businessman working in central Seoul. “And with North Korea, it’s just the beginning of a long process, but he’s done a great job so far.”
Oh Hyung-jung, 50, a therapist, also said Moon deserves credit for changing course with North Korea.
“For the last ten years relations have been going backwards, with so much tension and so many threats,” she said. “The summit was just a step, but a really important one.”
However, she added that Moon has not yet delivered results on improving the economy or the job market and needs to be judged on those issues, too.
“After this anniversary, we need to be clear-eyed about this government from now on,” she said.
Moon kept his anniversary low-key, with only a small musical concert in the evening to mark the occasion. On his official social media accounts, Moon released a short statement, calling it a year of “non-stop running” and saying that “it was the year we tried to give the people a sense of pride in being citizens of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).”
Moon’s own path to the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential residence, in many ways echoes his country’s phenomenal growth over the past six-and-a-half decades since the Korean War was halted with an armistice in 1953.
Moon was born only five months before the end of the war, to parents who had fled North Korea to the South in 1950. He grew up in poverty on Gejoe, an island off the coast of South Korea, but excelled at school and went on to study law at a university in Seoul.
In the 1970s, he became heavily involved with the student protest movement against then-dictator Park Chung-hee (the father of former president Park Geun-hye, whom Moon replaced). Moon was arrested and jailed for his part in the protests, and later became a human rights lawyer in the southern coastal city of Busan. There he worked with Roh Moo-hyun, who would go on to become president of South Korea in 2003.
Moon joined Roh’s cabinet as chief of staff, and they worked together under the “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea.
After Roh left office in 2008 (later committing suicide on corruption charges in 2009), Seoul took a harder line toward Pyongyang for most of the next decade before Moon's presidency.
Tensions rose to nerve-rattling heights with North Korea for much of 2017, with the North's series of provocative missile launches and their sixth nuclear test.
It was the Winter Olympics, held in Pyeongchang in February, that became the key opportunity to thaw relations. The first high-level meeting between the countries in more than two years was held in January to discuss North Korea’s involvement in the Games. Moon seized the chance to turn the event into what he described as the “Peace Olympics.”
The Games opened up a spirit of reconciliation that led up to the inter-Korean summit on April 27 and a declaration between the two countries to seek out a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War and to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
While optimism is running high, any peace process will hinge on the upcoming meeting between Kim and Trump, widely expected to be held in Singapore in the coming weeks. Moon is slated to visit Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump ahead of that meeting, on May 22.
Last week, presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan acknowledged the “afterglow” from the inter-Korean summit but cautioned that “the political changes involving the Korean Peninsula, particularly regarding the upcoming summit between the U.S. and North Korea, are taking place extremely rapidly.”
Moon will also have to address economic pressures, especially job creation for younger Koreans, who remain his strongest constituency. Unemployment was at 4.5% in March, its highest rate in 17 years. Among those aged 15-29, the figure was 11.6%.
A recent Gallup Korea poll showed that only 47% support Moon’s economic policies, down from 52% six months after he took office.
“We still have a long way to go,” Moon said in a statement. “There seems to be little change in the everyday lives of the people. ... When I finish my term, I hope to hear people saying, 'Much has changed, my life has become better.' I hope peace is a part of everyday life.”
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c34d1b09dcb5674ef56f4a8a7b897475 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/11/australia-mass-shooting-family-7-dead-including-4-children/601181002/ | Family of 7 dead in what could be Australia's worst mass shooting in 22 years | Family of 7 dead in what could be Australia's worst mass shooting in 22 years
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A family of seven including four children was found dead with gunshot wounds Friday at a rural property in southwest Australia in what could be the country's worst mass shooting in 22 years, police and news media said.
The children died with their mother and grandparents. The three generations had moved in 2015 to Osmington, a village of fewer than 700 people near the tourist town of Margaret River, to grow fruit, media reported.
Police would not comment on the possibility of murder-suicide, but said they are not looking for a suspect.
After being alerted by a phone call before dawn, police found the bodies and two guns at the property, Western Australia state Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said. Police wouldn't say who made the call.
The bodies of two adults were found outside a house and the others were found inside. They all resided at the property, he said.
Police said they have no information that would raise concerns about wider public safety, suggesting a shooter is not at large.
"Police are currently responding to what I can only describe as a horrific incident," Dawson told reporters.
"This devastating tragedy will no doubt have a lasting impact on the families concerned, the whole community and, in particular, the local communities in our southwest," he added.
Police were attempting to make contact with the victims' relatives, Dawson said. He declined to release the names or ages of the dead.
Philip Alpers, a Sydney University gun policy analyst, said the tragedy appeared to be the worst mass shooting in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996, prompting the nation to introduce tough gun controls.
Australia's gun laws are widely acclaimed as a success, with supporters including former U.S. President Barack Obama saying Australia had not had a single mass shooting since they were implemented.
The generally accepted definition of a mass shooting — four deaths excluding the shooter in a single event — has been met only once in Australia since then. In 2014, a farmer shot his wife and three children before killing himself.
Police have revealed few details about the recent killings, and it is not clear whether there was more than one shooter.
Farmers are allowed to own guns under Australian law because they have a legitimate need to use them to kill feral pests and predators or sick or injured livestock. But automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns are banned from public ownership.
Osmington is a collection of a few streets, farms, vacation accommodations and vineyards supplying the premium winemaking district known as Margaret River.
Samantha Lee, chair of the Gun Control Australia lobby group, said rural areas were over-represented in Australian gun deaths, including suicides.
"Regional and rural areas are particularly vulnerable to these sorts of tragedies, because of the combination of isolation, sometimes mental or financial hardship and easy access to firearms," Less said in a statement.
"Although the details of this tragedy are yet to come to light, Australia has a tragic history of higher rate of gun deaths in rural areas," she added.
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25eac564006237ed76e47a02d95c03ed | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/14/us-embassy-jerusalem-gaza-protests/606627002/ | Scores killed as violence greets dedication of U.S. Embassy in Israel | Scores killed as violence greets dedication of U.S. Embassy in Israel
JERUSALEM – More than 50 Palestinians were killed Monday in mass protests along the border with Gaza while Israel celebrated the U.S. Embassy's contentious move to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
The demonstrations have gone on for weeks and reached a violent apex as Israel marked 70 years since the Jewish nation was established. Palestinians annually mark their resulting displacement on Nakba Day, or the Day of Catastrophe, on May 15.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 55 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,200 wounded Monday in border clashes with the Israeli military, making it the deadliest day of violence with Gaza since 2014.
“This disproportionate and illegal use of lethal force against unarmed civilian protesters is criminal," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, blamed Gaza's Hamas leadership, saying the Islamic militant group encouraged Palestinians to breach the border fence. He said several such efforts had been repelled, and the military was committed to ensuring that communities on the Israeli side were not overrun.
White House spokesman Raj Shah blamed Hamas for the deaths, saying the group was "cynically provoking" the Israeli response. He said Israel has the right to defend itself and called Monday “a great day for Israel and the United States.”
More:U.S. Embassy to open in Jerusalem amid Palestinian outcry
More:Trump adviser calls U.S. Embassy move 'a recognition of reality'
More:The U.S. Embassy isn't the only reason for violence: Here are key issues
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the embassy as an "American settlement outpost," called for three days of mourning. British Prime Minister Theresa May was among Western leaders calling for "calm and restraint" on both sides.
The embassy move to Jerusalem outraged Palestinians who long hoped to create a capital for themselves in the city's eastern sector. Israeli and U.S. officials were determined not to let the violence diminish the embassy celebration.
"Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital," President Trump said in a taped message played at the dedication ceremony. "For many years, we failed to acknowledge the obvious."
Jared Kushner, son-in-law and adviser to Trump, and the president's daughter Ivanka were part of the U.S. delegation attending. Kushner, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, drew a standing ovation when he mentioned Trump's announcement last week that the United States would withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran, Israel's sworn enemy.
"The United States stands with Israel because we believe, we know, that it is the right thing to do," he said.
David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, presided over the dedication ceremony and said the embassy move keeps a "promise we made to the American people."
"Within the confines of Jerusalem, every man, woman and child becomes part of something more than themselves," Friedman said. "Shalom, peace, is the inseparable sister of truth"
Near the ceremony, more than 500 demonstrators clashed with Israeli forces, and police made at least one arrest. Demonstrators chanted, "Jerusalem is ours!"
Safa Yasin, 19, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, said the embassy move "cements Israeli control over Jerusalem" and shows disregard for the rights of the Palestinian people.
"We stand in solidarity with all Palestinians," he said. "The ones in Gaza right now especially."
Some Israelis came out in support of the embassy. Among the supporters, who were separated by a police barrier from protesters, was Elisha Haas, 74, an Israeli professor of biophysics at Bar Ilan University.
“I came here to say thank you to President Trump," Haas said, adding that he has no sympathy for the Palestinians shot along the border. “I don’t care how many are killed because they are using these protests to terrorize Israel. The despair of Gaza is fake news."
Practically speaking, little was changed by Monday's formal move. The U.S. consular compound in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Arnona will become the temporary embassy, and Friedman and a small staff will move to the site.
Most of the 850 embassy workers in Tel Aviv will not move until a new embassy is built, which could take a decade.
Still, the symbolism is not lost on the Palestinians. In the West Bank, several thousand people gathered in the center of Ramallah, while hundreds marched to the Qalandiya crossing on the outskirts of Jerusalem, where protesters threw stones at Israeli troops.
The worst violence has been along the Gaza border, less than 50 miles from Jerusalem. Since weekly Great March of Return rallies began in March, more than 100 Palestinian protesters have been killed and more than 2,300 wounded.
The Great March represents the Palestinians' demand for the right to return to areas they fled or were driven from during the creation of Israel in 1948.
"We are adamant to return, no matter what happens," Ahmad Abu Artema, spokesperson for the Great March, told Al Jazeera. "This is what the people of Gaza want. It's about popular will. And this is their right."
Bacon reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: The Associated Press
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b0f07fa8359b0d58bc5107cf2d3124a0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/18/french-government-says-foiled-attack-brothers-held/622220002/ | French government says it foiled terror attack; 2 brothers held | French government says it foiled terror attack; 2 brothers held
PARIS – France’s interior minister says authorities have thwarted a possible attack using ricin or explosives and arrested two brothers.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told BFM television Friday that authorities were tracking extremist activity on social networks and identified two young men “preparing to commit an attack with explosives or ricin.”
He said the young men were of Egyptian origin but didn’t indicate their nationality or provide other details about where or when they were arrested. He said the men notably had tutorials on how to make poison using ricin.
No other information was immediately released.
The announcement came days after an Islamic extremist stabbed five people in the heart of Paris, and as the country is still on edge after a string of deadly attacks in recent years.
More: Islamic State claims responsibility for Paris stabbing that killed 1 , injured 4
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209ba163d2ff23d67055148c1ea89b34 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/18/how-chinas-military-expansion-threatens-u-s-interests/621385002/ | How China's military expansion threatens U.S. interests | How China's military expansion threatens U.S. interests
WASHINGTON — China is developing a navy twice the size of the U.S. Navy and working to replace the United States as the major global power, analysts told a House committee.
China will have about 550 warships by 2030 — nearly double the size of today’s U.S. Navy, said James Fanell, a former Navy intelligence officer now at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
“Expect China to push us out of the region. Expect to lose more allies,” Fanell told the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday.
The analysts testified about five signals China is working to surpass the U.S. in Asia and elsewhere:
Threat to Taiwan
China has launched an aggressive campaign of “constant coercion” against Taiwan, including interference in its democracy and non-stop cyberattacks, said Dan Blumenthal, director of Asia studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Every day that Taiwan survives as a democracy it undermines the support of the Chinese people for China,”said Rick Fisher, a China and Korea analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
China considers the autonomous island a breakaway province. The U.S. supports Taiwan by providing it with weapons to deter Chinese aggression. Chinese President Xi Jinping has signaled that China will seek to reclaim its historical properties by 2049, the centennial of China’s founding, Fanell said.
China has already claimed the South China Sea, which is also claimed by other nations in the region, and China has "plans for Taiwan,” Fanell said.
"They want to get it back,” he said, and told the military to make plans, he said.
Foreign sea ports
China is using a giant infrastructure project, called the Belt and Road Initiative, to build an alternative route from central China to the West. It would circumvent U.S.-controlled shipping lanes to gain control over foreign sea ports and other facilities, Blumenthal said.
“Major investments go to Pakistan and Bangladesh, which allows (China) to go to the Indian Ocean without going through the Straits of Malacca, which are dominated by the USA,” Blumenthal said. “This is cash for access.”
Ships and more ships
China’s Navy currently has 330 ships and 66 submarines, for a total of 396, compared to the U.S. Navy’s total of 283, consisting 211 ships and 72 subs, Fanell said. By 2030, China’s Navy will have 549 ships, including 450 surface ships and 99 subs. It’s not clear if Congress will fund enough shipbuilding to float 355 ships and subs by then, Fanell said.
While the U.S. has relied on having the best military technology on the sea and in the air, China has been closing the technological gap. “The quality of (China’s) warships already presents a credible threat across the Asia-Pacific today,” Fanell said.
One example: China has the world’s first fully nuclear-powered aircraft carrier battle group, with a marine force of 100,000 troops, said Rick Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
Space
China has ground-based laser weapons and missiles and is developing space-based systems to neutralize enemy satellites that the U.S. and its allies use for communications and surveillance, Fisher said
Should war break out between the U.S. and China, one of China's first actions would be to attack assets U.S. has in space, he said. “Their literature talks about space-based bombing platforms.”
Chinese engineers published a 2017 paper about how to build a 5-ton chemical laser satellite capable of targeting other satellites from low-earth orbit.
“The Chinese have told me that when they go to the moon, it will be just as dual use as our Cape Canaveral,” Fisher said. “We cannot allow the moon to become a base for China’s projection of power. And we cannot allow low-earth orbit to become dominated by Chinese military platforms manned and unmanned.”
Still vulnerable
Despite all this, the U.S. can still target China's vulnerabilities, said Patricia Kim, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations.
China's totalitarian government and high levels of corruption create a potential for ethnic unrest, "and potential instability that would distract it from its global mission," Kim said.
China has no formal allies, other than a treaty of cooperation with North Korea, while the U.S. has scores of allies around the world, she said.
And rejections of Chinese investment in Greenland, Greece and Zimbabwe show "that even states with a need for economic aid will not accept Chinese investment," Kim said.
"The United States should not only focus on China’s military expansion but push for its own development and interests in east Asia," she added.
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dccce64e842362fa96bb01b03351a06a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/26/putin-complains-probe-around-trump-hurting-u-s-russian-relations/647171002/ | Putin complains that probe around Trump hurting U.S.-Russian relations | Putin complains that probe around Trump hurting U.S.-Russian relations
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that investigations swirling around President Trump are interfering with improved relations with Moscow, noting he has had little contact with the U.S. president.
“We are hostages to this internal strife in the United States,” Putin said at an economic forum in St. Petersburg. “I hope that it will end some day and the objective need for the development of Russian-American relationships will prevail.”
In wide-ranging remarks to reporters and during the televised conference, Putin also said he would step down from his post in 2024, adhering to the Russian constitution ban on anyone serving two consecutive presidential terms.
That pledge, however, does not necessarily mean Putin will retire. In 2008, he stepped down after two consecutive terms to become prime minister, then returned in 2012 to the presidency. He was re-elected in March to a six-year term through 2024.
At the forum, attended by such world leaders as French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Russian president bemoaned the state of relations with America, criticized U.S. sanctions against Russia and slammed Trump's decision to withdrawal from an international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Noting that an international watchdog agency has confirmed that Tehran was abiding by the agreement over its nuclear program, Putin asked: "What should it be punished for, then?”
The move by Trump to pull out of the deal has also strained relations between Washington and Europe.
“If international agreements are revised every four years it would offer zero horizon for planning,” Putin said. “It will create the atmosphere of nervousness and lack of trust.”
The Russian president also criticized the imposition of Western sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. In addition, the U.S. has applied sanctions in response to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.
Putin bemoaned the "chaotic" situation of economic punishment and said the "sanctions baton" is being used more often in the world, and not just toward Moscow.
"The situation in the world is such that it is as though everyone is playing football, but at the same time, they are applying judo rules to it [the match]," he said. "So, we end up with this interesting game, it's neither football, nor judo. It's just chaos."
The ever-confident Russian leader also took an opportunity to chide Macron over Europe's rift with Trump regarding Iran.
A smiling Putin said in the exchange with the French president that Russia could help protect Europe if its dispute with the U.S. widens.
“Don’t you worry, we will help ensure your security,” Putin promised.
Macron responded on a serious note that France and its allies could stand for themselves.
Contributing: Associated Press
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3a5b870568b9c56d072ef3b95c859e2d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/27/chelsea-clinton-trump-degrades-what-means-american/648240002/ | Chelsea Clinton: Trump 'degrades what it means to be an American' | Chelsea Clinton: Trump 'degrades what it means to be an American'
The Trump administration is laden with "cruelty and incompetence and corruption," and President Trump's actions degrade America, Chelsea Clinton said in an interview with a British media outlet.
The daughter of former president BillClinton and former senator Hillary Clinton discussed Trump in an interview with The Guardian while promoting her new book She Persisted Around the World.
Chelsea Clinton briefly discussed Trump's planned visit to Britain in July.
“I’ve been to multiple protests since the election," she said. "If I lived in Britain I would show up to protest, because I don’t agree with what he’s doing to degrade what it means to be an American.”
Clinton said she believes that many of Trump's appointees were not qualified for their jobs.
More:Secret North, South Korea meeting: Trump says summit talks going 'well'
More:American freed from Venezuela meets with President Trump
"Not only do I want an administration that isn’t venal, corrupt and focused on making life harder for millions of Americans, I also want a competent administration," she said. "So for me, the larger question is the collision of cruelty and incompetence and corruption that we see across the administration.”
Trump on Sunday was tweeting a lack of affection for Chelsea's mother.
"Why didn’t the 13 Angry Democrats investigate the campaign of Crooked Hillary Clinton, many crimes, much Collusion with Russia?" Trump tweeted. "Why didn’t the FBI take the Server from the DNC? Rigged Investigation!"
Chelsea Clinton told The Guardian the Trump administration "not only mainstreamed hate, but mainlined it." And she blamed a rise in school bullying, as cited by the by the Southern Poverty Law Center, on an atmosphere created and encouraged by Trump.
“Thousands of instances in schools across America, where children are citing the president as they’re demeaning a little girl, or they’re chanting ‘Build a wall’ in an attempt to demean and degrade brown children," Clinton told The Guardian. "I think those of us who have platforms ... have to say this is wrong and unacceptable, so we don’t normalize it but try to detoxify what has been unleashed.”
Clinton and Trump have clashed on social media in the past. Trump had his daughter, Ivanka, briefly stand in for him at a meeting of world leaders in Germany last year. When he drew criticism, he invoked Clinton on Twitter.
"If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother, as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say CHELSEA FOR PRES!" Trump tweeted.
Clinton's response: "Good morning Mr. President. It would never have occurred to my mother or my father to ask me. Were you giving our country away? Hoping not."
Clinton, who grew up in the national spotlight, is now 38. The married mother of two young children previously worked for NBC and now serves as vice chair of the Clinton Foundation. She said the policy "wreckage" wrought by Trump can be fixed when Democrats regain control in Washington.
“But I think we will still then have work to do on repairing the tone in our country," she said. "The exposure of the real racist and sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic feeling which is on the rise in our country — a rot that has been exposed.”
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43c5c8699ac5cc91ff0e4355033755f8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/28/france-rewards-migrant-hero/649408002/ | French President Emmanuel Macron rewards migrant hero who saved dangling child | French President Emmanuel Macron rewards migrant hero who saved dangling child
PARIS – President Emmanuel Macron on Monday lauded as a hero a migrant from Mali who scaled an apartment building to save a young child dangling from a balcony, and rewarded him with French nationality and a job as a firefighter.
“Bravo,” Macron said to 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama during a one-on-one meeting in a gilded room of the presidential Elysee Palace that ended with Gassama receiving a gold medal from the French state for “courage and devotion.”
Gassama’s feat went viral on social media, where he was dubbed “Spiderman” for climbing up five floors, from balcony to balcony, and whisking a four-year-old boy to safety Saturday night as a crowd screamed at the foot of the building in Paris’ northern 18th district.
The young man said he has papers to legally stay in Italy, where he arrived in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean, ending a long, rough stay in Libya. But he came to France last September to join his older brother, who has lived in France for decades.
Gassama, dressed in tattered blue jeans and white shirt, recounted his experience which took place at around 8 p.m. Saturday when he and friends saw a young child hanging from a fifth-floor balcony.
“I ran. I crossed the street to save him,” he told Macron. He said he didn’t think twice. “When I started to climb, it gave me courage to keep climbing.”
God “helped me,” too, he said. “Thank God I saved him.”
Gassama said he began to tremble with fear only when he took the child into the apartment.
“Because this is an exceptional act … we are obviously, today, going to regularize all your papers,” Macron told him, also offering to begin naturalization procedures so he can become French.
Macron is behind a bill toughening French immigration law, and he stressed there is no contradiction between rewarding Gassama for his act of bravery and holding firm on immigration, which the president wants to stop at its source.
“An exceptional act does not make policy,” he later told reporters, vowing to maintain a policy that is “exigent, respectful of our principles” on asylum and “rigorous” regarding the migratory flux.
The special treatment for Gassama comes as authorities prepare to evacuate some 2,400 migrants in makeshift encampments in the French capital, the subject of a heated debate between the Paris mayor, who wants to ensure the uprooted will be sheltered, and Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, who was present at the Elysee.
Gassama told Macron that he arrived in Italy in 2014 after more than a year in Libya, where he was arrested and beaten, “but I wasn’t discouraged.”
The father of the child was detained overnight for alleged parental neglect, and is to appear in court in September. He left the child alone while he shopped, then lingered to play Pokemon Go, Prosecutor Francois Molins told BFM-TV. The whereabouts of the child’s mother were unclear.
The French president said Gassama’s actions made him deserving of special treatment.
“You saved a child. Without you, no one knows what would have become of him,” the president said. “You need courage and the capability to do that.”
Working as a firefighter corresponds with his skills, Macron said, and opened the door for him to join.
“You have become an example because millions have seen you” on social media, the president said.
Another Malien, Lassana Bathily, was given French citizenship in January 2015, shortly after saving lives during a terror attack on a Jewish grocery where he worked, hiding people in the freezer and then alerting police.
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e262d3cdde090ad1d303a232a3960507 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/04/north-korea-isolation-crumbling-donald-trump-singapore-summit/668839002/ | North Korea's isolation crumbling as Trump abandons 'maximum pressure' campaign | North Korea's isolation crumbling as Trump abandons 'maximum pressure' campaign
President Trump’s overtures to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have produced a small wave of diplomatic openings, dismantling the isolation he promoted a year ago as part of his “maximum pressure campaign” to battle the North’s nuclear weapons program.
Russian President Putin invited Kim to Vladivostok for a conference in September, Russian news outlet RIA Novosti announced Monday. And Syrian President Bashar Assad will visit Kim in Pyongyang, North Korea said Sunday. Assad’s visit would be the first by a head of state, according to the South China Morning Post.
North Korea secretly built a nuclear reactor for Syria more a decade ago, but it was destroyed in 2007 by Israeli airstrikes.
The invitation to the Vladivostok conference was delivered in a personal letter from Putin to Kim on Thursday during a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Kim also visited Beijing twice, in March and in early May.
The openings come as Trump shifted to an effort to seek dialogue with the North’s reclusive leader after an effort launched a year ago to use pressure tactics to stop a rapid acceleration in the nation's nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile launches.
The pressure campaign consisted of increased U.S. sanctions, additional United Nations Security Council sanctions, diplomatic efforts to get China and Russia to cut back cross-border trade allowed by the U.N. sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Multiple countries withdrew their ambassadors and reduced official visits to the pariah nation.
On Friday, Trump said he no longer wants to mention “maximum pressure,” though he said the policy remains.
“I don’t even want to use the term ‘maximum pressure’ anymore because I don’t want to use that term because we’re getting along,” Trump said. “So it’s not a question of maximum pressure. (The policy is) staying essentially the way it is.”
Trump and U.S. ally South Korea set off the diplomatic thaw with a series of meetings. First, South Korean President Moon Jae-in met with Kim in a highly publicized summit in Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that has separated their two countries since the Korean War was halted with an armistice agreement in 1953.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met twice with Kim, once in secret as CIA director around April 1, and again as Trump’s chief diplomat on May 8 to prepare for a proposed summit between Trump and Kim. Pompeo also brought back three U.S. citizens who’d been detained by the North.
Trump on Friday received the North’s envoy for preparations for the June 12 summit, Vice Chairman Kim Yong-chol, who delivered a personal letter from Kim. Pompeo dined with the former spy chief the day before with filet mignon and chocolate soufflé, promising a “bright future” for North Korea if it gives up its nuclear weapons.
More:Donald Trump: June 12 meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un back on
More:Trump-Kim summit 'expected' on June 12, U.S. top diplomat says
More:Analysis: Trump needs major commitment from Kim on nukes at summit
Trump, who had broken off plans for the summit the week before, citing “open hostility” displayed by the North in public statements, agreed on Friday to go for what he said would be a get-acquainted kind of meeting.
"We're not going to go in and sign something" in Singapore, Trump said. "We're going to start a process" on an agreement to have Kim eliminate the nuclear weapons that have generated global tensions for years, he said.
"I think it's a 'getting to know you' meeting-plus, and that could be a very positive thing," Trump told reporters at the White House.
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7a7764e508e0303247e818a7af2ab0f7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/05/united-nations-tells-u-s-stop-separating-children-parents/673090002/ | U.N. Human Rights office to U.S.: Halt Trump policy separating kids from parents at border | U.N. Human Rights office to U.S.: Halt Trump policy separating kids from parents at border
GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations human rights office called on the Trump administration Tuesday to "immediately halt" its accelerating policy of separating children from their parents after they cross the U.S. border with Mexico, insisting there's "nothing normal about detaining children."
Ravina Shamdasani , a spokeswoman for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, scolded the United States over the hundreds of children removed from parents who were jailed for entering the country illegally. She said that border control appears to take precedence over child protection and care in the U.S.
"The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles," Shamdasani said during a briefing in Geneva. "The child's best interest should always come first."
The Trump administration has adopted a new "zero tolerance" policy that has accelerated separations of children and their parents at the border. The policy, announced in April by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, directs authorities to prosecute all instances of illegal border crossings.
The issue has fanned a political debate in the United States ahead of midterm congressional elections in the fall.
EXPLAINED:Confusion over separate children, lost children
While the policy doesn't make mention of separating families, U.S. protocol prohibits detaining children with their parents because the children are not charged with a crime and the parents are.
LAWYER'S TAKE:There is no legal requirement to separate families
The U.N. rights office doesn't want families separated and also doesn't want anyone — children or adults — jailed for illegal migration, saying it should not be seen as a crime, but an administrative offense.
"The U.S. should immediately halt this practice of separating families and stop criminalizing what should be at most an administrative offense: That of irregular entry and stay in the U.S.," Shamdasani said.
ASYLUM SEEKERS:She fears death by gang in Honduras, losing her children in U.S.
The rights office said children should never be detained for reasons related to their own or their parents' migration status. Shamdasani said the practice was a "serious violation" of the rights of children.
"There is nothing normal about detaining children," she said.
U.S. ADVOCATES: Trump administration policy is 'horrific, cruel'
EDITORIAL BOARD:Trump is using children as pawns
The Wall - An in-depth examination of Donald Trump's border wall
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5d11f94e2bcb12de16bbbfa7a7f2e829 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/12/china-sanctions-relief-north-korea-trump-kim-summit/693750002/ | China suggests sanctions relief for North Korea after Trump-Kim summit | China suggests sanctions relief for North Korea after Trump-Kim summit
Singapore — Tuesday’s summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un drew quick reactions from nearby countries, with China immediately seizing the opportunity to suggest sanctions relief for North Korea.
China is North Korea’s main economic partner and has long been its key diplomatic ally, but Beijing signed onto the stringent sanctions imposed by the United Nations last year.
Hours after the summit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters that the U.N. Security Council could consider easing sanctions if North Korea makes progress in diplomatic relations and denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
“Sanctions are not an end," said Geng at a daily briefing, according to the Associated Press. "We believe the Security Council should make efforts to support the diplomatic efforts at the present time."
China accounts for around 90% of North Korea’s trade and has been accused in the past of working around sanctions to support Pyongyang, but Geng said that China has been following the sanctions “comprehensively, accurately and strictly.”
Reaction from Japan was more muted. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe praised the agreement signed by Trump and Kim, but noted that it was only the start in the process of denuclearization.
"We see this as a step in a comprehensive resolution," Abe said on Tuesday in Tokyo.
Japan has taken a hard line on insisting that North Korea agree to complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. Today’s agreement promised “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” but did not include details on verification or a timeframe for the process.
Abe also thanked Trump for raising the issue of the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea, which has remained a highly contentious issue between Tokyo and Pyongyang for decades.
Trump answered a question about the abduction issue in his news conference after the summit, saying he spoke to Kim about it and that Pyongyang was “working on that.”
“I’d like to thank President Trump that he raised the abduction issue clearly,” Abe said.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called the summit “a crucial first move in the long journey towards lasting peace and stability on a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” and said that Singapore “is honored to have played host.”
More:Analysis: When Trump met Kim, the handshake was more historic than the words
More:U.S. will suspend military drills with South Korea, but they can be restarted quickly
More:Trump-Kim summit agreement: Read the full text here
The most effusive praise for the summit came from South Korea, which has been technically at war with North Korea since the Korean War concluded with an armistice, but not a peace treaty, in 1953.
President Moon Jae-in, who has been instrumental in pushing the peace process forward and who had his own historic meeting with Kim in April, praised Trump and the North Korean leader for “taking a daring step towards change.” Moon said that Trump “achieved a feat that no one else has delivered.”
Moon framed today’s event in terms of a lasting legacy.
“The June 12 Sentosa Agreement will be recorded as a historic event that has helped break down the last remaining Cold War legacy on earth,” he said.
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316af514f12defa6329acdba554bbf3c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/12/trump-kim-summit-denuclearization-real-estate-condos-hotels/693445002/ | Trump to Kim Jong Un: 'You could have the best hotels in the world' if you give up nukes | Trump to Kim Jong Un: 'You could have the best hotels in the world' if you give up nukes
When in doubt, stick with what you know. For President Donald Trump, that means real estate.
In a session Tuesday with journalists in Singapore when he was asked about North Korea's human rights record and what Pyongyang could look like if it denuclearizes, Trump touted the economic benefits of building infrastructure in North Korea.
To be more specific, Trump said he chatted with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about the North's untapped potential for beachside condos and hotels.
"Kim Jong Un is saying he wants a brighter future with prosperity for his people," an American journalist began at the news conference after Trump's meeting with Kim. "We know they lived under oppression. You showed the video of what the future could be like. Do you have an idea specifically of the model that he would like to go toward?"
Trump replied that it was a "good question" and then referred to the video the reporter mentioned. It was presented to Kim and his delegation during the summit and showed a story of two possible outcomes to the U.S. and North Korea's dialogue, "one of moving back, and one of moving forward." The video implied that Kim needed to "shake the hand of peace" if he wanted to stand any chance of taking his country out of "isolation."
"You saw the tape today," Trump said. "I think it was done really well. That was done at the highest level of future development. I told him, you may not want this. You may want to do a smaller version of this. I mean, you got to do something. You may want to do a smaller version. You may not want trains and everything. Super-everything."
Then the real estate tycoon warmed to his theme.
"As an example, they have great beaches," Trump said. "You see that whenever they are exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, boy, look at that view, wouldn't that make a great condo? And I explained it. I said, instead of doing that, you could have the best hotels in the world. Think of it from the real estate prospective. You have South Korea, you have China, and they own the land in the middle. How bad is that, right? It's great. ... (Kim) looked at that tape. He looked at that iPad. I’m telling you, they really enjoyed it, I believe. OK?"
More:Trump, Kim sign unspecified document after hours of talks
More:Analysis: The handshake was more historic than the words
More:What Kim's suit, glasses and hair say about him
More:President Trump: 'Otto did not die in vain'
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2d302484d4f419727c7d57e84ddc7810 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/15/greece-officially-change-name-northern-macedonia/705495002/ | Why all the furor over Macedonia name change? It goes back to Alexander the Great | Why all the furor over Macedonia name change? It goes back to Alexander the Great
ATHENS — Greek lawmakers debated a no-confidence motion against the government Friday over its preliminary agreement to end a long-running dispute with Macedonia over that country’s name.
The Greek government is expected to survive the vote set for Saturday.
Outside parliament here, a couple hundred protested the agreement, which would rename Greece’s northern neighbor North Macedonia in exchange for Greece nixing its disapproval to Macedonia joining NATO and the European Union.
So, why all the furor over a name? It goes back to Alexander the Great.
Greeks like miner George Papavasiliou, 54, who lives in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, say only people living in his area should be known as Macedonians because they are descendants of the legendary ancient warrior-king.
And even though population movements in the Balkans have taken place for thousands of years – leaving a mixed ethnic heritage today – he says people in the Republic of Macedonia are ethnically Slavs or Albanians, not Greeks.
“I’d only agree to a name that doesn’t include the word Macedonia,” he said. "(Otherwise), if like the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, India wants to be called Macedonia, they could, since Alexander, the Macedonian king, reached and occupied India too.”
Across the border, in Skopje, protesters gathered outside parliament this week to ask for a referendum because they oppose the name change, too. People here want to be known as Macedonians because it's key to their developing sense of themselves as a nation, analysts say.
That's because the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is a relatively new country, one of seven formed after the breakdown of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
“These new countries needed nationalism to construct, in a sense, their own national history and their own national uniqueness,” said Anastasia Karakasidou, a professor of anthropology at Wellesley College. “Countries like Greece and Bulgaria had gone through their national ideology construction much earlier and felt a kind of a threat from these new countries.”
Karakasidou believes the new name, Northern Macedonia, is a good solution for both countries.
“The name is different and it is not different,” she said. “Logically speaking it’s not very different. But emotionally speaking it’s different for the Greek people.”
It's different for those in Skopje, too.
“I don’t think this will pass here smoothly, as it’s a very sensitive and emotional issue for most Macedonians,” Filip Nelkovski, 39, a business consultant in Skopje. "Whatever (the agreement) is, it will not end the name dispute issue."
Even though the Republic of Macedonia has been recognized by more than 140 countries, including the United States and most of the EU, for more than 25 years, Greece has repeatedly vetoed Macedonia’s membership in NATO and the EU because it was worried that Macedonia had territorial claims against Greece’s northern region with the same name.
The West wants FYROM firmly and squarely in the Western camps of the EU and NATO, analysts say.
With the signing of the preliminary name-change agreement Saturday, Macedonia is expected to change its constitution and rename itself by the end of the year – and renounce any territorial designs on the Macedonian region of Greece.
It is also expected to change its history books to reflect that its people are not direct descendants of ancient Macedonians, and return statues of ancient Macedonians – or mark them clearly to reflect they were ancient Macedonian (Greek).
In exchange, Greece will agree to Macedonia’s NATO and EU membership.
The agreement could take some time, and more protests on both sides of the border are expected.
And then there is the historical mistrust.
“Greece is famous for not staying true to its previous commitments not to block Macedonia for membership in transatlantic bodies,” said Nelkovski. “And I am not sure (what will happen) if the Greek government changes – everything will likely stay on paper.”
"I cannot see for sure that we will enter NATO or the EU fast enough," he added. "I don’t think this will pass here, unless the Americans push harder.”
As a goodwill gesture, the signs of the airport in Skopje have already been changed from Alexander the Great Airport to Skopje International Airport, and the Motorway Alexander of Macedonia has been changed to Friendship Motorway.
Next are license plate designations – from MK to NM or NMK. And the two countries will convene a panel to decide on commercial names, trademarks and brand names.
Now is the time, some say, to let go of history.
“I don't think anybody should or can claim they're direct descendants of Alexander's,” said Karakasidou, speaking from her grandmother’s home in Thessaloniki in the heart of Greek Macedonia. “Since the Republic of Macedonia is a relatively new nation, it's more important to them, while Greeks also have to overcome this sentimental response to the ancient Greeks."
"I think we should leave Alexander alone," she added. "He was what he was. ”
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55e77e8d24b668278deb038c893b00ca | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/19/marine-le-pen-must-repay-350-000-eu-court-rules/713169002/ | European Union court rules Marine Le Pen must repay $350,000 in misspent funds | European Union court rules Marine Le Pen must repay $350,000 in misspent funds
The European Union's General Court on Tuesday upheld a European Parliament decision to recover almost $347,000 from French far-right politician Marine Le Pen for misspent EU funds.
Following an investigation by the EU's Anti-Fraud Office, the European Parliament complained that Le Pen, who was a member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2017, had unduly claimed the money for a parliamentary assistant.
Le Pen is the leader of France's far-right National Rally party, until recently known as the National Front.
A statement from the General Court said it "confirms the decision of the European Parliament" to recover the money from Marine Le Pen on the grounds she "has not been able to prove that her assistant performed actual work for her."
Le Pen told French news agency AFP that she would take the case to the Court of Justice, the EU's highest court.
More: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen could face prison for tweeting ISIS images
"This ruling is based not on the substance of the case but on a procedural aspect. We are going to appeal against this decision," she told AFP.
Le Pen is not the first politician to face allegations of misusing EU funds. In 2017, eight MEPs from Britain's far-right UKIP party were accused of misusing funds.
In January 2018, Nigel Farage was docked half of his pay for 10 months after auditors found he misspent EU money when an assistant who was engaged to work with the MEP was found to have also been working with the anti-EU UKIP party as national nominating officer, with his salary coming from the EU funds.
In June 2017, then French Defense Minister Sylvie Goulard resigned from government after a preliminary investigation was launched into claims her Democratic Movement party had misused EU funds.
This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content was created separately to USA TODAY.
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e7366242557482e9eba4a268f65c24df | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/26/supreme-court-travel-ban-decision-what-we-know-now/734906002/ | Supreme Court upholds Trump's controversial travel ban: What we know now | Supreme Court upholds Trump's controversial travel ban: What we know now
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld President Donald Trump's controversial and much-litigated order limiting travel into the United States from several countries, most of them Muslim-majority.
The ruling restricts entry and tightens vetting for travelers bound for the U.S. from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. North Korea and some government officials in Venezuela also are part of the ban but were not involved in the legal challenge. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the opinion, said the issue came down to the power of the president.
"The proclamation is squarely within the scope of presidential authority," Roberts wrote.
Trump, however, said the ruling showed that he was right — and that liberals, Democrats and the media were wrong in deriding the ban.
"We have to be tough, we have to be safe and we have to be secure," Trump said after the decision was announced. "At a minimum, we have to vet people coming into the country."
More:Supreme Court upholds President Trump's travel ban
More:Will there be chaos at the airport? Not likely.
The immediate impact - not much
Although a series of lower court rulings had rejected the travel ban, it has essentially been in place since December pending a final ruling. The ban allows the administration to keep out or heavily vet anyone from the listed countries who lacks a "bona fide relationship" with someone in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement promising to treat “everyone we encounter humanely and with professionalism."
Court rejects discrimination argument
The president had vowed to ban Muslims since the 2016 presidential campaign, but the 5-4 court majority determined that Trump's position did not constitute religious discrimination. "We express no view on the soundness of the policy," Roberts wrote. Not all agreed. Justices Stephen Breyer, in his dissent, said he found "evidence of anti-religious bias." Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that a "reasonable observer would conclude that the proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus."
Legal struggle dates back to January 2017
Trump issued his first travel ban in January 2017. That 90-day ban on travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and a 120-day ban on refugees worldwide, was soon struck down by federal district and appeals courts. A second version issued in March dropped Iraq and exempted visa- and green card-holders. It was also struck down, although the Supreme Court would rule that travelers without close ties to the USA could be barred while vetting procedures were reviewed.
Third version wins approval
Trump issued his third, somewhat watered-down version in September — subtracting Sudan, adding Chad, North Korea and government officials from Venezuela, setting separate criteria for each country and making it indefinite rather than temporary. Federal courts again struck it down, but in December the justices allowed it to go into effect pending a final ruling. Chad was dropped by the list in April, the administration determining that vetting procedures and information sharing with the U.S. had sufficiently improved. North Korea and Venezuela are not part of the legal battle.
Sessions, others support the decision
Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the ruling a "great victory" for the nation. "Today’s decision is critical to ensuring the continued authority of President Trump – and all future presidents – to protect the American people," he said in a statement. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the decision a "victory for the rule of law" and for national security. "Protecting the security of the American people is the federal government's highest responsibility," Cruz said.
Foes lash out at ruling
New York Mayor Bill De Blasio said the ban "institutionalized Islamophobia" under the guise of national security. "With this decision, the highest court in the land has sent a message of exclusion and division across the globe," he said. The ACLU noted that "The world is watching. We have to send the clear message that Donald Trump's anti-Muslim bigotry doesn't speak for us." Lena Masri, national litigation director for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the ruling "sits alongside other similarly shameful Supreme Court decisions allowing Japanese American internment and segregation." The court on Tuesday also overruled that World War II-era decision.
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0a28c1da29e24af8d256cfe887fa7d15 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/27/benghazi-leader-deadly-raid-gets-22-years-terrorism-charge/739337002/ | Leader of deadly Benghazi raid sentenced to 22 years in prison on terrorism charge | Leader of deadly Benghazi raid sentenced to 22 years in prison on terrorism charge
Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the organizer of the deadly 2012 raid on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, was sentenced on Wednesday to 22 years in prison on terrorism and other charges, the Justice Department said.
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three U.S. government personnel, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, were killed in the attack on the U.S. compound on Sept. 11, 2012.
The 46-year-old Libyan national was convicted in November by a jury in Washington, D.C., on federal terrorism charges and other offenses stemming from the terrorist attack.
The jury, however, convicted Khatallah on only four of the 18 counts he faced. He was acquitted on murder and other charges.
Khatallah was captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces in a midnight raid on his home south of Benghazi in 2014 and returned by ship to the U.S.
He was convicted for his "integral role in a calculated, cold-blooded attack" on the U.S. compound, according to William F. Sweeney Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office.
The leader of the extremist militia called Ubaydah bin Jarrah had sought for months to incite violence against the U.S. presence in Libya, according to the government.
On the night of Sept. 11, 2012, Khatallah directed his group to carry out the violent attack, striking first at the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi. A group of men, armed with AK-47 rifles, grenades, and other weapons, swept into the Mission compound, setting fires and breaking into buildings, the government said.
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d478cb6544b711842da04bd2071a7d71 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/29/fosta-sex-workers-leave-twitter-switter-after-us-law/744989002/ | Sex workers leave Twitter for Switter after controversial US law | Sex workers leave Twitter for Switter after controversial US law
Sex workers have been a mainstay on social networks for more than a decade. Twitter in particular handed escorts a number of tools that allowed them to protect themselves ― a way to screen clients, anonymity, the ability to find customers without taking to the streets or working for a pimp.
But since April, sex workers have almost completely vanished from Twitter, instead flocking to the Austrian domain Switter.at.
Why? Because that was the month the U.S. Congress passed a bill known as FOSTA/SESTA (short for Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, respectively) which is aimed at curbing underage sex trafficking and holds internet service providers liable for what users might create on their platforms.
However, the controversial law has had a series of negative consequences for adult escorts who are plying their trade willingly.
"This bill means any site sex workers use, even in their personal life, can be held liable. In reaction to this, we have already seen sites like Reddit, Craigslist and Skype begin to change their terms and silence or ban us from their platforms. Particularly in the U.S., these sites are absolutely vital to sex workers. This will only force many more workers into the hands of exploitation and street work…there is a much higher chance of ending up in a potentially life threatening situation," explained a spokesperson for Assembly Four, the Melbourne, Australia-based firm that runs Switter and its associated site, Tryst, through an Austrian domain.
This setup is because while any .com domain could in theory be targeted by the new U.S. law, in Austria, where prostitution is legal, escorts can maintain their privacy and safety without breaking any laws.
More: Senate approves legislation to curb sex-trafficking, sending it to President Trump for signature
Related: Craigslist to drop personal ads after passage of sex trafficking bill
The Assembly Four spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous, also warned that this law has far-reaching consequences even for those who have nothing to do with sex work, as it paves the way "for a potentially fully censored and manipulated internet in the future."
Although the company's servers have not yet been fully moved to the European Union and Switzerland, according to Assembly Four that's the plan for the future, not only because of the legal status of sex work there but also because in Europe "data privacy is held in higher importance."
The homepage of Switter looks a lot like Twitter's TweetDeck, and allows members to search for clients or escorts based on location, as well as providing a means of communication for the sex work industry, enabling life-saving conversations like sharing client lists.
"Switter is run by sex workers and technologists who have sex workers at the front of their mind when developing new features…Shadow banning sex workers on Twitter has been around long before FOSTA/SESTA. Since the introduction of the law it's only become worse."
Assembly Four maintains that its platform is also much safer than Twitter ever was. The organization underlines that it takes "very minimal information from our users, we actively remove any known pimps, cases of human trafficking or anyone seen as harassing workers. Twitter runs in a very different way and has a different set of priorities on its platform. "
The company right now has around 100,000 escorts and allies on its site, and continues to grow every month. Back in the U.S., resistance to FOSTA/SESTA has also been growing.
Besides its impact on sex workers, advocates for free speech and small businesses have voiced their concern over the new law.
Referring to Section 230, the privacy law nixed by FOSTA/SESTA, Nuala O'Connor, the president and CEO of the center for Democracy and Technology, said: "Anything controversial, unpopular or outside the mainstream could [be viewed] as a major risk of liability that many intermediaries simply couldn't afford to take on. An internet without Section 230 is one that diminishes the voice of the individual online."
This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content was created separately to USA TODAY.
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4f79b63b5617da6304b2d0a4c0b3e081 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/02/france-smoking-cigarettes-taxes-costs/738565002/ | The French still love their cigarettes. But the once chic image is going up in smoke | The French still love their cigarettes. But the once chic image is going up in smoke
PARIS – The glamorous image of cool Parisians lighting up Gauloises while lingering at an outdoor cafe may soon go up in smoke. The French government is stubbing out the country’s love affair with tobacco.
"In France, tobacco kills 200 people every day,” Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said in May. “We need to continue this fight against one of the biggest scourges of public health.”
In recent years, France has moved to feature gruesome photos of diseased lungs on cigarette packs, among other deterrent measures such as government reimbursement of cessation aids. Steep taxes are on track to push the cost of a pack of cigarettes from about $9 to $12 by 2020.
The measures appear to be working.
The number of daily smokers in France dropped to 12.2 million last year from 13.2 million in 2016, according to the latest figures released in May by the French Health Ministry.
Still, 27 percent of the French continue to light up daily, one of the highest rates of smoking in the European Union, behind Greece and Bulgaria. Sweden has the lowest proportion at 7 percent, according to the EU.
In the USA, 14 percent of the population smokes cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We must drop down to the rates of Anglo-Saxon countries, to around 15-16 percent,” Buzyn said.
That’s not an easy goal in France, since it would mean changing the long-entrenched cafe culture the French seem reluctant to give up.
Tucked in the residential neighborhood behind Montmartre Hill – an area once frequented by Pablo Picasso and other artists – is the 1930s-era cafe La Renaissance, known by residents for its laid-back atmosphere and by movie buffs for being featured in Quentin Tarantino’s film “Inglourious Basterds.”
No matter the weather, the outdoor tables are always packed with customers puffing away while chatting with friends or watching the world go by.
Since smoking was outlawed inside public spaces in 2007, smokers have had to light up outdoors, though some venues allow smokers to indulge in their habit inside after officially closing for the day.
“Smoking is one of life’s pleasures and part of the ritual of meeting among friends,” said Benjamin Gourio, 44, a communication consultant whosaid he has no plans to give up his two-pack-a-day habit. “I have been smoking since I was 16. It was pleasurable to meet with friends after school and have a smoke.”
His sister, Sylvie Gourio, 46, has no regrets about quitting her pack-a-day habit, which she started while in high school, like many in France. “I had to stop smoking, because I didn’t have a choice. My doctor warned me I faced living with respiratory failure if I didn’t give up,” she said.
Two years ago, she began a program with a government-backed organization that offers free support to quit smoking. The group offers regular counseling sessions, nicotine patches and chewing gum.
As a result, she has been smoke-free ever since and discovered a few unexpected benefits.
“I have recovered my sense of smell. It’s nice to be able to smell freshly baked bread at the boulangerie,” she said, referring to France's small bakeries. “I have also taken up sports, like running, swimming and judo, which in a way have replaced my cigarette addiction.”
It’s a trend that increasingly resonates with French urban millennials, who are far more health-oriented and environmentally aware than older generations. Vegan and gluten-free cafes, along with juice bars are fast replacing traditional bistros as favorite hangouts in Paris. These days it’s not unheard of to swap a leisurely lunch – once a staple of French life – to go to the gym.
“The new generations have a different attitude and will change the image of the 1960s French, sitting at a cafe with a drink and a cigarette,” said Christophe Cutarella, an addiction psychiatrist and member of the scientific board at the Ramsay Generale de Sante Foundation, a hospital group.
The changes in behavior are reflected in the declining number of younger smokers. Last year, the number of male smokers ages 18 to 24 dropped to 35%, compared with 44% in 2016.
Whipping out a cigarette has become less cool, said Emmanuelle Beguinot, director of anti-smoking association CNCT.
“Even if tobacco consumption remains important in France," she said, "its image is not what it used to be.”
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b5cf714b0b002e10ebb54cc782b9e628 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/06/trump-trade-war-opioid-epidemic-china/762986002/ | What a U.S.-China trade war could mean for opioid epidemic | What a U.S.-China trade war could mean for opioid epidemic
The American struggle to curb opioid addiction could become collateral damage in President Donald Trump’s showdown on trade.
Trade tensions with allies were heightened by the White House announcement in March of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. On Friday, another round of tariffs specifically targeting China took effect.
And that China focus could interrupt other trade-related issues — specifically, those targeting the flow of dangerous drugs like fentanyl into the United States.
Though Chinese officials deny that most of the fentanyl or other opioid substances originate in their country, they have in the past cooperated with U.S. efforts to control the flow of fentanyl onto American soil.
If the tariffs become permanent, though, “it’s most likely going to have a negative effect on other areas” beyond trade, said Jeffrey Higgins, a former Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory special agent. “China could say ‘We are no longer going to cooperate with the United States on controlling these synthetic opioids,’” he continued.
Fentanyl, one of the deadliest synthetic opioids, is up to 50 times more potent than heroin and can be 100 times more potent than morphine. Of the 64,000 drug overdose deaths in 2016, more than 20,000 were related to some form of fentanyl, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows.
U.S. law enforcement and drug investigators consider China the primary source of this illicit drug and responsible for as much as 90 percent of the world’s supply.
One reason: Until recently, “illicit fentanyl [was] not widely used in China, [so] authorities [placed] little emphasis on controlling its production and export,” a U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission staff research report notes.
In a March statement before Congress, Robert Patterson, the acting administrator of the DEA, described the relationship between U.S. and Chinese drug enforcement agencies as “a significant bi-lateral mechanism to address the threat resulting from the shipment of illicit fentanyl, their precursors, and other synthetic drugs to the United States and elsewhere.”
More:Trump launches $34 billion trade war and China 'immediately' fires back
For instance, in 2015, China added 116 new psychoactive substances, including six fentanyl products, to its list of controlled substances. Patterson called this step “a key moment,” and it led to a significant drop in U.S. seizures of the illicit drugs. In addition, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein met in 2017 with Guo Shengkun, then state councilor of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
But experts say this level of cooperation could wither if Trump’s China tariffs remain in place.
The tariffs have already prompted the Chinese to impose tariffs of their own, and if China continues its retaliation effort, the bilateral drug-control efforts could be the next leverage point, experts say.
At a news conference in late June, Liu Yuejin, the deputy chief of China’s drug-control agency, said that political factors will not affect China’s willingness to combat drug manufacturing and trafficking.
But China is a communist country, and the Chinese government controls major aspects of the economy and society.
“In the end, they will be pawns of whatever politics the government of China wants to enact,” said Higgins, when describing the relationship between Chinese drug enforcement agencies and central government leadership.
China might be even more inclined to take U.S.-China opioid talks hostage because the White House and Capitol Hill have prioritized action on the opioid epidemic, said Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Over the past month, the House of Representatives passed more than 70 bipartisan bills designed to combat the opioid crisis. The Department of Justice is implementing a strategy designed to “decrease the number of overdose deaths,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in a speech early this year.
Although U.S. and Chinese officials tend to meet annually each fall to discuss counter-narcotic actions, agreements produced in these meetings lack the specificity necessary to secure long-term cooperation by both parties, experts say.
China’s cooperation — implementing domestic controls on illicit substances — has occurred at the behest of the United States, not as a result of binding agreements.
While the U.S. is relying on China to control the manufacture and export of illicit drugs within its own borders, there are steps Congress can take to intercept these products.
Last month, the House passed legislation that would direct the U.S. Postal Service to “require the provision of advance electronic information on international mail shipments.”
This bill has been received by the Senate Committee on Finance, where it awaits further action.
The measure would close a loophole that drug traffickers exploit: While private shippers like FedEx and UPS are required to obtain advance electronic information on most shipments, the Postal Service is not.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a non-profit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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37f9222d1d02eed8702ed7179db7c958 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/10/thailand-cave-rescue-soccer-team-what-we-know/770405002/ | Thai cave rescue operation saves boys, coach: What comes next | Thai cave rescue operation saves boys, coach: What comes next
The last four young soccer players and their coach were pulled from a flooded cave in northern Thailand on Tuesday as attention turned to the physical and psychological health of the team known as the Wild Boars.
"We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what," the Thai navy SEALs posted on Facebook. "All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave."
The exhilarating rescue was closely followed around the world. President Donald Trump was among those paying homage on social media, tweeting: "On behalf of the United States, congratulations to the Thai Navy SEALs and all on the successful rescue of the 12 boys and their coach from the treacherous cave in Thailand. Such a beautiful moment - all freed, great job!"
Earlier, Chiang Rai Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn said the rescue mission would involve an international team of 19 divers. The effort was similar to operations Sunday and Monday, each of which resulted in the evacuation of four boys each time.
More:'Safe'! Team rescued from Thai cave in drama that captivated the world
More:Out of the cave, onto the big screen: Hollywood sets sights on rescue
Also:'Two days, 8 boars, Hooyah': Thai Navy divers rescue 4 more boys
What comes next
The early returns on the overall health of the boys were positive. Still, they could remain in the hospital for several days. When they get out, classmates promised to help them catch up with their work and re-acclimate them to school. A member of the team who did not venture into the cave, Poowadet Khamngern, 14, has the first meal with his friends planned for when they return. “We’re going to eat fried chicken at KFC,” he said.
What they can actually eat
Jesada Chokdumrongsuk, deputy director-general of Thailand's Public Health Ministry, said the boys were provided nutritional gels by the first teams of divers to reach them last week. Some are being fed intravenously in the hospital, but some of the boys are asking for real meals. And some are allowed to eat them. "The boys are frequently hungry because their bodies need food," Jesada told the Bangkok Post. "This morning the first four boys asked for bread and chocolate spread."
What about their mental state?
Psychologist Jamie Aten, founder of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College in Illinois, says the mental health of the boys must be monitored closely, and that recovering could be a lifelong process. “I think right now - especially considering how long these boys have been isolated and the physical and emotional trauma - they likely will continue to struggle emotionally for a period of time,” he said. The boys’ young ages, Aten noted, could make them particularly prone to emotional damage, and their caregivers should be ready to spend as much time supporting them as possible. “They don’t have the same life experience, language or coping skills to draw on that an adult might have,” he said.
Their physical condition
Jesada said the first eight to be rescued were in “high spirits." All the boys have been quarantined while they are checked for infections, and family members visiting the kids are kept behind glass. Some of the boys have a lung infections but all eight are generally “healthy and smiling,” Jesada said. "They are athletes, so their bodies resist illness well," he said. The boys wore blindfolds when they exited the cave because it had been more than two weeks since they saw sunlight. By late Tuesday, however, the boys freed Sunday had normal vision while those brought out Monday were wearing sunglasses.
They probably won't attend World Cup final
The world soccer federation invited the Wild Boars to the World Cup final Sunday in Russia, but the kids probably won't be going. "They may have to watch the World Cup matches on TV because they are still in quarantine," Jesada said. Upside: The team and the rescuers also received an invite to visit with Manchester United, one of the world's most decorated soccer teams, this coming season. The season doesn't start for a month and runs through spring – plenty of time for the kids to heal up and head for England.
How the team became trapped
The boys and their coach hiked more than two miles into the cave after soccer practice on June 23. Heavy rains struck the area, and parts of their path back to the cave entrance became swollen with floodwaters. A search led by Thai navy SEALs was fruitless until a pair of British divers came upon the hungry but apparently healthy team.
A lengthy but successful rescue
Four boys were rescued Sunday before the effort was put on hold so the cave could be restocked with oxygen tanks and other essentials. The operation cranked up again Monday morning local time, which was Sunday night in the U.S., and four more boys were brought out. The rest were freed Tuesday. Thai navy SEALs led the effort, but more than 90 rescue workers from around the world labored in and around the dark, twisting cave. Massive pumps were used to lower water levels to shorten the underwater distances.
Were the boys drugged for the journey out?
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha told the Bangkok Post that rumors the boys had been drugged for the journey was untrue. "Who the hell would give that to a kid?" He then acknowledged, however, that the boys were given "something to make them not too nervous and panic."
Contributing: Thomas Maresca and Caroline Simon, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
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60a7f11da3aa882d70cf8af284198192 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/16/tourists-bricks-auschwitz/787621002/ | Tourists tried to steal 'souvenir' bricks from Auschwitz death camp | Tourists tried to steal 'souvenir' bricks from Auschwitz death camp
Two Hungarian tourists have been handed suspended jail terms after they were caught trying to steal bricks from the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland.
The pair said they wanted to bring home a "souvenir," according to police.
The two were detained after other visitors at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp spotted the pair loading bricks from the ruins of a crematorium into a bag, Polish police said Monday.
Security officers were alerted and police were called to the scene.
"The man and woman were charged with theft of a cultural asset. They both admitted to wrongdoing," regional police press officer Mateusz Drwal told Polish news agency PAP.
The 30-year-old woman and 36-year-old man were each fined $405 and handed a one-year prison sentence on probation.
"They explained that they had wanted to bring back a souvenir and didn't realize the consequences of their actions," Drwal said.
Auschwitz-Birkenau is one of several death camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during the Second World War.
The Nazis murdered an estimated 1 million Jews there between 1940 and 1945. More than 100,000 others, including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and resistance fighters, were also killed at the camp.
It was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. All objects on its premises are protected.
This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content was created separately to USA TODAY.
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ec04d70819d6ffad650b198af3e6d334 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/18/thai-soccer-team-leaves-hospital/794889002/ | 'It was magical': Thai soccer boys recount drama of cave rescue | 'It was magical': Thai soccer boys recount drama of cave rescue
Members of a youth soccer team on Wednesday recounted their harrowing, two-week ordeal in a flooded Thai cave and the "magical" moment when rescuers emerged from the murky waters and assured them help was on the way.
The 12 boys and their coach ultimately were freed in an intricate, three-day international mission that ended more than a week ago. They appeared Wednesday at a news conference televised across that nation of 70 million people who have been transfixed by the team's tale.
The members of the Wild Boars hugged friends and kicked a ball around on a miniature, makeshift soccer field. Doctors said they had gained an average of more than 6 pounds each and were in good health – physically and mentally.
One player recalled being startled when the first rescue diver arrived on the 10th day of the odyssey.
“It was magical,” said Adul Samon, 14, in comments translated by Reuters. “I had to think a lot before I could answer their questions.”
The boys, ages 11-17, and coach Ekapol Chantawong, 25, went into the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand on June 23, planning to explore for about an hour, the coach said. They had just finished a practice game and were taking part in a team-building exercise.
More: Elon Musk apologizes for calling Thai cave rescue diver 'pedo guy'
Related: Thai soccer team dug a 16-foot hole inside cave wall before rescue
The boys initially hiked in but later waded through water. Heavy rains soon sent a wall of water rushing into the cave, flooding sections and blocking their exit. They were trapped more than 2 miles from freedom.
Ekapolsaid the group had eaten before entering the cave, but had no food with them. They drank water dripping from the cave walls. They meditated to stay calm and preserve energy, he said. And they tried to save themselves.
“We took turns digging at the cave walls,” Ekapol said. “We didn’t want to wait around until authorities found us.”
The team's youngest member, Titan, said he "had no strength. I tried not to think about food so I didn’t get more hungry."
Divers found them nine days later, huddled and hungry but in fairly good health. But it took another week to design a plan to extricate the boys. A team of more than 100 rescuers from a dozen countries finally rescued them, but not before a former Thai navy diver passed out and died from lack of oxygen while helping set up the escape route.
Lt. Col. Pak Loharachun, an army doctor who stayed in the cave with the team from when they were found until they were rescued, said the team had managed to dig a 16-foot hole in their efforts to burrow to freedom. Pak, in a Facebook post, also lauded Ekapol for putting the boys' well-being before his own.
"I saw from the first day that Ek waited for the boys to satisfy their hunger first. He gave his meal to the young," he said in the post.
Wednesday's news conference was tightly controlled by Thai officials. Media questions were screened and provided to the team. Justice ministry official Tawatchai Thaikaew said while the boys seemed fine emotionally, it was too early to tell whether issues might crop up.
He also asked the media and others to respect the privacy of the boys and their families.
Banphot Konkum, the ecstatic uncle who has raised 13-year-old Duangpetch Promthep, told The Associated Press that the boy will be going home to a renovated bedroom and plenty of gifts.
“We’ll do whatever he wants," Banphot said. "If he wants anything we’ll buy it for him as a present as we promised. ... Whatever he wants we’ll do it for him."
Contributing: Ashley May, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
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c2235ebbad34a80a4401677d1f6b50e0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/19/egypt-sarcophagus-what-they-found-massive-ancient-tomb/802720002/ | Archaeologists opened a mysterious Egyptian sarcophagus. Here's what they found | Archaeologists opened a mysterious Egyptian sarcophagus. Here's what they found
When Egyptian archaeologists opened an ancient sarcophagus dating back 2,000 years, they found three skeletons and a lot of red, liquid sewage, the country's antiquities ministry said Thursday.
Discovered earlier this month, the mysterious tomb — believed to be the largest uncovered in Alexandria, according to the antiquities ministry — has sparked international speculation about its contents.
"The sarcophagus has been opened, but we have not been hit by a curse," Mustafa Waziri of Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities said, according to Egypt Today.
Officials believe the three skeletons were likely military officials, the ministry wrote in a Facebook post. They also think one skull was possibly struck by an arrow, while the sewage is believed to have leaked in, the ministry added.
The massive tomb was found more than 15 feet below the ground, and archaeologists believe it had not been opened since originally being sealed, due to a layer of mortar between the lid and body, the Ministry of Antiquities said.
The skeletons will be taken to a museum in Alexandria to further study how they died and what era they were from, the ministry said. None of the skeletons appear to be remains of Ptolemaic or Roman royal family members, and the tombs do not have inscriptions or royal markings, Waziri said, according to Egypt Today.
When the sarcophagus was first discovered along with an alabaster head believed to belong to the owner of the tomb, the antiquities ministry said it dated back to Ptolemaic period, which began around 323 B.C. — the year Alexander the Great died, according to National Geographic. His tomb has never been found, the magazine reported.
Shortly after being unearthed, British news outlets speculated about the tomb's contents and a possible ancient curse, citing a string of deaths after the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb in the early 1900s.
"Opening ancient tombs can be risky business, or so history tells us," The Sun wrote this month. "It's popular belief that a 'curse of the pharaohs' is cast on anyone who disturbs the mummy of an Ancient Egyptian person."
British outlet The Independent, among others, pushed a theory that the tomb could contain the remains of Alexander the Great.
"I've had calls about this all day," Waziri told The New York Times earlier this month. "People are saying it might contain Alexander or Cleopatra or Ramses. They don’t know what they are talking about."
Waziri said earlier this week the tomb likely belonged to a priest, Egypt Today reported.
Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
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622c83b14335ca51f3e7700e84dc562a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/24/pakistan-one-worlds-leading-victims-global-warming/809509002/ | Pakistan is ground zero for global warming consequences | Pakistan is ground zero for global warming consequences
Pakistan contributes less than 1 percent of the world's greenhouse gases blamed for causing global warming, yet its 200 million people are among the world's most vulnerable victims of the growing consequences of climate change.
The nation is facing ever-rising temperatures, drought and flooding that threaten health, agriculture, water supplies and hopes for development of a society that ranks in the bottom quarter of nations, based on income per person.
Pakistan is among 10 countries affected most by climate change, according to the 2018 Global Climate Risk Index released by the public policy group Germanwatch.
Bridging the Middle East and South Asia, Pakistan is in a geographic location where average temperatures are predicted to rise faster than elsewhere, increasing 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) by the year 2100, according to a 2012 World Wildlife Fund report.
This past April 30, the temperature in the southern city of Nawabshah soared to 122.4 degrees Fahrenheit (50.2 degrees Celsius), the hottest day on earth ever recorded in April, the Pakistan Meteorological Department and World Meteorological Organization said. It was even hotter in the southern city of Turbat on May 28, 2017, when the temperature hit a sizzling 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit (53.5 Celsius).
“We are planning to move to other places due to extreme heat in our area," Nawabshah resident Azhar Rashid said in an interview. "We are surprised by every new summer here starting with high temperatures that badly affect our daily routine and jobs.”
So far this year, more than 60 people have died from the heat in Karachi, the country's largest city. Many more die of heat-related illnesses across the country, but exact numbers of deaths are not kept.
In June 2015, more than 1,200 people died from the heat nationwide and 65,000 were treated for heat illnesses, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority for the Karachi region reported.
Depleting water supplies are another problem in a country where 60 percent of the land receives less than 10 inches of rain per year. Rivers are mainly fed by the Hindu Kush-Karakoram Himalayan glaciers, which are melting rapidly due to global warming.
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More:Climate Point: Summer is getting warmer, faster
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Muhammad Akmal, a professor at Peshawar Agriculture University, said Pakistan's rising temperatures are also being boosted because forests are being destroyed as people clear areas for housing and other development. The trend also is resulting in less fertile land for farming.
Akmal said global warming is extending summer-like weather to virtually the entire year, from January until November.
At the same time, “the rise in the use of vehicles causes heat and more ozone-destroying gases that transform the environment into a furnace,” he said.
Pakistan, which has the world's sixth-largest population, is projected to add nearly 100 million people by 2050, causing great strains on its resources. Plus, ambitious plans for economic development could mean the country increases carbon emissions by 300 percent over the next 15 years, as more cars clog roads and demand for electricity expands, according to projections.
The country's government has pledged to reduce emissions by 2030, as required by nations that signed the Paris Climate Accord, but it has not said how it will accomplish that given its development hopes.
Feeding the growing population will be a challenge as the melting of glaciers and higher water evaporation rates caused by hotter temperatures will mean less irrigated water and smaller harvests of staples such as wheat and rice.
“Recently we have seen devastating results of this growing mess," said Aamir Amjad, senior program coordinator at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, a liberal policy group. "Humans are forced to migrate and switch their livelihoods, the yield of crops has decreased ... (and) "the cycle of extreme weather has either expanded or intensified.”
Despite all these environmental challenges, climate change has not been a major issue debated during the campaign for a new national assembly to be elected Wednesday. Instead, issues such as corruption and improving social services have dominated the debate among candidates.
During the last five years, only the Pakistan Movement for Justice party, favored to score gains in the election, focused on environmental issues in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province by launching a program to plant a billion trees to reduce heat across the province.
“We need to teach new generations about the environment and encourage researchers to conduct empirical studies on climate change issues," Amjad said. "Their findings will help to streamline policies.”
A 2017 report by the Asian Development Bank concludes that northern parts of the country will suffer the biggest increases in temperatures and that water per capita will decrease at an alarming rate in coming years.
The report also warned that extreme climate change events, such as heavier rains that cause flooding, will damage the country's gas, oil, and power infrastructure. Warmer temperatures also may affect the efficiency of nuclear plants, it said.
“There is a need to develop drought- and heat-tolerant crops that show optimum performance even with changes in climate patterns,” the report said. It also called for construction of water storage systems, investment in renewable energy, "improved weather forecasting and warning systems, retrofitting of critical energy infrastructure, and construction of dikes or sea walls.”
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cc99abb693a22cf9adc3f9cf04831c03 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/25/record-breaking-heat-july-japan-sweden-algeria-canada/832826002/ | It's hot! Record July temperatures heating up world | It's hot! Record July temperatures heating up world
This summer is shaping up to be a record sizzler from Algeria's deserts to Japan's bustling cities.
With the United Kingdom poised for historic heat Friday, countries across four continents smashed their own temperature marks this month.
In the past 30 days, there have been 3,092 new daily high temperatures, 159 new monthly heat records and 55 all-time highs worldwide, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In the U.S. alone, there have been 1,542 new daily high temperatures, 85 new monthly heat records and 23 all-time highs during the same period, most of which were recorded in Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana.
United Kingdom
Temperatures on Thursday reached 95.2 degrees at Wisley, Surrey, making it the hottest day of the year, according to the Met Office, which provides weather predictions and warnings for the U.K. The United Kingdom's all-time heat record of 101.3 degrees could be broken Friday, the Met Office said in a statement. That record was set in Faversham on Aug. 10, 2003.
Particularly concerning for the U.K. is that heat-related deaths could spike up to 7,000 a year by 2050 unless lawmakers create a plan to help people at risk of dehydration and heatstroke, Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee warned.
Japan and the Korean Peninsula
Japan recorded its highest temperature ever Monday with a reading of 106 degrees in Kumagaya. More than 65 people have died in the heat wave, and more than 22,000 people have been taken to hospitals.
Officials called the heat a natural disaster, and the Japanese Meteorological Agency predicts temperatures will continue at 95 degrees or higher into August.
In South Korea, 10 people died from heat-related health complications, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. Officials said more than 1,040 people reported dehydration and other heat-related illnesses from May 20 to July 21, a 61 percent increase over the same period last year.
Temperatures this week reached up to 103.8 in Hayang, South Korea, the highest in the country this year. And in North Korea, temperatures reached up to 104 degrees.
"It is so hot these days that I cannot figure out whether I am in (South Korea) or in Southeast Asia," Kim Sung-hee, a student in downtown Seoul, told ABC News.
Canada
More than 70 people died from blistering heat in late June and early July in central and eastern Canada. Thirty-four of these deaths occurred in Montreal from June 29 to July 7 alone, NPR reported.
Most of the people who died were elderly and lived in apartments with no air conditioning, David Kaiser, a physician manager at the Montreal Regional Department of Public Health, told NPR.
Montreal’s emergency services said it received more than 1,200 heat-related calls daily in the beginning of July. Montreal's fire and police departments also visited more than 20,000 homes to check on residents.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Canadians via Twitter to "make sure you know how to protect yourself & your family" against the heat.
Algeria
Ouargla, Algeria, experienced the hottest reliably measured temperature ever in Africa at 124.3 on July 5. The city is the capital of the Ouargla Province in the Sahara Desert.
Temperatures of 131 hit Kebili, Tunisia, in 1931, but historians have their doubts about the record.
The heat has played a role in Algeria's recent human rights violations. In the past 14 months, the Algerian government expelled more than 13,000 migrants – including pregnant women and children – into the desert's blistering heat. Algerian officials forced hundreds of migrants at gunpoint into the desert every week to walk in temperatures up to 118 degrees, The Associated Press reported.
Scandinavia
In Sweden, temperatures caused at least 50 forest fires in different parts of the country – some north of the Arctic Circle.
Nearly 100 people were forced to evacuate their homes last week, according to Swedish officials. Jamtland, Vasterbotten, Gavleborg and Dalarna counties were hit hardest.
The Swedish government called for international assistance to fight the fires from the European Commission. Italy, France, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Lithuania and Poland sent reinforcements including firefighters, vehicles, planes and helicopters to help put out the blazes.
Temperatures in Kvikkjokk soared to 90.5 Tuesday, an all-time high for the city and nearly 20 degrees higher than the country's normal July temperatures. In southern Sweden, Uppsala hit 93.9 degrees Monday, its highest since 1975.
In Norway, all-time records were reached Tuesday in Namsskogan and Mo I Rana. The small town of Snasa smashed its own mark with a temperature of 88.9 degrees on Monday.
In southern Finland, Turku hit 91.9, the hottest day since 1914.
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366bf7e4cd611bcdc86f42b88bc1cac9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/25/swedish-student-elin-ersson-stops-plane-deporting-afghan-man-leaving/832071002/ | Swedish student stops plane deporting Afghan man from leaving | Swedish student stops plane deporting Afghan man from leaving
As passengers know, a plane cannot take off until all on board have taken their seats and buckled their seat belts. On Monday, a young Swedish activist named Elin Ersson used that rule to keep a flight carrying a 52-year-old Afghan man being deported to Kabul from taking off in Gothenburg.
The flight was scheduled to travel to Istanbul where the man was to be transferred to another plane to Afghanistan. With everyone else on the plane seated, the young Swede took out her cellphone and began livestreaming video on Facebook. She then proceeded to film herself speaking in English as she walked through the plane, explaining that the man was being deported to Afghanistan, "where he will most likely get killed."
As the video began, one could hear flight personnel ordering her to sit down, as well as angry passengers doing the same. Another flight attendant called for her to turn off the phone and take her, seat which she once again refused to do. Ersson insisted that she was not doing anything illegal, adding that as soon as the Afghan was taken off the plane she would follow the pilot's orders.
At one point, an English passenger chided her for her action and attempted to take her phone away, saying she was scaring the other passengers. About half way through the 14-minute video, other passengers began to join her in the protest. Among the cries of a number of children, she was told that the man would be let off the plane and she would also be removed by airport security.
Ersson protested Swedish deportation policy with a group of 25 other activists before boarding the plane. Her video was clicked more than 1.9 million times in the last 24 hours and she has been applauded by many for her civil courage. Critics have called her selfish for singlehandedly making a decision on the country's deportation stance.
Despite the young woman's claims that she had done nothing wrong, Swedish authorities see the matter differently. Police pointed out that passengers who refuse to obey a pilot's orders while on board a plane can face fines or up to six months in jail.
Authorities also said the Afghan man was in custody and would be deported, though they did not say when.
This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content was created separately to USA TODAY.
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4617dae42a80d2e3effb0e09cfc9a6fa | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/26/isis-attacks-syria-death-toll-climbs/839969002/ | Death toll in devastating ISIS attacks in Syria climbs to 216 | Death toll in devastating ISIS attacks in Syria climbs to 216
BEIRUT – The death toll from coordinated attacks by Islamic State fighters on a usually peaceful southern city and surrounding countryside has climbed to 216, a local health official said Thursday, in the worst violence to hit the area since the country’s conflict began.
Mass funerals were held in the city of Sweida on Thursday, a day after the wave of attacks that began in the early hours of the mourning and lasted for hours. The city was the scene of several suicide bombings, including one at a busy vegetable market that left a scene of devastation and set in motion the coordinated assaults.
IS militants also attacked a number of villages in the northeast of the province, also called Sweida, where local militias and residents took up arms to fight the advancing militants.
More:Trump says cease-fire that went into effect Sunday in southern Syria 'will save lives'
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 246, including 111 members of local militias who fought IS militants who swarmed their villages. At least 135 civilians were among the killed, the Observatory said.
Hassan Omar, a government health official in Sweida province, said on Thursday that at least 150 people were wounded in the attacks; some of them were in critical condition.
An activist-operated Facebook page called Sweida News Network said many of the killed were shot in the head. The SNN said the militants sneaked into the villages under the cover of darkness, shooting residents as they slept.
The Observatory also reported bodies found killed inside homes and that the militants had also abducted some residents, their fate unknown.
The rare attacks in Sweida, populated mainly by Syria’s minority Druze, came amid a government offensive elsewhere in the country’s south. Government forces are battling an IS-linked group near the frontier with Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and near the border with Jordan. The group also has a small presence on the eastern edge of Sweida province, and in the desert in the adjacent Homs province.
Since their offensive in June, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces have retaken territories controlled by the rebels along the Golan Heights frontier and are now fighting militants in the country’s southern tip.
IS has been largely defeated in Syria and Iraq, but still has pockets of territory it controls in eastern and southern Syria.
The extremist group boasted that its “soldiers” killed more than 100 people in Sweida.
In a statement posted on the group’s social media channels, it said its militants carried out surprise attacks on government and security centers, sparking clashes with Syrian troops and allied militias.
The Islamic State group posted no death toll for its own men in Wednesday’s fighting.
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685e32149306690e928ebaaee74a3f20 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/26/mary-ellis-one-last-women-pilots-world-war-ii-dies-101/840223002/?fbclid=IwAR1J8E5ugwt0c4JC18zrLCMO7K4k2q_ro6NGatc2bMIQ0wgo5aRsyswtBt8 | 'A legend': Mary Ellis, one of the last women pilots from World War II, dies at 101 | 'A legend': Mary Ellis, one of the last women pilots from World War II, dies at 101
Mary Ellis, who played a vital part in defeating Germany in the battle for Britain’s skies during World War II, has died at 101.
Ellis, one of the last surviving female aviators from the United Kingdom’s wartime forces, delivered fighters and bombers in her job with the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), which called up women in 1941 due to a shortage of male pilots, many of whom died as the nation scrambled to intercept and shoot down Nazi planes.
According to the BBC, Ellis, then Mary Wilkins, joined the ATA after hearing an appeal for women pilots on the radio. She told the network that they were known as the "Glamour Girls," adding that "there were plenty of escorts around."
Among the 70 models of planes she flew, according to Forces.net, a military-focused British website, was the famed Spitfire fighter, whose maneuverability was key in Britain’s victory.
"I love it, it's everybody's favorite," she said at a surprise party in 2017 for her 100th birthday, held at an airport near her home in southern England. “To fly it is absolutely fantastic,” she told the website. “It’s so responsive to all the actions you might want.”
Ellis, who passed away on Tuesday, recalled her first encounter with the plane. “When I went to collect my first Spitfire,” she told Forces.net, “the man helping me with my parachute asked, ‘How many of these have you flown before?’ And I said, ‘None, this is the first one,’ and he nearly … fell off the airplane."
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier, the commander of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force, mourned Ellis on Twitter. "Another terrible loss... an inspiration to generations,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, author and former RAF navigator John Nichol described Ellis as a "truly remarkable lady,” adding that "another giant leaves us to join her heroic friends in the Blue Skies."
After the war, according to England’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, Ellis moved to the Isle of Wight, which lies off the southern coast, and managed a small airport from 1950 to 1970. She married fellow pilot Don Ellis in 1961, the paper reported, and the couple lived in a house next to the runway. Her husband died in 2009.
Ellis was active until the end, attending a reception at Prime Minister Theresa May’s home at 10 Downing Street in May of this year that marked the 100th anniversary of the RAF.
TV presenter and historian Dan Snow posted on Twitter that he took his children to meet her last week.
“My boy clasped a model plane,” he wrote. “She asked what it was. 'Spitfire' he whispered. She leaned down and shared a few private thoughts about the aircraft.”
Meanwhile, Mike Ling, a member of the RAF’s Red Arrows aerobatics team, posted that Ellis was a "legend of the Air Transport Auxiliary."
"I hope you are enjoying a well-earned sherry up there with [fellow ATA pilot] Joy Lofthouse again," he added.
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3727ab9418e681958dd46d484c718bc0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/26/report-us-plane-leaves-north-korea-pick-up-us-war-remains/846651002/ | North Korea hands over remains said to be US soldiers from Korean War, White House says | North Korea hands over remains said to be US soldiers from Korean War, White House says
SEOUL – North Korea on Friday returned the remains of what are believed to be U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War, the White House said.
A U.S. cargo plane arrived at an American air force base in South Korea on Friday morning, a step in fulfilling an agreement made between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un at their historic summit in Singapore last month.
The plane, a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster, transported the remains from Wonsan, North Korea, to Osan Air Force Base, located some 40 miles south of Seoul. It was accompanied by service members from United Nations Command Korea and technical experts from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the Hawaii-based government agency responsible for recovering missing personnel, according to a statement from the White House.
The United Nations Command confirmed there were 55 cases of remains returned Friday.
The aircraft, flanked by two fighter jets, arrived at approximately 11 a.m. local time and was met by American service members and a military honor guard. A formal repatriation ceremony headed by General Vincent Brooks, commander of American forces in Korea, is scheduled to take place on Aug. 1. In a statement, Vice President Mike Pence said he will be attending the ceremony.
"As the son of a Korean War combat veteran, it is deeply humbling to be part of this historic moment," said Pence. "We will never forget the sacrifices these brave service members and their families made for our nation and our freedoms."
The remains are then expected to be sent to the DPAA in Hawaii for forensic testing to determine if the remains are human and if the dead were American or allied troops killed in the conflict.
From that point, the process of identifying the soldiers can range from days to years, according to Army Sgt. First Class Kristen Duus, a public affairs officer for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The length of time depends on whether records are on file for the fallen soldier and what types of testing, from dental to DNA, are necessary to make an identification.
Overall, the procedure will take “probably several months” before identifications can start to be made, according to Duus, who confirmed that the DPAA would receive the remains sometime next week.
The move came on the 65th anniversary of the armistice agreement that ended fighting in the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.
More: Trump demands North Korea live up to agreement
More: North Korea begins dismantling rocket launch site facilities
"The United States owes a profound debt of gratitude to those American service members who gave their lives in service to their country and we are working diligently to bring them home," the White House said in a statement. "It is a solemn obligation of the United States Government to ensure that the remains are handled with dignity and properly accounted for so their families receive them in an honorable manner."
Trump also expressed his gratitude to Kim in a tweet, calling it "a great moment for so many families."
Trump later hailed the return of the remains, telling reporters Friday at the White House: "I want to thank Chairman Kim for keeping his word."
About 7,700 U.S. soldiers are listed as missing from the Korean War, and 5,300 of the remains are believed to still be in North Korea. The war killed millions, including 36,000 American soldiers.
Returning U.S. war remains was a rare tangible commitment Kim made during his meeting with Trump in Singapore, where they issued a vague aspirational goal for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how that would occur.
Contributed: The Associated Press
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235b2b296b79037283962a82f2bc2611 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/27/un-verifies-over-7-000-child-casualties-syria-since-2013/850376002/ | UN verifies over 7,000 child casualties in Syria since 2013 | UN verifies over 7,000 child casualties in Syria since 2013
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations has verified that more than 7,000 children have lost their lives or been injured in the Syrian conflict since 2013 – and cites unverified reports putting the number “way beyond 20,000,” a U.N. envoy said Friday.
Virginia Gamba, the special representative for children in conflict, told the Security Council that since the beginning of 2018, the U.N. has verified over 1,200 violations against children. These include more than 600 children killed or maimed and over 180 recruited or used by government forces or armed groups, she said.
“Children continue to be disproportionately affected by the armed conflict in Syria,” Gamba said. “The violence Syrian children have been subjected to – and still are – as well as the pain they and their families have faced throughout these years of ‘crisis’ is simply unacceptable.”
Compared to the last quarter of 2017, Gamba said the first quarter of 2018 saw a 348 percent increase in killing and maiming of children, a 25 percent increase in recruitment and military use of children, and a 109 percent increase in overall grave violations against youngsters.
“The indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks by all parties, of which the latest tally is 88, including the use of weapons prohibited under international law, aerial attacks, mortars and rockets, indiscriminate shelling and improvised explosive devices, have been used against civilian areas and civilian infrastructures and have had a deadly toll on children,” she said.
Gamba said reports attribute most killings and injuries in 2018 to Syrian government and pro-government forces, and all recruitment and military use of children to armed groups.
Although figures for the beginning of 2018 include few verified cases of sexual violence and abduction, Gamba said these violations have been reported since 2013. As examples, she cited sexual abuse and exploitation of boys and girls, the sale of children as sexual slaves, rape as a means of torture, and forcible marriage to fighters from the Islamic State extremist group.
Gamba said the detention of children for alleged association with armed forces and groups “has exponentially increased.”
In 2018 alone, she said over 1,300 children are reportedly being held by parties in northeastern Syria though the U.N. has only been able to verify seven cases because of inaccessibility to the area. Since 2014, she said the U.N. Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism authorized by the Security Council has verified more than 350 cases of detention.
Gamba urged the Security Council to put pressure on all combatants in Syria to immediately take action to prevent child casualties including by halting indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, ensure that detained children are treated “primarily as victims,” and comply with international law.
Syrian children “have been used and abused by, in and for armed conflict for far too long,” she said.
“The prolonged exposure to war has immediate and hugely detrimental effects on the psychosocial wellbeing of children,” Gamba warned.
She urged the international community to prioritize funding for education at all levels and mental health and protection programs for Syrian children.
“No one must be left behind, especially those that – through no fault of their own – have been robbed of their most important developmental years,” Gamba said. “It is time for the children of Syria to believe in their own future and to learn what peace means.”
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311f84e9ac42b817a0bd38ba8b989c86 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/27/worlds-oldest-person-chiyo-miyako-dies-japan-age-117/847607002/ | World's oldest person, Chiyo Miyako, dies in Japan at age 117 | World's oldest person, Chiyo Miyako, dies in Japan at age 117
The oldest person in the world has died at age 117, officials in her home state in Japan confirmed Friday.
Chiyo Miyako, who was known to her family members as “the goddess,” died Sunday, said officials in Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo.
Guinness World Records has confirmed that she was the world’s oldest person. Her replacement is yet to be announced by Guinness, but according to media reports, the new oldest person is Kane Tanaka, a 115-year-old woman who lives in a nursing home in Fukuoka, a city in southern Japan.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tanaka is now the country's oldest person.
Miyako, born on May 2, 1901, became the world’s oldest person in April after Nabi Tajima, a fellow Japanese national from the southern Kikai island, died at age 117.
Miyako’s family said she was a chatty person who was patient and kind to others and loved delicious food, with sushi and eels being favorites, according to Guinness World Records.
She started learning calligraphy as a child and practiced it until recently. She also had the chance to travel because her husband, Shoji, worked for Japanese National Railways, Guinness said.
The world’s oldest man, Masazo Nonaka, celebrated his 113th birthday Wednesday on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.
Jeanne Louise Calment from France holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest person ever. Born in 1875, she was 122 when she died in 1997.
Japanese women have the world's highest life expectancy of 87, while the men's life expectancy is in the world's top 10, according to the World Health Organization. The reasons are attributed to factors including the traditional Japanese diet and good health care.
The average age for women in America is 81.1 years; it's 76.1 years for men, according to a 2016 report from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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aea68ace81464f198f74bc0aab1b6e91 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/08/01/burqa-ban-comes-into-effect-denmark/878286002/ | Controversial 'Burqa Ban' comes into effect in Denmark amid protests | Controversial 'Burqa Ban' comes into effect in Denmark amid protests
A controversial ban on face coverings known as the “Burqa Ban” went into effect in Denmark Wednesday, as some Muslim women vowed to take to the streets wearing their Islamic veils in protest.
The ban, which was presented by the center-right governing coalition, was approved by the parliament in May.
Marcus Knuth of the ruling Venstre party, said burqas and niqabs were “strongly oppressive.”
However, others accuse the Danish government of discrimination. Protests against the ban were planned Wednesday in cities, including the capital Copenhagen.
More: Dutch parliament approves limited ban on burqa, niqab
Related: Austria wants to ban headscarves in elementary schools and kindergartens
One woman, who Reuters news agency would only name as a 21-year-old named Sabina, said she would not remove her niqab - a head covering that leaves only the eyes exposed - unless it was her own choice.
“All women should be free to dress as they please and to wear clothing that expresses their identity or beliefs,” said Fotis Filippou, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe.
“Whilst some specific restrictions on the wearing of full face veils for the purposes of public safety may be legitimate, this blanket ban is neither necessary nor proportionate and violates women's rights to freedom of expression and religion,” Filippou added.
Police said people who planned to wear burqas and niqabs at the protests would not be fined, but police spokesperson Benny Ochkenholt told DR, the public broadcaster, that people who wore full face veils on their way to and from the protests could be penalized, the Independent newspaper reported.
Denmark has tightened immigration rules in recent years, and adopted a law in 2016 that required newly arrived asylum-seekers to hand over their valuables – such jewelry to help pay for their upkeep.
Those who break the law for the first time can be fined $157, and repeat offenders face fines of up to $1,570, or six months in jail.
Austria, France and Belgium have introduced similar bans, which they say are not aimed at any particular religion. But the bans are seen as directed against the niqab and burqa. Few Muslim women in Denmark wear the full face veils.
Under the law, people are allowed to cover their face when there is a “recognizable purpose,” such as cold weather, or when wearing motorbike helmets on the roads.
Anyone forcing a person to wear garments covering the face by using force or threats can be fined or face up to two years in prison.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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74f27cb1148854bb26430062627f7aa6 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/08/13/spain-boardwalk-collapse/974559002/ | Hundreds injured when boardwalk collapses into the sea at Spanish festival | Hundreds injured when boardwalk collapses into the sea at Spanish festival
Hundreds of people were injured when a wooden boardwalk collapsed into the sea at a music and urban sports festival in northwestern Spain, authorities said Monday.
Regional health chief Jesus Vazquez Almuina told Antena 3 television that 313 people required medical treatment following the incident in the city of Vigo in the Galicia region at around midnight Sunday.
A 130-foot stretch of the boardwalk gave way during a rap performance — the closing event of the three-day festival — sending concertgoers sliding into the sea.
Five people suffered serious, but not life-threatening injuries, officials said.
Enrique Cesar Lopez Veiga, the president of the Vigo port authority, said he suspected the boardwalk, which is supported by concrete pillars, had a structural problem.
He told Cadena Ser radio that it collapsed "probably because of excessive weight" on it.
Aitana Alonso, a concertgoer, told the Faro de Vigo newspaper: "It broke and we all fell. People fell on me. I had trouble getting out. I was trying to get out and skidded, my foot got stuck, in the water. I got it out. A boy gave me his hand and I got out. I felt paralyzed and I left. There was a girl with blood on her head."
Vigo mayor Abel Caballero announced an investigation into the incident. The popular O Marisquiño annual festival draws a large crowd of youths and features music and sports such as skateboarding.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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ae3beb3215c97447acef77eef3dc3741 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/08/21/pope-francis-expected-meet-abuse-victims-ireland-vatican/1050129002/ | Amid fallout from Pennsylvania report, Pope Francis to meet with abuse victims in Ireland | Amid fallout from Pennsylvania report, Pope Francis to meet with abuse victims in Ireland
Pope Francis is expected to meet with victims of sexual abuse during an upcoming weekend trip to Ireland, less than two weeks after a bombshell grand jury report found Catholic priests in Pennsylvania abused more than 1,000 children over six decades.
Greg Burke, a Vatican spokesman, said in a Tuesday briefing that the Pope always meets with victims when visiting countries where abuse "is a reality," and that information may be released after the meeting, depending on what survivors decide.
"The important thing is for the Pope to listen," Burke said.
Ireland has a devastating history of priests who raped and molested children and bishops who covered up for them. The issue of sexual abuse by clergy is likely to dominate the trip, especially given the outcry that followed the recent revelations in Pennsylvania.
The Aug. 14 grand jury report, which outlined abuses by more than 300 "predator priests" across six dioceses in Pennsylvania, was the latest development in a scandal that has dogged the Catholic Church for decades. Last month, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a prominent Vatican official, amid claims of sexual abuse almost 40 years ago.
The pope is under extreme pressure to speak out against abuse, and has previously met with victims in Philadelphia, Chile and at the Vatican.
Though it took the Vatican two days to respond to the report, Burke said in a statement on Aug. 16 that “those acts were betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and faith." Pope Francis on Monday condemned the "atrocities" of sexual abuse by priests, and demanded accountability in the future.
"I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons," Francis said. "We showed no care for the little ones. ... We abandoned them."
The original purpose of Francis' Ireland trip was to conclude the World Meeting of Families, a major Catholic gathering. Asked if the Pope would address abuse, Burke said Francis has "several opportunities" to do so during six major speeches in the country.
Francis will also pray for abuse victims before a candle in Dublin's St. Mary's Cathedral on Saturday.
More:Pope Francis blasts 'atrocities' by clergy: 'We showed no care for the little ones'
More:Clergy abuse hotline calls 'surging' after scathing grand jury report
More:Why the Roman Catholic Church still struggles with sexual abuse scandals
Contributing: Associated Press
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073a56297cfbbec605dd45df6eede791 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/08/23/trump-tweet-sparks-angry-response-south-african-government/1078645002/ | Trump tweet sparks angry response from South African government | Trump tweet sparks angry response from South African government
WASHINGTON — The South African government on Thursday slammed President Donald Trump’s tweet calling for the U.S. to examine South Africa’s land and “farm seizures” from white farmers.
Trump tweeted on Wednesday night that he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into “South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.”
The president’s missive came shortly after Fox News aired a report asserting that the South African government is “now seizing land from white farmers,” which is not true.
“South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past,” the South African government tweeted in response to Trump’s statement.
South Africa is in the throes of a racially charged national debate over land reform, a lawful process that seeks to correct the legacy of decades of white minority rule that stripped blacks of their land. Today, nearly a quarter-century after the first democratic elections, black South Africans comprise 80 percent of the population but own just 4 percent of the country’s land, according to the government.
In July, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said his party would amend the constitution so the state could expropriate land without compensation to speed up the land reform process, but that has not yet happened and no land has been seized.
For years, a small but vocal group of white South Africans have claimed white farmers are the target of violent, racially motivated farm attacks. Experts say the attacks reflect the country’s generally high crime rate and that there is no evidence connecting them to the victims’ race.
Farm murders have been declining since their peak in 2001, according to research by Agri SA, an umbrella group of South African agricultural associations. In 2016-17, there were 74 murders during farm attacks, according to Africa Check , compared to 19,000 murders across the country in the same period.
On Thursday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed that Trump and Pompeo had spoken about the issue of land reform in South Africa.
“I can tell you that the Secretary and the president certainly discussed it,” Nauert said. “The president asked him to look at the current state of action with regard to land reform,” she said, and Pompeo plans to “take a look at it.”
Nauert said that expropriation of land without compensation “would risk sending South Africa down the wrong path.” She added that the U.S. has encouraged a “peaceful and transparent debate” about land rights in South Africa, adding “that seems to be happening right now.”
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., took to Twitter to condemn Trump's "racially-charged" comments.
"Absolutely disgraceful that the president continues to target African nations and spread racially-charged claims that have no basis in evidence or fact," Booker wrote.
The former U.S. Ambassador to South African under President Obama also slammed Trump
"The President of the US needs political distractions to turn our gaze away from his criminal cabal, and so he’s attacking South Africa with the disproven racial myth of “large scale killings of farmers” This man has never visited the continent and has no discernible Africa policy," Gaspard tweeted.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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05d1bc39592f55fa186a81c53496bdf3 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/08/24/sex-boxes-make-legal-prostitution-safe-zurich-switzerland-europe/1083444002/ | Sex in the city: Zurich’s prostitution 'sex boxes' deemed success in Switzerland | Sex in the city: Zurich’s prostitution 'sex boxes' deemed success in Switzerland
ZURICH – Each night, a beeline of cars forms on the way to a drive-in in this Swiss city’s Strichplatz area, but the customers are not lining up for fast food. Rather, they are waiting for a service of another kind: to spend time with the prostitutes plying their trade in one of Zurich’s famous “sex boxes.”
And it’s all perfectly legal.
In fact, these government-sponsored digs, which look like one-car garages, are celebrating their fifth anniversary Sunday. Last week, city officials announced that the project has been a resounding success.
Prostitution in Zurich is nothing new. For years, hookers conducted their business in the city’s riverfront area, but residents often complained about the noise, traffic jams and other disturbances from carousing clients.
So in 2012, 52 percent of Zurich voters approved a city plan to set aside $2 million of taxpayer’s money to build several drive-in structures in a safe and discreet environment, away from the residential neighborhoods. Another $800,000 was earmarked for annual operation costs, which include security and on-site social services.
A year later, these premises started welcoming dozens of prostitutes and their clients.
To municipal authorities, this arrangement makes a lot of street sense. As the city noted on its website, the premises were intended to “improve the working conditions of sex workers – their health, physical and mental integrity.”
Five years later, these goals “have been achieved,” city spokesperson Nadeen Schuster told USA TODAY.
“The Strichplatz is effective in preventing violence against sex workers and human trafficking,” she added.
And since opening in 2013, several improvements have been made. Originally, the boxes only accommodated customers in vehicles. A year later, the municipality added several wooden structures furnished with plank beds, “responding to concerns that not all customers want to receive services in their car,” the city said.
Motorbikes and bicycles are now also permitted inside “to meet the needs of the population,” authorities noted. Walk-ins are not welcome, though, and are directed to the city’s other officially-sanctioned prostitution area, the Harnigstrasse.
The site is regulated with a Swiss-clock precision: Maps show how to find the area and which way to drive by following arrows painted on the road. The premises are open for business from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. during the week and until 5 a.m. on weekends.
Once inside, the cost is negotiated with one of the 24 women – mostly from Eastern Europe – who typically work in the Strichplatz. “The price is set by sex workers and their customers. The staff doesn’t interfere in these arrangements,” Schuster said.
After setting the price, the client and sex worker drive to a free box. For privacy reasons, there are no security cameras, but each box is equipped with an alarm button that will summon guards in case of trouble. There have not been any serious incidents so far.
Prostitution has been legal in Switzerland, a nation of about 8.5 million people, since the 1940s and is considered like any other service industry. The Swiss have taken this pragmatic approach to prevent exploitation, sexually transmitted diseases, links with criminal networks and other problems common in countries where sex commerce is banned.
Prostitutes, in turn, are expected to pay taxes and contribute to their Social Security funds. They must also register with public health authorities and undergo regular health checks.
To work in Zurich, prostitutes must fill out a permit request, which is available on the town’s website in several languages, including English. Schuster did not reveal how many are registered but said about 100 work on the streets; most ply their trade with escort services or in brothels.
While the city doesn’t keep track of the numbers of sex box customers, “if there were not enough sex workers or not enough johns, the place wouldn't work. Neither is the case,” Schuster said.
And that’s another measure of the Strichplatz’s success.
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394bfd71d8b8ab96a245ec9b9f51fbdd | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/08/24/trump-administration-yanks-200-million-aid-gaza-and-west-bank/1088489002/ | Trump administration yanks $200 million in economic aid from Gaza and West Bank | Trump administration yanks $200 million in economic aid from Gaza and West Bank
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration will revoke more than $200 million in economic aid for the West Bank and Gaza, the State Department announced Friday.
The move came after a State Department review examining whether the funding was in “U.S. national interests” and of value to American taxpayers. In a terse announcement, the State Department said it would redirect the $200 million to “high-priority projects elsewhere.”
“This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation,” the State Department notice said.
The move drew immediate fire from Democrats in Congress, who said it would roil an already volatile part of the world and undermine U.S. efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“After a year and eight months in office, President Trump has yet to announce anything remotely resembling a coherent policy to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Sen Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“Inhabitants of Gaza are already suffering severe hardships under the tyranny of Hamas and border restrictions imposed by Israel,” Leahy said. “It is the Palestinian people, virtual prisoners in an increasingly volatile conflict, who will most directly suffer the consequences of this callous and ill-advised attempt to respond to Israel’s security concerns.”
Most U.S. aid to the Palestinians goes toward health care, education, economic development, and infrastructure improvements
The withdrawal of economic aid to the Palestinians comes as the Trump administration is preparing to unveil a highly anticipated Middle East peace plan – an effort that appears to be faltering even before it gets off the ground.
One contentious element of that plan would reportedly tie economic development for Gaza and the West Bank to significant concessions from the Palestinians, including giving permanent control of Jerusalem to the Israelis.
The Trump administration already has frosty a relationship with Palestinian leaders, who see the president as biased towards Israel. The rapport deteriorated significantly after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May.
The Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas broke off contact with the U.S. after the Jerusalem announcement.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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ea5979abc09e035b2b620277e004fc44 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/08/31/trump-administration-nix-funding-u-n-palestinian-refugee-program/1161342002/ | Trump administration to nix funding to U.N. Palestinian refugee program | Trump administration to nix funding to U.N. Palestinian refugee program
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration announced Friday it will zero out funding for the United Nations’ aid program for Palestinian refugees, part of a broader effort to rein in foreign aid and restrict assistance to the West Bank and Gaza.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. is “no longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA’s costs,” referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
She said some countries in the Middle East, including Jordan, Egypt, and Qatar, have stepped up funding for the program, “but the overall international response has not been sufficient.”
She also argued that UNRWA recognizes too many Palestinians as refugees, creating an “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries” that is unsustainable. “The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation,” Nauert stated.
Restrictions in the classification of Palestinian refugees could limit their “right of return” – the concept that those displaced Palestinians would eventually be allowed to return to their homes or communities.
The decision to cut off funding for the Palestinian refugee program comes one week after the Trump administration revoked more than $200 million in economic aid for the West Bank and Gaza. The State Department said that decision came after a review of the funding and took into account the challenges of providing assistance in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.
The U.N. agency provides health care to approximately 3 million Palestinians, education assistance to 500,000 children, micro-loans to another 400,000 beneficiaries, among other aid.
Palestinian Authority spokesperson Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters the State Department’s action, in addition to last week’s $200 million cut in economic aid, represented “a flagrant assault against the Palestinian people and a defiance of UN resolutions.”
"Such a punishment will not succeed to change the fact that the United States no longer has a role in the region and that it is not a part of the solution,” the spokesperson said.
Critics in the U.S. said the Trump administration's decision will cause further suffering among the Palestinians and harm U.S. national security by pushing them into the arms of terrorist groups.
"Further impoverishing Palestinians only empowers extremists, undermines the (Palestinian Authority) and harms Israel’s security," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement Friday. "Completely cutting off funding to UNRWA is inhumane and undermines our own interests in the region."
Samantha Power, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the Obama administration, said the move would further destabilize the Middle East. She noted that UNRWA runs schools, health centers, and provides food for millions of Palestinian families.
"Reckless decision that will be devastating for civilians, especially kids, as schools will have to be shuttered," Powers said in a tweet Friday.
Dave Harden, a former top official at the U.S. Agency for International Development who worked extensively in the West Bank and Gaza, said UNRWA provides vital humanitarian aid to Gazans "who have no means of obtaining essential services." He said the U.S. would cede political influence in the region with this decision.
"When the U.S fails to lead, who will? Hamas and Hezbollah stand ready," Harden said.
Earlier this week, Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, blasted not just UNRWA but also Palestinian leaders, who she said were critical of the U.S. even as they sought funding from Washington.
"The Palestinians continue to bash America ... This is the government, not the people, not the Palestinian people," Haley said at a forum in Washington on Tuesday. At the same time, she said, "They have their hand out wanting UNRWA money."
Nauert, in her statement on Friday, said the State Department was "very mindful of and deeply concerned" about the impact of UNRWA's flawed funding and operating structure on "innocent Palestinians, especially school children."
"... Palestinians, wherever they live, deserve better than an endlessly crisis-driven service provision model," Nauert added. She said the U.S. would work with the U.S., other governments, and international stakeholders "about new models and new approaches," raising the possibility of direct bilateral aid from the United States.
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0f4b5721ff5569c0a86f8b9b97daea76 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/04/trump-syria-russia-iran-dont-recklessly-attack-rebel-stronghold/1189289002/ | Trump tweets warning on Syria as offensive targets last rebel stronghold | Trump tweets warning on Syria as offensive targets last rebel stronghold
The Kremlin on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump's warning that an attack on the last major enclave of Syrian rebels would be a "grave humanitarian mistake," saying the Idlib rebels are hindering efforts at a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
"President Bashar al-Assad of Syria must not recklessly attack Idlib Province," Trump tweeted. "The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!"
Within hours of Trump's tweet, Russian warplanes reportedly carried out airstrikes against the rebel positions. Reuters, citing a report from the Syrian Observatory as well as at least one rebel leader, said airstrikes began Tuesday near the city of Jisr al-Shughour in the province that borders Turkey.
Assad has been building up forces for a phased offensive aimed at taking control of the province in northwest Syria. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the rebel drone attacks from Idlib pose a threat to Russia's temporary bases in the war-battered country.
"It goes without saying that this problem must be straightened out," Peskov said. "We do know that the Syrian armed forces are getting ready for tackling this problem."
More:UN verifies over 7,000 child casualties in Syria since 2013
More:Death toll in devastating ISIS attacks in Syria climbs to 216
Peskov called Idlib home to a "nest of terrorists," but it is also home to more than 2 million refugees. The White House issued a statement saying it was monitoring the activity in Idlib.
"Let us be clear, it remains our firm stance that if President Bashar al-Assad chooses to again use chemical weapons, the United States and its allies will respond swiftly and appropriately."
The rise in tensions comes ahead of meetings aimed at creating a commission to help draft a new Syrian constitution. Representatives from Turkey, Russia and Iran will meet with Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy on Syria, early next week. A few days later Mistura will meet with envoys from the U.S., U.K., France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Germany and Egypt.
Mistura, in Geneva, echoed Trump's call for calm, saying violence could "hold hostage" efforts at a political settlement. The International Rescue Committee also called on the Syria, Russia and its allies to halt the attacks.
“The world is now watching with bated breath to see what unfolds," said Lorraine Bramwell, the IRC's Syria director. "Many civilians in Idlib have survived intense bombardment or fighting elsewhere in Syria and are rightly terrified about what they may now face."
The war has dragged on for seven years, cost hundreds of thousands of lives and driven millions from their homes. Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces have consistently battered Islamic State forces in the region, but also have battered the West-backed rebels who had hoped to drive Assad from power.
The Trump administration has largely stayed out of the fray, with coalition forces conducting bombing raids against Islamic State positions but avoiding clashes with Assad's armed forces or their Iranian and Russian backers.
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1a66b6644d37dc99cdff2a10c82cb9a6 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/05/french-school-cellphone-ban-students-return-class-without-devices/1199937002/ | France cellphone ban takes effect as kids return to school without devices | France cellphone ban takes effect as kids return to school without devices
French children are saying “bonjour” to the new academic year — and “au revoir” to their cellphones during school hours.
That’s because a new law has come into effect which outlaws phone use by students up to the age of 15. The legislation, which follows a campaign promise by French President Emmanuel Macron, also banishes tablets and smart watches.
The ban is also in place at break times, with exceptions in cases of emergency and for disabled children, the French Education Ministry said in a statement. In emergencies, students can ask their teachers or supervisors for permission to use their phones. Meanwhile, high schools can voluntarily implement the measure.
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said the new rules aim to help children focus on lessons, better socialize and reduce social media use. The ban is also designed to fight online bullying and prevent thefts and violence in school.
Blanquer has hailed the legislation as "a law for the 21st century," according to Agence France Presse, that would improve discipline among France's 12 million school students.
"Being open to technologies of the future doesn't mean we have to accept all their uses," Blanquer said in June as the bill was going through parliament.
Nearly 90 percent of French 12- to 17-year-olds have a mobile phone, AFP reported, and supporters say the ban could limit the spread of violent and pornographic content among children.
More:Child drownings linked to phone-distracted parents who fail to look up
More:No phones allowed (but touching is)! Immersive theater takes fans out of comfort zone
More:Teacher said no cell phone during test. So naturally, teen brings record player
More:Cell-phone free Thanksgiving dinner: You can do it, with grace
As for enforcement, it's up to individual school administrations to decide how to implement the ban, ABC News reported. School principals can decide to store students' phones in lockers or allow them to keep them, switched off, in their backpacks. The law allows teachers to confiscate phones until the end of the day in cases of non-compliance.
Jacqueline Kay-Cessou, an American who has been living in Paris for 25 years and whose 14-year-old son, David, is entering eighth grade at the Camille Sée international school, told ABC News she was happy to hear of the ban.
"It's fantastic news. It's something I've wanted for years," Kay-Cessou told ABC. "I think phones are harmful socially. Kids can't think and sit still anymore and it's highly addictive."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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ce57af4038a36310a5a62f06aff44725 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/12/trump-signs-executive-order-punish-foreign-meddling-u-s-elections/1279596002/?csp=chromepush | Trump signs new order to sanction countries that meddle in U.S. elections | Trump signs new order to sanction countries that meddle in U.S. elections
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order Wednesday authorizing U.S. sanctions on any foreign individual or country that tries to interfere in U.S. elections.
“This is intended to be a very broad effort to prevent foreign manipulation of the political process,” John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters during a briefing Wednesday.
The move comes less than two months before the 2018 midterm elections, and just weeks after Dan Coats, Trump's director of national intelligence, warned of a "pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States" before Americans go to the polls in November.
The executive order could blunt momentum in Congress for legislation that would impose harsher and more direct penalties on Russia for any future election meddling. Several senators said Wednesday that the White House order was a good first step but fell short of what's needed and could give Trump too much wiggle room.
"While the administration has yet to share the full text, an executive order that inevitably leaves the President broad discretion to decide whether to impose tough sanctions against those who attack our democracy is insufficient," said Sen Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate investigation into Russia.
“If we are going to actually deter Russia and others from interfering in our elections in the future, we need to spell out strong, clear consequences, without ambiguity," Warner said.
Coats and Bolton said the president's action was not aimed at short-circuiting congressional action.
The order will help ensure the administration is "doing every possible thing we can" to prevent and assess election meddling, Coats said. "And if we see something has happened, then there's going to be an automatic response to that."
The forceful rhetoric stands in sharp contrast to Trump's own statements about Russia's efforts to undermine American democracy. Trump has called the federal investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election a "witch hunt."
And after a closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July, Trump said he believed Putin when he denied that Russia did not try to sway the 2016 election, despite the U.S. intelligence community's public findings implicating the Kremlin.
Bolton denied that Wednesday's executive order was an effort to reverse the damage from Trump's remarks after the summit with Putin, which prompted outrage among lawmakers in both parties.
"The president has said repeatedly that he is determined that there not be foreign interference in our elections," Bolton told reporters. "I think his actions speak for themselves."
Coats said the new executive order is a response to Russia's actions in the 2016 election and "to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But he said the order will apply not just to Russia but to others possible bad actors, including China, North Korea, and Iran.
"We have seen signs of (meddling from) not just Russia, but from China ... from Iran and even North Korea," Coats said. "We're taking nothing for granted here."
The order sets up a high-level process for the U.S. intelligence community and other law enforcement officials to investigate and evaluate possible election meddling.
First, it requires the Director of National Intelligence to conduct regular assessments of possible election interference. And after each election, the intelligence community will have 45 days to investigate whether there was an attempt at interference, followed by a Justice Department review.
If there is a consensus that a foreign country or other entity tried to meddle in the election, automatic sanctions would be triggered, Coats said.
Bolton said the sanctions would be imposed not just for direct actions, such as hacking into election systems, but also for distribution of propaganda and disinformation. Russia spent millions of dollars trying to sow division and discord in the 2016 presidential race, using Facebook and other social media platforms, among other tactics.
Warner and others said Congress should still move forward with legislation. One bill that has broad support, crafted by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., would mandate tough sanctions on major sectors of the Russian economy, including finance, energy, and defense companies.
It would also target senior Russian political figure and oligarchs close to Putin, barring them from the United States and freezing their assets.
"There is no question that protecting our elections from foreign interference is one of the most pressing issues facing our country today," Rubio and Van Hollen said in a joint statement Wednesday.
But, they added, "we must make sure Vladimir Putin’s Russia, or any other foreign actor, understands that we will respond decisively and impose punishing consequences against those who interfere in our democracy."
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a4f360e6845520eb60d487af76fca3dd | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/16/sex-abuse-victims-china-social-media-gives-them-voice-speak-out/1279302002/ | Social media gives sexual abuse victims in China voice to speak out | Social media gives sexual abuse victims in China voice to speak out
BEIJING – After spending two months late last year nudging university officials to punish her former adviser for trying to pressure her and others into sex, Luo Xixi found unlikely help on China’s heavily censored internet.
She published a post on Weibo, a popular microblog site similar to Twitter, to detail her own experiences and those of four others with the professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In a few hours, her post – initially targeting her less than 10 followers – garnered 3 million views.It had swift consequences in the conservative country, too: The professor was fired.
“I don’t think the officials forgot to block me,” Luo told USA TODAY by phone from her California home, where she moved after graduation to work in software programming. “I can tell the government is trying to open the door to the #MeToo movement, little by little.”
Sexual abuse scandals aren’t new in China, but they rarely have caused a stir in the past. In this deeply patriarchal society, women who spoke out before were often seen as airing dirty laundry in public and bringing shame upon their family.
But with Luo's post – the first by a Chinese to use her real name – the tide has turned and the floodgates to sexual misconduct allegations in China burst open.
Other Chinese nationals living overseas began posting on various Chinese-language social media sites alleging sexual misconduct by academics. Since late July, every few days new victims and witnesses inside China have aired their accusations on chat groups or personal blogs against such prominent figures in philanthropy, the media, entertainment – including a national variety show host and a monk who heads the country’s Buddhist association.
State censors have deleted some of the posts, though not before they percolated on cyberspace through re-posts and were amplified by local media reports.
Much as the so-called Great Firewall has kept sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and most recently Reddit off-limits to China’s netizens, there is a plethora of popular homegrown sites.
Also, as China’s censorship apparatus is known to employ AI, or artificial intelligence, to automatically block sensitive terms from posts and group chats, some netizens find a way around referring to #MeToo by using homophonic Chinese words that mean “rice rabbit.”
“China has a contentious internet culture – people in China are used to taking their grievances online,” said Yang Guobin, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in online activism in China. “(Censorship) hasn’t really stopped the determined protesters.”
For example, in April, five Chinese living abroad, including one on the faculty at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and another teaching at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, posted open letters online demanding that Peking University release specifics of a 1998 investigation into a former professor following their undergraduate classmate’s suicide: They believe he repeatedly raped her. Even as she took her own life, the professor held on to his position for more than a decade and won national recognition.
They distanced themselves from the #MeToo movement knowing that Chinese officials often are quick to crack down on organized actions.
“Before I came forward, I told our classmates we shouldn’t hitch ourselves to any movement or political demand,” the Wesleyan professor Wang Ao wrote on one of his blogs. "I tend to think I’m just an outsider and volunteer."
Following the recent wave of allegations, however, a few of the accused ended up apologizing online. After well-known environmentalist Feng Yongfeng was accused of harassing several women, he posted his mea culpa on WeChat, a social media-cum-messaging app.
And the fallout has been particularly swift for professors identified as perpetrators – all were let go or resigned from their jobs.
The latest to face consequences is Xu Gang, associate professor of East Asian studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. On at least two Chinese-language social media sites, Wang publicized his female colleagues’ accusations against Xu’s sexual harassment dating back two decades. He left his tenured position earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Luo says she now embraces #MeToo, as she’s since realized the term is a rallying cry that resonates with the Chinese.
“So more people can come forward,” she said. “So they know they’re not alone.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of Yang Guobin. She is a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in online activism in China.
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112ea8461c28e5ffa267caef185d6a05 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/19/kim-jong-un-moon-jae-sign-agreement-peace/1355006002/ | North Korea agrees to dismantle missile test site as Kim Jong Un, Moon Jae-in sign deal | North Korea agrees to dismantle missile test site as Kim Jong Un, Moon Jae-in sign deal
SEOUL – South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a broad agreement in Pyongyang on Wednesday that both said would usher in a new era of peace on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea agreed to take further steps toward denuclearization, including permanently dismantling its Dongchang-ri missile engine test site and launch pad and allowing international inspectors to observe the process, Moon announced at a joint news conference with Kim following the signing ceremony.
Kim said the two sides have taken active measures to free the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons and threats and turn it into a “land of peace.”
More:North and South Korea seek to jointly host the 2032 Summer Olympics
According to the text of the Pyongyang agreement, the North also said it was willing to take additional measures such as decommissioning its Yongbyon nuclear facility if the United States made further concessions “in the spirit of the June 12 North Korea-U.S. joint statement” signed by Kim and President Donald Trump at a historic summit in Singapore.
That meeting between Trump and Kim ended with promises to work toward establishing “a lasting and stable peace regime” and completely denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula but without a road map to get there.
More:White House, North Korea discuss possibility of second Trump-Kim meeting
More:The women who lift N. Korea leader Kim Jong Un's image: sister Kim Yo Jong, wife Ri Sol Ju
Momentum between the US and North Korea has sputtered since, with Pyongyang hoping for a peace declaration officially ending the Korean War after 65 years and relief from punishing international sanctions, but Washington holding firm on demands for complete denuclearization first.
“I hope summit talks between the United States and North Korea will resume soon and I hope they can find a point of agreement,” Moon said at Wednesday’s news conference.
Trump quickly weighed in on Twitter, calling the developments “Very exciting!”
"Kim Jong Un has agreed to allow Nuclear inspections, subject to final negotiations, and to permanently dismantle a test site and launch pad in the presence of international experts," he wrote. It was unclear what Trump meant by “nuclear inspections,” as that did not appear in the Pyongyang agreement.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also applauded the outcome of the Moon-Kim meetings.
"On the basis of these important commitments, the United States is prepared to engage immediately in negotiations to transform U.S.-DPRK relations," Pompeo said in a statement Wednesday.
Pompeo said he had invited his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, to meet next week when they will both be attending the United Nations General Assembly meeting. He also asked the North Koreans to meet with Trump's special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, in Austria "at the earliest opportunity."
Pompeo predicted the developments would "mark the beginning of negotiations to transform U.S.-DPRK relations through the process of rapid denuclearization of North Korea, to be completed by January 2021," the end of Trump's term.
Other reactions to the announcement were more muted.
Paul Carroll, director of nuclear security with NSquare, a San Francisco-based collaborative working on reducing nuclear risks, said the agreement was vague enough that it leaves “the North lots of leeway before doing anything.”
“Overall, it is good that the two leaders are meeting, but direct involvement with U.S. negotiators needs to happen,” he said.
“There may be more things the North offers, but at the end it will be important to see how President Moon conveys things to President Trump and what our own response is. For example, will (Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo go back? Will there be other steps the U.S. takes?” he added.
Moon is scheduled to meet with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 24, Moon’s spokesman Yoon Young-chan said Wednesday.
“President Moon will be able to relay what was not publicly disclosed to President Trump,” Yoon said, referring to Wednesday's meeting with Kim.
“I think (Moon) understands that he needs to hold some things close to the chest to be able to bring to Donald Trump,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington D.C. foreign policy think tank.
“Maybe additional concessions, maybe Kim Jong Un made some other proposals that we don’t know about today," Kazianis added.
He said that the agreement Wednesday, while lacking a major concession from Kim, still marks a giant leap forward in an inter-Korean relationship that seemed on the brink of war just a year ago.
“Do we have massive denuclearization by Kim Jong Un? No, we don’t at the moment,” Kazianis said. “But we do have the auspices of the two Koreas talking on levels that we haven’t seen. That is progress.”
The two Korean leaders also announced Wednesday that Kim would visit Seoul in the near future, which would mark the first trip by a North Korean leader to the city, and that the nations would file a bid to jointly host the 2032 Summer Olympics.
Steps towards joint economic cooperation were also part of the deal, with the countries agreeing to begin reconnecting their road and railway links by the end of the year.
The agreement called for the reopening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, an inter-Korean joint manufacturing zone that was shuttered in 2016, and for restarting tourism programs to the North’s Mount Kumgang when “conditions are met.”
A separate agreement signed by the two countries’ defense ministers outlined measures to reduce military tensions along the heavily-militarized border that divides the peninsula, including the removal of land mines and guard posts from the Joint Security Area inside the truce village of Panmunjon.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday that the Trump administration was hoping to see “meaningful, verifiable steps toward the denuclearization of North Korea” emerge from the summit.
Kim has already requested a second summit with Trump, sending him a “very warm, very positive” letter, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said last week. She said the administration was “open to and already in the process of coordinating” the meeting, but no dates have been set.
Moon was scheduled to attend North Korea’s Mass Games following the meeting with Kim on Wednesday, an enormous synchronized music, dance and gymnastics spectacle that is expected to draw 150,000 spectators.
On Thursday – the last day of Moon's visit – the two leaders are scheduled to visit Mount Paektu, a volcano sacred to the North.
Moon’s office said the South Korean leader accepted Kim’s offer to visit the crater lake-topped volcano, which lies at the heart of the mythology used to legitimize the Kim family’s rule in North Korea.
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f01ab023b60a5bd721bfbb8513868faf | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/21/trump-administration-lacks-resources-fight-russian-fake-news/1292089002/ | Trump's State Department lacks money, clear mandate to fight Russian disinformation, 'fake news' | Trump's State Department lacks money, clear mandate to fight Russian disinformation, 'fake news'
WASHINGTON – Daniel Kimmage may have one of the most daunting jobs in Washington.
He’s charged with countering Russian disinformation across the globe from his perch in a small corner of the State Department. He also has to worry about distortions and meddling from Iran, China, and North Korea – along with anti-American messages from extremist terrorist groups.
To accomplish that, Kimmage’s office – called the Global Engagement Center – doesn’t have the budget Congress promised, doesn’t have full authority to hire top-notch experts, and doesn’t have a clear mandate from the White House.
“It’s a 19th Century bureaucracy using 20th Century tools against a 21st Century adversary,” said Michael Lumpkin, a former Navy SEAL who ran the Global Engagement Center during the Obama administration.
“I’ve had many jobs in my life, from commanding men and women in combat to being CEO of defense companies," Lumpkin added. "But the toughest job I ever had was being at the GEC, bar none.”
Kimmage is well-suited to lead the GEC. He’s fluent in Russian and Arabic, and he has studied disinformation extensively, particularly the way al-Qaida and other extremist groups have used images and ideas to brand their ideology. Plus, he doesn’t like the limelight, an important quality in a job that requires an inconspicuous, nose-to-the-grindstone persona.
Not surprisingly, the 48-year-old Kimmage declined to be interviewed for this story.
But a State Department official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said that under Kimmage’s stewardship, the GEC has started to cultivate a new “ecosystem” to counter disinformation from Russia and other malign actors.
“This a very dynamic and fluid space,” the official said. “There have been obstacles and challenges … but we have made a lot of progress.”
The Global Engagement Center is supposed to be America’s premier agency fighting propaganda in an era of weaponized information – tasked with exposing and countering disinformation designed to undermine U.S. national security and democracy.
Lawmakers in Congress gave the GEC that mission in December 2016, as part of a sweeping defense bill and in response to Russia’s extensive meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
"The U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel," Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said in a 2016 statement hailing the GEC’s creation. Operating under a different name with a smaller mission, the GEC had a $35 million budget to combat messaging from radical terrorist groups.
But in 2016, Congress authorized the GEC to get up to $60 million in additional funds from the Department of Defense for its anti-propaganda mission. “We are going to confront this threat head-on,” the Ohio Republican said at the time.
After two years of bureaucratic red tape and stonewalling, the GEC still doesn't have access to that extra money, although at least $20 million of it may be available soon. Yet, even when the funds start flowing, Kimmage and his 70-plus staff have just a couple weeks to spend it, before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. The GEC has also been laboring under an agency-wide hiring freeze at the State Department, which has made it difficult to bring on new experts.
In a statement to USA TODAY, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said “communications campaigns that expose and counter disinformation from competitor nations are more important than ever. The Global Engagement Center plays a key part in preserving peace through strength.”
The State Department official said the agency has been able to add more than two dozen data scientists and other experts to its team, using transfers and waivers to bring them on board.
And despite the budget delays, the GEC has managed to fund three projects with an initial $1 million the agency transferred from another pot. The agency would not disclose the specifics, but a spokesman said all three initiatives are designed to strengthen Russia’s neighbors in Eastern Europe from destabilizing distortions flooding across their borders via Sputnik, covert Kremlin-created news sites, and fake social media accounts.
The GEC is also working with high-tech firms in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to nurture new technologies that could be used in the information war. One example: an app that could prevent images, videos and other data from being altered or manipulated.
It could be used by aid workers on the front lines in places like Syria, where Russia is working to prop up the brutal regime of Bashar Assad and spreading false information about a possible chemical weapons attack against Syrian civilians.
“We can’t just simply fire off messages,” the State Department official said, even though it might “feel good” to respond tit-for-tat to the Kremlin’s trolls and bots. Instead, the GEC is “trying to reframe the conversation.”
Some experts say the GEC has started to make a difference.
“We always faced a joined-up threat from all layers of the Russian government,” said Peter Doran, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank focused on Europe and Russia. “Our response was not equally combined. That’s now changing thanks to the GEC.”
Others are not convinced. Critics say the GEC was not particularly successful in its previous incarnation, when it was just focused on combatingextremist messaging.
“And now you’ve given them a much bigger mission and asked them to do more,” said Thomas Hill, a former senior congressional staffer for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I don’t know of a single organization that’s ever failed at a small mission and then succeeded a large mission.”
Add in the funding delays and the hiring glitches, and it’s hardly a recipe for success, Hill said.
Read:Trump's State Department outgunned in fight to counter Russian disinformation around globe
Others say the White House has not made the GEC’s mission a priority. Kimmage, for example, is only serving in the job temporarily, while the White House seeks a permanent director for the agency.
CNN recently reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was considering Lea Gabrielle, a Fox News reporter and former Navy pilot, for the job.
A State Department spokesman declined to comment on personnel changes, but said Pompeo expects to name a permanent GEC chief soon.
More:Trump's State Department outgunned in fight to counter Russian disinformation around globe
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89b435fe67f2cab15bf4eee6483fadc0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/22/russia-protests-thousands-decry-putin-plan-raise-pension-age/1394112002/ | Thousands of Russians protest Putin plan to raise retirement ages | Thousands of Russians protest Putin plan to raise retirement ages
MOSCOW – For yet another weekend, thousands rallied across Russia on Saturday to protest the government’s plan to raise the eligibility age for retirement pensions by five years.
Several thousand people attended a Moscow rally organized by the Communist Party and other leftist groups, which was authorized by city officials. Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov called for rolling back the proposed changes, arguing that the government should redistribute resources to avoid raising the pension age.
“They keep reaching into your pockets,” he told protesters, who waved red flags.
The government’s plan to lift the retirement age for men from 60 years to 65 and for women from 55 to 63 has irked a wide range of Russians from all political factions. Older Russians fear they won’t live long enough to collect significant benefits while younger generations are worried that keeping people in the workforce longer will limit their own employment opportunities. The proposal has also dented President Vladimir Putin’s popularity.
Dmitry Orlov, who came to Moscow from his home city of Kostroma to join the rally, denounced the Russian government’s move as a “robbery.”
“It can’t be that our country doesn’t have money for its people, the people who spend their whole lives working and paying deductions for their pensions,” he said.
Similar protests were also held Saturday in many cities across Russia’s 11 time zones, most of them sanctioned by authorities.
Several hundred demonstrators rallied against the pension age hike in Sevastopol in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“This is a very serious issue for me, because it touches upon my life, my children, my parents who haven’t retired yet,” said Olga Konitskaya, 30, a protester in Sevastopol.
The demonstrations went on peacefully, unlike a wave of unauthorized pension protests earlier this month organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny that led to the detention of over 1,000 people across Russia.
Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who is Putin’s most visible foe, had called for protests against the pension age hike before he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for organizing a January protest over a different issue. He is set to be released from custody Monday.
Putin has responded to the protests by offering some concessions, but argued that the age hike is necessary because rising life expectancies in Russia could exhaust the nation’s pension resources if the eligibility age remains the same.
The Kremlin-controlled lower house, the State Duma has given only a preliminary approval to the pension changes bill and is yet to hold a decisive second reading.
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92e07e2bd0cedb22e9a07b37e81a8dfe | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/25/trumps-boast-united-nations-prompts-laughter-world-leaders/1420238002/ | Trump's boast at the United Nations prompts laughter from world leaders and ridicule on Twitter | Trump's boast at the United Nations prompts laughter from world leaders and ridicule on Twitter
NEW YORK – President Donald Trump’s opening remarks at the United Nations Tuesday created an awkward and unexpected moment, with other world leaders laughing or grumbling at the American president’s boast about his administration’s accomplishments.
Trump began his speech by saying his administration “has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” an assessment not shared by some of the 130 world leaders gathered in the chamber.
"So true," Trump said as he looked out at the crowd of UN diplomats. "I didn’t expect that reaction but that’s OK.”
He later told reporters that he intended to elicit some laughter with his opening lines. "Oh it was great, well, that was meant to get some laughter, so it was great," he said.
The Trump remarks and crowd reaction drew pointed commentary on Twitter, with some ridiculing Trump’s assertion.
The reaction from Russia, through one of its state-owned media outlets, was equally unforgiving. And some foreign policy analysts suggested his speech would be remembered for that uncomfortable moment.
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272c3a59f0bfe2abdd837fcc67661518 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/09/26/un-meeting-trump-says-china-meddling-u-s-midterm-elections/1430538002/ | Trump accuses China of meddling in US midterm elections, blasts Iran, at UN Security Council meeting | Trump accuses China of meddling in US midterm elections, blasts Iran, at UN Security Council meeting
NEW YORK – President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused China of interfering in the U.S. midterm elections as a way to undermine his aggressive trade policies.
“Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration,” Trump said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
“They don’t want me or us to win because I am the first president to ever challenge China on trade,” he added.
Trump did not offer any specific evidence of China’s meddling, but later on Twitter he highlighted a four-page advertorial that ran Sunday in the Des Moines (Iowa) Register newspaper. The publication is owned by Gannett, the same company that owns USA TODAY.
"China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news," Trump tweeted. "That’s because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!"
A senior administration official told reporters in a briefing Wednesday that China was engaged in more than just the advertorials. This official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said the Chinese government was using a range of overt and covert tools to try to undermine the Trump administration's trade agenda, but did not offer many specifics.
During Wednesday's Security Council meeting, Trump did not mention the extensive and ongoing campaign by the Russian government to sway U.S. elections. Russia and China are both members of the Security Council and had representatives seated at the table as Trump made his remarks.
Although China’s president, Xi Jinping, did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, his foreign affairs minister, Wang Yi, flatly rejected Trump’s accusations of election meddling.
“We did not and will not interfere in any country’s domestic affairs,” Wang said. “We refuse to accept … unwarranted accusations against China."
The sharp exchange came as Trump chaired a Security Council meeting for the first time – amid simmering tensions between Trump and other world leaders over his "America First" approach to foreign policy and his harsh critique of international institutions. The rift was on clear display Wednesday as other world leaders used the forum to push back against Trump's promise to put national sovereignty over multilateralism.
Trump used the Security Council meeting to urge a crackdown on countries that use and spread weapons of mass destruction, which he called a “matter of urgent importance." And as expected, Trump reserved his most pointed remarks for Iran, and he blasted the multilateral 2015 agreement aimed at stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. That deal was crafted in part by other countries sitting around the table, including France and the United Kingdom.
Trump pulled out of the agreement earlier this year, and he used the Security Council session to justify that decision before those countries seeking to save it despite the U.S. withdrawal.
“This horrible one-sided deal would allow Iran to continue its path toward a bomb,” Trump said, and gave the Iranian regime “a cash lifeline when they needed it the most.”
Since the deal was signed, Trump said, Iran’s aggression around the world “has only increased,” referencing the country’s ballistic missile program and its support for terrorism.
Several Security Council members, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, strongly defended the Iran nuclear deal and chastised the U.S., without naming Trump, for abandoning it.
May said the agreement "remains the best means" of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, adding that she was "committed in full" to preserving the agreement even without the U.S. participation.
Sweden's foreign affairs minister, Margot Wallstrom, was more blunt. The U.S. decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal "dangerously undermines our joint nonproliferation efforts elsewhere."
"What is the alternative?" Wallstrom asked. While Iran’s destabilizing role in the Middle East is a problem, she said. "These concerns can and should be addressed separately and not at the expense of the JCPOA," using the acronym for the Iran accord.
Other world leaders echoed that argument and offered more sweeping rebukes of U.S. foreign policy. Bolivia's president, Evo Morales Ayma, was particularly harsh – accusing the U.S. of engaging in a long history of meddling in other countries sovereignty and reminding the council of America's role in the 1979 coup in Iran.
"In 1953, the U.S. financed, planned and implemented a coup d'etat against a legitimate government" in Iran, Ayma said. "After that, for many decades the United States supported an authorization government" and allowed global energy companies to tap into Iran's oil for their own profits.
Now, Iran "is once again the victim of a U.S. siege," the Bolivian president said. He condemned Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, saying the U.S. was "hiding behind pretext to continue its policies of meddling in the internal affairs of Iran."
Trump did not respond to the critiques offered up in what is normally a highly scripted setting marked by diplomatic consensus and cooperation. Some foreign policy experts feared the meeting could devolve into bitter confrontation if Trump did not keep his cool or if he went too far in his anti-Iran jabs.
Although that worst-case scenario did not come to pass, Trump did leave the session early, turning over his gavel to Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
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d52468f2d9c4d02ace044f431ddfe980 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/01/indonesia-death-toll-earthquake-and-tsunami-climbs/1484699002/ | Burials begin in Indonesia as rescue need becomes desperate | Burials begin in Indonesia as rescue need becomes desperate
PALU, Indonesia – A mass burial of earthquake and tsunami victims began in a hard-hit city Monday as the need for heavy equipment to dig for survivors of the disaster that struck a central Indonesian island grows increasingly desperate.
The toll of more than 800 dead is largely from the city of Palu and is expected to rise as areas cut off by the damage are reached. The magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck at dusk Friday and spawned a tsunami said to have been as high as 6 meters (20 feet) in places.
Local Army Commander Tiopan Aritonang said that 545 bodies would be brought from one hospital alone. The grave being dug in Palu will be 10 meters by 100 meters (33 feet by 330 feet) and can be enlarged if needed, said Willem Rampangilei, chief of Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
“This must be done as soon as possible for health and religious reasons,” he said. Indonesia is majority Muslim, and religious custom calls for burials soon after death, typically within one day.
Local military spokesman Mohammad Thorir said the area adjacent to a public cemetery can hold 1,000 bodies. All of the victims, coming from local hospitals, have been photographed to help families locate where their relatives were buried. Video footage showed residents walking from body bag to body bag, opening the top to check to see if they could identify faces.
Around midday, teams of workers, their mouths covered by masks, carried 18 bagged bodies and laid them in a trench. Mechanical earth-movers waited to push soil on top of the bodies. More burials are expected to follow.
Military and commercial aircraft were delivering some aid and supplies to the region. But there was a desperate need for heavy equipment to reach possible survivors buried in collapsed buildings, including an eight-story hotel in Palu where voices were heard in the rubble.
A 25-year-old woman was found alive Sunday evening in the ruins of the Roa-Roa Hotel, according to the National Search and Rescue Agency, which released photos of her lying on a stretcher covered in a blanket. A number of other survivors were still being found and a few were being pulled from buildings in different locations.
At least 832 people were confirmed dead as of Sunday evening, Indonesia’s disaster agency said, with nearly all of those from Palu. The regencies of Donggala, Sigi and Parigi Moutong – with a combined population of 1.2 million – had yet to be fully assessed.
“The death toll is believed to be still increasing, since many bodies were still under the wreckage, while many have not been reached,” said disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
The cries from beneath the Roa-Roa Hotel, which appeared to have toppled over with its walls splintered like pickup sticks, went silent by Sunday afternoon. Officials had estimated about 50 people could be inside.
“We are trying our best. Time is so important here to save people,” said Muhammad Syaugi, head of the national search and rescue team. “Heavy equipment is on the way.”
Metro TV showed about a dozen rescuers in orange jumpsuits climbing over debris with a stretcher carrying the body of a victim from the modest business hotel.
Other rescuers worked to try to free a 15-year-old girl trapped under concrete in her house in Palu after it collapsed on her family during the earthquake. Unable to move her legs under the rubble, Nurul Istikharah was trapped beside her dead mother and niece. Rescuers also tried to control water from a leaking pipe, fearing she would drown.
Istikharah was unconscious during part of the effort to free her, but rescuers kept talking to her to try to keep her awake. Others offered her food and water.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo authorized for the country to accept international help for the disaster, Thomas Lembong, chair of Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board, tweeted Monday morning. It wasn’t immediately clear what type of help was being authorized, but the stricken areas needed medical supplies, food and water.
“We will send food today, as much as possible with several aircraft,” he told journalists in the capital, Jakarta, adding a supply of fuel was also set to arrive.
It was the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra island in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries. More recently, a powerful quake on the island of Lombok killed 505 people in August.
In Donggala, the site closest to the earthquake’s epicenter, aerial footage on Metro TV showed the sugary blond sands of beaches swept out to sea, along with some buildings. Some buildings in the town were severely damaged, with plywood walls shredded and chunks of concrete scattered on the pavement. Much of the damage, however, appeared limited to the waterfront.
Palu, which has more than 380,000 people, was strewn with debris from the earthquake and tsunami. A heavily damaged mosque was half submerged and a shopping mall was reduced to a crumpled hulk. A large bridge with yellow arches had collapsed.
The city is built around a narrow bay that apparently magnified the force of the tsunami as the waves raced into the tight inlet. Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman, said waves were reported as high as 6 meters (20 feet) in some places.
In one devastated area in Palu, residents said dozens of people could still be buried in their homes.
“The ground rose up like a spine and suddenly fell. Many people were trapped and buried under collapsed houses. I could do nothing to help,” resident Nur Indah said, crying. “In the evening, some of them turned on their cellphones just to give a sign that they were there. But the lights were off later and the next day.”
With hundreds injured, earthquake-damaged hospitals were overwhelmed.
Nugroho said 61 foreigners were in Palu at the time of the disaster. Most were accounted for, but one South Korean was believed to be trapped in the Roa-Roa Hotel, while three others from France and one from Malaysia were missing.
Indonesia is a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands home to 260 million people. Roads and infrastructure are poor in many areas, making access difficult in the best of conditions.
The disaster agency has said that essential aircraft can land at Palu’s airport, though AirNav, which oversees aircraft navigation, said the runway was cracked and the control tower damaged.
Associated Press writers Margie Mason in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Stephen Wright in Makassar, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
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b0dd3b84d2ae0f6df47ad57a84a962b8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/02/trump-halts-visas-same-sex-partners-diplomats-un-employees/1495218002/ | Trump administration halts visas for same-sex partners of diplomats, UN employees | Trump administration halts visas for same-sex partners of diplomats, UN employees
President Donald Trump's administration began denying visas to the unmarried, same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and officials and employees of the United Nations this week — making marriage a requirement to be eligible for a visa.
The policy was made effective Monday.
It comes despite the fact that the majority of countries do not recognize same-sex marriage and many same-sex couples face prosecution in their own countries.
The shift was detailed in a memo circulated at the United Nations' headquarters in New York last month but unveiled in July, according to the State Department.
The policy shift gives the same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and U.N. workers until the end of the year to get married or leave the country.
The State Department said in a briefing Tuesday that the policy will affect about 105 families in the USA, 55 of which have links to various international organizations. It was not clear how many foreign diplomats and U.N. employees with pending U.S. posts will be affected by the policy change.
Twelve percent of the 193 U.N. member states represented in New York allow same-sex marriage, according to Samantha Power, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who served under President Barack Obama.
The Trump administration said the new policy is more consistent with the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that legalized same-sex marriage. The heterosexual partners of foreign diplomats and U.N. employees are also not eligible for U.S. visas.
Critics of the move argued the policy would create hardship for gay couples from countries that ban same-sex marriage or offer only civil unions. Those who marry in the USA to secure their visa status could face criminal proceedings once they return to their home nations.
"Those not yet in the country will need to show they’re married to secure a visa, potentially forcing those living in countries without marriage equality to choose between a posting at UN headquarters or family separation," Akshaya Kumar, deputy U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in a blog post.
UN Globe, which advocates for non-discrimination of LGBTI staff at the United Nations and in its peacekeeping operations, said it was an "unfortunate change in rules, since same-sex couples, unlike opposite-sex couples, have limited choices when it comes to marriage."
Power, the former ambassador, described the policy in a tweet as "needlessly cruel and bigoted." The State Department said the rule change would promote equal treatment. It said it recognized that not all countries permit same-sex marriage and it was prepared to work with individual cases to find a solution for those not able to marry.
But Diane Klein, a legal scholar at the University of La Verne who first wrote about the policy change in a blog post in July, said: "What remains unclear, both to employees inside affected agencies, and to legal commentators from the outside, is whether visa holders who marry their partners in the U.S., but whose marriages would not be recognized by their home countries, will enjoy continuing access to these partner visas."
On Friday, nearly 120 House Democrats signed and sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressing him and the administration to reverse what they say is a discriminatory policy.
“The United States must maintain its historical moral leadership on all human rights issues, including those affecting LGBTQI people,” wrote the lawmakers. “This policy sends the wrong message that the U.S. is not welcoming of all people.”
“It also needlessly excludes UN personnel, and places an unnecessary burden on diplomats from countries that do not currently allow same-sex marriage. We urge the State Department to reconsider its decision,” the lawmakers added.
Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., who was among the lawmakers to sign the letter, said it is “particularly offensive that [the administration] would dare announce this policy in the name of equality.”
“Progress has been made in this country despite, not because of, this Administration,” he said. “Secretary Pompeo should swiftly reverse this decision and lift the burden on partners of foreign diplomats coming from countries where same-sex marriage is illegal."
More:Court: Korean-born girl must leave USA because she was adopted by her Kansas uncle a year too late
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0526270fc4957ff52bb913da7077beab | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/11/astronauts-emergency-landing/1598317002/ | Astronauts in good condition after emergency landing, NASA says | Astronauts in good condition after emergency landing, NASA says
An American and a Russian astronaut made an emergency landing Thursday after the Russian rocket they were aboard malfunctioned en route to the International Space Station.
NASA said its astronaut, Nick Hague, and Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos were in good condition and out of the capsule that carried them back to Earth.
"I’m grateful that everyone is safe. A thorough investigation into the cause of the incident will be conducted," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "Thank God, the crew is alive." He said President Vladimir Putin was receiving regular updates about the situation.
It was to be the first space mission for Hague, who joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013. Ovchinin spent six months on the orbiting outpost in 2016.
The two landed about 12 miles east of the Kazakh city of Dzhezkazgan. Spacecraft returning from the International Space Station (ISS) normally land in that region. The men were flown by helicopter to Dzhezkazgan and will be taken to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow in Russia.
The astronauts lifted off as scheduled at 4:40 a.m. ET from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz booster rocket. They were to dock at the ISS six hours later, but the three-stage Soyuz booster suffered an unspecified failure of its second stage.
"There was an issue with the booster from today’s launch. The Soyuz capsule returned to Earth via a ballistic descent, which is a sharper angle of landing compared to normal," NASA said in a statement.
Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin tweeted: "The crew has landed. Everybody is alive," Russian news agency Tass reported.
NASA posted pictures of Hague and Ovchinin undergoing a medical check-up at Dzhezkazgan’s airport. One of the pictures showed Hague smiling and another showed him sitting next to Russia’s space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin.
While the Russian space program has been dogged by a string of launch failures and other incidents in recent years, Thursday’s mishap marked the program’s first manned launch failure since September 1983, when a Soyuz exploded on the launch pad.
Last month, Rogozin said in televised comments that Russian investigators found that a hole that caused an oxygen leak in the ISS was made deliberately. The investigation is ongoing.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said that all manned launches will be suspended pending an investigation into the cause of the failure. He said Russia will share all the relevant information with the United States.
"I think the Americans will show understanding regarding this situation. Naturally, we will not conceal the causes," he said, according to Tass.
When asked whether the launch failure will affect space cooperation between Russia and the U.S., he said: "Of course, they should know. We will convey all the necessary information on this incident to them."
He added that "today only Russia ensures the transportation of space crews to the International Space Station," Tass reported.
Contributing: Associated Press
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171248666bbfae248793f128e764d4e9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/13/metoo-setback-austrian-politician-guilty-libel-sex-abuse-claim/1630364002/ | #MeToo setback: Austrian politician convicted of libel for accusing man of sexual harassment on Facebook | #MeToo setback: Austrian politician convicted of libel for accusing man of sexual harassment on Facebook
In a setback for the global #MeToo movement, a former member of Austria’s parliament was convicted this month of libel against a man she publicly accused of sexually harassing her on Facebook.
In an unprecedented case, a judge at the Regional Court for Criminal Matters in Vienna ruled that Green Party politician Sigrid Maurer libeled the owner of a city craft beer store because she couldn’t prove that he actually posted the harassing messages on his Facebook account.
In March, Maurer, 33, an advocate for women's rights, received obscene Facebook messages from the account of the owner of the store, where she walks by frequently.
Maurer posted the messages on Facebook and Twitter, including his name and the store's name. "There was no other way to defend myself," she said.
Maurer posted the messages after her lawyers said she could not sue for public sexual assault because the messages were private.
Her posts went viral, and the store owner said he subsequently became the target of online and personal verbal assaults, including death threats, and his store received negative reviews.
The man sued Maurer for libel, claiming he didn't write the harassing messages. All of his customers have access to the computer in his shop, including his Facebook profile, he testified.
In issuing his ruling against Maurer, Judge Stefan Apostol said he didn't believe the man and found Maurer’s reasons for her posts “respectable,” even though she had no evidence that he was the perpetrator of the abuse.
Maurer vowed to appeal the ruling, which would force her to pay a $3,500 fine and $4,600 in compensation to the store owner if upheld. She said the dispute was a "unique case of victim-perpetrator conversion.”
Women's rights activists called the verdict a disheartening setback for those combating sexual harassment. “This case clearly shows that women are on their own in Austria when it comes to hate messages,” said Schifteh Hashemi, spokeswoman for a petition drive aimed at improving working conditions of women that include equal pay. “They have no chance to defend themselves.”
The beer store's owner, whose name can remain private under Austrian law, may yet receive punishment if an investigation finds he gave false testimony. The judge asked government prosecutors to look into the case. If he is found to have lied, he could face three years in jail.
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0bb209a5beebd71a4670848965077626 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/15/trump-order-end-tps-leaves-legal-immigrants-daunting-decision/1272334002/ | Thousands of legal immigrants face daunting decision after their ‘Temporary Protected Status’ ends | Thousands of legal immigrants face daunting decision after their ‘Temporary Protected Status’ ends
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Ronyde Christina Ponthieux, an 11-year-old U.S. citizen who lives in this South Florida suburb, spends most days alternating between two agonizing thoughts.
Some days, she ponders the possibility of her parents being forced to move back to their native Haiti and bringing her with them to a country she's never even visited.
"Just the thought of everything that's been going on – the earthquakes, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Matthew, the cholera outbreak – it's scary. I speak French, I don't speak Creole," she said in perfect English. "It would be hard to adapt to the environment."
Other days, she feels frightened her parents might have to return to Haiti and leave her behind. “I would be living with a different family. I could even be in the (foster care) system. It blows my mind.”
Ponthieux's parents wish their piano-playing sixth-grader wouldn't have to contemplate such thoughts, but that's the reality facing hundreds of thousands of families, all legal residents, that are now being ordered by the Trump administration to go back home.
Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, has allowed more than 310,000 foreigners to legally live and work in the U.S., many for more than two decades, as their countries recover from natural disasters and armed conflicts. Six countries, which represent 98 percent of the TPS population, have been cut from the program, each given a deadline to leave the U.S.
The first deadline, for Sudan, was scheduled to come up in just a few weeks. A federal judge’s order last week to temporarily stop the administration from ending the program offers hope to some TPS holders, but no guarantee about their future. The Justice Department is appealing the ruling.
More:Federal judge blocks Trump from deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants under TPS
That uncertainty has forced countless conversations within each family about their futures, especially what to do with their U.S.-born children, an estimated 273,000 U.S. citizens, according to the Center for Migration Studies. Those families now face three equally difficult options: stay in the U.S. together and become undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation, return home and leave their children behind, or return home as a family to a country their children have never known.
Ponthieux said that’s an impossible decision for parents and children alike.
"The best way to make America great again is to let my people stay," she said. "And my people are Haitians, Hondurans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans. That's what makes America great, all these different people coming from different places with different cultures – everyone's learning something new, these ideas and different cultures can help build a better place.
“That’s what makes America great.”
The Department of Homeland Security argues that TPS has been wrongly extended for decades, violating the “temporary” intent of the program. In announcing each TPS cancellation, the Homeland Security secretary has said each country has sufficiently recovered from the catastrophic events that initially led to its TPS designation.
Emails between Washington and U.S. diplomats in each country have shown sharp disagreements over those conclusions, with many staffers on the ground saying conditions remain dire in the six countries losing TPS: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal and Sudan.
Elba Concepcion Castillo Zepeda, a Nicaraguan grandmother who has lived and worked in the U.S. under TPS for nearly 20 years, agreed, saying she's terrified of being forced back to the Central American nation.
Castillo originally entered the U.S. on a tourist visa after receiving death threats because of her efforts to help the Contras, who were fighting to overthrow the socialist Sandinista regime. She fed the rebels, tended to them when they were injured, and even helped bury some Contra fighters in her tiny hometown of Susucayan. She said government-aligned forces responded by throwing bricks at her home, calling her out by name on local radio stations, and screaming that her body would be found in the street “with my mouth full of ants.”
Then, Castillo watched as Hurricane Mitch decimated the country in 1998, destroying her family's small farm. She was granted TPS and has worked in Miami ever since, cleaning houses, caring for children, and, now, as an in-home caregiver to an elderly man with Alzheimer's.
She's tried, and failed, to secure political asylum. The man she cares for has tried, and failed, to get her a work visa. And now with Nicaragua’s TPS expiring Jan. 5, Castillo is running out of time.
"What would I do there? At my age, there will be no jobs," said Castillo, 71, who lives with her daughter and two U.S. citizen grandchildren. "My life there is going to be dangerous. Anybody can kill me for not accepting the injustices of the government."
Mazin Ahmed has even less time to make his decision.
The 20-year-old is studying human biology and biochemistry at the University of Southern Maine, the start of what he hopes will be a career as a pediatrician. But Ahmed, his mother, and his two siblings all have TPS and may be forced to return to Sudan before their Nov. 2 deadline.
Ahmed, who hasn't lived in Sudan since he was a baby, said his mother is "definitely nervous" about the decision they'll have to make in the coming weeks. But rather than focus on the horrible decision they'll have to make, Ahmed said his family has chosen to put their energy toward finding a solution.
Ahmed has joined other TPS recipients to lobby Congress to pass a law to protect them. Other groups have been pursuing the legal route, filing lawsuits against the administration to preserve the program.
But with the administration showing no indication that they'll change their minds, Congress unable to accomplish anything immigration-related, Ahmed said their best remaining option is to look above.
"Our main focus is praying, staying strong, staying true to ourselves, and trying to make the best of our lives," he said.
More:The six countries 300,000 immigrants must return to with end of TPS program
More:Trump team uses new rationale to terminate TPS program
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ec8c55bb6b9d8c69ead51572bfa915d3 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/16/trump-boosts-deportations-mauritania-where-slavery-culture-remains/1649202002/ | Trump increases deportations to Mauritania, where slavery dominates culture | Trump increases deportations to Mauritania, where slavery dominates culture
During a meeting in the White House last week to launch a task force designed to stop human trafficking and modern-day slavery, President Donald Trump vowed to do everything in the federal government's power to stop the scourge.
"Our country will not rest until we have put these vile organizations out of business and rescued every last victim," Trump told the officials gathered there.
Yet this week, the Trump administration deported one black man and may deport three others to Mauritania, a Muslim-majority nation in Africa that the CIA describes as a hotbed for human trafficking and slavery of its black minority residents. Tuesday's deportation is the latest in a growing number of black Mauritanians forced to return to a nation where they could face imprisonment, torture, slavery or death, according to their attorneys.
From fiscal years 2014 to 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement averaged just seven deportations to Mauritania each year. In 2018, the agency deported 79 people to Mauritania, and ICE said 22 are in custody awaiting deportation.
Lynn Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, an advocacy group based in a state with one of the country’s largest Mauritanian communities, said she was sickened to learn of the White House event, where Trump, his daughter Ivanka and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo all promised to protect people from human trafficking.
That followed an event in March where first lady Melania Trump named a Mauritanian woman who was born into slavery and co-founded an anti-slavery organization one of the Department of State’s International Women of Courage Award recipients.
"It makes me angry, but this is their level of governance: photo ops and saying they're doing things, saying that they care, and then doing the exact opposite," Tramonte said. "It's not surprising, but it's frustrating."
More:Does slavery await father of 5 from Lockland fighting deportation back to Mauritania?
More:2 more men face deportation to Mauritania from Cincinnati; fear 'they will kill us all'
Tramonte said previous administrations limited deportations of undocumented immigrants from Mauritania because of the flagrant human rights atrocities committed there. Those living in the USA have been stripped of their Mauritanian citizenship, further limiting their rights if forced to return.
More than three dozen Democratic lawmakers sent a letter last week to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Pompeo asking them to stop “the deportation of black Mauritanian nationals, who face the threat of race-based discrimination, violence or slavery if forced to return to Mauritania.”
“Most Mauritanians in the United States arrived here seeking refuge from government-led racial and ethnic persecution and extreme violence,” the lawmakers wrote. “For the following two decades, our government declined to deport Mauritanians because of the dangerous and potentially life-threatening conditions they would face if they were returned to their country of origin.”
The lawmakers, including Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., want Nielsen and Pompeo to “clarify U.S. policies and practices regarding deportations of Mauritanians” to Congress within 60 days.
Mauritania was the last nation in the world to abolish slavery in 1981, but the CIA and the State Department said the practice lives on, ensnaring a "significant portion" of the country's black population.
"Adults and children from traditional slave castes in the Black Moor and Afro-Mauritanian communities are subjected to hereditary slavery practices rooted in ancestral master-slave relationships, where they are often forced to work without pay as cattle herders and domestic servants," a State Department summary says.
ICE spokesman Brendan Raedy said there has been no policy change regarding Mauritania that led to the increased deportations. He said Mauritanians, like all other immigrants, are allowed to stay in the USA if they have a valid visa or if they make a claim for some other kind of relief.
"After considering the merits of each case, if an immigration judge finds an individual ineligible for any form of relief, the judge will issue a final order of removal, which ICE carries out in accordance with applicable U.S. law," Raedy said.
In a series of deportation orders issued against four Mauritanians this summer by ICE agents in Michigan, the agency wrote that it had considered the "humanitarian concerns" raised by attorneys but decided that "pursuing the ordered removal is the proper enforcement action in this case and consistent with the core mission" of ICE.
Human rights activists said that cold analysis ignores the fact that the U.S. government could facilitate the slave trade by deporting people to Mauritania, a decision that could cost them their freedom or their lives.
In August, Adotei Akwei of Amnesty International USA said the deportations show "disdain for their human dignity and basic human rights and a complete violation of international law that flies in the face of decades of U.S. traditions."
In an attempt to save some of the Mauritanians, a small group of private attorneys banded together in recent months to represent them in court, winning temporary reprieves for some but losing just as many.
"There has to be some way to fight this," said Julie Nemecek, an attorney in Columbus, Ohio, who assisted Mauritanians throughout the summer. "Donald Trump needs to stop those planes."
Issa Sao, 37, lived in a Cincinnati suburb with his American wife and two U.S.-born children. Sao's asylum application was denied in 2004, and he was ordered deported in 2009, but ICE agents allowed him to stay in the country as long as he regularly checked in with them and maintained a flawless criminal record.
Sao was given a work permit and had been working full time at a pharmaceutical company while moonlighting as an Uber driver to support his family. When he went for his regular check-in this year, he was arrested.
"Right now, I think they will kill us all," Sao told the Cincinnati Enquirer in a phone call from an ICE detention center in Louisiana last week, on the same day as the White House human-trafficking event. "I will be killed. That's all I can say. I will be tortured and killed. That is what they do to us."
According to Tramonte, the efforts by Sao's attorneys failed, and he was deported Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, Issa Sao is now in Mauritania," she said.
Contributing: Mark Curnutte, Cincinnati Enquirer
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da2c8f5080ca79f251aa23555a2ab1e9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/17/mexican-government-sends-federal-police-stop-caravan-u-s-bound-migrants/1674954002/ | Mexican government sends federal police to intercept caravan of U.S.-bound migrants | Mexican government sends federal police to intercept caravan of U.S.-bound migrants
MEXICO CITY — The government of Mexico dispatched two 727 Boeing planes filled with federal police officers to its southern border with Guatemala on Wednesday to intercept a caravan of Central American migrants who are trying to reach the U.S. border.
The Interior and Foreign Relations ministries said in a joint statement that any migrant in the caravan without proper immigration papers would be arrested and “returned to their country of origin.” Those with proper documents or wishing to apply for asylum would be allowed to enter Mexico.
The caravan of migrants set out last week from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, which has long been one of the hemisphere's most violent cities with a murder rate ranking among the highest in the world.
The group of migrants swelled to an estimated 4,000 people even as President Donald Trump has condemned them and threatened to cut aid to Honduras if government officials do not cooperate in preventing their trip to the U.S.
"The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
He followed up Tuesday night with a similar threat, but added more Central American countries to his list. "We have today informed the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that if they allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States, with the intention of entering our country illegally, all payments made to them will STOP (END)!" he wrote.
Trump continued ranting about the caravan of migrants on Wednesday, lashing out at Democrats and accusing them of not wanting to boost border security.
"Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country. Great Midterm issue for Republicans!" he wrote.
More:Trump: Aid will end to Central American countries allowing migrant caravan to head to US
Migrants have long streamed out of Central America in large numbers, increasingly as family units, in attempts to flee poverty and violence.
The "Northern Triangle" of Central America — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador —rank among the most violent in the world, though homicide rates have fallen in recent years. Drug cartels move illegal merchandise through the region and street gangs control neighborhoods and routinely charge residents "rent" (a euphemism for extortion payments).
Caravans of migrants regularly convene as participants seek safety in numbers. Undocumented migrants transiting Mexico often fall victim to crimes such as kidnapping, extortion and rape — often committed by criminal gangs, drug cartels, coyotes and crooked public officials.
A caravan earlier this year also captured Trump’s attention. In a series of tweets, he accused Mexico of inaction to irregular migrants moving through its territory, even though Mexico operates checkpoints across its southern states. Over the past five years its immigration agency has detained and deported more Central Americans than the United States.
More:Did Central American migrants from the previous caravan enter the U.S.?
Mexican immigration officials deported 77,371 people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in 2017, according to the Interior Ministry.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Border Patrol agents detained nearly 17,000 family members in September, an 80 percent increase from July when the administration ended its controversial practice of separating families at the border.
The United States has sent $1.1 billion in aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador over the past two years, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank. The aid has been controversial: Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has been accused of corruption and has moved to terminate the work of a UN-sponsored anti-impunity commission, which has helped to convict members of the country political class on graft charges. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández controversially won re-election last year in a race marred by irregularities and a crackdown on people protesting the outcome.
Guatemala’s government issued a statement Monday saying the caravan would be stopped — even though Central American countries have agreements allowing its citizens to cross borders freely.
A caravan lawmaker, Bartolo Fuentes, was arrested in Guatemala and would be deported back to Honduras, Reuters reported. The caravan, however, continues moving northward.
Honduras has deployed police to its border with Guatemala and urged its citizens not to participate in the caravan.
Vice President Mike Pence has warned Central Americans repeatedly to stay put. Last week, he told the Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America: "We need all the nations in the Northern Triangle region to reinforce this message: Do not put your families at risk by taking the dangerous journey north to attempt to enter the U.S. illegally. The truth is, if they cannot come to the US legally, they should not come at all."
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, said the caravan is another example of how undocumented immigrants and “their enablers continue to flout the laws of the United States” and urged his fellow lawmakers to approve a bill he introduced to penalize the home country of every undocumented immigrant caught at the border.
“We have continued to provide foreign aid to our neighbors to the south even though they permit, and even encourage, thousands of their citizens to enter the U.S. illegally,” he said in a statement issued Wednesday.
Under Biggs’ bill, “Fund and Complete the Border Wall Act,” the U.S. government would reduce $2,000 in aid to countries for each migrant arrested and direct money collected into a border wall fund.
Analysts say most migrants are not dissuaded by the risk of the road and ignore admonishments from the U.S. government, or anti-immigrant sentiments that appear to be more prevalent in the country, because the situation is that dire in their own countries.
"Many Hondurans are or were leaving behind gang or domestic violence in marginalized neighborhoods, where government services are lacking and the day to day life may be controlled by the dominant gang," said Stephanie Leutert director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the Strauss Center at the University of Texas.
More recently, though, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show "larger numbers of migrants from the rural western regions" of Honduras, she added.
"The factors pushing out these migrants are going to look different and generally be tied to agriculture — such as low global commodity prices, especially coffee — and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns," she said. "These rural migrants could head to the dangerous Honduran big cities or go north. And from the data, it looks like more and more are choosing to go north."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travels to Mexico City on Friday, where he will meet with officials from Mexico’s outgoing and incoming governments. In the campaign, president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who takes office Dec. 1, pledged not to "do the dirty work" of any foreign government, when referencing Central American migrants transiting Mexican territory.
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7083d4b36bbcf89eb5d4642e5710cfde | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/20/migrant-caravan-honduras-migrants-mexico-border/1709896002/ | 'There's no turning back': Migrant caravan stuck on Mexico border vows not to be deterred | 'There's no turning back': Migrant caravan stuck on Mexico border vows not to be deterred
About 1,000 Central American migrants on a desperate trek to reach the U.S. remained stuck Saturday on Mexico's southern border as authorities refused to let the group cross en masse, but many remained undaunted.
The migrants, who say they are escaping poverty, poor working conditions and violence, slept overnight on a bridge over the Suchiate River with no fresh supplies of water or food and without bathrooms, eyewitnesses said.
Some in the caravan – which is mostly people from Honduras – broke through a border crossing with Guatemala on Friday where they were met with a wall of Mexican and Guatemalan law enforcement officers who unleashed pepper spray, forcing the migrants to retreat onto the bridge.
The caravan once numbered about 3,000 people, but by Saturday about a third were left. Hundreds of migrants appeared to have already crossed – some perhaps illegally. Others who were camped out on the bridge left to go a nearby Guatemalan town for food. It was unclear whether any had returned home to Honduras.
As workers began erecting tall steel riot barriers on the bridge, Mexican officials said they would hand out numbers to those waiting to cross and allow them to enter in small groups – but not all together.
The migrants who remained vowed to press forward.
Jose Yanez, a 25-year-old farmer who said he made about $6 a day, woke early with a backache after a chilly night on the bridge. “From here, we’re going on. From here, there’s no turning back,” he said.
The group was on an early leg of a 1,100-mile journey to the U.S. border that President Donald Trump has made a key argument for his immigration policies in rallies leading into the midterm elections.
Trump referenced the issue in a Saturday morning tweet deriding Democrats, saying an immigration solution was still possible: "If the Democrats would stop being obstructionists and come together, we could write up and agree to new immigration laws in less than one hour. Look at the needless pain and suffering that they are causing. Look at the horrors taking place on the Border."
Trump has threatened to cut off aid to Central America and close the southern border with Mexico if their respective governments failed to deal with the situation.
The Mexican Interior Ministry said it has received 640 asylum claims – 164 from women, including pregnant women, and 104 from children under 17.
On Friday, women holding small children stood en masse at the front of the border gate, begging Mexican police to let them through.
"Please ... Let us pass,” pleaded Alba Luz Giron Ramirez, a former shop employee and mother of three. She said her family had come from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and that gangs had killed her brother and threatened her.
“We want them to give us permission to go to Mexico,” her son Ramon, 5, said quietly. “We wouldn’t stay.”
Alison Danisa cried as she knelt in trash piling up on the bridge, clutching her naked 11-month-old infant to her breast. “We have suffered so much. She has a fever and we brought nothing.”
More:Thousands of caravan migrants stopped at Mexico border with Guatemala clash with police
More:Trump threatens to seal U.S.-Mexico border over migrant caravan. Can he do it?
More:Mexican government sends federal police to intercept caravan of U.S.-bound migrants
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said in an address to the nation late Friday night that a large group of migrants had “tried to enter Mexican territory irregularly, attacking and even hurting some elements of the federal police.”
“Mexico does not permit and will not permit entry into its territory in an irregular fashion, much less in a violent fashion,” he said.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez also tweeted late Friday that he spoke with his Guatemalan counterpart, Jimmy Morales, and asked permission to send Honduran civil protection personnel to the bridge to help the migrants.
Selvin Flores, a 35-year-old shopkeeper from the Honduran city of Nacaome, said people who “were causing disorder” have been expelled from the group and handed over to Guatemalan police.
Flores said he skips meals so his three children can eat and hoped to make some money in the U.S. before returning to Honduras. The migrants, he said, “do not want misunderstandings.”
Even though the U.S. is the goal for most people in the group, some said Saturday that they would apply for any kind of refugee status in Mexico.
Scarleth Cruz, 21, said she was fleeing repression in Honduras but would accept political asylum in Mexico. “Why would I want to go to the United States if I’m going to be persecuted” there as well, she said.
Contributing: David Agren, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
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3e6ee55d7d9e6aabc83726e491eaab23 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/21/migrant-caravan-united-states-increases-despite-donald-trump-threats/1719819002/ | 'You can’t even walk, there’s just so many people': Migrant caravan bound for US swells despite Trump threats | 'You can’t even walk, there’s just so many people': Migrant caravan bound for US swells despite Trump threats
A caravan of Central American migrants marching into Mexico bound for the United States grew to at least 5,000 people Sunday despite threats from President Donald Trump to use the U.S. military to seal the border.
The throng, many from Honduras, streamed across a bridge over the Suchiate River connecting Guatemala with Mexico.
The Los Angeles Times, citing Gerardo Hernandez, head of the local government’s emergency services, reported that 7,233 immigrants had registered over the past three days at a shelter in Ciudad Hidalgo. Hernandez said his agency has been asked to help provide the immigrants with food and shelter.
The Washington Post, citing Rodrigo Aveja, one of the group’s organizers, reported Sunday night that the caravan included at least 5,600 people.
“You can’t even walk, there’s just so many people,” Hernandez told Reuters. “So far, they’re all peaceful, thank God.”
Many of the migrants cited poverty, corruption and gang violence in Honduras for their flight. Mexico had been trying to slowly process asylum requests in small groups, in some cases providing 45-day visitor permits. But thousands of the migrants grew impatient, circumventing the bureaucracy and crossing over on makeshift rafts or just swimming into Mexico undeterred by border authorities.
They were cheered on by crowds on the Mexican side who shouted, "Venganse!" – Come on in!
In a pair of Sunday tweets, Trump said "full efforts" were being made to "stop the onslaught of illegal aliens" from entering the U.S. and called the caravan a "disgrace to the Democrat party."
“People have to apply for asylum in Mexico first, and if they fail to do that, the U.S. will turn them away," Trump said. "The courts are asking the U.S. to do things that are not doable!”
The Mexican government has warned caravan participants “of grave risks” they could face from human trafficking networks if they illegally enter Mexico. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Sunday the United States was closely monitoring the caravan's advance.
"We must remain mindful of the transnational criminal organizations and other criminals that prey on the vulnerabilities of those undertaking the irregular migration journey," she said in a statement.
Nielsen said the United States was working with "our partners in the region" to investigate and prosecute anyone making a profit from the migration.
More:Migrant caravan stuck on Mexico border vows not to be deterred
More:Thousands stopped at Mexico border with Guatemala clash with police
"We fully support the efforts of Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, as they seek to address this critical situation and ensure a safer and more secure region," she said.
An estimated 3,000 would-be migrants marched out of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on Oct. 13. Their goal was to walk through Guatemala and Mexico to the United States. Their numbers have ebbed and flowed, sometimes numbering little more than 1,000.
But Sunday the crowd was large and the mood mostly ecstatic.
Olivin Castellanos, 58, a truck driver and mason from Villanueva, Honduras, said he took a raft into Mexico. He hopes to work in construction in the United States.
“No one will stop us, only God,” he said. “We knocked down the door and we continue walking.”
“We are going to get to the border of the U.S.,” Luis Puerto, 39, of Colon, Honduras, said in English. “I am not going to stop. I don’t care if I die.”
Trump has been pressuring the three countries to halt the caravan, threatening to cut off aid in the region and deploy troops along the border if the caravan makes it that far. He has made the caravan a central theme of the midterm elections, accusing the Democrats of supporting open borders and encouraging mass migration.
"I'm willing to send the military to defend our southern border if necessary, all caused because of the illegal immigration onslaught brought by the Democrats," he said at a campaign rally last week. "They like it. They also figure everybody coming in is going to vote Democrat, you know. Hey, they're not so stupid when you think about it."
Contributing: The Associated Press
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74a8aeb6080d2dcb7cf689675c872ff1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/23/jamal-khashoggi-killing-investigation/1736644002/ | Turkey says Jamal Khashoggi 'ferociously murdered' by Saudi Arabian hit squad | Turkey says Jamal Khashoggi 'ferociously murdered' by Saudi Arabian hit squad
Saudi Arabia started planning journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder days before he vanished inside its consulate in Istanbul, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday as he revealed details about the investigation into Khashoggi's killing.
Erdogan said Turkey had amassed evidence that clearly showed The Washington Post columnist was killed in a premeditated and "savage" murder that involved at least three separate teams of Saudi intelligence agents, including a military general.
Erdogan was speaking to parliament as part of his pledge to unveil the "naked truth" about a case that has shocked the world and raised suspicions that a Saudi hit squad planned Khashoggi’s killing after he walked into the consulate on Oct. 2, and then tried to cover it up. Erdogan said Khashoggi was "ferociously murdered."
Reports in British, Chinese and Russian media on Tuesday, all citing anonymous sources, said parts of Khashoggi's body had been found at the Saudi Consulate.
Erdogan said Saudi operatives first activated a plan to capture and kill Khashoggi after the journalist initially visited the consulate in Istanbul on Sept. 28. Ergodan called on 18 suspects – Saudi nationals all – detained in Saudi Arabia to be extradited to Turkey for trial and demanded that Saudi authorities in Riyadh provide information about who ordered the operation and the whereabouts of Khashoggi's body.
Ergodan made no reference, however, to audio recordings leaked to Turkish media over the past three weeks that purport to reveal how Khashoggi was killed.
He said the three teams of Saudi agents arrived in Istanbul on different days and flights and some members of one of the teams went on a reconnaissance mission to a forest outside Istanbul where investigators have been searching for Khashoggi's remains. Most of the security cameras outside the consulate were removed, he said.
The troubling affair has brought fresh scrutiny of the United States' close relationship with Saudi Arabia and led President Donald Trump to defend the oil-rich kingdom's leadership. In a USA TODAY interview, Trump called Khashoggi's death a "plot gone awry," a characterization that contrasts markedly with the evidence Turkey says it has, with the assessment of many U.S. lawmakers and with U.S. allies and rights groups.
After initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's fate, Saudi Arabia claimed the U.S. resident died in a fistfight. Erdogan's address comes as skepticism intensified about the Saudi account, which critics say is designed to absolve Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s heir-apparent, of any responsibility.
More:Exclusive: President Trump calls Jamal Khashoggi's death 'a plot gone awry'
More:Mnuchin meets with Saudi prince despite global outrage over journalist's death
Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday that Ankara had not yet shared any of its evidence, including the recordings of Khashoggi's slaying, with other countries. He added that Turkey was ready to cooperate in any possible investigation into the Khashoggi case, either at the United Nations' level or in international courts.
Turkish officials have leaked a series of macabre and bizarre details about how Khashoggi may have been murdered. These include allegations that he was chopped up with a bone saw and that a Saudi operative impersonated Khashoggi on the day he died by dressing up in his clothes and wearing a fake beard.
Erdogan's speech also comes as an investment conference in Riyadh began. Dozens of high-profile executives and officials have abandoned the event. Separately, multiple media reports said CIA Director Gina Haspel has traveled to Turkey. It was not clear what the purpose of her trip is.
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5d369afd7ca2bac75db3fd6ff3665c1d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/25/central-american-migrant-caravan-where-they-now/1760236002/ | Central American migrant caravan: Where are they now? | Central American migrant caravan: Where are they now?
MAPASTEPEC, Mexico – The controversial Central American migrant caravan, which President Donald Trump has turned into a U.S. midterms elections issue, crawled through southern Mexico on Thursday amid conflicting reports about whether it’s growing or shrinking.
One thing is certain: the caravan remains more than 1,000 miles from the U.S,-Mexico border.
Some migrants began arriving early Thursday to Mapastepec, a Pacific coastal town of less than 50,000 people in the state of Chiapas. Their next stop is Pijijipiapan, some 25 miles away.
The Mexican government estimates the number of people taking part in the caravan has fallen below 4,000, while those assisting it say it’s ballooned to 10,000.
The Mexican government reported late Wednesday that the number of caravan migrants was down to 3,630 people, noting those who dropped out either applied for asylum in Mexico or chose to return home. On Thursday, it did not provide an updated count on migrants, but reported that 1,743 had applied for asylum or refugee status and 196 are being aided in voluntarily returning home.
United Nations officials, who are assisting Mexican authorities in reviewing claims of migrants, said Monday that more than 7,200 people had taken part in the caravan.
Alex Mensing, a U.S.-based organizer with the group Pubelo Sin Fronteras, which is providing humanitarian assistance to the migrants, said the size of the caravan has swelled to 10,000 people.
He also told reporters in a conference call that the migrants were at least 1,000 miles away from the nearest U.S. border city and that it could take a month or longer before they get there.
The caravan, which embarked Oct. 12 from Honduras, has traveled about 90 miles from the Guatemalan border since crossing into Mexico over the weekend. It is still unclear which route they will take to reach the U.S., Mensing said.
Migrants traveling through Mexico toward the U.S. typically ride freight trains, known as "la bestia,” the beast, but that is not possible with so many people traveling together at once, according to Mensing.
He dismissed claims by the Trump administration and others that the caravan was being organized and funded by leftist or right-wing groups trying to influence the upcoming midterm U.S. elections as “absurd.”
The Central American migrants come mostly from Honduras but also includes those from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.
In a tweet Thursday afternoon, Trump wrote a direct message to the migrants: “To those in the Caravan, turnaround, we are not letting people into the United States illegally. Go back to your Country and if you want, apply for citizenship like millions of others are doing!”
Speaking Wednesday night at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, Trump talked about the caravan as among the top issues in next month’s midterm elections.
“This will be the election of the caravans, Kavanaugh, law and order, tax cuts, and common sense,” he told the crowd of supporters.
He again claimed that Democrats were backing the existing caravan and drumming up support for more caravans.
“As we speak, the Democrat Party is openly encouraging caravan after caravan of illegal aliens to violate our laws and break into our country,” Trump said.
“The crisis on the border – and it is a crisis, it’s crazy – right now is the sole result of Democrat laws and activists, Democrat judges that do whatever they want and that prevent us from returning illegal aliens back home to Central America and other parts of the world.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a joint statement last weekend saying “the president is desperate to change the subject from health care to immigration because he knows that health care is the number one issue Americans care about.”
“Democrats are focused like a laser on health care and will not be diverted,” they said.
Trump has also threatened to cut aid to Central American governments, closed the southern border with Mexico and deploy themilitary to the border. On Thursday, several media outlets reported the Pentagon was preparing to dispatch at least 800 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to help federal immigration authorities.
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3ae6bf1f1947eed3a8eea0d48059c652 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/28/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazil-presidency-after-rough-campaign/1803383002/ | Jair Bolsonaro, stabbed while campaigning last month, wins Brazil presidency | Jair Bolsonaro, stabbed while campaigning last month, wins Brazil presidency
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — Far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro won the presidency of Latin America’s largest nation Sunday as voters looked past warnings that the brash former army captain would erode democracy and embraced a chance for radical change after years of turmoil.
With 97 percent of ballots counted, Brazil’s top electoral court said Bolsonaro had won with 55.4 percent of the votes. His opponent, leftist Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party, had 44.4 percent.
In Rio de Janeiro, Bolsonaro’s supporters set off fireworks on iconic Copacabana Beach. In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, cars horns could be heard honking and crowds celebrated as the results came in. There were also reports of clashes between his backers and opponents on Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo.
“I first want to thank God,” Bolsonaro told supporters in a video transmitted from his home in Rio, recounting how he was stabbed while campaigning last month and almost died.
Bolsonaro, who ran on promises to clean up Brazil and bring back “traditional values,” said he would respect the constitution and personal liberty. He said that wasn’t just the words of a man but a promise to God.
Bolsonaro went into Sunday the clear front-runner after getting 46 percent of the vote to Haddad’s 29 percent in the first round of the election Oct. 7, which had 13 contenders. After opinion polls in recent weeks had Bolsonaro leading by as much as 18 percentage points, the race had tightened the last few days after several Brazilian heavyweights came out against Bolsonaro, arguing that he was a direct risk to the world’s fourth largest democracy.
Bolsonaro, who cast himself as a political outsider despite a 27-year career in Congress, is the latest of several leaders around the globe to gain prominence by mixing tough, often violent talk with hard-right positions. But he is also very much a product of a perfect storm in Brazil that made his messages less marginalized: widespread anger at the political class amid years of corruption, an economy that has struggled to recover after a punishing recession and a surge in violence.
“I feel in my heart that things will change,” said Sandra Coccato, a 68-year-old small business owner, after she voted for Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo. “Lots of bad people are leaving, and lots of new, good people are entering. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Bolsonaro rose in prominence amid disgust with Brazil’s political system. In particular, many Brazilians are furious with the Workers’ Party for its role in the graft scheme, known as “Carwash” and Haddad struggled to build momentum with his promises of a return to the boom times by investing in health and education and reducing poverty.
Along the way, Bolsonaro also raised serious concerns that he will usher in a rollback of civil rights and a weakening of institutions in what remains a young democracy, especially since he has waxed nostalgic for Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship and said he would name military men to his Cabinet.
In a highly unusual moment, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Jose Dias Toffoli, read out part of the Constitution to reporters after he voted.
“The future president must respect institutions, must respect democracy, the rule of law, the judiciary branch, the national Congress and the legislative branch,” Toffoli said in remarks many took to be a rebuke of Bolsonaro and his more extreme positions.
The past few years in Brazil have been exceptionally turbulent. In 2016, then-President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party was impeached and removed from office on charges that many on the left felt were politically motivated. The economy suffered a two-year-long recession and is only beginning to emerge, with growth stagnant and unemployment high. And scores of politicians and executives have been jailed in the Carwash corruption investigation that uncovered a multi-billion-dollar scheme to trade public contracts and official favors for bribes and kickbacks.
That instability unleashed extreme anger with the political class but also revealed deep divisions in Brazilian society, and this campaign was the most polarized in decades. There were numerous reports of politically motivated violence, especially directed at gay people, whom Bolsonaro has disparaged. Bolsonaro himself was stabbed and almost died at a campaign event in early September.
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8a90b9e96b554330a0057a3b1a34f893 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/29/jair-bolsonaro-brazils-new-president-has-said-many-offensive-things/1804519002/ | Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro has said many offensive things | Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro has said many offensive things
Brazilian politics lurched to the far right Sunday after congressman Jair Bolsonaro won the presidency of Latin America’s largest nation. Bolsonaro, 63, is a former army captain who has appalled critics and thrilled supporters over his views on abortion, the environment, immigration, race, women and more.
He won 55.2% of votes cast with a promise to restore law and order and prioritize family values. Conservative Michel Temer has led Brazil for the last two years. His relatively brief tenure follows the impeachment of left wing President Dilma Rousseff.
Bolsonaro is a pro-gun, pro-torture, small-government politician who said he is "in favor of dictatorship." He has been charged with hate speech by Brazil's attorney general and was stabbed and nearly died while campaigning for the presidency.
Here's what else Bolsonaro has said:
Politics
"Since I was a bachelor at the time, I used the money to have sex with people."
Explaining in a 2018 Brazilian newspaper interview how he spent the official housing allowance money he received as a congressman.
"Elections won’t change anything in this country. It will only change on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn’t do: killing 30,000. If some innocent people die, that’s fine. In every war, innocent people die.
From a 1999 interview on Brazilian television.
Race
"I visited a quilombo (a settlement founded and organized by the descendants of slaves) and the least heavy afro-descendant weighed seven arrobas (about 230 pounds). They do nothing! They are not even good for procreation."
From a 2017 speech at Rio de Janeiro’s Hebraica Club, a community center.
Rape
"I wouldn’t rape you because you don’t deserve it."
From a 2014 exchange with congresswoman Maria do Rosario in Brazil's lower house. Rosario had claimed that Bolsonaro's remarks had encouraged rape. In a subsequent newspaper interview, Bolsonaro said Rosario was "not worth raping; she is very ugly."
Sexual orientation
"I would prefer my son to die in an accident than be gay."
From a 2011 interview with Playboy magazine. Bolsonaro said he "would be incapable of loving a homosexual son," adding: "If a gay couple came to live in my building, my property will lose value. If they walk around holding hands, kissing, it will lose value!"
Torture
"I’m in favor of torture, you know that. And the people are in favor as well."
From an appearance on Brazilian television in 1999.
Women
"Because women get more labor rights than men, meaning they get maternity leave, the employer prefers to hire men. I would not employ (a woman) with the same salary (of a man). But there are many women who are competent."
From an appearance on Brazilian television in 2016.
"A moment of weakness."
Describing in a speech this year that he had a daughter after four sons.
More:Jair Bolsonaro, stabbed while campaigning last month, wins Brazil presidency
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248543058dc22f7da76bf6d1080f44a8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/30/birthright-citizenship-explained-president-donald-trump-immigration/1817034002/ | US birthright citizenship explained: What is it, how many people benefit | US birthright citizenship explained: What is it, how many people benefit
President Donald Trump is trying to follow through on one of his campaign promises by ending birthright citizenship, a 150-year-old law established in the Constitution that grants U.S. citizenship to anybody born on U.S. soil.
The law has been the target of anti-immigration groups for years, who say it has been abused by undocumented immigrants and companies that peddle “birth tourism.” But birthright citizenship is now ingrained in multiple U.S. laws, the Constitution, and been upheld by the Supreme Court.
Trump’s announcement that he will end the practice through an executive order just days before the midterm elections is sure to draw immediate legal challenges that could lead all the way to the Supreme Court. For now, here’s a look at some of the key aspects of birthright citizenship.
What is birthright citizenship?
The principle that anybody born on U.S. soil becomes a U.S. citizen.
It was added to the Constitution in 1868 in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, which reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War, overriding the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision by the Supreme Court that had forbidden African-Americans from ever gaining citizenship and the Naturalization Act of 1790 that conferred citizenship only on free white persons "of good character."
In practice, it has become a bedrock of U.S. immigration law that has allowed anybody born in the U.S. to become citizens. Congress also has passed laws extending birthright citizenship to people born in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
How many people benefit?
Citizenship was granted to about 275,000 babies born to undocumented immigrant parents in 2014, representing about 7 percent of all births in the country that year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
Those numbers represented a drop from the peak years of illegal immigration, topped in 2006 when about 370,000 children were born to undocumented immigrants, or 9 percent of all births, according to the Pew estimate.
Data from Pew shows that 90 percent of undocumented immigrants who give birth in the U.S. arrived in the country more than two years before giving birth.
Those numbers do not include pregnant mothers who obtain visas to travel to the U.S. shortly before giving birth. Russians routinely fly to South Florida, and there is an entire industry in China designed to coach pregnant women on how to deal with U.S. immigration authorities so they can enter the United States for the sole purpose of giving birth to American citizens.
Mexicans also contribute a large share: 21 percent of births in Arizona in 2014 were to undocumented immigrants, and 25 percent of births in Texas that year were to undocumented immigrants, according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that opposes birthright citizenship and advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration.
Altogether, the center puts the total number of babies born through birth tourism at about 36,000 a year.
How many countries grant it?
Trump has said the U.S. is the only nation in the world to grant birthright citizenship. The Center for Immigration Studies identified at least 30 nations that grant birthright citizenship, however, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
John Skrentny, a sociologist at the University of California-San Diego, told Politifact in 2015 that birthright citizenship is a holdover from colonial times, when European countries granted lenient naturalization laws in order to conquer new lands. That's why the practice is almost exclusively used in the Western Hemisphere.
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64d5a7d609d36ad49166e1cfd2b0d6ba | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/31/afghan-army-helicopter-crash/1829982002/ | Afghan army helicopter crashes, killing all 25 on board | Afghan army helicopter crashes, killing all 25 on board
KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan army helicopter crashed Wednesday in bad weather in the western Farah province, killing all 25 people on board, including the deputy corps commander of the western zone, a provincial spokesman said.
Mohammad Naser Mehri, spokesman for the Farah governor, said the helicopter crashed around 9:10 a.m. (0440 GMT), shortly after taking off from the mountainous Anar Dara district heading toward the nearby Herat province. On board were the corps commander, Gen. Naimudullah Khalil, and two members of the Farah provincial council, including its chairman, Farid Bakhtawar.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber struck outside the country’s largest prison on the edge of the capital, Kabul, killing seven people, including prison workers and security personnel, said Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish. The attacker targeted a bus carrying prison workers, he said. The sprawling Pul-e-Charkhi prison houses hundreds of inmates, including scores of Taliban insurgents.
Abadullah Karimi, a prison official, said the attack occurred near the prison gate where visitors were waiting to pass a rigorous security check before entering.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
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5ffff366037318d3fd2946285ce9de1a | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/31/migrant-caravan-what-we-know-monday-trump-military-troops-us-mexico-border/1829374002/ | Central American migrant caravan: What we know | Central American migrant caravan: What we know
A caravan of Central American migrants continues its journey north Wednesday, having reached the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, far from the U.S.-Mexico border. The caravan remains a hot-button issue in the U.S., where President Donald Trump has seized on the mass of migrants as a midterm election campaign issues. Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced at least 5,200 active-duty U.S. troops will head to the border to join about 2,100 National Guardsmen there.
Here is what we know about the latest developments on the caravan and the administration’s plan to deal with the migrants as they approach the U.S.-Mexico border.
Where is the caravan?
On Tuesday, the migrants were still nearly 1,000 miles – and weeks away – from the nearest U.S.-Mexico border entry in McAllen, Texas. They had reached Juchitán de Zaragoza, a town of 75,000 people in the state of Oaxaca. From Juchitan, the caravan is expected to head to the town of Ixtepec, about 10 miles away.
When will the caravan arrive at the U.S. border?
That’s is anyone’s guess. The caravan started Oct. 12 with around 120 migrants gathered in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, near the Guatemala border. The migrants already have walked through Guatemala and are currently passing through southern Mexico.
Coordinators with Pueblo Sin Fronteras say the caravan operates with no hierarchy but rather by consensus. It is still more than 2,100 miles from Tijuana, which coordinators have suggested is is their ultimate destination.
How many people are in the caravan?
The Mexican government estimates there are fewer than 4,000 migrants walking, while those assisting them say there are 10,000. Mexican authorities have reported that at least 1,700 caravan migrants had applied for asylum or refugee status in their country, while nearly 200 are being offered aid after choosing to voluntarily return home.
Migrant caravan: Hondurans march to the United States
Where is the caravan coming from?
Most of the migrants are fleeing Honduras. They described deteriorating conditions – economic, political and crime-related – in their country under President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was re-elected in November a vote many Hondurans believe was marred by fraud, but was recognized by the United States.
There are also migrants from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Salvadoran Attorney General Douglas Meléndez Ruíz, speaking through a translator, told the "PBS NewsHour" on Tuesday night that violent gang activity leaves young people with few options.
"The youth don’t have job or education opportunities. So what happens is two things: one, becoming a gang member or, two, emigrate to other countries, mainly the U.S. So the corruption leads to both," he said.
What happens when they get to the border?
That’s unclear. Many of the migrants say they intend to apply for asylum when they get to the U.S.; they also have claimed asylum in Mexico. The Trump administration is reviewing options to restrict, or block outright, the migrants’ ability to enter the country, including denying them asylum.
During a similar caravan in the spring, migrants who reached the U.S. border applied for asylum. NInety-three percent passed the first test on the path toward asylum, demonstrating they had a "credible fear" of returning home.
By traveling in a group, the people who form these caravans hope to avoid the bandits, traffickers and other dangers that often await migrants on the journey.
What will the U.S. military troops do?
The troops are not expected to conduct law enforcement activities. Instead, they will provide backup support to Border Patrol agents manning the border.
On Friday, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan toured ports of entry south of San Diego and explained how additional troops would help secure the border.
But McAleenan, who described the oncoming caravan as a "law enforcement situation," conceded that despite the added manpower, his agency has no way to speed up the process by which migrants can legally request asylum.
CBP officers in riot gear on Monday morning blocked the Paso Del Norte international bridge in downtown El Paso in preparing for the migrant caravan, the El Paso Times reported. The show of force was part of "operational readiness for the potential impact of the caravan," Roger Maier, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said.
More:How will Mexico's next president treat migrant caravans? City's response may offer hint
More:Who is feeding the thousands of Central American migrants in caravan that Trump wants to stop?
More:Pentagon to deploy 5,000 active duty troops to southern border to halt migrant caravan
More:Nielsen: Trump considering 'every option' to stop migrant caravan from reaching the border
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cb797ddd028c5a35d55b47fd5b7a693d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/03/nigerian-army-deletes-tweet-trump-speech-justify-violence/1873056002/ | Nigerian military deletes tweet that appears to justify killing protesters with Trump's words | Nigerian military deletes tweet that appears to justify killing protesters with Trump's words
The Nigerian military has deleted a tweet which appeared to use President Donald Trump’s words to justify its use of lethal force against a group of protesters last week.
The army, which has come under fire for alleged human rights abuses, tweeted a video of Trump suggesting immigrants could be shot if they throw rocks at the U.S. military with the caption “Please Watch and Make your Deductions.”
The video is a clip from a speech Trump gave at the White House on Thursday in which he announced his administration was preparing to change the country's asylum practices in light of a migrant caravan fleeing danger in Central America that is headed for the United States.
"They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back," the president told reporters. "I told them to consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks like what they did to the Mexican military and police, I say consider it a rifle."
Trump later walked back his comments, saying migrants who throw stones at members of the military at the U.S. border will be arrested. He said he hoped "they won't have to fire" and disputed how his previous comments were perceived by the public.
"I didn't say shoot," Trump said. "I didn't say shoot. But if they do that with us they're gonna be arrested for a long time."
The Nigerian military tweet seemed to reference violence against protesters that occurred over the weekend. An Amnesty International report found that Nigerian soldiers and police killed at least 45 supporters and injured 122 others of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria over the course of two days. The group was holding a peaceful religious procession in the capital, Abuja.
Protesters demanded the release of their leader, Sheik Ibrahim El Zakzaky, whose detention was described as “unlawful and unconstitutional” by a federal court in December 2016, according to Amnesty International.
Nigeria Army spokesman John Agim told the New York Times that the army posted the video in reaction to the report accusing the army of using weapons against protesters.
“We released that video to say if President Trump can say that rocks are as good as a rifle, who is Amnesty International?” he told the newspaper. “What are they then saying? What did David use to kill Goliath? So a stone is a weapon.”
Both the tweet and the initial remarks by Trump have received widespread condemnation from human rights advocates. Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power called it "sickening."
The United States Embassy in Abuja has also called on the government of Nigeria to conduct an investigation into the deaths during the protests and prosecute those responsible.
Since taking office, Trump has moved to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Nigeria, providing training and security equipment to the country's military and approving the sale of twelve A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft, which former President Barack Obama froze due to the Nigerian military’s poor human rights records, according to Human Rights Watch.
“This episode makes it crystal clear that Trump’s rhetoric matters in a very concrete way,” the organization said in a statement. “His recent inflammatory statements, made days before the US midterm elections, have clearly been seized upon by some in the Nigerian military as an abusive new standard to which they would like to adhere.”
Contributing: Christal Hayes, USA TODAY
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
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1ab91794e9fbe1344d712be70bb67da8 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/04/migrant-caravan-donald-trump-honduras-immigration-southern-mexico-us-mexico-border-military-troops/1885039002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomworld-topstories | Migrant caravan: Weary, frustrated participants face long, dangerous road ahead | Migrant caravan: Weary, frustrated participants face long, dangerous road ahead
ISLA, Mexico – Thousands of migrants set out early on Sunday from this city of pineapple farms in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, but signs of division and frustration are emerging as the large group tries to get to the U.S.-Mexico border in the face of opposition from President Donald Trump and a dangerous trek ahead.
Debate over how far to travel each day – something decided at a nightly assembly – is among the issues that divide caravan migrants who are still frustrated on being misled over the weekend by promises of buses being provided to take them to Mexico City. The buses never materialized.
On Sunday, many migrants hesitated upon hitting the main highway, which transits an area rife with organized crime activities.
“It’s difficult because of the fear you feel, the uneasiness about it,” said Brian Delarta, 30, a Honduran heading north with his wife and two children, ages 6 and 3.
Like many, he tried to flag down a ride rather than walk a narrow, two-lane high with no shoulder into an area known as Tierra Blanca.
“We’re walking with fear,” he said. “That’s why we’re sticking together, staying united.”
Caravans have become attractive for migrants attempting to transit Mexico safely. But disunity surfaced on Saturday as the caravan splintered with more than half the group showing haste to reach the U.S. border, even if it meant going alone and abandoning the watchful eye of human rights observers and international organizations. The presence of such organizations is viewed as preventing crimes such as kidnap, rape and extortion from being committed against the large group of migrants. It’s also dissuaded police and immigration officials from cracking down on them.
Thousands of migrants
More than 5,000 migrants are reportedly moving through southern Mexico via caravan or in smaller groups, according to Mexico’s Interior Ministry estimates. The ministry said Saturday that 2,793 migrants have requested asylum in Mexico and about 500 have asked for help returning to their home countries.
More than half the participants Saturday pushed on toward the cities of Córdoba and Puebla – and even Mexico City – rather than rest and regroup in Isla, which is in the state of Veracruz. Participants impatient at the slow pace of progress continued traveling northward, are staying with the whatever vehicle they were traveling on to its final destination, according to migrants interviewed in Isla.
Tension boiled over on Friday night and Saturday morning in connection with broken promises from the Veracruz state government to bus the migrants to Mexico City, leaving them to walk through dangerous towns and rural areas. In a series of tweets on Sunday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it “was deeply dismayed due to the lack of protection” for migrants caused by the Veracruz state government offering Friday to bus the caravan to Mexico City – only to renege after the caravan participants had woken early and lined up for transportation that never arrived.
“This cancellation is having the result of fragmenting the caravan, whose unity was it main form of protection. A large number of people in the caravan are not located. … People are desperately climbing into private pickups. It’s not known if they belong to organized crime.”
The UN’s Twitter thread described Veracruz as “a state in which … it is reported in a regular manner that migrants are kidnapped and disappeared, often ending up in human trafficking.”
Broken promises of buses
On Friday evening, governor of Veracruz offered 160 buses to take the caravan to Mexico City, saying his state had many migrants already “begging for money in the streets” and calling it “a serious social problem and we don’t want it to increase.”
Gov. Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares reneged later, saying Mexico City was suffering water shortages and unprepared to receive so many migrants – something denied by people familiar with the preparations there, who say everything was ready.
“We were all ready to go,” said Melvin Serrano, 22, a Honduras native. “But the coordinators said the buses [on Saturday morning] weren’t coming and lot of people got frustrated and decided to move on ahead of us. They no longer believe in the leaders here. Because they’ve said twice that we were going to take buses and we end up walking.”
The caravan has covered more than 800 miles since leaving San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Oct. 12. At least three more smaller caravans have formed since their departure, seeing safety in numbers and a way to avoid paying human smugglers high fees for taking them to the United States.
But the caravan is showing signs of fraying – beset by sore feet, illnesses such as coughs and colds and, now, disunity. It comes as they climb into the central valley of Mexico, where the altitude tops 7,000 feet and temperatures drop at night – potentially leaving a population carrying few clothes exposed to the elements.
“The caravan has practically divided into two parts, two groups,” said Víctor Rosales, an El Salvador native pushing a stroller carrying his two-year-old son out of Isla toward the main highway north.
“We’ve been advancing pretty slowly. There are a lot of people traveling with children and there are people going on their own who want to advance much more quickly,” said the 31-year-old Rosales. “The majority of families who brought children stayed here.”Participants say caravans form spontaneously in Central America. A migrants’ advocacy organization Pueblo Sin Frontera has “accompanied” the caravan since its arrival in Mexico, helping coordinate the caravan’s path through Mexico and offering tips for taking a risky road.
Some 2,000 migrants spent the night in Isla, 300 miles southeast of Mexico City, according to Pueblo Sin Frontera, which is assisting the caravan. Another 1,000 migrants slept in a city further up the road called Loma Bonita and 1,500 made it to Puebla, just to the southeast of Mexico City.
Some media outlets have reported some caravan participants already arriving in Mexico City, where the local government has turned a sports park into a shelter for more than 5,000 people.
An official with a Mexico City effort known as “Humanitarian Bridge” to support caravan participants as they advance toward the national capital, said the idea was to provide the migrants an incentive to stay put in Mexico. The capital, the official said, offered more opportunities for migrants.
The Mexican government has offered caravan participants temporary work visas, health benefits and the opportunity to enroll their children in school. Many caravan participants declined the offer, saying their ultimate destination is the United States and the opportunity to earn dollars.
Trump rails against caravan
Meanwhile, Trump continues to rail against the caravan during midterm campaign rallies around the country leading up to Tuesday’s midterm elections, saying the migrants will not enter the United States. He’s also promised to send up to 15,000 troops to the border to help the U.S. Border Patrol secure the border.
“When you look at that caravan coming up, that’s not what we want,” he told a crowd of supporters in Pensacola, Fla., on Saturday night. “That’s not for us folks. Not for us.”
“We want people to come through our strong borders but they have to come in legally,” he said. “They have to come in absolutely through a process and they have to come in through merit.”
“We are determined to secure the southern border,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CBS’s Face the Nation host John Dickerson on Sunday.
More:Tracking Trump’s many threats, claims on immigration, caravan ahead of midterm elections
Migrants themselves remain just as determined to get to the U.S. border.
“We’re thinking positive,” said Melvin Serrano, 22, a Honduran, who joined to caravan the restaurant he was working at closed due to extortion demands. “We know it’s going to be complicated. It’s not going to be easy. But if we can arrive as a caravan, maybe they’ll let us through. We’ve crossed two borders so far,” he said.
Both Guatemala and Mexico tried to impede the caravan at certain points, but to little avail.
Other caravans continue forming in Central America as people flee poverty and violence afflicting three of the most dangerous countries in the hemisphere: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
More:Donald Trump hammers on immigration, caravan in final rallies before midterm election
More:Migrant caravan, with no promised buses, trudges onward through Veracruz, long way from U.S. border
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92b18fc50949c4cf26bb8916cb3e883c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/05/iran-foreign-minister-interview-us-nuclear-deal-mohammad-javad-zarif-trump-administration/1892350002/ | Read transcript of USA TODAY interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif | Read transcript of USA TODAY interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
A transcript of USA TODAY’s interview with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. USA TODAY foreign correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard interviewed Zarif in Antalya, a resort town on Turkey’s southwestern Mediterranean coast, where he was attending an economic conference. The transcript has been edited for clarity.
USA TODAY: President Donald Trump’s administration is re-imposing all the crushing economic penalties that were lifted by the Obama administration as part of the 2015 nuclear deal. Is Iran ready for this?
ZARIF: Well, the question is, is the international community ready for it because the current U.S. administration is essentially asking all members of the international community to violate international law. The U.S. is not, itself, only violating, it’s asking others to violate, too, because you know when we agreed [to] the nuclear deal it was enshrined in a United Nations Security Council resolution. And the Security Council resolution, which was actually not only voted for by the United States, but sponsored by the United States, by the previous administration. The U.S. government called on all countries to help implement the resolution and not to do anything that would prevent its implementation.
Now the United States, itself, is preventing the deal’s implementation and asking other countries not to engage in economic transactions with us, which means preventing the implementation of the resolution, because the objective of the resolution was to normalize Iran’s business relations with the rest of the world. So the United States is, in fact, punishing people and countries for observing international law and rewarding them for violating international law. Iran is used to U.S. sanctions. We’ve had them for almost 39 years. We haven’t had an easy history with the United States, but it did not start on November 4, 1979, [with the Iran hostage crisis]. It started long before that in 1953 [with a CIA -orchestrated plot that removed Iran’s democratically elected prime minister]. Nevertheless, we are used to measures that were never legal, but this time they are exceptionally illegal.
Iran has 7,000 years of history. We’ve lived through more difficult times. For eight years [the Iran-Iraq War], we lived through a war that was imposed on Iran and everybody supported the aggressor, [Iraq’s] Saddam Hussein. The United States supported it, the Soviet Union supported him, the Europeans supported him. The Soviets gave him MiG [jet] fighters, the French gave him Mirage [jet] fighters, the Brits gave him Chieftain tanks, the American gave him AWACS reconnaissance, the Germans gave him chemical weapons, the Saudis gave him $70 billion worth of assistance.
Everybody pitched in, Iran survived, and now, as at that time, we were isolated.
But the United States is isolated, too. You heard, yesterday [Nov. 2], the Europeans again made a statement against the sanctions. Whether the private businesses will go along, it’s a different story, but the international communities [are] standing against these sanctions.
USA TODAY: Iranians may not be panicking [because of the sanctions]. They are not desperate [or on the verge of revolution, as sometimes characterized by the Trump administration]. But they are weary. And they are having trouble buying some [essential goods]. What do you say to average Iranians who are caught in the middle who just want to get on with living their lives?
ZARIF: They have every right to. On the essential goods, I disagree. The government is providing subsidies so that the necessities for peoples’ lives will be provided at the previous prices , but nobody claims economic sanctions don’t hurt. Economic sanctions always hurt, but they don’t achieve the policy objectives they intend to achieve. Sometimes, they achieve exactly the opposite.
What I would say to the average Iranian is that for us, talking to the United States was a taboo. We broke that taboo, we spoke to the United States, we had the longest negotiations with the United States. We reached an agreement with the United States, not a two-page agreement, but a 150-page agreement. And the United States decided to walk away from it. It wasn’t our fault that the United States is not a reliable negotiating partner. It’s a problem that the international community is facing. And the U.S. has not just walked away from the Iran deal: It walked away from the Paris climate-change deal [in June 2017]. It walked away from an arms-control agreement with Russia [the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, or INF, in October]. It walked away from NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement, re-branded as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, in September]. It walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership [a 12-nation trade deal, in January 2017]. It walked away from UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in October 2017). It walked away from the Human Rights Council [a UN body, in June.] Basically, there are rare exceptions where it hasn’t walked away.
So this is the type of U.S. administration that we're dealing with and I'm sure the Iranian community, the Iranian population, while I understand that they are unhappy with the situation right now, can also understand that it's not the fault of the government, but it is because we have a rogue regime in Washington that doesn't live by any principle of international law.
USA TODAY: The Europeans have been insisting for months the nuclear deal can exist without U.S. participation. They’ve come up with a concept called a “special purpose vehicle.” This is a financial mechanism that somehow is going to ensure that trade between Europe and Iran carry on. Is this ultimately doomed to failure? After all, Washington is looking at this closely and saying whatever the Europeans come up with, we’re not going to allow the sanctions to be avoided.
ZARIF: Here's the problem: The United States is exercising its economic power beyond the normal acceptable limits. Whenever you do that, you risk backlash. Now, this backlash is starting. It doesn’t mean that [the special purpose vehicle] will succeed. There’s no guarantee that it will, but it’s a seed of a new international monetary system. In spite of the U.S.’s overwhelming influence on the current international monetary system, people are fed up with the United States telling them what to do and what not to do. Simply fed up, and now you see between many countries, we’re in Turkey right now, Turkey has financial arrangements with many countries, with us, Russia, with China, with Ukraine, with other countries in order to use our own currencies. We have that arrangement with many [nations].
The more the United States puts pressure on various countries, the so-called weaponization of U.S. economy or weaponization of the U.S. dollar, the more it does that, the more people around the world will take measures to avoid it. The special purpose vehicle is one measure specifically designed as the first step to deal with Iran’s situation, but it’s ultimate objective, as we’ve heard from the Europeans, is not simply to insulate trade between Iran and Europe, or between Iran and its third-party partners, but in fact [for Europe] to insulate themselves from the pressure it faces from the United States.
So that's the seed of a new international reality, which may not bear fruit soon enough to address our concern, but it will be the beginning of a new phase of international economic relations.
USA TODAY: The United States is issuing oil waivers to eight countries. Are there other back channels and ways that Iran can continue to sell oil despite the sanctions?
ZARIF: Trump and his administration said they would bring Iranian oil exports to zero [because of the sanctions]. We said that was a dream that will never come true. … We have seen we were right. They were bluffing about this attempt to prevent Iran from selling oil. They know what the impact on the international economy would be and they’ll never be able to do it, period. We have always had various ways of selling our oil and we will continue to have ways of selling our oil, and the United States will continue to fail to implement that policy.
But what the United States is promoting ... because when you do this, you promote corruption, you promote lack of transparency. People, countries, will continue to trade. What the United States is doing is preventing transparency, preventing open trade. If we cannot openly trade our commodities, if we cannot get what we want to get from open, transparent international transactions, we will not lie down and wait to die. We will do it. We will do it through whatever means that is necessary.
USA TODAY: The U.S. midterm elections: What is the best outcome for Iran? Is it as simple as Democratic gains are good for Iran because they could conceivably provide a check on Trump’s agenda?
ZARIF: In one sentence, we’re not pinning any hopes on [the midterm elections] or 2020. What distinguishes Iran from some U.S. clients in the region is we have survived not only in spite of the U.S. but against U.S. … Iran has been through Democratic and Republican administrations in the past. … All of them hostile. … We rely on ourselves.
USA TODAY: Trump has said he’s willing to hold talks with President Hassan Rouhani, without pre-conditions. Your government up until this point has made it quite clear that you’re not interested in doing that. Why? Isn’t it always more fruitful to have diplomacy, to have talks rather than to retreat from diplomacy?
ZARIF: It is always useful to have diplomacy. And we’re not just saying it, we exercise it. I sat down with [former Secretary of State John] Kerry after basically 37 years of no talks between Iran and United States at any level. And we did it at the highest diplomatic level. And then we spent two years, day and night, negotiating in one way or the other together, and we achieved positive results. We thought that that would show the value of diplomacy; that you cannot gain through any other means. But this administration does not believe in diplomacy. This administration believes in imposition.
For negotiations to succeed, for any negotiation to succeed, you do not need mutual trust. Because when you sit with an adversary or even a friend in international relations, you cannot simply trust; otherwise you don't need to negotiate with them. You will just tell them that I'll do this and that, you'll do this, and that will be end of the story. But you sit down, you write things on the paper, you sign them, or you have them adopted by the [UN] Security Council because you do not trust each other.
But while mutual trust is not a requirement to start negotiations, mutual respect is a requirement. And mutual respect starts with respecting yourself, respecting your signature, respecting your own word. You cannot say that two years down the road there is another administration, which might not respect the agreement of this administration. You cannot say that in a year-and-a-half, in two years, in three years, we will have a different administration. … And the fact of the matter is, usually in democracies, administrations that succeed each other are not friendly to the previous administration.
For somebody to simply say: ‘I don’t like it. I want to walk away from it because I believe I am powerful enough to do it. What is the guarantee that they won’t do it again with the next agreement? [Trump] says it’s because it wasn’t ratified by Congress, that it was a personal agreement between President Obama and the Iranian government. I’ll tell them that first of all it is included in the Security Council resolution. And the Security Council is not … although President Trump may consider that chamber as a room in the White House as he tried to do [in September, at the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York], but it’s not. It’s an official organ of the United Nations. Even putting [a] Security Council resolution aside. The United States just walked out of a treaty ratified by the Senate: The 1955 treaty between Iran and the U.S. on which the International Court of Justice ordered the United States to stop some of the sanctions. The U.S. simply walked out of it because it didn’t like the order of the court.
USA TODAY: If there was a different U.S. administration would Iran consider discussing for a new nuclear deal? Would Iran at least consider having exploratory discussions with the Trump administration?
ZARIF: We were in the same room, myself and [former] Secretary of State [Rex] Tillerson were in the same room and we did talk. But everybody else did too and everybody told him the JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal] is a reasonable document, that this nuclear deal is a reasonable document. And three of the countries that were sitting around the table were the closest allies of the United States and have been for the past 70 years or so. And they told him: ‘This is the best deal you can get.’ And he simply said: ‘I represent the president, who doesn’t think so. So going into a room and sitting down with a representative of this administration to explore what? And I’m not saying that we can’t negotiate with this administration, so we will negotiate with the next administration. There has to be the foundations for a fruitful dialogue, it doesn't have to be the next administration. It has to be a new approach, a different approach. I mean, we never negotiated in a positive atmosphere. Actually, Iran and the United States have a lot of differences. So we negotiated in an atmosphere of difference, of difference of view, of difference of interest, of difference of perspective. But we did reach an agreement on the topic that we were focusing on.
USA TODAY: Is there any contact between your administration and the Trump administration?
ZARIF: No.
USA TODAY: For the forseeable future?
ZARIF: I can see some discussion on the humanitarian issues of prisoners in the foreseeable future. But for the time being that would be limited to that.
USA TODAY: Saudi Arabia. Does Iran feel somewhat vindicated for its view of Saudi Arabia given happened with the killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi? Given indications that he was murdered either directly or indirectly with involvement from the Saudi state?
ZARIF: Unfortunately, a person has been murdered in a very brutal way. … Who provided $70 billion to Saddam Hussein? Who created the Taliban?Whose citizens were involved in the September 11 attacks? Who supported the Islamic State group in Syria? Who is bombing Yemeni civilians? Who abducted [Lebanon’s prime minister] and kept him in captivity for three weeks? … I mean, look at these realities. The United States has been not only making the wrong choice but the West in general has been sending the wrong signal. Basically, literally, telling the Saudi royal family that you can get away with murder, and they really believed it and they thought they could get away with murder, because unfortunately, they have been getting away with murder in Yemen.
USA TODAY: Iran blames the U.S. for exasperating all sorts of issues across the Middle East region. If you flip that over, the U.S. says that Iran is spending billions of dollars to fund global terrorism and its nuclear program and is generally sowing discord and confusion around the Middle East. Do you accept that Iran is complicit in some of these various theaters around the region? Because it seems like you have two countries that are accusing each other of the acting badly in the region in similar ways.
ZARIF: We don't need to accuse each other because look at the facts. Who was behind Al-Qaeda? Who created Al-Qaeda? Tell me who. Was it Iran or was it the U.S. in order to fight the Soviets? Who supported Saddam Hussein? Was it Iran? When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, who had been supporting him for the last for the preceding eight years? Who supported the referendum in Kurdistan? . … Who is instigating ethnic problems inside Syria by allowing Kurds to take over Arab land just as foot soldiers for the United States, for the U.S. to have a foothold in the region? Who is supporting the war in Yemen, the killing of innocent people? Are we bombing innocent people in Yemen?
The fact of the matter is, put allegations aside, the fact of the matter is Saudi aircraft, most of which are American built, are dropping bombs on school buses [in Yemen]. Now, you do that to anybody and they defend themselves. People, I mean, Yemenis have fought with well-equipped armies with stones long before the [1979] Iranian revolution, and they defeated them. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia did not read history. They thought they could defeat the Yemenis in three weeks. We offered to the United States, I offered to [former U.S. Secretary of State] John Kerry the possibility of a ceasefire as soon as it started. The Saudi’s rejected it and said that we can win militarily in three weeks time, just as they thought they could win militarily in Syria in three weeks time. Now it’s seven years in Syria, almost four years in Yemen. The bloodshed continues. … Now, in Syria, who is behind the Astana Process [plan to resolve Syria’s civil war]? Who is trying to bring the hostilities to an end? If anything, the United States is trying to prevent that. It is Iran, Russia, and Turkey working together against the U.S. and its allies. So just look at the realities. I’m not making accusations. I’m not calling this group a terrorist or the other group. I’m simply using the available information based on [UN] Security Council resolutions. I don’t sit in the Security Council. The Security Council, where the United States is a permanent member, considers [the Islamic State group], the Taliban, the Al Nusrah Front and Al-Qaeda to be [non-state] terrorist organizations. The rest are national designations. These four organizations are those who are considered globally, there is consensus about that. And the United States or its allies had either created them, financed them, armed them, continue to support them.
USA TODAY: Do you accept that your government finances terrorist groups in Syria, groups in Lebanon?
ZARIF: We are in Syria on the invitation of the Syrian government fighting terrorists who are on the United Nations list of terrorists, not on a self-serving U.S. list of terrorists. We are in Syria for the same reason we were in Iraqi Kurdistan. We went to Iraqi Kurdistan to help them defeat ISIS. We’ve been consistent. Those we support in Lebanon are a part of the Lebanese government. We actually support the Lebanese government. We don’t imprison the prime minister of Lebanon. The United States, instead of making all these self-serving allegations which are not self-serving really because they hurt U.S. interests, instead of making these allegations which serve only a few clients, Israel and Saudi Arabia, the United States should look at the reality. Who's bombing Yemen? Who's imprisoning another country's prime minister? Who is helping the Islamic State group? Who is helping Al Nusrah Front? Whose arms are in the hands of the Islamic State group? You've seen the reports that ISIS was using American arms provided by Saudi Arabia. These are the realities. These are not my allegations. These are realities. These groups are UN-designated groups, not US-designated groups. There is a difference, because the United States designates whoever it doesn't like as a terrorist. Let me tell you an example. It may be a historical example: In 1984, the United States removed Saddam Hussein as a state sponsor of terrorism. In the same year ,it put Iran on the list. You know why? Because the United States at that time wanted to go and support Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran. Don’t expect me to consider the United States’ list of terrorism designations to have any credibility if it removes Saddam Hussein from the list and puts Iran on the list.
USA TODAY: The Danish security services said they foiled a recent planned attack by an exiled Iranian dissident group. That came after a similar allegation in France. That followed another one in Finland. Iran disputes these allegations and claims they are politically motivated to put distance between Europe and Iran as they have tried to forge ahead with the nuclear deal without Washington. Why would France and Denmark do this? They have been very supportive of the nuclear deal.
ZARIF: We live in a world where complicated intelligence operations are the order of the day. What makes us different from those who make the allegations is that we've offered ... I spoke to the Danish foreign minister last night, and I offered to him that we are prepared to conduct a joint investigation, that we are prepared to send a high-level intelligence officer. Now, we're talking about facts and we're talking about allegations. Let's look at the facts first. France houses, provides safe haven to an organization that was on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations until 2012, and on the EU list of terrorist organizations until about the same time, MEK. Denmark provides safe haven and support to an organization and people who went on international television financed by Saudi Arabia operating out of London called Iran International claiming, not condoning, claiming responsibility for an operation that was conducted in Iran, an operation that the government of Denmark itself condemned as a terrorist operation.
These are facts on the ground. This gentleman in the Danish allegation is not an obscure face. It’s not an alleged situation. This gentleman in person went on TV live, claimed responsibility for an operation that the government of Denmark considers and condemned as a terrorist operation. You have an organization in Paris that has been on the list of U.S. as well as Europe as a terrorist organization. These are facts. Now you have allegations. You have allegations that somebody connected with Iran tried to assassinate this person. Somebody connected with Iran tried to put explosives in that meeting that they had in Paris. These are allegations. Those are facts. If anybody should provide the explanation, it would be France and Denmark. Why are they giving refuge, safe haven to known terrorists? Why are they not prosecuting them? What we have done is we have officially asked both France and the United States to prosecute these people. We have asked the United Kingdom to look at the fact that there is a television station that is financed by Saudi Arabia that broadcasts live terrorist claims and applauds it. These are facts. The way we have approached these facts is through the legal means of telling them that you need to deal with it. Now, you have allegations. Just look at the chronology. On the day that our president arrives in Switzerland, Mossad [Israel’s intelligence service] helps France and Belgium to foil that plot of a bomb attack against MEK. On the day Europe was supposed to announce the establishment of SPV [a financial mechanism intended to keep the nuclear deal alive between Iran and Europe], Denmark makes the announcement with the help of Mossad that they have arrested this person. What we do is we ask both of them let's look at this together. Let's investigate. Now, France has been forthcoming and that is why we are discussing this with France. I hope that Denmark will be forthcoming, because I offered this to the foreign minister of Denmark last night, and I hope that he will accept it. I hope that they will listen to serious intelligence, not to politically motivated intelligence.
USA TODAY: A lot of Americans may find it hard to accept that Iran’s government is anything but a bad actor, whether that’s regionally, whether that's on the world stage, or whether that's acting against your own people in terms of human rights abuses. What evidence can you point to proves that Iran is simply a normal country trying to look after its own interests, just like every other country?
ZARIF: I would ask them just to look at the facts. Why are we being blamed for situations where it’s U.S. allies that are responsible? That’s a fact. In our region, there is a great deal of suspicion about the United States. Anywhere you go you see that suspicion about U.S. interests, about U.S. intentions, objectives. I don't know how much of it is well-founded. I know that the perceptions about Iran in the United States are based on past experience, mostly the hostage crisis. That is taken also out of context of how the Iranians at that time perceived U.S. intentions in the context of what had happened in 1953 and in the coup d'état against the democratically elected government in Iran. One way to deal with that, one way to deal with that historical baggage that we all had was to start a new phase. I had hoped that the nuclear deal could prove that another type of interaction would be possible.
We had dealt with a difficult issue. Seemingly an issue that could not have been resolved diplomatically. Everybody was analyzing when this was would start between Iran and the United States. We reached a very good deal [the 2015 nuclear deal]. A very good deal that does not address all my concerns, doesn’t address all American concerns. That’s why it’s a good deal. If it addressed all my concerns, it would have been submission by the United States. Had it addressed all the U.S. concerns, it would have been submission by Iran. That's why it's not submission, it's a deal. I think and I thought that we could create a different example, to put aside the past. This administration proved that was not possible.
USA TODAY: Is there any way beyond this impasse between Iran and the United States?
ZARIF: We need a different approach. We don't need an administration that has a different approach. I believe human beings are able to change. This administration can have a different approach.
USA TODAY: Is Iran willing to essentially wait out the Trump administration to get a new nuclear deal?
ZARIF: We are willing to wait out this approach. The Trump administration can change its approach. We don't interfere in the domestic politics of the U.S. It's up to the Americans to decide who they want to have to elect as their leader. We want to see a different approach. We don't care who is behind that approach.
USA TODAY: Let’s say there’s a different president, is Iran willing to talk?
ZARIF: If there is a different approach.
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768742fad2966b8018549411b1dd0be1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/05/iran-united-states-president-donald-trump-nuclear-deal-foreign-minister-mohammad-javad-zarif/1859375002/ | Exclusive: Iran open to talks with US if Trump changes approach to nuclear deal, top diplomat says | Exclusive: Iran open to talks with US if Trump changes approach to nuclear deal, top diplomat says
ANTALYA, Turkey – As Iranians braced for the full restoration of economic sanctions imposed Monday by the Trump administration, their government signaled it would be open to talking to the United States about a new nuclear arms accord if Washington changes its approach to discussing the agreement it abandoned this year.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s top diplomat, told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview over the weekend that his government would consider diplomacy if there were "foundations for a fruitful dialogue" on the Iran nuclear reduction deal. In May, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the pact made with world powers and Iran. Other signatories stayed in.
"Mutual trust is not a requirement to start negotiations – mutual respect is a requirement," Zarif said in a wide-ranging, 45-minute interview.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on state TV in August that he would be willing to meet with Trump over the collapsing deal, but Rouhani questioned Trump’s "sincerity" in any theoretical talks. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton dismissed Rouhani’s comments as propaganda. The United States and Iran effectively broke off all diplomatic contact when Trump decided to exit the agreement.
The Trump "administration does not believe in diplomacy. It believes in imposition," Zarif said in the interview before the White House reimposed crushing economic sanctions on Iran’s energy and banking sectors Monday.
The administration said the sanctions, lifted under the deal Iran signed with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany when Barack Obama was president, are aimed at taking stronger steps to curb Tehran’s nuclear program, its missile activity and the billions of dollars it spends funding terrorism and sowing discord across the Middle East, from Syria to Yemen.
The White House did not respond to a request to address Zarif’s remarks. The State Department declined to comment. Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: "The Iranian regime has a choice. It can either do a 180-degree turn from its outlaw course of action and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy crumble. We hope a new agreement with Iran is possible."
The Trump administration sanctioned more than 700 Iranian banks, companies and individuals. It issued oil sanction waivers to China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. This will allow them to keep purchasing Iran's oil.
Rouhani said Monday his nation faces a "war situation" and vowed that Iran "will sell" its oil. Iran's military announced it will hold defense drills to prove its capabilities.
‘Horrible, one-sided Iran nuclear deal’
At a midterm elections campaign rally Sunday in Georgia, Trump said, "Iran’s been a much different country" after he withdrew "from the horrible, one-sided Iran nuclear deal." Trump said, "When I came in, it was just a question of how long would it take them to take over the whole Middle East."
An earlier round of Washington-administered penalties, cutting Iran’s access to U.S. dollars and its ability to trade certain commodities, took effect in August.
Though the U.S. government insisted the sanctions do not target humanitarian goods, basic items have become more expensive and some lifesaving medicines are unavailable amid a currency crash and international companies pulling out of Iran.
“Mutual respect starts with respecting yourself, with respecting your signature, respecting your own word," Zarif said, referring to various international agreements Trump abandoned or renegotiated since taking office.
Iran’s foreign minister spoke to USA TODAY in Antalya, a resort town on Turkey's southwestern Mediterranean coast, where he attended an economic conference. He addressed how Iran’s crippled economy will cope with the sanctions and attempts by European leaders to salvage the accord without Washington.
‘Iran is used to sanctions’
"The current U.S. administration is essentially asking all members of the international community to violate international law" by forcing them to break a deal that was enshrined in a United Nations Security Council resolution, Zarif said. "Iran is used to U.S. sanctions," he said. "We've had them for almost 39 years."
Zarif discussed Iran’s reputation as a bad actor in the Middle East region and its view of Saudi Arabia, the country's long-standing regional foe. The Saudis have come under intense scrutiny after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Riyadh state operatives in Istanbul.
More:Read transcript of USA TODAY interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
"Unfortunately, a person has been murdered in a very brutal way," Zarif said, accusing the Saudis of involvement in global turmoil. "Who created the Taliban? Whose citizens were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks? Who supported the Islamic State group in Syria? Who is bombing Yemeni civilians? Who abducted (Lebanon’s prime minister) and kept him in captivity for three weeks? … Look at all these realities."
Zarif said: "The United States has been not only making the wrong choice (by being a Saudi ally), but the West has been sending the wrong signal. Basically, literally, telling the Saudi royal family that you can get away with murder."
Zarif noted that Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear accord came over the objections of the United States’ closest allies – and despite repeated confirmation from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, that Iran complied with the accord's terms by reducing uranium enrichment.
"For somebody to simply say, 'I don’t like it. I want to walk away from it because I believe I am powerful enough to do it.' What is the guarantee that they won’t do that again in the next agreement?" Zarif said.
Return to negotiating table?
For U.S.-Iranian talks, "it doesn’t have to be a different administration, but it does require a different approach,” Zarif said.
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of Bourse & Bazaar, a media firm that supports business diplomacy between Europe and Iran, said, "Zarif doesn't say things unless he wants to signal where Iran's thinking is. ... What's significant is he is saying this on the eve of the sanctions being reapplied. ... Iran can't be seen to be begging the U.S. to come back into the deal, but it is clear there is an undercurrent in the diplomacy, which is that Iran is open to this if the U.S. shows itself to be reasonable about respecting" the nuclear deal.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, Pompeo said the United States supports the Iranian people, and the sanctions are directed at "ensuring that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s malign behavior is changed."
"That’s the goal, that’s the mission, and that’s what we will achieve on behalf of the president," said Pompeo, the United States' top diplomat.
Trump has said he is open to the idea of holding talks with Iran’s leadership, without preconditions, about the prospect of a new nuclear deal – an offer Iran has consistently rejected, relying on help from Europe to keep the nuclear deal alive.
"We reached an agreement with the United States, not a two-page agreement, but a 150-page agreement. And the United States decided to walk away from it," Zarif said.
He rattled off a litany of agreements the Trump administration has either withdrawn from or demanded be renegotiated, from the Paris climate change accords to the North American Free Trade Agreement to a landmark arms control agreement with Russia dating to the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
"It wasn’t our fault that the United States is not a reliable negotiating partner," Zarif said. "It’s a problem that the international community is facing."
Pressed to elaborate on what he meant by a "different approach," Zarif said: "I believe human beings can change. This administration can have a different approach."
His only concession: "We are willing to wait out this approach."
Other points from the interview:
How the sanctions affect Iran
Iran "is providing subsidies, so the necessities for people's lives will be provided at the previous prices, but nobody claims economic sanctions don't hurt. Economic sanctions always hurt, but they don't achieve the policy objectives they intend to achieve."
Whether Europe’s efforts to save the nuclear deal are doomed
"The ‘special purpose vehicle’ (a financial mechanism being devised by European officials to enable trade and banking services with Iran to continue despite the sanctions) is one measure specifically designed as the first step to deal with the Iranian situation, but its ultimate objective is not simply to insulate trade between Iran and Europe, or between Iran and its third-party partners, but in fact (for Europe) to insulate themselves from the pressure it faces from the United States."
Whether Iran's oil industry will be crippled
"Trump and his administration said they would bring Iranian oil exports to zero (because of the sanctions targeting its exports). We said that was a dream that will never come true. … We have now seen we were right (because the United States issued oil export waivers to eight countries that want to continue to buy Iran’s oil)."
How Iran views the midterms and U.S. politics
"We're not pinning any hopes on (the elections in Congress) or 2020 (when there will be a U.S. presidential election). What distinguishes Iran from some U.S. clients in the region is we have survived not only in spite of the U.S. but against U.S. … Iran has been through Democratic and Republican administrations in the past. … all of them hostile."
More:USA TODAY journalist got rare access last summer to report inside Iran
More:America’s contentious history in Iran leads to mix of anger, wonderment and weariness
Contributing: David Jackson and Deirdre Shesgreen
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6736584ae3b1083e6ce1659686cb60c7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/05/lion-air-crash-plane-had-airspeed-problem-4-flights/1889396002/ | Lion Air jet’s airspeed indicator malfunctioned on 4 flights | Lion Air jet’s airspeed indicator malfunctioned on 4 flights
JAKARTA, Indonesia – The “black box” data recorder from a crashed Lion Air jet shows its airspeed indicator malfunctioned on its last four flights, investigators said Monday, just hours after distraught relatives of victims confronted the airline’s co-founder at a meeting organized by officials.
National Transportation Safety Committee chairman Soerjanto Tjahjono said the problem was similar on each of the four flights, including the fatal flight on Oct. 29 in which the plane plunged into the Java Sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.
Erratic speed and altitude on the plane’s previous flight, from Denpasar on Bali to Jakarta, were widely reported and “when we opened the black box, yes indeed the technical problem was the airspeed or the speed of the plane,” Tjahjono told a news conference.
“Data from the black box showed that two flights before Denpasar-Jakarta also experienced the same problem,” he said. “In the black box there were four flights that experienced problems with the airspeed indicator.”
Indonesian investigators, the plane’s manufacturer, Boeing, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board are formulating a more specific inspection for Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes related to the airspeed problem, Tjahjono said.
“If there are urgent findings to be delivered, we will convey them to the operators and to the manufacturer,” he said.
Lion Air has said a technical problem with the jet was fixed after problems with the Bali to Jakarta flight.
Investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said investigators need to review maintenance records, including what problems were reported, what repairs were done including whether components were replaced, and how the repairs were tested before the 2-month-old plane was declared airworthy.
“Currently we are looking for the cause of problem,” he said “Whether the trouble came from its indicator, its measuring device or sensor, or a problem with its computer. This is what we do not know yet and we will find it out,” he said.
At the meeting with family members, Tjahjono had said that information downloaded from the jet’s flight data recorder was consistent with reports that the plane’s speed and altitude were erratic after takeoff on its final flight. Searchers are still trying to locate the cockpit voice recorder.
Rusdi Kirana, Lion Air’s co-founder, was not invited to speak by Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi, who moderated the meeting between relatives and the officials who are overseeing the search effort and accident investigation.
But he stood and bowed his head after angry and distraught family members demanded that Kirana, who with his brother Kusnan Kirana founded Lion Air in 1999, identify himself.
“Lion Air has failed,” said a man who identified himself as the father of passenger Shandy Johan Ramadhan, a prosecutor in a district on the island where the flight was headed.
“I want Mr. Rusdi Kirana and his team to pay attention,” he said. “Since the time of the crisis, I was never contacted by Lion Air. We lost our child, but there was no empathy that Lion Air showed to us.”
After the meeting, Kirana left in a hurry, avoiding questions from reporters.
Many families face an agonizing wait for missing relatives to be identified. Police medical experts have received nearly 140 body bags of human remains and have identified 14 victims.
Relatives questioned why the plane had been cleared to fly after suffering problems on its Bali to Jakarta flight on Oct. 28 that included a rapid descent after takeoff that terrified passengers.
“Lion Air said the problem was fixed, is it true the problem was cleared?” asked Bambang Sukandar, whose son was on the flight. “If not, technicians in charge must be responsible,” he said. “The law is absolute, because they have stated that the plane was cleared to take off again. These bad technicians must be processed by law to prevent plane accidents from continuing in Indonesia.”
Tjahjono said the large amount of small debris and the relatively small area the debris was found in showed the plane hit the water at a very high speed.
“The plane was intact when it plunged to the sea, it did not explode in the air, and the aircraft engine was running when it touched the water at high RPM – it’s marked by the loss of all blades of the turbine,” he said.
The Lion Air crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 on board.
Lion Air is one of Indonesia’s youngest airlines but has grown rapidly, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people.
More:Pilot on previous Lion Air flight requested to return to airport day before deadly crash
More:Indonesian searchers recover black box from crashed Lion Air jet, authorities say
More:Previous Lion Air flight passengers 'began to panic and vomit'
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720d7b4c7c3feefd99be0654ccb693de | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/14/donald-trump-reassigns-deputy-national-security-adviser-mira-ricardel/2006621002/ | President Trump reassigns Mira Ricardel, the deputy national security adviser the first lady wanted fired | President Trump reassigns Mira Ricardel, the deputy national security adviser the first lady wanted fired
WASHINGTON – The White House announced Tuesday that Mira Ricardel – the deputy national security adviser targeted by first lady Melania Trump – will step down from her current post and be moved to a different job in the administration.
Ricardel will "transition to a new role within the administration," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement Wednesday. "The president is grateful for Ms. Ricardel’s continued service to the American people and her steadfast pursuit of his national security priorities."
Sanders did not say what new job Ricardel would be given. A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment on Ricardel's ouster from her high-level position.
Melania Trump publicly pushed to have Ricardel fired on Tuesday, an unusual move for a first lady. Ricardel "no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House," the first lady's spokeswoman said in a statement to reporters Tuesday.
White House officials said Ricardel argued with Melania Trump's staff over airplane seating for the first lady's recent trip to Africa. They accused Ricardel, who did not go on the Africa trip, of spreading false stories about the incident.
National Security Adviser John Bolton appointed Ricardel as his deputy earlier this year, citing her expertise on defense policy, arms control, and other national security matters.
Officials said Ricardel has clashed with many staff members, not just the first lady.
Ricardel is one of the highest-ranking women in the administration.
First ladies often lobby their husbands on policy and personnel matters, but they usually do so quietly and in private.
Ricardel's role in the Trump administration began before he took office, when she worked on his transition team. Over the years, she has served in three different administrations and worked in the Commerce, State and Defense departments.
Contributing: David Jackson and Christal Hayes
More:Who is Mira Ricardel? First Lady Melania Trump wants the national security official fired
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11bcf76934d675db837a1f0369c95eff | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/19/federal-judge-blocks-trumps-new-asylum-rules-migrant-caravan/2060994002/ | Federal judge blocks Trump's new asylum rules: 'He may not rewrite the immigration laws' | Federal judge blocks Trump's new asylum rules: 'He may not rewrite the immigration laws'
A federal judge in San Francisco blocked new rules put into place by President Donald Trump that limit the ability of immigrants to request asylum, a legal blow to the administration’s efforts to curb legal immigration that opens the door for more members of the immigrant caravan to request asylum in the USA.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar ruled late Monday that the administration's new policy of cutting off asylum to immigrants who enter the country illegally appears to run afoul of U.S. law that specifically allows them to do so.
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act states that any foreigner who arrives in the USA, "whether or not at a designated port of arrival," may apply for asylum. On Nov. 9, Trump tried to overrule that law, signing a presidential proclamation ending the ability of immigrants to request asylum if they enter the country illegally.
“The rule barring asylum for immigrants who enter the country outside a port of entry irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress," wrote Tigar, who was appointed by President Barack Obama. "Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden.”
More:Immigrants' makeshift shelter in Tijuana nears capacity
More:Job fair kicks off for stranded immigrants facing long wait times in Tijuana
Tigar issued a temporary restraining order, meaning the administration is forbidden from enforcing the new rules until the court case proceeds Dec. 19.
In a joint statement Tuesday, the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice said it was “absurd” that a collection of advocacy groups were able to sue the federal government to stop the asylum policy. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four groups that help immigrants.
The statement did not announce an appeal, but it made clear that the administration will fight Tigar’s ruling in court.
"We look forward to continuing to defend the Executive Branch's legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border," wrote Homeland Security spokeswoman Katie Waldman and Justice spokesman Steven Stafford.
The White House later issued a statement saying the “decision will open the floodgates, inviting countless illegal aliens to pour into our country on the American taxpayer’s dime.”
“This temporary injunction is yet another example of activist judges imposing their open borders policy preferences, which are rejected by the overwhelming majority of the American people, and interfering with the executive branch’s authority to administer the immigration system in a manner that ensures the Nation’s safety, security, and the rule of law,” the statement said.
As that legal process moves along, the ruling could have an immediate impact on members of the immigrant caravan of mostly Central Americans who are gathering in Tijuana to try to enter the USA.
Asylum is a form of protection granted to people who fear persecution in their home countries based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or their political opinion. From 2000 to 2016, the United States granted asylum to an average of 26,651 foreigners a year, according to Department of Homeland Security data.
The number of asylum applications has skyrocketed in recent years, from 5,000 in 2008 to 97,000 in 2018, mostly fueled by Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries.
Trump signed his directive after a monthlong attack against the immigrant caravan. He took to the campaign trail to warn about a looming "invasion" from caravan members who were criminals, gang members and "Middle Easterners."
To justify the move, he relied on a law that allows a president to suspend entry of foreigners if he signs a proclamation declaring them "detrimental to the interests of the United States." That's the same rationale he used to implement his controversial travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries. The first two versions of the travel ban were shot down in court, but the third was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Department of Justice lawyers cited the travel ban decision in the asylum lawsuit.
"Consistent with this explanation, the proclamation imposes limited measures to ameliorate the crisis along the southern border," the lawyers wrote.
The ACLU argued that the president's powers over immigration are not absolute and do not allow him to unilaterally cut off asylum for entire groups of people.
“The Court’s ruling makes clear that the President cannot override Congress, and will save lives," said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU attorney who brought the suit.
In court filings, the ACLU argued that the asylum restrictions were a direct challenge to the clear intention of Congress when it passed the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. The group cited a 1951 United Nations treaty signed by the United States that says "refugees should not be penalized for their illegal entry" because extreme situations sometimes "require refugees to breach immigration rules."
The ACLU used the example of the immigrant caravan, which is massing by the thousands in Tijuana, Mexico. Many members have said they want to present themselves at ports of entry to make their asylum request, but the majority cannot do so because U.S. officials at the San Ysidro Port of Entry can process only about 100 requests a day.
That has left caravan members stranded in Tijuana, a "life-threatening" situation that leaves them vulnerable to criminals who seek to take advantage of them, the ACLU attorneys wrote.
"Asylum seekers turned back from a port of entry have been raped, beaten, and kidnapped and held for ransom by cartel members waiting outside," they wrote. "Asylum seekers who need to reach safety as quickly as possible thus often feel compelled to enter the United States along the border, outside of a port of entry, in order to escape their persecutors and the violence on Mexico’s side of the border."
A separate lawsuit filed in Washington challenges another move by the Trump administration to limit asylum claims. In that case, the ACLU and other groups say the administration overstepped its legal limits when it issued rules barring immigrants from qualifying for asylum based on domestic abuse or gang violence.
Lawyers argued that case Monday, and the judge could issue a ruling any day.
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2e1900c36fb6b6fe4ecb01f9c2373ece | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/22/indian-police-struggle-get-body-american-killed-north-sentinel/2085267002/ | Indian police struggle to get body of American killed by isolated tribe on North Sentinel island | Indian police struggle to get body of American killed by isolated tribe on North Sentinel island
NEW DELHI – Indian authorities were struggling Thursday to figure out how to recover the body of an American killed last week after wading ashore on an isolated island cut off from the modern world.
John Allen Chau was killed by North Sentinel islanders who apparently shot him with arrows and then buried his body on the beach, police say.
But even officials don’t travel to North Sentinel, where people live as their ancestors did thousands of years ago, and where outsiders are seen with suspicion and attacked.
“It’s a difficult proposition,” said Dependera Pathak, director-general of police on India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where North Sentinel is located. “We have to see what is possible, taking utmost care of the sensitivity of the group and the legal requirements.”
Police are consulting anthropologists, tribal welfare experts, forest experts and scholars to figure out a way to recover the body, he said.
While visits to the island are forbidden, Chau paid fishermen last week to take him to the island. He used a kayak to paddle to shore, bringing gifts including a football and fish.
He interacted with some of the tribesmen – who survive by hunting, fishing and collecting wild plants and are known for attacking anyone who comes near with bows and arrows and spears – until they became angry and shot an arrow at him. The 26-year-old adventurer and Christian missionary then swam back to the fishermen’s boat waiting at a safe distance.
More:American missionary, adventurer killed by tribe members on restricted and remote island
That night, he wrote about his visit and left his notes with the fishermen. He returned to North Sentinel the next day, Nov. 16.
What happened then isn’t known, but on the morning of the following day, the fishermen watched from the boat as tribesmen dragged Chau’s body along the beach and buried his remains.
Pathak said the seven people have been arrested for helping Chau, including five fishermen, a friend of Chau’s and a local tourist guide.
“It was a case of misdirected adventure,” Pathak said.
Chau was apparently shot and killed by arrows, but the cause of death can’t be confirmed until his body is recovered, Pathak said.
In an Instagram post, his family said it was mourning him as a “beloved son, brother, uncle and best friend to us.” The family also said it forgave his killers and called for the release of those who assisted him in his quest to reach the island.
“He ventured out on his own free will and his local contacts need not be persecuted for his own actions,” the family said.
Authorities say Chau arrived in the area on Oct. 16 and stayed on another island while he prepared to travel to North Sentinel. It was not his first time in the region: he had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 2015 and 2016. North Sentinel is part of the Andaman Islands and sits at the intersection of the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea.
With help from a friend, Chau hired fishermen for $325 to take him there on a boat, Pathak said.
After the fishermen realized Chau had been killed, they left for Port Blair, the capital of the island chain, where they broke the news to Chau’s friend, who in turn notified his family, Pathak said.
Police surveyed the island by air on Tuesday, and a team of police and forest department officials used a coast guard boat to travel there Wednesday and another trip was planned Thursday.
India has a very hands-off approach to the island’s people. Tribespeople killed two Indian fishermen in 2006 when their boat broke loose and drifted onto the shore, but Indian media reports say officials did not investigate or prosecute anyone in the deaths.
Chau had wanted ever since high school to go to North Sentinel to share Jesus with the indigenous people, said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Covenant Journey, a program that takes college students on tours of Israel to affirm their Christian faith. Chau went through that program in 2015.
“He didn’t go there for just adventure. I have no question it was to bring the gospel of Jesus to them,” Staver said.
Chau was carrying a Bible that was hit by an arrow when he was first shot at by the tribesmen on Nov. 15, according to notes Chau left with the fishermen that Staver said he has seen.
Staver said Chau’s last notes to his family on Nov. 16 told them that they might think he was crazy but that he felt it was worth it and asked that they not be angry if he was killed.
One of Chau’s friends said the American spent a month at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, before going to India.
“If he was taking a risk, he was very aware of it,” said Casey Prince, 39.
The two first met about six years ago, when Chau was a manager on the soccer team at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma. Chau and others on the team traveled to South Africa to volunteer at a soccer program Prince founded
Prince described him as easy to like and driven by twin passions: a love of the outdoors and fervent Christianity.
Before attending Oral Roberts University, Chau had lived in southwestern Washington state and went to Vancouver Christian High School. Phone messages left with relatives were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Survival International, an organization that works for the rights of tribal people, said the killing of the American should prompt Indian authorities to properly protect the lands of the Sentinelese.
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Associated Press writers Tim Sullivan in New Delhi, Gene Johnson and Phuong Le in Seattle, and Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.
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ee60036740b6ad0926b76a48836cf667 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/23/humans-didnt-cause-animal-extinctions-africa-science-study-says/2090400002/ | Humans didn't cause mass animal extinctions in Africa, like previously thought, study says | Humans didn't cause mass animal extinctions in Africa, like previously thought, study says
A new study disagrees with a longstanding view that humans wiped out large animals that previously occupied Africa.
In research published in the journal Science on Friday, authors analyzed records on megaherbivore communities in eastern Africa over seven million years. A megaherbivore is a mammal weighing more than 2,000 pounds. They concluded that extinctions of diverse mammal communities in Africa occurred before evidence of human hunting.
The animal decline might have instead been because of environmental factors such as declining atmospheric carbon dioxide and expansion of grasslands, researchers write.
"Low CO2 levels favor tropical grasses over trees, and as a consequence savannas became less woody and more open through time," John Rowan, a postdoctoral scientist from the University of Massachusetts Amherst who was involved in the research, said in a statement. "We know that many of the extinct megaherbivores fed on woody vegetation, so they seem to disappear alongside their food source."
Analysis suggests 28 lineages of megaherbivores went extinct, starting around 4.6 million years ago, according to lead author Tyler Faith, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah. Today, only elephants, hippopotamuses, giraffes and white and black rhinoceroses exist.
More:Buried? Feds to release major climate report day after Thanksgiving
More:Milu deer fighting its way out of extinction
University of Oxford, U.K., researchers cautioned that it isn't exactly clear when humans began affecting large animal populations, but there is strong evidence that human impact played a role in losses tens of thousands of years ago.
"The causes of megaherbivore decline are probably complex, multidimensional, and varied across time and space," René Bobe and Susana Carvalho wrote in the same issue of Science.
Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
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236f3018d66a762f52be82c97d213c23 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/23/jamal-khashoggi-congress-donald-trump-saudi-arabia/2091709002/ | Jamal Khashoggi: Lawmakers promise scrutiny of Trump's refusal to rebuke Saudis over journalist's murder | Jamal Khashoggi: Lawmakers promise scrutiny of Trump's refusal to rebuke Saudis over journalist's murder
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump may have poked a congressional bear with his repeated refusal to condemn Saudi Arabia for its role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Lawmakers have until now done little to push back against Trump's approach to foreign policy – standing aside as he launched a trade war, picked fights with long-time U.S. allies and embraced dictators from North Korea to Russia.
But the Khashoggi killing has riled Republicans and Democrats alike, sparking a nascent legislative rebellion that promises to escalate when Democrats take control of the House in January. A clash over Trump's handling of the journalist's murder – and his broader embrace of Saudi Arabia – could unfold as early as next week, when Congress is set to reconvene.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has requested a classified briefing from top Trump administration officials – including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis – on Khashoggi's murder as well as the U.S. support for a Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen.
In that closed-door session, tentatively set for next week, lawmakers are expected to grill Pompeo and Mattis about the CIA's reported conclusion that Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered Khashoggi's Oct. 2 murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The journalist had gone into the diplomatic facility to get documents he needed for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman.
Trump has publicly questioned the CIA's assessment, emphasizing the crown prince's denials even as the Saudi government's account of Khashoggi's fate has shifted. On Thursday, Trump said the crown prince "regretted the death more than I do" and reiterated his position that there was no conclusive evidence tying the crown prince to Khashoggi’s murder.
"The CIA doesn’t say they did it. They do point out certain things, and in pointing out those things, you can conclude that maybe he did or maybe he didn’t," the president told reporters in Florida, where he is spending Thanksgiving weekend with his family.
Earlier this week, Corker and Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, responded to Trump's equivocation by forcing the administration to determine whether the crown prince was responsible for Khashoggi's murder. The senators used a provision in the Magnitsky Act to trigger that assessment.
In the House, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who is poised to chair the Intelligence Committee come January, has also vowed to scrutinize Trump's statements downplaying the CIA's assessment, as well as the broader U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia.
"Certainly we will be delving further into the murder of Khashoggi, and I want to make sure that the committee is fully debriefed on it," Schiff told The Washington Post. "We will certainly want to examine what the intelligence community knows about the murder."
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who is likely to snag the gavel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when Democrats take control, has also promised to re-examine the U.S-Saudi alliance in the wake of Khashoggi's death.
"It’s unacceptable to murder a journalist," Engel said in a statement earlier this week. "When the United States is leading on the global stage, we can apply the sort of pressure that advances our values. Instead, the president is acting as though the United States is dependent on Saudi Arabia and not the other way around."
One element of the U.S-Saudi relationship that is ripe for legislative push back is the war in Yemen, a deadly conflict that has sparked the world's worst humanitarian disaster. The war is a proxy battle between Saudi Arabia and its archenemy in the region, Iran. The U.S. has supported a Saudi-led coalition that is trying to defeat the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who overthrew Yemen's previous government.
With millions of Yemeni civilians on the brink of starvation, the war has become increasingly controversial – and the U.S. role has grown increasingly unpopular on Capitol Hill. Khashoggi's murder has galvanized opponents to press for an end to the conflict.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont liberal, and Mike Lee, a Utah conservative, are hoping to force a vote on a war powers resolution that would force the Trump administration to end its military role in the conflict. That measure could come up for a vote as early as next week.
Khashoggi's murder "underscores how urgent it has become for the United States to redefine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Sanders said in a statement promising to push for a vote on his proposal.
It's not clear if that measure has enough support to pass the Senate. House Republican leaders blocked a similar measure in that chamber earlier this month, but proponents hope to revive it.
"Should they be able to pass it in the Senate, that would put pressure on the House once again," said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., a chief backer of the war powers measure. "Otherwise if that doesn’t happen, we will in the next Congress be in a better position to move it forward."
More:‘Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!’ Trump says US will stand by Saudis despite Khashoggi murder
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7e201fc1bd12576dee91f1f8d643d487 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/23/type-2-diabetes-patients-no-insulin-access-2030-study/2078076002/ | Lack of insulin could affect 40 million people with diabetes by 2030, study finds | Lack of insulin could affect 40 million people with diabetes by 2030, study finds
Insulin use is expected to rise 20 percent by 2030, and many people who need it for Type 2 diabetes won't have access, a study from Stanford University suggests.
Globally, 511 million adults are expected to have Type 2 diabetes in 12 years, up from 406 million this year, the study found. More than half of those people come from China, India and the U.S.
The study found 79 million people worldwide will require insulin to treat the disease, but only 38 million will have access.
"These estimates suggest that current levels of insulin access are highly inadequate compared to projected need, particularly in Africa and Asia, and more efforts should be devoted to overcoming this looming health challenge," Sanjay Basu, lead author on the study and an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford, said in a statement.
The study was published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
It used data from the International Diabetes Federation and 14 studies, which represent more than 60 percent of people with Type 2 diabetes worldwide.
Researchers are urging governments to make insulin more available and affordable to boost access, especially in Africa, where global access could lead to a seven-fold increase in insulin use, researchers said.
More:5 facts about diabetes, the third most common health condition in America
The study also predicts using a higher treatment target for A1C levels, a measure for tracking blood glucose, could reduce the number of people who need to use insulin.
Authors warn the results come with several caveats, most notably estimates don't consider how changes in diet and physical activity could affect how much insulin would be required.
In a commentary attached to the study, Hertzel Gerstein, an endocrinologist and professor at McMaster University in Canada, said predictions made in the study should be viewed with caution.
"They are based on mathematical models that are in turn based on othermathematical models," Gerstein said. "They are also based on various assumptions, including that Type 2 diabetes prevalence will continue to increase linearly."
A big concern with accessibility to insulin is high costs. In May, William T. Cefalu, the chief scientific, medical and mission officer with the American Diabetes Association, testified before the Senate to discussing insulin prices, which have tripled between 2002 and 2013.
"Many people with diabetes are experiencing increased burdens due to the high out-of-pocket costs for insulin, which can negatively impact their lives and health," Cefalu said in a statement in May.
More:Soaring insulin prices prompt insurance shift
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
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2534a7a5b1bce99ce5274d51bbee91bf | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/25/migrant-asylum-seekers-deal/2107726002/ | Incoming Mexican government says there is no 'Remain in Mexico' deal on migrants | Incoming Mexican government says there is no 'Remain in Mexico' deal on migrants
The incoming Mexican administration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said there is no deal with the United States that would allow asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are decided after reports indicated such an agreement had been reached.
Saturday, The Washington Post reported that a deal between the Trump and Obrador administrations would begin a "Remain in Mexico" policy to replace the system – sometimes derisively called "catch and release" – of permitting immigrants to remain in the USA while their cases move through the courts, a process that can take years.
"For now, we have agreed to this policy of Remain in Mexico," Mexico’s incoming interior minister, Olga Sanchez Cordero, said, according to the Post. She described the policy as a short-term solution, while the "medium- and long-term solution is that people don’t migrate."
Later, Sanchez said, "There is no agreement of any sort between the incoming Mexican government and the U.S. government." Sanchez, who will serve as Obrador's top domestic policy official when she takes office Dec. 1, did not explain the reason for the conflicting statements.
President Donald Trump had declared in tweets, "Migrants at the Southern Border will not be allowed into the United States until their claims are individually approved in court."
"We only will allow those who come into our Country legally. Other than that our very strong policy is Catch and Detain. No 'Releasing' into the U.S.," the president tweeted Saturday. He repeated his threat to close the U.S.-Mexican border if "necessary."
"There is no way that the United States will, after decades of abuse, put up with this costly and dangerous situation anymore!" he said.
Sanchez said the immigrants pose a major headache for Mexico.
"Mexico has open arms and everything, but imagine one caravan after another after another. That would also be a problem for us," she told the Post.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said Sunday he does not support a "Remain in Mexico" agreement "because that's not the law."
"They should be allowed to come in, seek asylum, that's the law," Cummings told "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd. Cummings is likely to chair the Oversight Committee when Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in January.
"I think we have a system that has worked for a long time. This president's come in, wants to change it, that's up to him. But now the Congress has got to stand up, and hopefully they will," Cummings said.
Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas-Austin, said on Twitter that officials from the United States and Mexico hope a "Remain in Mexico" policy could deter Central American immigrants fleeing gang violence and poverty from seeking asylum in the USA.
"This is the most recent move by the Trump admin to deter asylum seekers from coming to the border," Leutert wrote. "The idea is to take away the ability to live & work in the US while cases are processed. The hope is that asylum seekers will not want to live in MX for months/years and won't come."
She said the policy, if enacted, would probably cut the number of asylum seekers, but she cautioned that it could persuade others to try to illegally cross the border "undetected."
About 5,000 Central American immigrants have come to Tijuana, a city of 1.6 million people just across the border from California, as part of a caravan that traveled from Honduras, then through Guatemala and Mexico. Many of the immigrants fled poverty, corruption and violence in their home countries.
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum declared a humanitarian crisis Friday as Tijuana struggles to handle their arrival. Most of them are camped in a sports complex where churches and charities have been helping them with assistance from Mexican government agencies.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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04eac28c83bd203070ee30d280453d53 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/26/first-gene-edited-babies-claimed-china/2112299002/ | AP Exclusive: First gene-edited babies claimed in China | AP Exclusive: First gene-edited babies claimed in China
HONG KONG – A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies – twin girls born this month whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life.
If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics.
A U.S. scientist said he took part in the work in China, but this kind of gene editing is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes.
Many mainstream scientists think it’s too unsafe to try, and some denounced the Chinese report as human experimentation.
The researcher, He Jiankui of Shenzhen, said he altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy resulting thus far. He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have – an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus.
More:First attempt to permanently change a person's DNA to cure a disease shows promise
More:Gene editing technique could improve cancer treatments, other ailments
He said the parents involved declined to be identified or interviewed, and he would not say where they live or where the work was done.
There is no independent confirmation of He’s claim, and it has not been published in a journal, where it would be vetted by other experts. He revealed it Monday in Hong Kong to one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing that is set to begin Tuesday, and earlier in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press.
“I feel a strong responsibility that it’s not just to make a first, but also make it an example,” He told the AP. “Society will decide what to do next” in terms of allowing or forbidding such science.
Some scientists were astounded to hear of the claim and strongly condemned it.
It’s “unconscionable … an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible,” said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal.
“This is far too premature,” said Dr. Eric Topol, who heads the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California. “We’re dealing with the operating instructions of a human being. It’s a big deal.”
However, one famed geneticist, Harvard University’s George Church, defended attempting gene editing for HIV, which he called “a major and growing public health threat.”
“I think this is justifiable,” Church said of that goal.
In recent years scientists have discovered a relatively easy way to edit genes, the strands of DNA that govern the body. The tool, called CRISPR-cas9, makes it possible to operate on DNA to supply a needed gene or disable one that’s causing problems.
It’s only recently been tried in adults to treat deadly diseases, and the changes are confined to that person. Editing sperm, eggs or embryos is different – the changes can be inherited. In the U.S., it’s not allowed except for lab research. China outlaws human cloning but not specifically gene editing.
He Jiankui (HEH JEE’-an-qway), who goes by “JK,” studied at Rice and Stanford universities in the U.S. before returning to his homeland to open a lab at Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics companies.
The U.S. scientist who worked with him on this project after He returned to China was physics and bioengineering professor Michael Deem, who was his adviser at Rice in Houston. Deem also holds what he called “a small stake” in – and is on the scientific advisory boards of – He’s two companies.
The Chinese researcher said he practiced editing mice, monkey and human embryos in the lab for several years and has applied for patents on his methods.
He said he chose embryo gene editing for HIV because these infections are a big problem in China. He sought to disable a gene called CCR5 that forms a protein doorway that allows HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to enter a cell.
All of the men in the project had HIV and all of the women did not, but the gene editing was not aimed at preventing the small risk of transmission, He said. The fathers had their infections deeply suppressed by standard HIV medicines and there are simple ways to keep them from infecting offspring that do not involve altering genes.
Instead, the appeal was to offer couples affected by HIV a chance to have a child that might be protected from a similar fate.
He recruited couples through a Beijing-based AIDS advocacy group called Baihualin. Its leader, known by the pseudonym “Bai Hua,” told the AP that it’s not uncommon for people with HIV to lose jobs or have trouble getting medical care if their infections are revealed.
Here is how He described the work:
The gene editing occurred during IVF, or lab dish fertilization. First, sperm was “washed” to separate it from semen, the fluid where HIV can lurk. A single sperm was placed into a single egg to create an embryo. Then the gene editing tool was added.
When the embryos were 3 to 5 days old, a few cells were removed and checked for editing. Couples could choose whether to use edited or unedited embryos for pregnancy attempts. In all, 16 of 22 embryos were edited, and 11 embryos were used in six implant attempts before the twin pregnancy was achieved, He said.
Tests suggest that one twin had both copies of the intended gene altered and the other twin had just one altered, with no evidence of harm to other genes, He said. People with one copy of the gene can still get HIV, although some very limited research suggests their health might decline more slowly once they do.
Several scientists reviewed materials that He provided to the AP and said tests so far are insufficient to say the editing worked or to rule out harm.
They also noted evidence that the editing was incomplete and that at least one twin appears to be a patchwork of cells with various changes.
“It’s almost like not editing at all” if only some of certain cells were altered, because HIV infection can still occur, Church said.
Church and Musunuru questioned the decision to allow one of the embryos to be used in a pregnancy attempt, because the Chinese researchers said they knew in advance that both copies of the intended gene had not been altered.
“In that child, there really was almost nothing to be gained in terms of protection against HIV and yet you’re exposing that child to all the unknown safety risks,” Musunuru said.
The use of that embryo suggests that the researchers’ “main emphasis was on testing editing rather than avoiding this disease,” Church said.
Even if editing worked perfectly, people without normal CCR5 genes face higher risks of getting certain other viruses, such as West Nile, and of dying from the flu. Since there are many ways to prevent HIV infection and it’s very treatable if it occurs, those other medical risks are a concern, Musunuru said.
There also are questions about the way He said he proceeded. He gave official notice of his work long after he said he started it – on Nov. 8, on a Chinese registry of clinical trials.
It’s unclear whether participants fully understood the purpose and potential risks and benefits. For example, consent forms called the project an “AIDS vaccine development” program.
The Rice scientist, Deem, said he was present in China when potential participants gave their consent and that he “absolutely” thinks they were able to understand the risks.
Deem said he worked with He on vaccine research at Rice and considers the gene editing similar to a vaccine.
“That might be a layman’s way of describing it,” he said.
Both men are physics experts with no experience running human clinical trials.
The Chinese scientist, He, said he personally made the goals clear and told participants that embryo gene editing has never been tried before and carries risks. He said he also would provide insurance coverage for any children conceived through the project and plans medical follow-up until the children are 18 and longer if they agree once they’re adults.
Further pregnancy attempts are on hold until the safety of this one is analyzed and experts in the field weigh in, but participants were not told in advance that they might not have a chance to try what they signed up for once a “first” was achieved, He acknowledged. Free fertility treatment was part of the deal they were offered.
He sought and received approval for his project from Shenzhen Harmonicare Women’s and Children’s Hospital, which is not one of the four hospitals that He said provided embryos for his research or the pregnancy attempts.
Some staff at some of the other hospitals were kept in the dark about the nature of the research, which He and Deem said was done to keep some participants’ HIV infection from being disclosed.
“We think this is ethical,” said Lin Zhitong, a Harmonicare administrator who heads the ethics panel.
Any medical staff who handled samples that might contain HIV were aware, He said. An embryologist in He’s lab, Qin Jinzhou, confirmed to the AP that he did sperm washing and injected the gene editing tool in some of the pregnancy attempts.
The study participants are not ethicists, He said, but “are as much authorities on what is correct and what is wrong because it’s their life on the line.”
“I believe this is going to help the families and their children,” He said. If it causes unwanted side effects or harm, “I would feel the same pain as they do and it’s going to be my own responsibility.”
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AP Science Writer Christina Larson, AP videographer Emily Wang and AP translator Fu Ting contributed to this report from Beijing and Shenzhen, China.
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This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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0f784e73992e8a1e36b722aa56a5b767 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/27/emissions-gap-widens-carbon-dioxide-levels-increased-2017/2125879002/ | Global carbon emissions rose in 2017, dimming hopes to rein in climate change | Global carbon emissions rose in 2017, dimming hopes to rein in climate change
Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels shows few signs of letting up.
After three years of decline, the amount of carbon dioxide humans emitted increased in 2017, the United Nations announced in a report Tuesday.
Although "humanity is starting to tackle its fossil fuel addiction ... we’re not making the change (to renewable energy) nearly as quickly as we need to," said Joyce Msuya, deputy executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, which released the report.
More troublesome, it said, any hope of keeping global carbon emission levels under control in the decades ahead – to try to rein in runaway climate change – seems to be dwindling.
The U.N. warning comes four days after a report issued by the Trump administration – but disputed by the president himself – emphasized the dire threat human-caused global warming poses to the United States and its citizens.
Tuesday's report concerns what scientists and policymakers call the "emissions gap," the difference between the amount of carbon dioxide emitted now and the drastically lower levels needed to slow or stop global warming.
The U.N. report said that to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) this century, emissions need to drop by 55 percent by 2030 compared with 2017 levels.
In 2017, the world emitted about 53.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide. To limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius, annual emissions in 2030 would need to be 24 billion tons.
The emissions gap is 29 billion tons.
More:U.S. impacts of climate change intensify, federal report says
More:Climate change to trigger widespread hazards to Earth and humanity – many at the same time
Global warming is caused by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. The burning emits carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing temperatures to rise to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors.
"There is still a tremendous gap between words and deeds, between the targets agreed by governments worldwide to stabilize our climate and the measures to achieve these goals," said a statement from report co-author Gunnar Luderer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The goal of the landmark 2016 Paris Agreement was to keep the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The agreement says each country on Earth must determine, plan and report on what it's doing to slow global warming.
Except for the United States, every nation signed the agreement. Though the United States originally signed on, President Donald Trump announced last year that it would withdraw, claiming the agreement would hinder the economy.
Experts said that to slow or stop the unnatural warming of the planet, people must reduce burning fossil fuels and shift to renewable, carbon-free energy. "The level of drastic, large-scale action we urgently need has yet to been seen," the report said.
"The message is clear: We need to make an almost existential change," Msuya said. "The solutions are there, and we have no excuse. The key is to understand we are not powerless in the face of climate change. The science may be frightening, but the solutions are clear. The only missing link is leadership."
The report, which the United Nations has published annually for nine years, was written by an international team of leading scientists. It was released before global climate talks next week in Katowice, Poland.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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79f4143d443bc8980657cac0dbc91e75 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/27/john-allen-chau-body-india-island-researcher-made-trip-decades-ago/2123942002/ | Anthropologist visited remote North Sentinel tribe decades ago and survived | Anthropologist visited remote North Sentinel tribe decades ago and survived
An anthropologist who visited the remote Indian island where police say a remote tribe killed an American missionary using a bow and arrow formed a kind of relationship with the isolated Sentinelese people between the 1960s and '90s.
T.N. Pandit, now in his 80s, was a part of gift-giving expeditions to the hunter-gatherer tribes of the Andaman Islands decades ago, when the trips were sanctioned by police.
After several trips nearing the island bringing gifts including coconuts, Pandit and the team were able to make close contact with the isolated people. He told The New York Times in a previous interview that encounters weren't always friendly – describing how the tribespeople did show initial hostility, armed with bows and arrows.
But, he told BBC's World Service, his team always backed away when they were threatened by the people he believes are generally "peace-loving."
"I feel very sad for the death of this young man who came all the way from America," Pandit told the BBC about the death of John Allen Chau. "But he made a mistake. He had enough chance to save himself. But he persisted and paid with his life."
On a trip to the island in 1991, Pandit, who wrote about his experiences in a book, was able to make his first close contact with the Sentinelese after the tribespeople peacefully (and unusually) approached his group in the ocean, but he was never allowed on the island. In fact, during one of his seemingly peaceful encounters, he was approached by a tribesperson with a knife who warned him to stay off shore while giving away coconuts.
In years since that encounter, Indian government regulations have forbidden interaction with the Sentinelese, a people that likely have little resistance to diseases and could die from contact with outsiders.
Panet told The Indian Express that authorities wishing to recover Chau's body might have the most luck traveling there in the afternoon or evening when tribesmen usually aren't on the shore. He also said to stop the boat beyond shooting range of arrows and come bringing gifts of coconuts and iron.
More:American missionary killed by remote tribe leaves behind diary: 'I hope this isn't one of my last notes'
More:Many isolated tribes, like Sentinelese that killed American, still exist. Here’s where
The advocacy group Survival International has since warned police that it's in the best interest of the Sentinelese tribespeople and the authorities to "abandon efforts" to recover Chau's body.
On Saturday, police traveled about 437 yards away from the island's shore only to turn back after seeing tribesmen on the beach armed with bows and arrows.
Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
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155fd5075ab27ab50933f6d85fbf15b9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/29/global-warming-2018-4th-hottest-year-record/2154183002/ | U.N. says 2018 will be Earth's 4th-warmest year on record, predicts a 5- to 9-degree temperature rise this century | U.N. says 2018 will be Earth's 4th-warmest year on record, predicts a 5- to 9-degree temperature rise this century
The globe continued to bake in 2018, and still more warming is predicted in the decades to come.
2018 is expected to be the fourth-warmest year on record for the Earth, the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization said Thursday. Even more concerning, the organization predicts a 5- to 9-degree temperature rise by the end of the century.
Based on five separate data sets that keep track of the Earth's climate, the global average temperature for the first 10 months of 2018 was about 1.8 degrees above what it was in the late 1800s. That was when industry started to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“Greenhouse gas concentrations are once again at record levels and if the current trend continues we may see temperature increases of from 5.4 to 9 degrees by the end of the century, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
"If we exploit all known fossil fuel resources, the temperature rise will be considerably higher,” he said. Burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming it to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors.
Other telltale signs of climate change were seen in 2018, including rising sea levels, increasingly acidic oceans and widespread sea-ice and glacier melt. Extreme weather also left a trail of devastation on all continents.
The past four years – 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 – are the four warmest years since records began in 1850.
Overall, the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, with the top four in the past four years, according to the WMO.
La Nina, a natural cooling of the Pacific Ocean, suppressed temperatures a bit in 2018. If El Nino develops in 2019, as predicted, next year likely would be warmer than 2018.
More:Global carbon emissions rose in 2017, dimming hopes to rein in climate change
More:Extreme heat from climate change a 'medical emergency,' sickening tens of millions worldwide
More:Wildfires more likely with hot/dry weather combo, thanks to climate change
More:U.S. impacts of climate change are intensifying, federal report says
"We are not on track for the Paris Agreement target of keeping temperature increases to as close as possible to 2.7 degrees. Every fraction of a degree of warming matters," the WMO said.
The agreement says each country on Earth must determine, plan and report on what it's doing to slow global warming. Except for the United States, every nation signed the agreement. Though the U.S. originally signed on to the agreement, President Donald Trump announced in 2017 that it would withdraw, claiming the agreement would hinder the economy.
On Sunday, the annual U.N. climate conference opens in Poland, where negotiators will discuss how to ratchet up the fight against climate change and how to further implement the Paris Agreement.
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88999be0aa0cb1657ab106e0a9185944 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/29/lion-air-crash-indonesian-investigators-say-jet-airworthy/2146800002/ | Indonesian investigators say doomed Lion Air jet was ‘airworthy’ | Indonesian investigators say doomed Lion Air jet was ‘airworthy’
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Investigators of the Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air flight into the Java Sea say the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft was deemed airworthy when it made its final takeoff from Jakarta.
The officials summoned reporters Thursday to clarify comments made at a news conference the day before, where some media reported the investigators had said the plane was not airworthy when it took off.
“The NTSC and the Head of Aviation Communication never stated that Lion Air, Boeing 737-8 MAX aircraft registered PK-LQP, was not airworthy,” said investigator Nurcahyo Utomo.
The issue of airworthiness is crucial because of concerns over technical issues with the new Boeing 737 MAX that crashed and questions over the airline’s safety procedures.
Black box data showed the pilots fought against an automated system that pitched a Boeing jetliner’s nose down repeatedly because of a faulty sensor until they finally lost control. All 189 people aboard the flight between the Indonesian capital of Jakarta and a regional airport died in the disaster.
More:Lion Air jet that crashed into Java Sea was 'not airworthy,' Indonesian investigators say
More:Lion Air crash: Family of victim sues Boeing over alleged 737-Max design flaw
The National Transportation Safety Commission investigators were reporting this week on data from the aircraft’s black boxes. The preliminary report stopped short of placing blame for the crash – the investigation is continuing – but it provided new details about the pilots’ difficulties handling the highly automated jet and Lion Air’s inability to fix problems with sensors on the plane.
The investigators say the cockpit voice recorder, which is still missing and being searched for, is needed to understand what exactly caused the jet to plunge in the Java Sea just 11 minutes after takeoff.
On Wednesday, Utomo said the plane had experienced technical problems on four of the six flights before it crashed. On its penultimate flight from the Balinese capital of Denpasar to Jakarta, as during the final one, pilots struggled to prevent an automatic safety feature from forcing the nose of the aircraft down due to problems with its sensors.
The report released Wednesday noted that during the Denpasar to Jakarta flight a “stick shaker” activation – a warning signal to pilots – continued throughout the flight as the flight crew struggled and eventually succeeded to bring the aircraft under control.
“This condition is considered as an un-airworthy condition and the flight shall not be continued,” it said of that flight.
Utomo said that based on maintenance records, flight engineers had made repairs and run tests as needed.
“Based on the test results, the aircraft was declared airworthy, also when the plane departed from Jakarta, the aircraft was in airworthy condition,” he said.
Another investigator, Ony Suryo Wibowo, said there were special procedures to be followed when there are problems with an aircraft.
“But in principle, when the engineer has stated it’s airworthy, then it’s airworthy,” he said.
Wibowo said the pilot would make the final choice about whether or not to cancel or abort a flight, and the investigators were trying to understand how the pilot made his decision.
“When the plane is on the ground, the responsibility for airworthiness is on the engineer, and when the plane is in the air, the airworthiness is entirely in the pilot’s hands,” he said.
Experts say Boeing may need to change its new anti-stall system, perhaps developing an algorithm to disregard sensor readings that appear off-base.
The aircraft maker has a great deal at stake in defending its plane.
More than 200 MAX jets have been delivered to airlines around the world. Pilots at American Airlines and Southwest Airlines complained this month that they had not been given all information about the new automated anti-stall safety system on the MAX.
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631400360fc74b547fe5aed1cbc287b5 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/29/scientists-world-still-isnt-ready-gene-edited-babies/2146788002/ | Chinese government orders end to controversial research on gene-edited babies | Chinese government orders end to controversial research on gene-edited babies
The Chinese government has ordered a team of medical researchers to cease its controversial work in helping produce the world’s first gene-edited babies, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology Xu Nanping, says the AP, told state broadcaster CCTV that his ministry opposes the medical team’s research into producing twin girls. Xu said the government is opening an investigation, saying the medical team’s work was illegal and unacceptable.
The Chinese researcher, He Jiankui, said their team was able to alter DNA of the female twins in a way to avoid an infection from the AIDS virus. But other scientists around the world have criticized the Chinese medical researchers and are reviewing their findings.
He's experiment "crossed the line of morality and ethics adhered to by the academic community and was shocking and unacceptable," Xu said, according to the AP.
The Chinese government’s action comes the same week prominent scientists are meeting in Hong Kong for an international summit on gene editing, the ability to rewrite the code of life to try to correct or prevent diseases, the AP said.
Summit organizers on Thursday issued a strongly worded statement raising doubts and concerns about the “unexpected and deeply disturbing” claim of the Chinese medical researchers.
“We recommend an independent assessment to verify this claim and to ascertain whether the claimed DNA modifications have occurred,” read the statement. “Even if the modifications are verified, the procedure was irresponsible and failed to conform with international norms.”
“Its flaws include an inadequate medical indication, a poorly designed study protocol, a failure to meet ethical standards for protecting the welfare of research subjects, and a lack of transparency in the development, review, and conduct of the clinical procedures,” the statement concluded.
The AP reported that He was supposed to address the summit participants again on Thursday, but backed out and had left the conference. "I will remain in China, my home country, and cooperate fully with all inquiries about my work. My raw data will be made available for third party review,” said He in a statement issued by a spokesman.
In an interview with the BBC, Julian Savulescu, who is a medical ethics expert at the University of Oxford, called the experiment “monstrous”.
“Gene editing itself is experimental and is still associated with off-target mutations, capable of causing genetic problems early and later in life, including the development of cancer,” he said. “This experiment exposes healthy normal children to risks of gene editing for no real necessary benefit.”
The three-day summit ended Thursday. Among the sponsors: the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong, the Royal Society of the United Kingdom and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and U.S. National Academy Sciences.
More:Chinese scientist claiming gene-edited babies reports second pregnancy
More:Researcher, American professor behind baby gene editing claims now under investigation
More:Opinion: Gene editing babies is unethical, biochemist says
More:AP Exclusive: First gene-edited babies claimed in China
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8cf4adf85d994d3faedb23d018b9ee74 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/30/dutch-church-holds-non-stop-service-save-family-seeking-asylum/2160344002/ | A Dutch church is holding a non-stop service for migrant family seeking asylum, and they're still going | A Dutch church is holding a non-stop service for migrant family seeking asylum, and they're still going
Over 800 hours of worship, and counting.
A Dutch church has enlisted the support of volunteers to hold a non-stop service since late October to protect an Armenian family who fled political persecution in their home country.
Since immigration authorities are not allowed to act in religious spaces in the Netherlands, Bethel Church, located in the Hague, has taken in the Tamrazyan family.
Father Sasun, mother Anousche and children Hayarpi, 21; Warduhi, 19, and Seyran, 14 left Armenia nearly nine years ago after Sasun was the target of death threats for his political activism, according to the New York Times.
The church said it is their responsibility to encourage people to "strengthen and inspire each other."
"That fits in with the openness and hospitality of the church, which is meant for vulnerable people," an Oct. 26 statement on church's website said. "We do what we always do: a church service, but then continuously — just as the need to be supported is continuous."
The family declined to detail Sasun's activism, according to the Times.
Though a judge initially granted the family asylum, the Dutch government overturned the ruling. The family has also applied for a "children's pardon," under which families with kids who have lived in the country for over 5 years are allowed to remain in the Netherlands legally. Their application was denied.
The Dutch government has only granted 100 out of the 1,360 total children's pardons submitted since May 2013. Dutch immigration authorities did not respond to request for comment.
So the Tamrazyan family found refuge in churches. First, they stayed in a church in Katwijk, a coastal town in the Netherlands where they lived, according to the Times. When the church did not have the resources to sustain a continuous service, the Bethel Church invited the Tamrazyans to stay.
And, since 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 26, the prayers haven't stopped.
At first, church leaders took shifts organizing the services. Since then more than 450 faith leaders from around the country have volunteered to help, Axel Wicke, a pastor at the church, said.
"I had copied and pasted the liturgies of the last 10 years into one huge document and we just sang and prayed through that, until other pastors were found and took over," Wicke told the New York Times.
The Protestant Church in the Netherlands has encouraged people to visit the church and donate money and food.
Faith leaders have also given sermons in English, Dutch, French and German, and choirs and bands have performed at the church. Hayarpi, the Tamrazyan's eldest child, has been posting poems on her blog and tweeting to thank all who have supported her family.
"Incredibly happy and grateful to all volunteers," Hayarpi tweeted on November 15, translated from Dutch by Twitter.
This is not the first time "church asylum" has been used in the Netherlands. Amid rising anti-migrant sentiments, churches throughout the country have offered sanctuaries, like the first church where the Tamrazyan family stayed.
The church said the ultimate goal is "to create space and time to jointly search for a way out of this dilemma" by working with "responsible politicians" to find a permanent home for the Tamrazyans.
In September, the country's immigration authority drew ire after ordering the deportation of two children to Armenia who had grown up in the Netherlands and did not speak Armenian.
In the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is governed by a "sensitive locations" memo, which directs ICE agents not to detain people in schools, medical facilities, places of worship, religious ceremonies or public demonstrations. However, an undocumented man was deported to Mexico from Durham, North Carolina, Wednesday on his way to an immigration appointment from the church where he lived.
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a4362e4e4d9a33778d0cf14440bb15c7 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/30/saudi-crown-prince-gets-high-five-handshake-putin-g-20/2161307002/ | With viral handshake, Saudi crown prince gets warm welcome from Vladimir Putin at G-20 summit | With viral handshake, Saudi crown prince gets warm welcome from Vladimir Putin at G-20 summit
BUENOS AIRES – If Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was worried about getting the cold shoulder from world leaders at the G-20 summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave him a warm welcome.
In a moment that quickly went viral, Putin approached Mohammed bin Salman with a huge grin and held his hand high in the air. The crown prince responded by giving Putin a high-five that morphed into a handshake.
The gregarious greeting between the Russian president and the Saudi crown prince was like a car alarm blaring in a library, in a setting where handshakes and subtle body language are closely parsed for meaning. It lasted only seconds but Putin and the crown prince – both known for ruthlessly repressing their critics – seemed almost gleeful at their encounter as they took seats next to each other at the meeting.
The Saudi ruler’s presence at the summit is seen as a test of his future status on the world stage in the wake of the Jamal Khashoggi murder. The Washington Post columnist, a critic of the Saudi regime, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 by a team of Saudi operatives. The crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, has denied any involvement in the murder, but U.S. intelligence officials believe he directed the operation.
President Donald Trump could be seen briefly in the background the exchange, which played repeatedly on cable news, but it was unclear if he witnessed the greeting. He took his seat at another part of the large, circular table where world leaders are gathered.
Trump encountered the crown prince later Friday, and they exchanged pleasantries but had no substantive discussions, according to a White House pool report.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later had a private, hour-long meeting with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, at the hotel where the U.S. delegation is staying.
"It was a great meeting. Very productive," al-Jubeir told reporters after emerging from the session. "We discussed challenges in the region and the bilateral relationship and ways of moving it forward."
Asked if Pompeo talked to him about Khashoggi, al-Jubeir did not respond.
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2401059cd9eff27890a65ae13c940829 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/02/riot-paris-emmanuel-macron-tours-damaged-arc-de-triomphe/2183540002/ | Emmanuel Macron tours damaged Arc de Triomphe after Paris riots | Emmanuel Macron tours damaged Arc de Triomphe after Paris riots
PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron visited the graffiti-damaged Arc de Triomphe monument and held an emergency meeting on security Sunday, a day after central Paris was hit by France’s worst riot in a generation.
Macron, who was meeting with his prime minister and interior and environment ministers, has vowed that those responsible for the violence and the damages will pay for their actions. His tour of France’s beloved monument came just hours after he flew back from the G-20 summit in Argentina.
Macron paid tribute to the Unknown Soldier from World War I whose tomb is under the monument. He then headed to a nearby avenue where activists wearing yellow jackets had torched cars, smashed windows, looted stores and battled police on Saturday. There he met with firefighters, police officers and restaurant owners.
Paris police said Sunday that 133 people had been injured and 412 had been arrested as protesters trashed the streets of the capital during a demonstration Saturday against rising taxes and the high cost of living.
Charred cars, broken windows and downed fences from the riot littered many of the city’s most popular tourist areas on Sunday, including major avenues near the Arc de Triomphe, streets around the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue, and the Tuileries garden. Graffiti was also sprayed on many stores and buildings.
Activists wearing yellow jackets had torched cars, smashed windows, looted stores, threw rocks at police and tagged the Arc de Triomphe with multi-colored graffiti. French police responded with tear gas and water cannon, closing down dozens of streets and Metro stations as they tried to contain the riot.
Police said 23 police officers were among the injured and 378 of the arrested have been put in police custody.
By Sunday morning, Paris city employees were cleaning up the graffiti on the Arc de Triomphe. One slogan read: “Yellow jackets will triumph” – a reference to the fluorescent yellow vests that protesters wore to demand relief for France’s beleaguered workers.
Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said Saturday’s violence was due to extremists who hijacked the protest, people who came “to loot, break and hit police forces.” He was asked why thousands of French police couldn’t prevent the damage, especially to the Arc de Triomphe.
“Yesterday we made a choice … to protect people before material goods,” Griveaux told French broadcaster BFM TV.
It was the third straight weekend of clashes in Paris involving activists dressed in the yellow vests of a new protest movement and France’s worst urban violence since at least 2005. The scene in Paris contrasted sharply with protests elsewhere in France on Saturday that were mostly peaceful.
“It’s difficult to reach the end of the month. People work and pay a lot of taxes and we are fed up,” said Rabah Mendez, a protester marched peacefully Saturday in Paris.
The demonstrators say Macron’s government does not care about the problems of ordinary people. The grassroots protests began Nov. 17 with motorists upset over a fuel tax hike but now involve a broad range of demands related to France’s high cost of living.
Macron, speaking in Buenos Aires before he flew home, welcomed the views of the protesters but said there was no place for violence in public discourse.
“(Violence) has nothing to do with the peaceful expression of a legitimate anger” and “no cause justifies” attacks on police or pillaging stores and burning buildings, Macron said.
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a1c32a12a32048efbbabe9e34f511cd0 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/03/jamal-khashoggi-cia-gina-haspel/2199162002/ | CIA director Gina Haspel to brief lawmakers on Jamal Khashoggi killing | CIA director Gina Haspel to brief lawmakers on Jamal Khashoggi killing
WASHINGTON – CIA Director Gina Haspel is headed to Capitol Hill to brief Senate leaders Tuesday on the slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as senators weigh their next steps in possibly punishing the longtime Middle East ally over the killing.
The CIA director is set to meet Republican and Democratic Senate leaders, as well as the chairmen and ranking senators on the key national security committees. The visit was confirmed by a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private session.
Senators from both parties were upset that Haspel was not part of a recent closed-door session with top administration officials about Khashoggi’s killing and the U.S. response. The briefing included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two months ago. The journalist, who had lived for a time in the U.S. and wrote for The Washington Post, had been critical of the Saudi regime. He was killed in what U.S. officials have described as an elaborate plot as he visited the consulate for marriage paperwork.
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, must have at least known of the plot, but President Donald Trump has equivocated over who was to blame.
Echoing Trump’s public comments on the killing, Pompeo said after last week’s briefing with senators that there was “no direct reporting” connecting the crown prince to the murder.
More:Lawmakers livid after CIA director Gina Haspel a no-show for closed-door briefing on Khashoggi murder
Related:Saudi Arabia claims journalist Jamal Khashoggi died after ‘brawl’ inside consulate
Questioned about Haspel’s absence from last week’s briefing, a CIA spokesman said that the director had already briefed congressional leaders on Khashoggi and that no one was keeping her away. In another explanation, a White House official said Haspel decided not to participate in part because of frustration with lawmakers leaking classified intelligence from such settings. The White House official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
Senators, in a rare rebuke of Trump’s handling of the situation, moved immediately after the briefing to punish Saudi Arabia by advancing legislation to curtail U.S. backing for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
They overwhelmingly approved the resolution, 63-37, on an unexpectedly wide bipartisan vote. The resolution is pending further action as key senators push for an end to U.S. support for the Saudi war against Houthi rebels. Human rights groups say it is indiscriminately leading to civilian deaths.
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1c60bb9fe358fdc8b08137c8d2469f46 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/04/france-yellow-jacket-tax-protests/2200073002/ | France suspends fuel-tax hike that led to violent 'Yellow Jacket' protests | France suspends fuel-tax hike that led to violent 'Yellow Jacket' protests
After more than two weeks of protests that have led to blocked roads, torched cars, looting and chaos in some of Paris' wealthiest neighborhoods, France's prime minister suspended Tuesday a fuel-tax hike that triggered the demonstrations.
Edouard Philippe temporarily called off plans to increase a diesel tax. The move, announced live on TV, is aimed at easing tensions after more than 100 people were injured and 400 arrested in Paris over the weekend amid "Yellow Jacket" protests.
At least three people have died since the unrest started on Nov. 17 and the Arc de Triomphe, one of France's most revered landmarks, was damaged last weekend
Philippe said the suspension of a new tax on fuel would last for six months and that planned increases to gas and electricity costs would also be temporary halted.
The civil unrest is some of the most serious in France since 1968, when massive demonstrations and wide-scale general strikes brought the nation's economy to a halt.
French demonstrators have been wearing the yellow vests as a symbol of motorists' discontent with the government's tax policy. But the "Yellow Jacket" movement has expanded far beyond fuel to include demands that French President Emmanuel Macron alter his approach to housing, health, education and the public purse.
The movement has attracted supporters from across the political spectrum, although it has resonated particularly with France's working class.
Since winning France's presidency last year, Macron has won praise for seeking to reform France's labor laws but he has faced opposition from protesters who feel that the changes favor the wealthy. He recently slashed a longstanding wealth tax.
More:Emmanuel Macron tours damaged Arc de Triomphe after Paris riots
More:Paris protesters damage Arc de Triomphe monument in worst riot in a decade; Macron vows action
"Yellow Jacket" supporters claim that Macron's government does not care about ordinary people or France's growing social inequalities. Macron, 40, regarded as politically centrist, was elected on a pro-business platform.
"It’s a first step, but we will not settle for a crumb," said Benjamin Cauchy, one of the leaders of the protests, according to comments carried by the Associated Press.
Opinion polls show that as the protests take place around 26% of French people hold a favorable opinion of Macron. His main rival, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally – formerly National Front – has grown more popular amid the unrest.
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14b7fca8e38ef10645c119acf10154a1 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/04/gene-editing-world-health-organization-seeks-clear-guidelines/2200110002/ | WHO seeks 'clear guidelines' on gene editing after claims of babies with altered DNA | WHO seeks 'clear guidelines' on gene editing after claims of babies with altered DNA
The head of the World Health Organization said gene editing "cannot be done without clear guidelines" after a Chinese researcher claimed to lead a team that altered the DNA of twin babies.
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said WHO is putting together a team of experts to consider the impacts of gene editing, reports The Associated Press.
"Gene editing may have unintended consequences, this is uncharted water and it has to be taken seriously," said Tedros, according to Reuters.
Last week, Chinese researcher He Jiankui told the AP he altered the DNA of twin girls to resist HIV and the AIDS virus.
He, an associate professor at Shenzhen's Southern University of Science and Technology in China, faces an investigation by the school. No other journal or independent source has verified his claims, made to an organizer of an international gene editing conference in Hong Kong.
Several studies have suggested gene editing techniques could lead to breakthroughs in how diseases such as cancer are treated. In July, researchers with the University of California San Francisco claimed to develop a method of reprogramming immune cells to seek out and destroy cancer cells.
More:U.S. scientists fix disease genes in human embryos for 1st time
However, the practice still raises ethical and safety concerns, such as access to the technology and expansion beyond using gene editing to fight or cure disease, said the National Human Genome Research Institute.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
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e76da99396100fda9a0438f535313cf9 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/04/sen-lindsey-graham-says-saudi-prince-complicit-jamal-khashoggi-murder-senate-trump-administration/2199104002/ | Saudi crown prince ‘complicit’ in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, key GOP senator says after CIA briefing | Saudi crown prince ‘complicit’ in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, key GOP senator says after CIA briefing
WASHINGTON – Key Senate leaders emerged from a briefing Tuesday with CIA Director Gina Haspel convinced that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was complicit in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and that Congress must respond by penalizing the kingdom.
“He murdered him, no question in my mind,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said of Mohammed bin Salman’s role in the killing. “The crown prince directed the murder and was kept apprised of the situation all the way through.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who had demanded the Haspel briefing, called the crown prince a "wrecking ball" and suggested the evidence against the prince, known by his initials MBS, was overwhelming.
"I think he’s complicit to the highest level possible,” Graham said.
"There’s not a smoking gun. There’s a smoking saw," Graham added, a reference to reports that the Saudi operatives who killed Khashoggi used a bone saw to dismember him after the murder. Khashoggi, a U.S. resident, was killed inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 by a team of Saudi operatives.
Only about 10 senators were allowed to attend the briefing with Haspel on Tuesday. They included the chairmen and ranking members of four key committees, including the Senate intelligence panel and the Armed Services Committee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were also in the closed-door, classified session.
McConnell and Schumer left the briefing without talking to reporters.
But Corker, Graham and others said the only question now was how Congress would respond. Graham said he would push legislation to sanction the crown prince and other high-level Saudis involved in Khashoggi’s killing and halt arms sales to the regime. He said he also wanted the Senate to pass a non-binding resolution naming Mohammed as responsible for Khashoggi’s death.
"Saudi Arabia's a strategic ally and the relationship is worth saving, but not at all costs," Graham said. "We’ll do more damage to our standing in the world by ignoring MBS" than by confronting him.
Lawmakers were infuriated last week when Haspel declined to brief lawmakers on Khashoggi's murder. Senators wanted to hear directly from Haspel because the CIA has reportedly concluded that the Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi’s murder. But the Saudi government has denied that, and President Donald Trump has cast doubt on the CIA's conclusions.
Last week, the Trump administration dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to brief lawmakers, and both men played down the U.S. intelligence on Mohammed's involvement.
Pompeo told reporters last week there was "no direct reporting connecting" the crown prince to the killing, and Mattis said there was no "smoking gun" implicating him.
Graham suggested the two cabinet secretaries were being "willfully blind" in their statements because the Trump administration does not want to confront Saudi Arabia over the murder.
"I’m going to assume they’re being good soldiers," the South Carolina Republican said. "I think the reason they don’t draw the conclusion that he’s complicit is because the administration doesn’t want to go down that road, not because there’s not evidence."
Haspel's closed-door briefing came as the Senate considers legislation that would force the Trump administration to end its military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which has caused a horrific humanitarian disaster. That measure could become the main vehicle for penalizing Saudi Arabia's role in Khashoggi's death.
Corker said he is trying to craft an amendment to that proposal that would directly rebuke Saudi Arabia and the crown prince for Khashoggi's murder, separating the murder from the war in Yemen. He said combining the two issues would make it more complicated to win broad bipartisan support.
"Temperatures are up by all involved," Corker said. "So figuring out something that can pass overwhelmingly still is going to be difficult."
But Democrats have signaled they want the war in Yemen to be part of any legislative response.
"The United States must have a strong response to both the war in Yemen as well as the killing of a United States permanent resident and journalist," said Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Last week, senators voted 63-to-37 to advance the Yemen measure, a direct rebuke to President Trump's warm embrace of Saudi Arabia. The timing for further debate and final passage is unclear.
Pompeo has warned lawmakers against ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, where the U.S. is providing logistical assistance, munitions, and intelligence to the Saudi-led coalition against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
"Abandoning Yemen would do immense damage to U.S. national security interests and those of our Middle Eastern allies and partners," the secretary of state told lawmakers last week, according to excerpts released by the State Department.
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4350bf53fee30804d23d01a6a12e0ddf | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/04/ukraine-says-cargo-traffic-has-resumed-sea-azov/2200078002/ | Ukraine says cargo traffic has resumed in Sea of Azov following standoff with Russia | Ukraine says cargo traffic has resumed in Sea of Azov following standoff with Russia
KIEV, Ukraine – Ukraine says traffic has resumed to and from its ports on the Sea of Azov following a standoff with Russia.
Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said merchant ships were moving through the Kerch Strait linking the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea.
Omelyan, who accused Russia last week of blocking the Strait for Ukrainian cargoes, said Tuesday that the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol have been “partially unblocked” thanks to a “stern international response.”
Russia, however, insisted that it never blocked vessels from traveling through the Kerch Strait and that any possible disruptions were linked to bad weather.
Relations between the two neighbors have been further strained over a Nov. 25 incident in which the Russian coast guard fired upon and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews.
More:Ukraine calls up reservists amid tensions with Russia
More:Ukraine bars visits from Russian men as tensions rise
More:Russia fires on Ukrainian vessels in Black Sea; 2 wounded
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49ac9f56ba09f807a9e62830993c881c | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/05/carbon-dioxide-earths-atmosphere-soars-highest-level-millions-years/2215508002/ | Emissions of carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere reach record high | Emissions of carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere reach record high
Emissions of carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming – reached an all-time high in 2018, scientists announced Wednesday.
Global carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere "are now higher than they’ve been for millions of years," said Rob Jackson of the Global Carbon Project and Stanford University, one of the study's co-authors.
The emissions rose for a second year after little to no growth from 2014 to 2016. The increase in global carbon emissions, the largest jump in seven years, puts the goals from the landmark Paris Agreement in jeopardy.
“We thought, perhaps hoped, emissions had peaked a few years ago,” Jackson said in a statement. “After two years of renewed growth, that was wishful thinking.”
The United States, which had been steadily decreasing its carbon pollution, showed a significant rise in emissions for the first time since 2013.
The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into Earth's atmosphere and oceans. The extra CO2 caused temperatures to rise to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors, scientists report. In the past 20 years, the world's temperature has risen about two-thirds of a degree Fahrenheit, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Fossil fuels account for 81 percent of the world's energy use, despite the rise in renewable energy sources.
According to the study, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel sources – about 90 percent of all emissions from human activities – will reach a record high of more than 37 billion tons in 2018, an increase of 2.7 percent over emissions output in 2017.
“Emissions need to peak and rapidly decrease to address climate change," said Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia. "With this year’s growth in emissions, it looks like the peak is not yet in sight.
“To limit global warming to the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, CO2 emissions would need to decline by 50 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by around 2050," she said. "We are a long way from this and much more needs to be done, because if countries stick to the commitments they have already made, we are on track to see 3 degrees Celsius of global warming."
More:Global carbon emissions rose in 2017, dimming hopes to rein in climate change
More:UN says 2018 will be Earth's 4th-warmest year on record
The Global Carbon Project, which spearheaded the report, is an international scientific collaboration of academics, governments and industry that tracks greenhouse gas emissions.
The record high of carbon emissions in 2018 was driven by a solid growth in coal use for the second year in a row, along with sustained growth in oil and gas use. The planet’s five biggest emitters in 2018 are China, the USA, India, Russia and Japan.
This year, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached its highest level in recorded history, at 410 parts per million. CO2 levels were about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s.
The study was published simultaneously Wednesday in the journals Nature, Earth System Science Data and Environmental Research Letters.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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5644cdd55609474b5f0a8718a4c6a89d | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/05/first-baby-born-using-uterus-transplant-dead-donor/2212444002/ | First baby born using uterus transplant from dead donor, doctors say | First baby born using uterus transplant from dead donor, doctors say
The world's first baby has been born using a uterus transplanted from a deceased donor, according to Brazilian doctors.
The healthy baby girl was delivered last December to a 32-year-old woman who wasn't born with a uterus. The mother used the uterus of a 45-year-old woman who had three previous children and died of a stroke, as detailed in a case report published in the medical journal Lancet on Tuesday.
The uterus from the deceased donor was implanted during a 10-hour operation. After seven months, doctors implanted an embryo made using in-vitro fertilization to spur the pregnancy.
The baby was delivered by way of a cesarean section on Dec. 15, 2017 at around 36 weeks into the pregnancy. She was 5.6 pounds. Doctors then removed the uterus so the mother would not have to continue anti-rejection medications.
Nearly a year later, the mother and baby are both healthy.
There have been several successful pregnancies using uterus transplants from live donors, since the procedure was pioneered by Swedish doctor Mats Brannstrom about five years ago. The possibility of successful pregnancies using deceased donors expands the possibilities for fertility.
In 2016, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic attempted a pregnancy using a uterus from a deceased donor, but it failed because of an infection.
“The Brazilian group has proven that using deceased donors is a viable option,” said the Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Tommaso Falcone. “It may give us a bigger supply of organs than we thought were possible.”
More:Same-sex couple carries same 'miracle' baby in what may be fertility world first
The Brazilian researchers are planning two more uterus transplants as part of the study.
“There are still lots of things we don’t understand about pregnancies, like how embryos implant,” said Dr. Cesar Diaz, who co-authored an accompanying commentary in the journal. “These transplants will help us understand implantation and every stage of pregnancy.”
More:The psychology of infertility
More:Hospitals know how to protect mothers. They just aren’t doing it.
Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
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6e2299684650a7eb1c0a3db7919d51e5 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/05/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-unprecedented-rate-off-charts/2216223002/ | Greenland's ice sheet melt has 'gone into overdrive' and is now 'off the charts' | Greenland's ice sheet melt has 'gone into overdrive' and is now 'off the charts'
The icy realm of Greenland is getting hot under the collar.
The melting of Greenland's massive ice sheet has now accelerated, scientists announced Wednesday, and shows no signs of slowing down, according to a new study.
"Melting of the Greenland ice sheet has gone into overdrive," said Luke Trusel, a glaciologist at Rowan University and lead author of the study. "Greenland melt is adding to sea level more than any time during the last three and a half centuries, if not thousands of years," he said.
Ice loss from Greenland is the single largest contributor to global sea-level rise, which is predicted to lead to inundation of low-lying islands and coastal cities around the world over the next several decades and centuries.
Conservative estimates of global sea level rise are currently an additional half a meter or more by 2100 , according to German news agency Deutsche Welle (DW). Alun Hubbard, a professor of glaciology at Aberystwyth University in Wales, told DW that even an increase of half a meter is "a terrible disaster for humanity – especially coastal regions of the planet."
"From a historical perspective, today's melt rates are off the charts, and this study provides the evidence to prove this" said co-author Sarah Das, a glaciologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Specifically, the melt rate over the past two decades was 33 percent higher than the 20th-century average, and 50 percent higher than in the pre-industrial era before the mid-1800s.
According to the journal Nature, in just one year (2012), enough ice melted into water to fill up about 240 million Olympic swimming pools.
To determine how much Greenland ice has melted in past centuries, the research team used a drill the size of a traffic light pole to extract ice cores from the ice sheet itself. Ice cores contain records of past melt intensity, allowing researchers to extend their records back to the 1650s.
Researchers say the rate of melting at their drilling sites is representative of trends across Greenland.
Another expert – NASA oceanographer Josh Willis – told Mashable that "it's one more nail in the coffin of climate denial." Willis, who was not involved in the research, added "I don’t know how many more nails we need."
The study was published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature.
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33bc10b2f37bfca6a8d97447c4d24062 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/07/nikki-haley-donald-trumps-harsh-north-korea-rhetoric-leverage/2237944002/ | 'I can’t stop him.' UN ambassador Nikki Haley used Trump's harsh North Korea rhetoric as leverage | 'I can’t stop him.' UN ambassador Nikki Haley used Trump's harsh North Korea rhetoric as leverage
WASHINGTON – Outgoing United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said she used President Donald Trump's unpredictability and bellicose rhetoric to persuade other world leaders they had to crack down on North Korea or the U.S. would take military action.
"I bounced it off the president’s rhetoric, saying, 'I can’t stop him. I’m not gonna be able to control him. We’ve gotta get this done,'" Haley told The Atlantic magazine in an interview published Friday.
"The president had really strengthened his rhetoric at that point," Haley said, presumably referring to Trump's threat to unleash “fire and fury” on the North Korean regime.
"All of that was very, very helpful, because I would say, 'You know, I don’t know what he’s gonna do,'" she recounted. " ... I said, 'He very well could use military action.'”
Haley said she knew Trump's harsh rhetoric was a ruse. Asked if the U.S. was really close to war with North Korea, she said no.
"Having said that, if they had launched something, if it had come near the U.S., the president totally would have. But at the time, were we gonna instigate something? No," she told The Atlantic.
Haley said other world leaders seemed uncertain about Trump's true intentions, which strengthened her hand as she pressed the U.N. to pass a series of crippling sanctions against North Korea. Trump and others have said those sanctions helped drive the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, to the negotiating table, although the results of the ongoing U.S.-North Korea talks remain unclear.
In the interview, Haley also went further than Trump and other administration officials have in naming Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, as culpable for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
"It’s his government," Haley said of the kingdom's de facto ruler. "His government did this, and so he technically is responsible."
After CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed key senators on the case earlier this week, lawmakers said they were convinced the crown prince ordered Khashoggi's killing. Trump has cast doubt on the CIA's assessment, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has insisted there is no direct evidence implicating the crown prince.
Haley said the U.S. cannot give Saudi Arabia a "pass" for the murder, although she did not say what steps the administration should take against the regime.
" ... We can’t give them a pass. We can’t," she said. "We can’t condone it, we can’t ever say it’s OK, we can’t ever support thuggish behavior, and we have to say that."
Pressed on her own political ambitions, the former South Carolina governor insisted she was not contemplating a presidential run.
"You know what I think about? I think about sleeping in," she said. "I think about binge watching TV for a day, I think about not having the stress level that I’ve had for the last eight years."
More:From 'fire and fury' to potential peace: How Trump and Kim's relationship evolved
More:President Trump's UN ambassador pick Heather Nauert could face tough Senate confirmation fight
More:Saudi crown prince ‘complicit’ in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, key GOP senator says after CIA briefing
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d812854dcb99414f5e5a56b9dd1df83f | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/07/trump-administration-immigration-green-cards-immigrants/2204107002/ | How new Trump rules could leave tens of thousands of immigrants ineligible for green cards | How new Trump rules could leave tens of thousands of immigrants ineligible for green cards
MIAMI – When Hurricane Michael tore through north Florida in October, it completely destroyed a car wash business owned by a Palestinian immigrant. The Category 4 storm also caused significant damage to his house and an office building that he owns in Panama City.
The man, a legal U.S. resident who first entered the U.S. in 1997 on a Fulbright Scholarship, did not request assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as so many of his neighbors did. He also thinks he’s going to decline a low-interest loan from the Small Business Administration to rebuild his car wash, a standard process for victims of natural disasters.
The reason: He is trying to finalize his asylum application and become a legal permanent resident, and he’s worried that accepting any kind of government assistance will jeopardize his petitions in light of new rules being proposed by the Trump administration.
The new “public charge” rules would limit the amount of federal assistance immigrants can receive if they want to permanently settle in the U.S., but the complicated rules have caused widespread confusion about what kind of benefits, if any, immigrants can accept.
That has left the Palestinian immigrant and his family – his wife, and their two U.S.-born children – in a legal limbo that millions of immigrants around the country are trying to sort out.
“I feel that I’ve served this country. I’m investing in my country. I’ve called it my country since the day I arrived here,” said the man, whose name is being withheld because he fears for the safety of his relatives in Palestine. “But I’m afraid to accept anything. The only assistance I ever received was the (Fulbright Scholarship). If I applied to FEMA for help, would that be considered government assistance? That’s why I’m hesitant, I’m scared to even explore that.”
The roughly 6,000 members of the migrant caravan camped out in Tijuana have been frequent targets of late for President Donald Trump, but the upcoming changes to the public charge rule will have far broader implications, affecting at least 380,000 legal immigrants a year. That represents at least 40 percent of the legal immigrants who have gone through the background checks and all the paperwork necessary each year to qualify for permanent legal residence.
Monday marks the final day that the public can comment on the proposed rule change, which had drawn more than 139,000 comments as of Thursday, a number that immigration experts say is a record high for the Department of Homeland Security. After that deadline passes, the administration may implement the final rule at any time.
‘Public charge’ rules
The idea of requiring immigrants to be self-sufficient is not a new one, as "public charge" rules go back to the colonial years of the United States. But the Trump administration is trying to redefine the way immigrants are screened, in a way that's never been used before.
The current definition, which was signed into law in the 1990s by President Bill Clinton, defines a public charge as someone who is "primarily dependent" on government assistance. That means receiving cash assistance that makes up more than half of their income, including Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), state and local cash assistance and long-term medical care at government expense.
The new regulations would also consider "non-cash" benefits, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as food stamps), Section 8 housing and rental assistance, Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits, and Medicaid in non-emergency situations.
The new rules also grant broad discretion to immigration officials to determine whether someone may become a public charge in the future. Those officials could weigh a wide variety of "negative factors" including the applicants' age (specifically if an applicant is under 18 or over 61), health, education, work skills, income and family status.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says the changes are necessary to ensure that immigrants do not take advantage of a generous U.S. system. The administration estimates the change will affect about 380,000 applications annually, saving U.S. taxpayers $2.3 billion a year by denying immigrants who the government believes may one day need public benefits.
But immigrant advocates say those figures vastly underestimate how many applications for legal permanent residency can be affected, and the harmful impacts the new rules will have on recent immigrants, who are already vulnerable and sometimes need help to get started in the U.S.
The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute completed an analysis in November that looked at the 940,000 people who received green cards in 2017 and how they would have fared under the Trump administration's new rules. The report found that 650,000 would have been at risk of denial for having one negative factor, and 400,000 had at least two negative factors. Only 39 percent of green card recipients in 2017 would have passed the most important "positive factor" in the new rules – having an income higher than 250 percent of the poverty line.
"This proposed rule may, in the long run, impose the kind of steep cuts to family admissions that the Trump administration has consistently championed but could not accomplish via legislation," the authors concluded in the report.
Adding to those concerns are fears that immigrants will be too scared to accept government benefits, even if they're legally entitled to them. That's why it's not just immigration advocates that oppose the new rules. The rule has been opposed by hundreds of organizations that focus on affordable housing, health care, education, disabilities, the elderly and LGBTQ rights.
Sonya Schwartz, senior health policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center, said that widespread opposition to the proposed rules explains why so many people have signed on to a government website to comment on them.
"It's because people get what the administration is trying to do here," she said. "People are mad. They're remembering how their families started here, or their friends' families started here, and they want to let it be known that they don't agree."
In support of rule changes
The proposal has drawn praise from supporters of the president and groups that want to restrict legal immigration.
Steven Camarota, the director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, did his own analysis of the green card population and found that 63 percent of households headed by a noncitizen used at least one welfare program, compared to 35 percent of households headed by a native-born citizen. That's why the center supports the new public charge rule, and other measures to shift the U.S. from a primarily family-based immigration system to a merit-based one.
"Either we select future immigrants unlikely to need welfare by emphasizing skills and education, or we accept the welfare burden that comes from our current immigration system," Camarota said.
It remains unclear exactly when the new rules would go into effect. The Department of Homeland Security must read all the comments, respond to some and make any required changes.
Ronald Levin, a law professor who studies administrative law at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said that process usually takes weeks or months. But since the Trump administration has "developed a reputation for cutting corners on administrative law requirements," Levin said there's no telling when the rules will become official.
"The professional staffs do understand the legal requirements, but they are sometimes overruled at the political level," he said. "If cool heads prevail, the public charge rule will not go into effect right after the comment period ends."
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7eb41f5c8e0eb4437fb2aa7fe4a2ca76 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/09/meng-arrest-angry-china-summons-us-ambassador-over-case-tech-exec/2257457002/ | Angry China summons US ambassador over arrest of tech exec Meng Wanzhou | Angry China summons US ambassador over arrest of tech exec Meng Wanzhou
The Chinese foreign ministry on Sunday summoned U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad to protest the detention of a senior tech executive by the Canadian authorities "at the unreasonable behest of the United States."
Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng demanded the release of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, who is accused by U.S. officials of attempting to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Meng, 46, was bound for Mexico when she was detained while changing planes in Vancouver, Canada, more than a week ago. Huawei is China's largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. Meng is also the daughter of the company's founder.
A Canadian bail hearing for Meng that began last week will continue Monday. Prosecutor John Gibb-Carsley wants her held without bail, saying she faces fraud charges in the U.S. that could result in a prison sentence of 30 years.
Authorities say Huawei did business with Iran through a shell company in Hong Kong. Gibb-Carsley said Meng has been aware of the charges and avoided the U.S. for months – despite allowing her son to attend school in Boston.
"What the United States has done severely violates Chinese citizen's legitimate rights and interests, and is vile in nature," Le said in a statement through the state-run Xinhua news agency. "China will respond further according to the U.S. side's actions."
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On Saturday, Canadian Ambassador John McCallum was similarly summoned and chastised. The legal imbroglio has led to some unease among Canadian businesses and political leaders. But Roland Paris, a former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, took to Twitter to warn that threats from China would be fruitless.
"Perhaps because the Chinese state controls its judicial system, Beijing sometimes has difficulty understanding or believing that courts can be independent in a rule-of-law country," Paris tweeted. "There’s no point in pressuring the Canadian government. Judges will decide."
Paris also had a suggestion for Chinese business leaders: "If you’re a high-profile Chinese tech executive targeted by the US in an escalating hegemonic struggle between the US and China, please do not change planes in Canada. Thank you."
China Daily, an English-language newspaper seen as the government mouthpiece, claimed Meng's arrest proved "the U.S. is trying to do whatever it can to contain Huawei’s expansion in the world." The publication was dismissive of what it called a "Cold War mentality" toward China.
The issue surfaces in the midst of a U.S.-China trade war that saw President Donald Trump slap tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods. The administration also has warned that duties on another $267 billion in goods could be coming, which would subject to tariff virtually all Chinese-made products shipped into the U.S.
China retaliated by levying tariffs on $110 billion worth of a wide variety of U.S. products, including farm equipment, soybeans, electric cars, orange juice, whiskey, salmon and cigars.
The trade clash had appeared to be cooling, with the U.S. and China agreeing to suspend additional tariffs for 90 days. Last week, China’s government said it would promptly carry out a tariff cease-fire with Washington and expressed confidence that a trade agreement can be reached within the three-month timeline.
Trump's response on Twitter was also encouraging: "I agree!"
Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard; Associated Press
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623801f96a8bf2d73c5f2e69082c82ae | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/13/donald-trump-senate-votes-end-u-s-support-yemen-war-jamal-khashoggi/2296155002/ | In rebuke to Trump, Senate votes to halt US support for Saudi-led war in Yemen, names crown prince as responsible for Khashoggi death | In rebuke to Trump, Senate votes to halt US support for Saudi-led war in Yemen, names crown prince as responsible for Khashoggi death
WASHINGTON – In a historic bipartisan rebuke of the president and a marked shift in the long-standing U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia, the Senate voted Thursday to try to force the Trump administration to end its military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
Although the measure will stall in the House for now, the Senate's 56-41 vote carried extraordinary significance – marking the first time the Senate has invoked Congress' war powers to challenge U.S. military involvement abroad. The step was both a condemnation of Saudi Arabia's execution of the Yemen war – which has killed thousands of civilians and created a humanitarian catastrophe – and of the kingdom's role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
“Today, we tell the despotic regime in Saudi Arabia that we will not be a part of their military adventurism,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who championed U.S. withdrawal from the Yemen conflict along with Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. "The United States Congress ... is sick and tired of abdicating its constitutional responsibility on matters of war," Sanders said.
Senators unanimously approved a separate, nonbinding resolution naming Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, as responsible for Khashoggi's death. The Washington Post columnist was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 by a team of Saudi operatives, many of whom have been tied to the crown prince.
The resolution, introduced Thursday by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., calls on the Saudi government “to ensure appropriate accountability for all those responsible for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder” and urges the kingdom to “moderate its increasingly erratic foreign policy,” among other steps.
"The United States Senate has said the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Corker said. "That is a strong statement. ... I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear."
The two Senate votes were a direct challenge to President Donald Trump, who downplayed evidence that Saudi Arabia's crown prince was involved in Khashoggi's murder and said the incident should not damage U.S.-Saudi relations. His administration, through his son and adviser Jared Kushner, has cultivated close ties to the kingdom.
"Today is a watershed moment for Congress," Murphy said. "We are reasserting our responsibility to be a co-equal branch with the executive (branch) in foreign policymaking."
It was also a watershed moment for Sanders, Murphy and Lee – an odd-bedfellows trio who have tried for three years to curb American support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Their first effort, on a measure that would have blocked arms sales to the Saudis in 2016, garnered only 27 "yes" votes.
Thursday, seven Republican senators joined all the chamber's Democrats and its two independents in passing the Yemen resolution, which would require the United States to stop providing intelligence, targeting assistance in bombing and other military support to the Saudi government and its allies in the Yemen conflict.
Before the Senate vote, House GOP leaders blocked a similar measure from coming up for a vote in that chamber. Proponents vowed to revive the issue when Democrats take power in January.
“We won’t ignore these issues in the next Congress,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who will become the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January. “It’s a betrayal of the men and women who have served this country in uniform.”
Proponents of the Yemen resolution said America’s involvement in the war was unauthorized, unconstitutional and immoral. They argued that Congress has abdicated its responsibility for decades, fearing the responsibility that comes with sending American troops into harm's way.
"There is no decision that is more fraught with moral peril," Lee said at a news conference after the vote. "When we’re putting American treasure and, even more importantly, American blood on the line, it is wrong to entrust that to one person."
Sanders and others said they hoped the Senate’s action would bolster negotiations, led by a United Nations special envoy, to end the horrific conflict. Since hostilities began in 2015, the Yemen war has left thousands of civilians dead and created the world’s worst humanitarian disaster – putting millions on the verge of starvation.
Opponents of the resolution said U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition did not amount to warfare, and they argued that U.S. involvement was vital to helping Saudi Arabia contain Iran's influence in the Middle East.
The war is a proxy battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two regimes vying for expanded influence in the region. The United States stopped refueling Saudi jets, but it still provides munitions and intelligence to the Saudi government.
"There is a threat in the Middle East posed by Iran and their ambitions which must be confronted," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said during Thursday's Senate debate. Rubio suggested that the U.S.-Saudi alliance would be "shattered" if the United States ended its military role in Yemen, and the war would spiral further out of control.
Though lawmakers focused mostly on Yemen, they were spurred to act by Khashoggi’s murder. Proponents of the war resolution said his brutal killing, and the crown prince's alleged involvement, strengthened their case for withdrawing.
"The murder of Mr. Khashoggi caused us to think long and hard, with good reason, about the fact that we've got somewhat blindly into this war," Lee said in a floor speech Wednesday. "When we pulled back the curtains and we look into exactly who we're fighting for and why we're fighting, people understandably got a little freaked out."
Several lawmakers said Khashoggi's murder was part of a broader pattern of disturbing actions by the Saudi regime, led by the crown prince, who is Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. They cited the kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister and the detention of many in the prince's own family, among other incidents.
Several top lawmakers said Thursday's Senate vote marked the beginning, not the end, of the debate over Khashoggi's murder – and by extension, the debate over America's long-standing alliance with Saudi Arabia.
"I’m never going to let this go until things change in Saudi Arabia," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday. He is part of a bipartisan group of senators pressing for sanctions on any Saudis, including the crown prince, found responsible for Khashoggi's murder, and a suspension in U.S. arms sales to the kingdom.
"Do you really want to transfer your most advanced technology to somebody who thinks it’s OK to lure a journalist to a consulate in Turkey … and chop him up?" Graham said, referring to reports that Khashoggi was tortured and dismembered. "The crown prince is so toxic, so tainted, so flawed that I can’t ever see myself doing business with Saudi Arabia" unless there's a change in leadership.
Trump condemned Khashoggi's death but said the incident should not harm U.S.-Saudi relations. The administration relies heavily on Saudi Arabia in its effort to isolate Iran, and Trump championed U.S. arms sales to the regime as an economic boon.
Murphy and others said Trump's response to the Khashoggi killing has so infuriated lawmakers in both parties that it has spurred a fresh desire to debate and legislate on foreign policy. He said that sentiment will last well into the next Congress.
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4158b94f20f283605aeb1ff157713b98 | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/20/new-trump-plan-forces-asylum-seekers-stay-mexico-bans-us-entry/2374603002/ | New Trump administration policy requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, bans US entry | New Trump administration policy requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, bans US entry
The Department of Homeland Security announced a new policy Thursday banning asylum seekers from entering the USA and requiring them to stay in Mexico, a change that upends the way migrants fleeing persecution have been welcomed into the country for decades.
Under U.S. law, people requesting asylum at the southern border – either at a port of entry or after illegally entering the country, and who pass an initial screening – are allowed to stay in the country pending an immigration judge’s decision on their application.
Under the policy unveiled Wednesday by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, that will no longer be the case. Anybody who requests asylum will be processed by federal immigration agents, then immediately returned to Mexico.
For weeks, the U.S. and Mexican governments negotiated over a similar policy dubbed “Remain in Mexico,” but the Trump administration was unable to reach an agreement with the administration of new Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1.
Instead, the United States implemented the policy unilaterally, Nielsen said before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The Mexican Foreign Ministry said Thursday it will grant migrants with pending asylum applications in the USA a humanitarian visa to remain in Mexico, work permits and the ability to travel back and forth to the USA for court hearings.
The Mexican government is struggling to accommodate thousands of members of a migrant caravan who are camped out in Tijuana, awaiting their chance to apply for asylum. A Mexican official said Thursday that the new U.S. policy will add to that burden.
"This unilateral measure puts (migrants) in a situation of enormous vulnerability," said Alejandro Alday, legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry.
Nielsen defended the move as necessary to secure the U.S. border while allowing legitimate asylum seekers a better chance to win entry.
“Let me be clear: We will undertake these steps consistent with all domestic and international legal obligations, including our humanitarian commitments,” Nielsen told the committee. “All affected migrants will receive humanitarian visas to stay on Mexican soil, they will be given the ability to apply for work and other protections while they await a legal U.S. determination.”
The DHS relies on authorities granted under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows an attorney general to order the return of asylum seekers arriving at a land port to the country they attempted to enter from. But the law states that the attorney general can remove only migrants who are "not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted."
A separate part of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows asylum seekers entry if they simply show they have a “credible fear” of returning to their home country.
“This plan cannot be done lawfully,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who led a lawsuit that forced the administration this summer to reunify families separated at the southern border with Mexico.
A senior Homeland Security official said the new policy goes into effect immediately but will be rolled out at ports of entry along the southern border. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to fully explain the policy, said the goal is for asylum seekers to stay in Mexico and be allowed to enter the USA only for necessary court hearings related to their application.
Nielsen said the policy is needed to stem a flood of unaccompanied minors and family units arriving at the USA to request asylum, knowing they will probably be granted entry while their case slowly winds through the backlogged immigration court system. In the past two months, more than half of the 102,000 people caught illegally crossing the southern border were minors or family units.
Before the DHS announcement, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who will become Judiciary Committee chairman in January when Democrats retake control of the House, warned Nielsen that her department would face intense scrutiny over its treatment of families, minors, asylum seekers and all others along the southern border.
He likened the administration’s "zero-tolerance" policy that led to thousands of family separations this summer to “mass kidnapping by the federal government.” He described policies attempting to limit asylum as dangerous, haphazard and chaotic. He said Nielsen should prepare for investigations into all those matters.
"I want to put you and the department on notice: The time for accountability has arrived," Nadler said. "The Trump administration, including DHS under your watch, has launched a relentless attack against immigrants of all stripes. The time for zero accountability is over."
Nielsen received praise from committee Republicans for the new policy. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, thanked her for bringing “some sanity” back to the U.S. immigration system.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told Nielsen the policy will surely be met with lawsuits similar to those that struck down two other attempts to limit asylum.
“You’ll be … in court, as you know … your policy does not adhere to the requirements of the immigration law," she said.
Contributing: David Agren in Mexico City.
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