Month: August 2019

Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees rallied to mark the second anniversary of their exodus out of Myanmar. Almost 200,000 Rohingya participated in a peaceful gathering, which was attended by UN officials, at the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar on Sunday. More than a million Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar’s Rakhine state now live in southern Bangladesh in the world’s largest refugee settlement. The majority having fled military-led violence in 2017 that the United Nations says was executed with “genocidal intent”. Refugees say Myanmar’s security forces and Buddhist civilians carried out mass killings and gang rapes during weeks of “clearance operations”. Myanmar has denied the charges, saying only that the military was conducting legitimate operations against Rohingya insurgents who attacked police posts. The rally was held days after Bangladesh, with the help of the U.N. refugee agency, attempted to begin the repatriation of some 3,000 Rohingyas. But none of the refugees agreed to return to Myanmar without being granted a citizenship and guaranteed basic rights. The UNHCR said that building confidence was essential for repatriation. For centuries, Myanmar has refused to recognize the Rohingya as legitimate residents of the country. They were denied citizenship and subjected to tight restrictions on freedom of movement. A U.N investigation last year recommended the prosecution of Myanmar’s top military commanders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the crackdown but Myanmar rejected  the allegations. Last week, another U.N. fact-finding mission on Myanmar released a new report concluding that rapes of …

At a meeting of leaders of the most advanced democracies in Biarritz, France, deep divisions are coming out into the open between U.S. President Donald Trump and his counterparts on issues including the trade war with China, how to handle Iran and bringing Russia back into the group. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara is there covering the G-7 summit and brings this report …

Recent airstrikes carried out by Israel against Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq highlight a clear escalation of tensions between the two rival countries, analysts warn. Several Israeli airstrikes hit Iranian targets late Saturday near the Syrian capital, Israeli military said. The late Saturday attack that hit an Iranian military target near the Syrian capital of Damascus came as a response to a drone attack that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force was planning to carry out on Israeli territory, according to Ronen Manelis, an Israeli military spokesperson. Prior to the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a tweet that his military was able to foil the planned Iranian drone attack on Israel. “In a major operational effort, we have thwarted an attack against Israel by the Iranian Quds Force and Shi’ite militias,” he said, adding that Israeli “forces operate in every sector against the Iranian aggression.” Clear links Last month, Israel reportedly launched another attack on a Shi’ite militia base in Iraq that was used as an Iranian weapons depot. While Iraqi and Israeli governments have not confirmed who was behind the attack, U.S. officials said last week that Israel was responsible for the July attack in Iraq. “There is a clear link between this [weekend’s] attack in Syria and the one carried out last month in Iraq,” said Watheq al-Hashimi, director of the Iraqi Group for Strategic Studies, a Baghdad-based research group. “The next phase will witness a very dangerous escalation between Iran and Israel,” al-Hashimi …

Backed by military aircraft, Brazilian troops on Saturday were deploying in the Amazon to fight fires that have swept the region and prompted anti-government protests as well as an international outcry. President Jair Bolsonaro also tried to temper global concern, saying that previously deforested areas had burned and that intact rainforest was spared. Even so, the fires were likely to be urgently discussed at a summit of the Group of Seven leaders in France this weekend. Some 44,000 troops will be available for “unprecedented” operations to put out the fires, and forces are heading to six Brazilian states that asked for federal help, Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo said. The states are Roraima, Rondonia, Tocantins, Para, Acre and Mato Grosso. The military’s first mission will be carried out by 700 troops around Porto Velho, capital of Rondonia, Azevedo said. The military will use two C-130 Hercules aircraft capable of dumping up to 12,000 liters (3,170 gallons) of water on fires, he said. An Associated Press journalist flying over the Porto Velho region Saturday morning reported hazy conditions and low visibility. On Friday, the reporter saw many already deforested areas that were burned, apparently by people clearing farmland, as well as a large column of smoke billowing from one fire. The municipality of Nova Santa Helena in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state was also hard-hit. Trucks were seen driving along a highway Friday as fires blazed and embers smoldered in adjacent fields. The Brazilian military operations came after widespread criticism of Bolsonaro’s handling …

President Donald Trump is threatening to use the emergency authority granted by a powerful but obscure federal law to make good on his tweeted “order” to U.S. businesses to cut ties in China amid a spiraling trade war between the two nations. China’s announcement Friday that it was raising tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. imports sent Trump into a rage and White House aides scrambling for a response. Trump fired off on Twitter, declaring American companies “are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China.” He later clarified that he was threatening to make use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in the trade war, raising questions about the wisdom and propriety of making the 1977 act used to target rogue regimes, terrorists and drug traffickers the newest weapon in the clash between the world’s largest economies. It would mark the latest grasp of authority by Trump, who has claimed widespread powers not sought by his predecessors despite his own past criticism of their use of executive powers. “For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977,” Trump tweeted late Friday. “Case closed!” For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed! — …

Thousands of angry and frustrated Rohingya refugees marked the second anniversary of their exodus from Myanmar into Bangladesh on Sunday by demanding their citizenship and other rights in the country they fled from. The event came days after Bangladesh with the help of the U.N. refugee agency attempted to start the repatriation of 3,450 Rohingya Muslims but none agreed to go back voluntarily. Myanmar had scheduled Aug. 22 for the beginning of the process but it failed for a second time after the first attempt last November. The repatriation deal is based on an understanding that the return has to be “safe, dignified and voluntary.” The refugees also insisted on receiving Myanmar citizenship and other rights, which the Buddhist-majority nation has refused to grant so far. More than 1 million Rohingya live in Bangladesh. On Sunday morning, more than 3,000 gathered at a playground in Kutupalong camp. Some carried placards and banners reading “Never Again! Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day,” and “Restore our citizenship.” A prayer session was scheduled for the victims of the killings, rape and arson attacks by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist militias. Security was tight in the camps despite the Rohingya groups’ pledge that they would protest peacefully. Muhib Ullah, one of the organizers, said they planned a massive rally later Sunday when tens of thousands of refugees are expected to join. “We want to tell the world that we want our rights back, we want citizenship, we want our homes and land back,” he said. “Myanmar is …

VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this article. CAMP H. M. SMITH, Hawaii – A senior U.S. Indo-Pacific Command officer August 15 confirmed Cambodia and China are proceeding on a base for China’s navy in the Southeast Asian country’s Preah Sihanouk province.  Army Brigadier General Joel B. Vowell said construction would begin next year at Ream Naval Base, confirming to a group of regional journalists here that Cambodia will grant China access to the deep coastal waters on the Gulf of Thailand.  “We have information that tells us that there will be some development by the People’s Republic of China to facilitate a naval base at Ream,” said Vowell, the command’s deputy director for strategic planning and policy. “So that tells me they want to build something there, facilities to wharf, to house and sustain naval projection of combat power from Ream,” he said. Pentagon officials in Washington would not comment on Vowell’s remarks. Vowell called China’s military extension plans in Cambodia “a big concern” for the U.S. and its allies in the region.  The Ream base offers deep-water access to the Gulf of Thailand, which gives ready access to the South China Sea. China claims most of the South China Sea area, where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan maintain competing claims to its islands and potentially resource-rich waters, now dotted by islands constructed by Beijing. Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, said that if China …

Syria’s air defenses responded late Saturday to “hostile” targets over Damascus, shooting down all incoming missiles before they reached their targets, state media reported, while Israel said its air force struck several targets southeast of the capital.    State TV did not give further details about the Israeli attack, which occurred shortly before midnight.      An Israeli military spokesman, Avichay Adraee, tweeted that warplanes struck several targets in the village of Aqraba, southeast of Damascus. He said the strikes aimed to abort a “terrorist attack” that Iran’s Quds Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard, and other Shiite militias were planning to carry out against Israeli targets.     Israel frequently conducts airstrikes and missile attacks inside war-torn Syria but rarely confirms them. Israel says it targets mostly bases of Iranian forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in Syria.     The last such attack occurred Aug. 1, when Syria said Israel carried out a missile attack in the country’s south, causing material damage.  …

This is the second story in a series on how the U.S. government’s Migrant Protection Protocols are being carried out in Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Read the first story here. VOA News Center Immigration Reporter Ramon Taylor, and VOA Spanish Service reporters Jorge Agobian and Celia Mendoza contributed to this report. Like border cities everywhere, Nuevo Laredo is a portal. People and merchandise cross the five road and rail bridges between the U.S. and Mexico every day, in both directions, for work, school, business meetings, shopping, family visits, doctor appointments – the quotidian building blocks of life along the Rio Grande. Pay 25 cents and you can walk right across Puente #1, as it’s known colloquially, in a few minutes if you’re in a rush and there’s no line at the immigration agent desks. Formally the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge, it links Laredo’s historic city center neighborhood of San Agustin, to the commercial strip of shops, pharmacies and low-key lunchtime restaurants on Nuevo Laredo’s Avenida Guerrero. It’s at the end of this bridge, when entering Mexico from the U.S., in the parking lot built for buses and trucks at the Mexican immigration agency’s customs office, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have dropped off migrants and asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico under the Trump administration’s Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) policy to wait for their immigration court dates. FILE – FILE – People walk back to Mexico on the Americas International Bridge, a legal port of …

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft failed to dock with the International Space Station Saturday. The craft was carrying a humanoid robot that was scheduled to conduct a mission on the station with the cosmonauts who are there.   NASA said on its blog that the docking system of the Soyuz spacecraft failed to properly lock onto its target on the ISS. The Soyuz has backed away from the ISS while the cosmonauts work on the station’s docking system. Officials say the Soyuz will attempt another ISS docking Monday.   …

Hong Kong is experiencing another Saturday of protests, as the rallies enter their third month.    Police clashed with demonstrators and used tear gas to disperse the crowd outside a police station Saturday. Protesters also cut down a “smart lamppost” because they feared it was being used for surveillance by Chinese authorities. Hong Kong’s government said, however, that the lamppost only collected data on traffic, weather and air quality. Protesters have called for an attempt Saturday to blockade routes to the city’s airport, which could disrupt the complex if large numbers turn out.   Last week, Hong Kong’s airport was forced to close when protesters occupied terminals. China called the behavior “near-terrorist acts” and some protesters later issued an apology. Police and demonstrators clash in Hong Kong, Aug. 24, 2019. The city’s pro-democracy protesters took to the streets again, this time to call for the removal of “smart lampposts” that raised fears of stepped-up surveillance. Hong Kong police said Friday said the city’s high court extended an order restricting protests at the airport.   “Any person who unlawfully or willfully obstructs or interferes with the normal operation of the airport” is liable to face criminal charges, said Foo Yat-ting, the senior superintendent of Hong Kong Police Force’s Kowloon East Region.   Hong Kong’s Airport Authority also published a half-page notice in newspapers urging people to “love Hong Kong” and not to block the airport.   On Friday, thousands of Hong Kong protesters joined hands to form human chains in a …

Kim Dong-hyun and Han Sang-mi contributed to this report, which originated with VOA’s Korean Service. WASHINGTON — Seoul’s decision to end a military intelligence pact with Tokyo could have far-reaching consequences that could put its own security at risk, reducing its ability to defend against potential North Korean aggression, experts say. Seoul announced Thursday it would terminate an intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo, attributing the move to Japan’s decision to remove South Korea from its “white list” of favored trading partners earlier this month.  Japan’s decision “brought about fundamental changes to the environment for security cooperation between the two countries,” Kim You-geun, deputy director of South Korean National Security Council, said Thursday. FILE – Plaintiffs’ attorneys Lim Jae-sung, right, speaks as Kim Se-eun listens during a press conference in Tokyo, Dec. 4, 2018. Lawyers for South Koreans forced into wartime labor have taken legal steps to seize the South Korean assets of a Japanese company. Trade feud, historical animosity Seoul and Tokyo have been escalating a trade feud since early July. The disagreement is rooted in historical animosity stemming from Japanese companies’ use of South Korean forced labor during its colonial rule on the peninsula and during World War II. The termination announcement came a day before a deadline Saturday of a 90-day notice period for one side to tell the other if it intends to cancel the arrangement. The deal automatically renews annually if no notice is given. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn, in an email sent to VOA Thursday, …

For years, dozens of scammers from Nigeria and other countries swindled millions of dollars from U.S. businesses and individuals, funneling the stolen money through accounts provided by two fellow Nigerian “brokers” based in Los Angeles. In the burgeoning underworld of online fraud, Nigerian nationals Velentine Iro and Chukwudi Christogunus Igbokwe were well-known operators who went by a raft of pseudonyms, including “Iro Enterprises” and “Chris Kudon.” Between 2014 and 2018, Iro and Igbokwe, working with nearly 80 other international swindlers, facilitated a series of schemes that resulted in the theft of at least $6 million and the attempted theft of $40 million more from victims in more than 10 countries, according to a 252-count federal indictment unsealed Thursday. The scammers victimized individuals and small and large businesses. In targeting businesses, they used a tactic called “business email compromise,” also known as CEO fraud. Under that scheme, a fraudster gains access to a company’s computer system and then, posing as a company executive, tricks an employee into making an unauthorized wire transfer into a bank account the fraudster controls. Federal agents hold a detainee, second from left, in downtown Los Angeles after predawn raids that saw dozens of people arrested in the L.A. area, Aug. 22, 2019, Most of the defendants are Nigerian nationals. The victims The indictment documents several corporate victims. In 2014, a San Diego clothing distributor wired nearly $46,000 into a bank account controlled by one of the scammers, believing it was paying a Chinese vendor for an …

The World Health Organization said Friday that the deadly Ebola virus had spread to new areas in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The number of cases was 2,934, including 1,965 deaths, it said.  Since mid-June, the WHO has reported an average of 80 new Ebola cases every week. It said, though, that these numbers have been falling in recent weeks.    Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said two new health zones, Mwenga in South Kivu and Pinga in North Kivu, had reported cases in the past week, and that the risk of further spread remained high.  “The geographic extension of the virus has increased while the intensity of transmission has reduced in that time,” he said. “So we are winning against the virus in the intense transmission areas, but still failing to prevent the further extension of the virus into other areas before the disease is properly extinguished.”     Ryan noted progress in containing the disease was being made in some areas. He said some powerful tools were being put to good use in tackling the disease. He said a vaccine now is available that is protecting people from becoming infected, which wasn’t the case in previous outbreaks.  Also, two new therapeutics are successfully saving the lives of people with Ebola who seek early treatment.    FILE – A health worker injects a man with Ebola vaccine in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Aug. 5, 2019. Community mistrust   But Ryan said pockets of community mistrust continued to hinder efforts to stop …

China and Russia believe they can behave as they want and have impunity to crush dissent because Western states are at odds with themselves and have lost confidence in their ability to shape the world around them, warn analysts.  “There is a danger that we in the West are becoming bystanders to the great events swirling around the globe. Our inability to articulate a clear response that generates a change in behavior means a sense of impunity dominates,” argued Rafaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute. Writing in Britain’s The Times newspaper, Pantucci said, “Our responses to the current protests going on in Hong Kong and Moscow are the clearest articulations of this problem. Beijing and Moscow have largely behaved as they would like.” Anti-G-7 activists march along a road near a tent camp near Hendaye, France, Aug. 23, 2019. Western diplomats and analysts fear this week’s three-day G-7 summit in the French resort town of Biarritz will demonstrate again the lack of unity among Western leaders over a series of issues, including climate change, relations with Russia, rising nationalism, and the trade war between the United States and China, whose fallout is hurting Europe far more than America. The G-7 comprises the world’s largest advanced democracies.  In order to try to reduce a display of disunity, the summit host, French President Emmanuel Macron, is lobbying for the gathering not to issue a joint communique for the first time in the G-7’s history. He …

President Donald Trump’s campaign is rallying and training a corps of female defenders, mindful that Trump’s shaky standing with women could sink his hopes of re-election next year. Female surrogates and supporters fanned out across important battlegrounds Thursday in a high-profile push to make the president’s case on the economy and to train campaign volunteers. Organizers said they believe female backers are often uncomfortable acknowledging they support Trump. “We want to empower women with other women to be able to share the message of success of this president, to share their success under this president,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine, who will be leading one of the events in Raleigh, North Carolina. The move is a recognition of the president’s persistent deficit with women. Over the course of his presidency and across public opinion polls, women have been consistently less supportive of Trump than men. Suburban women in particular rejected Republicans in the 2018 midterm by margins that set off alarms for the party and the president.  The most recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found just 30% of women approve of the way the president is doing his job, compared to 42% of men. Notably, there was no gap between Republican men and women — 80% of both groups said they approved of his job performance in the August poll. A cutout of President Trump and his wife Melania is shown outside a training session for Women for Trump, An Evening to Empower, in Troy, …

The U.S. government’s final management plan for lands in and around a Utah national monument that President Donald Trump downsized doesn’t include many new protections for the cliffs, canyons, waterfalls and arches found there, but it does include a few more safeguards than were in a proposal issued last year.    The Bureau of Land Management’s plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southwestern Utah codifies that the lands cut out of the monument will be open to mineral extraction such as oil, gas and coal as expected, according to a plan summary the agency provided to The Associated Press.    The agency chose an option that doesn’t add any areas of critical environmental concern, increases lands open to cattle grazing and could raise the potential for “adverse effects” on lands and resources in the monument, the document shows.    At the same time, the agency tweaked the plan from last year to call for new recreation management plans to address impacts on several highly visited areas, opens fewer acres to ATVs and nixes a plan that would have allowed people to collect some non-dinosaur fossils in certain areas inside the monument.  The agency also determined that no land will be sold from the 1,345 square miles (3,488 square kilometers) cut from the monument. Last year, Interior Department leaders rescinded a plan to sell 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers) of that land after it was included in the draft management proposal and drew backlash from environmentalists.  Conservation and …

The State Department says it will assess its programming and redirect all funding on foreign aid, after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned plans to cut $4 billion in spending on the grounds that it was wasteful and unnecessary. “As part of this discussion, we agreed to continue to assess our programming and redirect all funding that does not directly support our priorities,” said a State Department spokesperson on Friday. “This effort will ensure every foreign assistance program funded by U.S. taxpayers is both effective and supports our foreign policy priorities,” added the spokesperson.   One of the programs under assessment is U.S. foreign assistance to the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The State Department said those nations are not taking concrete actions to reduce the number of illegal migrants coming to the U.S. border.  Trump had considered cutting the spending on grounds that it was wasteful and unnecessary, but retreated when it became apparent that some key lawmakers were opposed. The Trump Administration officials briefly suspended State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development spending, eyeing a budget process known as “rescission” to cut up to $4.3 billion in spending already authorized and appropriated by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. FILE – A man walks past boxes of USAID humanitarian aid at a warehouse at the Tienditas International Bridge on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, Feb. 21, 2019, on the border with Venezuela. “The president has been clear that there is waste and abuse …

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday it would invite Boeing 737 Max pilots from across the world to participate in simulator tests as part of the process to recertify the aircraft for flight following two fatal crashes. Earlier, Reuters reported that the agency had asked the three U.S. airlines that operate the Max to provide the names of some pilots who had only flown the 737 for around a year, including at least one Max flight. In a statement, the FAA said it had not specified the number of required hours of flight experience, but said the candidates would be a cross-section of line pilots and must have experience at the controls of the Max. Boeing Co’s latest 737 narrow-body model, the Max, was grounded worldwide in March after two crashes within five months in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people. Boeing has been reprogramming software for a stall-prevention system at the center of both crashes, which the FAA must approve before the plane flies again commercially. The FAA said it has not yet specified a firm schedule for the tests.  …