Month: September 2019

Eight-and-a-half-months pregnant and experiencing contractions, a Salvadoran woman who had crossed the Rio Grande and was apprehended by the Border Patrol was forced to go back to Mexico. Agents took her to the hospital, where doctors gave her medication to stop the contractions. And then, according to the woman and her lawyer, she was almost immediately sent back to Mexico. There, she joined the more than 38,000 people forced to wait across the border for immigration court hearings under a rapidly expanding Trump administration policy. And her plight highlights the health risks and perils presented by the “Remain in Mexico” program. The woman was waiting Thursday with her 3-year-old daughter in a makeshift tent camp in Matamoros, Mexico, next to an international bridge, due to give birth any day, said her attorney, Jodi Goodwin. “She’s concerned about having the baby in the street or having to have the baby in a shelter,” Goodwin said. A group of Mexican asylum-seekers wait near the Gateway International Bridge in Matamoros, Mexico, Aug. 30, 2019. Pregnant women face special hazards in Mexico because places where migrants wait often don’t have access to medical care. Pregnant women face special hazards in Mexico because places where migrants wait to enter the U.S. often don’t have access to regular meals, clean water and medical care. Many shelters at the Mexico border are at or above capacity, and some families have been sleeping in tents or on blankets in the blistering summer heat. Reports have abounded of migrants …

Britain’s bedeviling Brexit dilemma intensified Friday, as opposition parties refused to support Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s call for an election until he secures a delay to Britain’s exit from the European Union — something he vows he’ll never do. Johnson insists Britain must leave the EU in 55 days, and says an election is the only way to break the deadlock that has seen lawmakers repeatedly reject the divorce deal on offer, but also block attempts to leave the EU without one. He wants to go to the public on Oct. 15, two weeks before the scheduled Brexit day of Oct. 31, but needs the support of two-thirds of lawmakers to trigger a snap election. Johnson lost a vote on the same question this week, but he plans to try again Monday. Standoff After discussions Friday, lawmakers from several opposition parties said they would not back an election unless the government asked the EU to postpone Brexit, removing the risk the U.K. could crash out without a deal. Johnson says he would “rather be dead in a ditch” than delay Brexit. Anti Brexit campaigner Gina Miller speaks to the media outside the High Court in London, Sept. 6, 2019. The High Court has rejected a claim that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is acting unlawfully. Parliament is trying to force his hand, passing an opposition-backed law that would compel Johnson’s Conservative government to seek a three-month Brexit postponement if no divorce deal is agreed by Oct. 19. The legislation was approved …

After more than five years of neglect because of control of the region by the Islamic State, residents of Raqqa can finally enjoy their favorite sport — Arabian horse racing — in the northern Syrian city once considered to be the capital of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate.   Hundreds of men and children could be seen dancing and celebrating as 50 Arabian horses raced each other in a festival held late last week on the city’s outskirts. Spectators said the distinctive breed and the riders’ equestrian skills offered a respite from the conflict that has been wreaking havoc in Syria since 2011. Symbolic importance Husam al-Din Hamad, one of the organizers of the event and the head of the Raqqa Arabian Horse Group, said staging the race has a great symbolic importance for the residents as they try to bring normalcy back to their city, which was nearly destroyed by the war against IS. Kurdish_Raqqa_HORSERACE video player. Embed Copy Horse Racing Festival Returns to Raqqa After Islamic State “Raqqa’s horses are among the most elegant in the world. But unfortunately, in the past five to seven years, this sport was abandoned,” Hamad told VOA. Praising the pedigree of horses in the area, Hamad said he was heartbroken at the toll that had been taken on the horses. He said local officials needed to increase efforts to help the horses recover from the physical and psychological trauma of the war. According to World Arabian Horse Organization, of nearly 8,500 horses that were registered by …

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday the United States is ready to make a free trade agreement with Britain as soon as the country completes its exit from the European Union. In a keynote address at the International Trade Dinner in London’s Guildhall, Pence conveyed a message of strong support from President Donald Trump for the embattled British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose determination to take Britain out of the bloc at any cost has angered even some members of his own party.  VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.   …

Robert  Mugabe, who ruled the southern African nation of Zimbabwe for 37 years following the end of white minority rule in 1980, has died.  He was 95 years old. Some hailed Mugabe as a liberation hero, but others say he destroyed the economy of what was once Africa’s breadbasket, rigged elections and terrorized his people for decades. VOA’s Anita Powell looks at his life and legacy.   …

Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe was feted as an African liberation hero and champion of racial reconciliation when he first came to power in a nation divided by nearly a century of white colonial rule. Nearly four decades later, many at home and abroad denounced him as a power-obsessed autocrat willing to unleash death squads, rig elections and trash the economy in the relentless pursuit of control. Former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe Dies Mugabe died in Singapore, where he has often received medical treatment in recent years Mugabe, was ultimately ousted by his own armed forces in November 2017. He demonstrated his tenacity — some might say stubbornness — to the last, refusing to accept his expulsion from his own ZANU-PF party and clinging on for a week until parliament started to impeach him after the de facto coup. His resignation triggered wild celebrations across the country of 13 million. For Mugabe, it was an “unconstitutional and humiliating” act of betrayal by his party and people, and left him a broken man. Confined for the remaining years of his life between Singapore where he was receiving medical treatment and his sprawling “Blue Roof” mansion in Harare, an ailing Mugabe could only observe from afar the political stage where he once strode tall. He was bitter to the end over the manner of his exit. On the eve of the July 2018 election, the first without him, he told reporters he would vote for the opposition, something unthinkable only a few months before. …

Robert Mugabe, the guerrilla leader who led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980 and ruled with an iron fist until his own army ended his almost four decade rule, has died. He was 95. Mugabe died in Singapore, where he has often received medical treatment in recent years, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. His death was confirmed by Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa. It is with the utmost sadness that I announce the passing on of Zimbabwe’s founding father and former President, Cde Robert Mugabe (1/2) — President of Zimbabwe (@edmnangagwa) September 6, 2019 On leading Zimbabwe to independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe was feted as an African liberation hero and champion of racial reconciliation. But later, many at home and abroad denounced him as a power-obsessed autocrat willing to unleash death squads, rig elections and trash the economy in the relentless pursuit of control. Mugabe was forced to resign in November 2017 after an army coup. His resignation triggered wild celebrations across the country of 13 million. Mugabe denounced his removal as an “unconstitutional and humiliating” act of betrayal by his party and people, and it left him a broken man. In November, Mnangagwa said Mugabe was no longer able to walk when he had been admitted to a hospital in Singapore, without saying what treatment Mugabe had been undergoing. Officials often said he was being treated for a cataract, denying frequent private media reports that he had prostate cancer. …

Hurricane Dorian has hit the Southeastern U.S. states of North and South Carolina, bringing tornadoes and flooded roads. “We know we’re in for a long night and we’ll be eager to see the sunshine in the morning,” North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper told the Atlanta-based cable news network, CNN. Dorian weakened to a Category 1 hurricane early Friday, with  maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour (90 mph). The National Hurricane Center says “slow weakening” is expected of Dorian “during the next few days.” The center says Dorian is expected to remain “a powerful hurricane as its center moves near the coasts of South and North Carolina.” Forecasters do not expect Dorian to make a direct landfall Friday but will instead skirt the North Carolina coast, bringing life-threatening storm surges to North Carolina and southern Virginia before moving away from land. A couple embraces on a road destroyed by Hurricane Dorian, as they walk to the town of High Rock to try to find their relatives in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, in Grand Bahama, Bahamas, Sept. 5, 2019. A potent storm Dorian will remain a potent storm straight into the weekend, however, with tropical storm warnings posted as far north as Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, according to the National Hurricane Center. The Canadian Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane watch for all of Nova Scotia. Thousands of people in the Bahamas have begun the long, painful struggle to rebuild their lives following Hurricane Dorian. International search-and-rescue teams are spreading across Abaco …

An American woman who attempted to carry a 6-day-old baby out of the Philippines hidden inside a sling bag has been arrested at Manila’s airport and charged with human trafficking, officials said Thursday. They said Jennifer Erin Talbot was able to pass through the airport immigration counter on Wednesday without declaring the baby boy but was intercepted at the boarding gate by airline personnel. Talbot, from Ohio, was unable to produce any passport, boarding pass or government permits for the baby, airport officials said. Clad in an orange detainee shirt and in handcuffs, Talbot, 43, was presented to reporters in Manila on Thursday. She kept her head low and appeared at times to be on the verge of tears. She did not issue any statement. Talbot had planned to board a Delta Air Lines flight to the United States with the baby, airport officials said. “There was really an intention to hide the baby,” immigration official Grifton Medina said by telephone. After discovering the baby, airline staff called immigration personnel, who arrested Talbot at the airport. She was later turned over to the National Bureau of Investigation and the baby was given to government welfare personnel. The investigation bureau said Talbot presented an affidavit at the airport, allegedly from the baby’s mother, giving consent for the baby to travel to the U.S., but it had not been signed by the mother. Officials said no government travel approval had been issued for the baby, prompting them to file human trafficking charges …

Prominent Washington lawyer Greg Craig was found not guilty of lying to the Justice Department about work he did for the government of Ukraine in a case that arose from the special counsel’s Russia investigation and that centered on the lucrative world of foreign lobbying. The jury deliberated for less than a day before clearing Craig, a White House counsel in the Obama administration, of a single count of making false statements to federal investigators. The swift verdict on Wednesday was a setback to the Justice Department’s crackdown on lobbyists who do unregistered work for foreign governments and came as prosecutors have been ramping up enforcement of a decades-old law meant to police foreign influence and promote transparency. U.S. officials hoped a conviction would demonstrate an aggressive approach to lobbyists who fail to register their foreign work or who give false information to the Justice Department to avoid identifying themselves as a foreign agent, as Craig was alleged to have done. But the jury rejected the theory of the case in a matter of hours. One juror told reporters that while some members found some of Craig’s actions unseemly, all agreed he hadn’t broken the law. Craig hugged his attorneys after the verdict was read and, outside the courthouse, thanked the jury for “doing justice in this case.” His attorney, William Taylor, said the jury reached the only possible verdict it could have reached and called the case a tragedy and a disgrace. “The question that you need to ask …

Like whisperers in a tempest, conservative-minded officials across the breadth of Donald Trump’s government are letting it be known what they think of him, and some of it isn’t pretty. But they are speaking oh so softly, in a kind of code, to a country that may only hear shouting. Jim Mattis is just the latest in a string of leading lights from the conservative establishment to throw shade at Trump. As with others — the chief justice, a special counsel, various Republican lawmakers who hope to have a political future — the ex-Pentagon chief’s words are subtle, filtered through notions of duty, decorum, deference to history, the greater good. Crack the code and you can sometimes see deep discomfort with Trump, the contours of a searing repudiation. In the view of many institutionalists of the right as well as the left, he is bulldozing values that America holds dear. Yet the negativity is couched in words of moderation and caution. What effect does that have in Trump’s America? These are sober, restrained players in a fracas produced, directed and dominated by an in-your-face president. “The well-informed public understands what they’re saying and how deeply concerned they are,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor and historian at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “The rest of the public might not get it.” Says Eric Dezenhall, a crisis-management specialist who has studied Trump’s rise in business and politics: “In a fight between crassness and discretion in the new millennium, crassness will …

Arguments over a Texas law requiring that health care clinics bury or cremate fetal remains from abortions and miscarriages are set for a federal appeals court in New Orleans. A Texas judge blocked the law last year. U.S. District Judge David Ezra ruled that many clinics would be unable to meet the law’s requirements, thus creating unconstitutional obstacles for women seeking abortions. He also found that violated constitutional equal protection requirements by exempting in-vitro fertilization clinics and some laboratories.   A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hears arguments Thursday.   The Supreme Court has upheld similar law in Indiana. But opponents of the Texas law note that the Indiana ruling case did not address the issue of whether the law created an unconstitutional burden on abortion rights.     …

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (BOO’-tuh-juhj) says Republicans will face “a reckoning” over a policy agenda he says is out of sync with Christian values.   Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday, Buttigieg kicked off a day of television appearances in which he highlighted his Christian faith.   Republicans, he asserted, are “known for beating people on the head” with their faith while following a policy agenda aimed at reducing assistance for the poor and other policies he said were at odds with that message.    Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said “there’s going to be a reckoning over that.” …

Britain’s political turmoil is again making headlines across the English Channel, with a number of European commentators criticizing Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of Brexit. But others, like conservative French lawmaker Nicolas Bay, saluted Johnson for standing firm, and honoring Britain’s 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. In Brussels, European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said the EU’s position toward Brexit has not changed. “There may be twists and turns in political developments in London right now, but our position is stable,” she said. “We are willing to work constructively with Prime Minister Johnson and to look at any concrete proposals as long as they’re compatible with the withdrawal agreement.” The commission is freeing up millions of dollars in disaster funds for farmers, workers and companies to cope with a potentially chaotic or hard Brexit — although governments and the EU parliament must sign off on the plan. It also published a checklist for European businesses trading with Britain to prepare for Brexit — and a citizens’ hotline. Europeans have been preparing for months for a potentially chaotic Brexit. In France, where roughly 20,000 businesses export to Britain, the key port city of Calais is conducting simulations to prepare for both deal and no-deal scenarios. France, along with Belgium and the Netherlands, has hired hundreds more customs agents to cope with expected backlogs. Experts predict Brexit will deal an economic blow to the EU as well as Britain — at a time when countries like Germany and Italy are braced …

Illegal drug use is on the rise around the world according to a new UN report. How bad is it and what is being done to stop the spread of dangerous and increasingly deadly drugs? Former US “Drug Czar” Gil Kerlikowske and Ben Westhoff, author of “Fentanyl Inc.” weigh in with Greta Van Susteren. Recorded September 4, 2019    …

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Burundi said Wednesday that the country, following years of political turmoil, was primed for a genocide.     The commission’s warning, contained in its latest report on human rights in Burundi, was based on an analysis developed by the U.N. Office for the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect.      The three-member panel found that eight common risk factors for criminal atrocities leading to a possible genocide were present in Burundi.    Factors included an unstable political, economic and social environment; a climate of impunity for human rights violations; a weak judicial system; and the absence of an independent press and freedom of expression.    Commission member Francoise Hampson said the criteria identified by the Genocide Prevention Committee indicated that in countries where these factors were present, there was a risk the situation could deteriorate.     “On top of that, our own report shows the continuation of violations of human rights law based on human security,” she said. “So, things like arbitrary killings, torture, arbitrary detention.  And this year, a deterioration … freedom of expression, freedom of association.  Now that is actually already getting worse compared to last year.”  Nkurunziza campaign   Burundi has been in turmoil since President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in 2015, defying critics who said he was violating constitutional term limits. Violence prompted more than 300,000 to flee the country.    Hampson said the crisis in Burundi was essentially a political one.  She noted that targeting people because of their political affiliation does not come within the definition of genocide, according to the Genocide Conventions.  However, she said, “There are elements on occasion …

In Turkey, sweeping powers have come into force to control internet broadcasting, exposing emerging independent news outlets and entertainment giants like Netflix to government censors. Under a new law taking effect this week, online broadcasters will be regulated by state broadcasting watchdog RTUK, which is controlled by allies of conservative President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Critics predicted more government censorship under the law to catch up with the increasing number of media outlets moving operations online. “They will target radio and TV broadcasting over the internet,” said law professor Yaman Akdeniz of Istanbul’s Bilgi University. “As well as video-on-demand services under a dubious licensing regime, which will, in reality, become yet another censorship tool for the government.” International media watchdogs say Erdogan already has an iron grip on terrestrial broadcasting. In response, Turkey has witnessed a surge of independent digital news, with many prominent Turkish journalists who have been purged from mainstream TV and newspapers moving to online news outlets. “Erdogan realizes the media he controls is no longer watched or read in Turkey,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of the consulting firm Global Source Partners. “Eighty-five percent of Turkish households are now connected to the internet, and 70 percent of youth generation get their entire, entire information from social media and the internet,” Yesilada said. An official for RTUK, left, takes notes in the master control room of IMC TV in Istanbul, Turkey, Oct. 4, 2016. Content controls Online broadcasters now will need an RTUK license, at an annual cost of …