Year: 2019

The board of commissioners in Citrus County, Florida, denied a local library’s request for nearly $3,000 for a digital subscription to the New York Times, calling the newspaper “fake news.” “Fake news — I agree with President [Donald] Trump,” said commissioner Scott Carnahan at the October meeting. “I don’t want the New York Times in this county. I don’t agree with it. I don’t like ’em. It’s fake news, and I’m voting no. They can take that money and do something else with it.”   The commissioners didn’t debate the authorization of the funds, shrugging off the request, instead. “Why the heck would we spend money on something like that?” asked one commissioner. Citrus County’s four libraries already have a subscription to the Times’ print edition.  The decision received a swift response from the community, with most telling the Citrus County Chronicle newspaper that they opposed the move.  The commissioners have since reconsidered the issue.  “Our decision should have been impartial, instead of having it become a personal thing,” commissioner Brian Coleman told the Chronicle.   …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to tap Steve Biegun, the special representative for North Korea, as deputy secretary of state could spur Washington’s denuclearization talks with Pyongyang, said experts. “[Biegun’s] in a position now where he will have much more influence, and he will be able to guide things from a senior level at the State Department to really help shape policy, even more than as … a special representative for North Korea,” said David Maxwell, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Embed Copy Listen David Maxwell – “He’s in a position…North Korea” David Maxwell – “He’s in a position…North Korea” audio player. The White House announced Trump has nominated Biegun for the No. 2 spot at the State Department on Thursday, and soon after announced the Biegun nomination had been sent to the Senate. If the Senate approves his nomination, Biegun will replace John Sullivan, who was nominated to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia. Biegun would then be the second highest-ranking official at the State Department after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. If Pompeo steps down from his post to run for a Senate seat as widely speculated, then Biegun would serve as acting secretary of state. As the deputy secretary, Biegun will continue in his role of overseeing diplomacy with North Korea, a senior U.S. official said. Experts think Biegun’s nomination signals the Trump administration’s effort to elevate the significance of engaging in talks with North Korea. “Making him the deputy …

North Korea on Tuesday lashed out at the United States for mentioning Pyongyang in its annual report on state sponsors of terrorism, saying the report is an example of Washington’s “hostile policy” that is limiting chances for dialogue. The U.S. State Department on Friday published its 2018 Country Reports on Terrorism. Though the report scaled back its criticism of North Korea from the previous year, it mentioned that the U.S. re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terror in 2017.  North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the report as a “grave politically motivated provocation,” according to a statement in the state-run Korean Central News Agency.  “This proves once again that the U.S. preoccupied with inveterate repugnancy toward (North Korea) is invariably seeking its hostile policy towards the latter,” the statement said.  FILE – People watch a TV showing a file image of an unspecified North Korean missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Oct. 31, 2019. North Korea last month walked away from working-level nuclear talks, blaming the United States for not offering enough concessions. It has since threatened to resume nuclear or long-range missile tests.  The North Korean statement on Tuesday said it is an “insult” that the U.S. would issue the terrorism report, especially while U.S.-North Korea dialogue “is at a stalemate.”  “The channel of the dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. is more and more narrowing due to such attitude and stand of the U.S.,” the …

Newly-announced U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s construction sector have drawn a skeptical response from some Iran analysts who foresee the measures doing only limited harm to one of its top industries. In an Oct. 31 announcement, the Trump administration said it had imposed sanctions on Iran’s construction sector for being controlled “directly or indirectly” by the nation’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a military branch designated by U.S. officials as a terrorist organization earlier this year. FILE – Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi speaks at a media conference in Tehran, Iran, May 28, 2019. Iran sees itself as a victim, rather than a perpetrator, of terrorism. In a Saturday statement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi denounced the U.S. sanctions on the nation’s construction industry as “economic terrorism” and said they reflected “weakness” and “failure in (American) diplomacy.” IRGC-controlled companies such as Khatam al-Anbiya dominate Iran’s construction sector. Previous U.S. administrations sanctioned Khatam al-Anbiya in 2007 and four of its affiliates in 2010. A State Department fact sheet said the new sanctions target international transactions with Iranian construction companies involving four specific commodities and products: raw and semi-finished metals, graphite, coal, and software for integrating industrial purposes. “If you look at this designation of Iran’s construction sector, it is very limited,” said Saeed Ghasseminejad, a researcher on Iran’s economy and financial markets at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).  Speaking to VOA Persian, Ghasseminejad said Iranian construction companies typically produce their own basic commodities such as steel and cement rather …

Thousands of Chileans took to the streets again Monday to demand better social services, some clashing with police, as protesters demanded an end to economic inequality even as the government announced that weeks of demonstrations are hurting the country’s economic growth. The latest protest came after a short break in the weekslong wave of demonstrations in which 20 people have died in clashes amid looting and arson that forced the cancellation of two upcoming major international summits in what is considered one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries.  Most Chileans starting last week were on a long holiday weekend and Monday’s protest was relatively small compared to earlier demonstrations. But the thousands who turned out showed that protest movement did not appear to be fizzling.  Most demonstrators supporting the leaderless national movement marched peacefully, but some groups threw rocks and firebombs at riot police officers _ who responded with volleys of tear gas and water cannon blasts to try to disperse the crowds. The government said that at least six police officers were injured, including two who were attacked and set on fire with Molotov cocktails.  The demonstrations began last month after the government announced a hike in subway fares and transformed into a leaderless national movement with broader demands over education, health services and economic inequality. Santiago’s subway system has said that it has suffered nearly $400 million in damages, while businesses in Chile are estimated to have lost more than $1.4 billion in damages to arson, looting and lost …

The Islamic State terror group appears to be trying to show that momentum is building in support of its new leader, distributing photographs of fighters from various provinces and affiliates swearing allegiance. Since Saturday, IS media officials have posted a series of photos showing fighters from five of the group’s affiliates gathering to pledge bay’ah (allegiance) to Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi. BREAKING: #ISIS#Sinai releases photos showing fighters pledging bayah/allegiance to new ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al #Hashimi al #Qurashi Via @siteintelgrouppic.twitter.com/xJGVPHa315 — Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 2, 2019 The first of the pledges came from IS-Sinai of IS distributing three photographs of about 25 masked fighters gathering in a sparsely wooded area in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, with guns raised. That release was followed hours later by a series of photographs showing a group of about seven or eight masked fighters, allegedly from Bangladesh, pledging their loyalty. IS media officials have since distributed more photographs, similarly showing masked gunmen from Yemen and Pakistan pledging allegiance. Photos from #ISIS of fighters in #Somalia, #Pakistan, #Bangladesh pledging bay’ah to al #Qurashi, courtesy of @JihadoScopepic.twitter.com/FOAaNJ72Es — Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 4, 2019 “Some of this is, we’re seeing some of the weaker affiliates rapidly realign with Islamic State,” said Katherine Zimmerman, project manager with the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.  “Four of the five are actually pretty small affiliates — Yemen, Somalia, Bangladesh and Pakistan — that haven’t really had a massive presence on the ground and don’t seem to have the sort …

As the US House of Representatives continues to march forward with an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, voters are speaking out in the political battleground state of Wisconsin. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Madison …

Iran’s nuclear chief announced Monday the country is operating dozens of advanced centrifuges in a move that further goes against the 2015 agreement the country signed with a group of world powers. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said told state television Monday that Iran was operating the IR-6 centrifuges, which allow the processing of uranium much faster than the IR-1 centrifuges Iran was allowed to used under the nuclear deal. Salehi also said Iran was working on the development of even faster centrifuges. The 2015 agreement called for Iran to limit its nuclear activity in response to allegations it was working on a nuclear weapons program.  Iran said its nuclear work was solely for peaceful purposes, but agreed to the conditions in exchange for badly needed relief from economic sanctions. Since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement last year, Iran has taken several steps back from its commitments, including exceeding limits on the amount of enriched material it is allowed to stockpile and the level to which it is allowed to enrich uranium. Iran has complained the other signatories, particularly European nations, have not done enough to help it achieve sanctions relief after the United States imposed new sanctions. …

Pakistan has closed its consular office in Afghanistan’s capital, citing unspecified security reasons. Pakistan said the Kabul office will be closed until further notice. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires has been summoned to “convey serious concerns over the safety and security” about its diplomats in Kabul. Pakistan said in a statement that its embassy staff members had been “obstructed on the road and the embassy vehicles were also hit by motorcycles while going towards the embassy.” Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have long been tense. Kabul allege that leaders and fighters of the Afghan Taliban use sanctuaries on Pakistani soil to direct insurgent attacks against local and international forces, a charge Pakistan denies.     …

Iraqi officials said Monday security forces shot dead three protesters in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala overnight after a group tried to scale the walls of the Iranian consulate. Protesters gathered at the site late Sunday and chanted, “Iran out, Karbala remains free.” Before the shootings, officials said protesters also threw objects over the walls and tried to set fires at the consulate site. More than 250 people have been killed since protests in Iraq began last month. Iraqi demonstrators take part at ongoing anti-government protests at Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Nov. 2, 2019. Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators have gathered in recent days in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and across southern Iraq, shutting down markets, factories, schools and universities in protest of the political system in place since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called for the shuttered places to be reopened, contending that the threat to oil facilities and closure of roads had cost Iraq “millions” of dollars and contributed to consumer price increases in the country. “It’s time for life to return to normal,” the Iraqi leader said. Thousands of students have skipped classes to join the protests, blaming the country’s leaders for rampant corruption, high unemployment and poor public services. Syndicates of engineers, doctors and lawyers have all backed the protests. The protesters on Sunday blocked roads around the main protest site in Baghdad with burning tires and barbed wire. At one roadblock, the demonstrators unfurled a banner saying, …

Twenty-year-old Evan Karabas reviews a steady flow of information streaming across his laptop as the digital director of College Republicans at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Lately, much of that content focuses on the U.S. House of Representatives’ ongoing impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.   But nothing Karabas reads, sees, or hears about the probe gives him cause for concern, including details of Trump’s July 25 telephone conversation with Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelenskiy that has Washington in an uproar.   “I read the transcript; it’s available. I don’t see a problem with it,” he told VOA. “I mean, if you read the transcript, it reads like a very normal phone call. I know President Zelenskiy of Ukraine said he wasn’t pressured in any way, so I don’t see a problem with it.”   Trump Impeachment Probe Divides US Voters in Key State video player. Embed Copy Link Trump Impeachment Probe Divides US Voters in Key State Like many Republicans, Karabas does not support impeachment.   “I do think the Democrats are getting a little desperate. I don’t know that they are super confident they can beat Trump in 2020, so they are going to try to impeach him in hopes that it will raise some bad publicity.” Others back the inquiry.   “I think that the impeachment process was put there for a reason, and we’ve reached that threshold [where it’s warranted],” says rural Egg Harbor, Wisconsin voter Bernadette Rainsford, who believes Trump’s phone call to the Ukrainian …

Smuggling gangs in Mexico are cutting through the “virtually impenetrable” wall President Donald Trump is building along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep migrants and drugs out of the country, but Trump says he is not concerned. “We have a very powerful wall,” Trump told reporters Saturday at the White House. “But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness. But we have a lot of people watching. You know cutting, cutting is one thing, but it’s easily fixed. One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in.” Trump offered his thoughts after The Washington Post disclosed that gangs have repeatedly sawed through the border wall in recent months using a reciprocating saw, a popular household tool that sells for as little as $100 at hardware stores. When equipped with specialized blades, the saws can cut through the steel-and-concrete bollards within minutes, according to border agents.  FILE – People walk along a border wall in El Paso, Texas, July 17, 2019. Once bases of the bollards have been cut, smugglers have been able to push them aside, creating a space wide enough for migrants and smugglers to enter. It has not been disclosed how many times the breaches have occurred. One of Trump’s favorite 2016 election campaign themes was that he would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to thwart illegal immigration – and that Mexico would pay for it.  But with his …

The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s bid to get Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, saying the request did not amount to an impeachable offense. “Nothing would lead to a high crime or misdemeanor,” one of Trump’s top aides, Kellyanne Conway, told CNN. She was referring to the standard for impeaching a U.S. president days after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved proceedings for the impeachment inquiry targeting Trump over his actions related to Ukraine. FILE – Then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden attend an NCAA basketball game between Georgetown University and Duke University in Washington, Jan. 30, 2010. But Conway said she did not know whether Trump had initially conditioned release of $391 million in military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv investigating Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, as well as a debunked political theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, had hacked into Democratic National Committee computers to try to help defeat Trump in the 2016 election. “I feel comfortable in saying that [Trump] never mentioned a quid pro quo or 2020” in a late July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Conway said.  “Let’s be honest …,” she added, “what is not there [in the phone call between the two leaders] is holding up the aid. They got that aid.” Democrats contested White House assertions. “The Congress appropriated money for foreign aid for Ukraine, and the …

Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday it was expelling El Salvador’s diplomats from the country, in response to the Central American country’s decision to expel diplomats representing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. In a statement, the ministry said it would give the diplomats 48 hours to leave. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s government does not recognize Maduro as legitimate and said on Saturday it would receive a new diplomatic corps representing opposition leader Juan Guaido. Guaido, who presides over the opposition-controlled National Assembly, in January invoked the South American country’s constitution to assume an interim presidency, arguing Maduro stole the 2018 election. He has been recognized by dozens of Western countries, including the United States. The Salvadoran move came less than a week after the U.S. government extended temporary protections for Salvadorans living in the United States by an extra year. “Salvadoran authorities are breathing oxygen into the failing U.S. strategy of intervention and economic blockade against the people of Venezuela,” Venezuela’s ministry said. “Bukele is officially assuming the sad role of a pawn of U.S. foreign policy.” Maduro, a socialist, calls Guaido a U.S. puppet seeking to oust him in a coup, and blames U.S. sanctions for a hyperinflationary economic collapse that has led to a humanitarian crisis in the once-prosperous OPEC nation, prompting millions to emigrate. While most of Venezuela’s neighbors recognize Guaido and have called on Maduro to step down, Maduro has remained in power thanks to the backing of the armed forces and allies including Russia, China …

London’s Vietnamese community has gathered at a vigil and a service to honor the 39 Vietnamese victims who died in a refrigerated truck container in southeastern England. The community is mourning the unidentified victims, who were trying to enter Britain in hopes of finding greater opportunity. They were discovered dead on Oct. 23 at an industrial park in the town of Grays. Rev. Simon Nguyen offered prayers for the victims and for their loved ones in Vietnam. “We show our condolences and sympathies for the people who have lost their lives on the way seeking freedom, dignity and happiness,” he said, going on to pray for those who lost their “sons and daughters” in the tragedy. A Saturday night vigil was followed by a Sunday service at the Church of the Holy Name and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in east London. Authorities charged with the grim task of trying to identify the remains are working with officials in Vietnam to try to get information about people who have been reported missing by their families and are thought to have been in transit to England. The 31 men and eight women are believed to have paid people traffickers for their clandestine transit into England. Police have not provided details about the scheme. British police have charged 25-year-old Maurice Robinson, from Northern Ireland, with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. They say he drove the cab of the truck to Purfleet, England, where it picked up the …

A study by the World Food Program and partner organizations finds malnutrition and obesity contribute significantly to El Salvador’s poverty and inability to develop its struggling economy. The study attributes the losses in productivity, health and education in El Salvador to, what it calls, the “double burden” of malnutrition and obesity.  It says these twin problems can occur in the same countries, communities and families. Malnutrition takes many forms.  Stick-thin malnourished individuals suffer from undernutrition, leading to wasting and stunting.  Overweight and obese people lack important vitamins and minerals.  This makes them susceptible to diet-related noncommunicable diseases. The World Food Program reports El Salvador has endured the cost of this double burden for more than a decade.  WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel said this has resulted in losses of more than $2.5 billion from lost productivity and extra health and educational costs.  “Currently, one in six children have chronic undernutrition and six out of 10 adults are overweight or obese, and that raises troubling consequences, which limit the development of the country.  The study shows that four out of 10 children with malnutrition do not finish primary school.  Eight of 10 do not finish high school,” he said.  Furthermore, Verhoosel said 1 million overweight or obese Salvadorans suffer from diabetes and hypertension.  He addd these conditions lead to spiraling health costs.  The study finds more than half a billion dollars was spent on treating diabetes and hypertension in 2017. The study concludes that El Salvador could improve its socioeconomic condition by …

Firefighters began to get the upper hand on a destructive wildfire in a Southern California farming region Saturday, taking advantage of lighter winds as authorities let some evacuated residents return home.  The Maria Fire erupted Thursday near Santa Paula, about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and it has since charred 9,400 acres (3,800 hectares) of dry brush and chaparral, officials said.  Firefighters have scrambled to protect tens of millions of dollars’ worth of citrus and avocado crops in harm’s way, as well as oil industry infrastructure.  The blaze, which was 20% contained Saturday, is the most pressing emergency facing California firefighters, with several other blazes in the state largely contained.  More than 10,000 people were under evacuation orders at the height of the blaze.  Evacuation orders lifted But authorities allowed people in two residential areas to return home Saturday and they had plans to further lift evacuation orders, said Ventura County Fire Captain Brian McGrath.  “We’re taking advantage of the good weather we have right now,” McGrath said by phone.  The fire has destroyed three structures but has not caused any injuries, he said.  Southern California Edison has told state authorities that 13 minutes before the fire started, it began to re-energize a circuit near where flames first erupted, said a spokesman for the utility, Ron Gales.  Southern California Edison had shut off power in the area because of concerns that an electrical mishap could spark a wildfire. The utility and fire officials have said the cause of the blaze is still under investigation.  Dry winds, but they’re weak On Friday evening, moist breezes from the Pacific Ocean aided …