Author: Selleco

“Hostile” and “provocative” is how Iran labeled a proposal to form a European coalition to escort tankers through the Persian Gulf. “We heard that they intend to send a European fleet to the Persian Gulf, which naturally carries a hostile message, is provocative and will increase tensions,” government spokesman Ali Rabiel said Sunday, according to state media. Tensions have been mounting as Iran has become increasingly aggressive in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane that passes by Iranian territorial waters. Earlier this month, Iranian Revolutionary Guard commandos descending from helicopters, with several small boats in support, took control of a British-flagged oil tanker, the Stena Impero, transiting the strait. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt labeled Tehran’s actions an “act of state piracy” and said Britain was working to create a European-led naval mission to protect ships trying to navigate the strait. The United States has proposed building and leading a similar naval coalition in recent weeks. Tensions between Iran and the West have risen steadily in the year since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 international accord aimed at restraining Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and reimposed economic sanctions against Iran to curb its international oil trade. In addition to seizing the British oil tanker, Iran has also targeted U.S. assets in recent weeks. In late June, Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone after alleging it violated Iranian airspace, a claim the U.S. denied. The Pentagon said recently that forces aboard the USS Boxer …

Shelsea, whose husband was recently detained by ICE inside her family’s home, recounts the moments leading up to his arrest. …

President Donald Trump listened to Robert Mueller testify to Congress this past week, then misrepresented what the former special counsel said. Some partisans on both sides did much the same, whether to defend or condemn the president. Trump seized on Mueller’s testimony to claim anew that he was exonerated by the Russia investigation, which the president wasn’t. He capped the week by wishing aloud that President Barack Obama had received some of the congressional scrutiny he’s endured, ignoring the boatload of investigations, subpoenas and insults visited on the Democrat and his team. Highlights from a week in review: THE GENTLEMEN TRUMP on Democrats: “All they want to do is impede, they want to investigate. They want to go fishing. … We want to find out what happened with the last Democrat president. Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked at me. Let’s subpoena all of the records having to do with Hillary Clinton and all of the nonsense that went on with Clinton and her foundation and everything else. Could do that all day long. Frankly, the Republicans were gentlemen and women when we had the majority in the House. They didn’t do subpoenas all day long. They didn’t do what these people are doing. What they’ve done is a disgrace.” — Oval Office remarks Friday. THE FACTS: He’s distorting recent history. Republicans made aggressive use of their investigative powers when they controlled one chamber or the other during the Obama years. Moreover, matters involving Hillary Clinton, her use …

President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran is at a crossroads. His administration is trying to decide whether to risk stoking international tensions even more by ending one of the last remaining components of the 2015 nuclear deal. The U.S. faces a Thursday deadline to decide whether to extend or cancel sanctions waivers to foreign companies working on Iran’s civilian nuclear program as permitted under the deal. Ending the waivers would be the next logical step in the campaign and it’s a move favored by Trump’s allies in Congress who endorse a tough approach to Iran. But it also would escalate tensions with Iran and with some European allies, and two officials say a divided administration is likely to keep the waivers afloat with temporary extensions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The mere fact that the administration is divided on the issue — it’s already postponed an announcement twice, according to the officials — is the latest in a series of confusing signals that Trump has sent over Iran, causing confusion among supporters and critics of the president about just what he hopes to achieve in the standoff with the Islamic Republic. Some fear the mixed messages could trigger open conflict amid a buildup of U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf region. “It’s always a problem when you don’t have a coherent policy because you are vulnerable to manipulation and the mixed messages have created the environment for dangerous miscalculation,” said Karim …

The U.S. Marshals Service, which has custody of the North Korean-owned ship Wise Honest, is reviewing how to sell the seized vessel as ordered by a federal court that has yet to decide officially if the Otto Warmbier family will receive the sale proceeds. “The Marshals are in the process of developing a disposal plan, taking into consideration things such as age, condition, and location of the vessel,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) earlier this week. The USMS oversees managing and selling assets seized by the U.S. through the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Program. The U.S. federal court in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) authorized the sale of the seized North Korean cargo vessel last week, following a claim filed by the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died shortly after returning to the U.S. from detention in North Korea. The North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, middle, was towed into the Port of Pago Pago, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Warmbiers file claim, lawsuit On July 3, Frederick and Cynthia Warmbier filed a claim in the SDNY against the North Korean flagged vessel. The U.S. seized the ship in May for ship-to-ship transfers of banned North Korean coal, an apparent violation of U.S. and U.N. sanctions.  The claim was their attempt to obtain the North Korean government asset as a way to pay part of the $500 million judgment the federal court in the District of Columbia ordered against …

Armed men described as jihadists raided a village in Burkina Faso’s restive north, killing 15 people, plundering and burning shops and motorbikes,  a regional governor said Saturday. The raid took place on the night of Thursday to Friday with “around 20 individuals attacking the village of Diblou,” said a security source who put the death toll at 14. But a statement by the governor of the Centre-Nord region, Casimir Segueda, said that 15 people were killed, and the village’s market torched. A local resident said that “the terrorists burnt shops and motorcycles”. “Almost the entire market was looted,” the resident added. The poor Sahel state has been battling a rising wave of jihadist attacks over the last four years which began in the north but have since spread to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin. Most attacks in the former French colony are attributed to the jihadist group Ansarul Islam, which emerged near the Mali border in December 2016, and to the JNIM (Group to Support Islam and Muslims), which has sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Those groups are believed to be responsible for around 500 deaths since 2015. The capital Ouagadougou has been attacked three times. …

NEW YORK — Federal authorities arrested a New York City man Friday on charges accusing him of seeking to join the Taliban to fight American forces.    The FBI intercepted Delowar Mohammed Hossain on Friday morning at Kennedy Airport before he could carry out a plan to travel to Afghanistan, prosecutors said.    Hossain, 33, of the Bronx, was ordered held without bail after appearing in federal court in Manhattan. He is charged with one count of attempting to provide material support for terrorism.    Defense attorney Amy Gallicchio declined to comment Friday.    A criminal complaint says that starting in 2018, Hossain expressed interest in joining the Taliban and sought to recruit a government informant to do the same. It claims he told the informant: “I want to kill some kufars [non-believers] before I die.”    Hossain’s preparations included buying equipment such as walkie-talkies and trekking gear, prosecutors said. He instructed the informant to save enough money “to buy some weapons” once they reached Afghanistan, they added.    The case follows a series of arrests of self-radicalized terror suspects on charges they tried to join or support the Islamic State group by making contacts on social media.    FBI official William Sweeney said in a statement: “The lure of radical ideologies comes from many sources, and just because the Taliban may seem like an old and out-of-vogue extremist group, it shouldn’t be underestimated.”  …

ROME — A young American tourist has confessed to fatally stabbing an Italian paramilitary policeman who was investigating the theft of a bag and cellphone before dawn Friday, the Italian news agency ANSA and state radio reported.    ANSA, citing unidentified investigators, said two American tourists allegedly snatched the bag of a drug dealer who had swindled them. It said the owner called police to say he had arranged a meeting with the thieves to get back his bag and phone.     When two plainclothes officers arrived at the rendezvous site in Rome’s Prati neighborhood about 3 a.m., there was a scuffle during which Carabinieri paramilitary officer Mario Cerciello Rega was stabbed eight times, ANSA said.    RAI state radio reported early Saturday that the two tourists are 19 years old and had been seen on video surveillance cameras apparently running away with the bag, which was stolen in another neighborhood, Trastevere, which is very popular with young Italians and foreigners for its night life.    The Carabinieri police corps did not immediately confirm the alleged confession.   Questioning continues   Prosecutors were apparently still questioning the Americans at a Carabinieri station in Rome early Saturday.    Police said earlier Friday evening that several people, including two American tourists, were being questioned in the case.     Carabinieri Lt. Col. Orazio Ianniello said the Americans were staying at an upscale hotel near where the policeman was stabbed. He said their identities and hometowns were not being immediately released.    Earlier, the Carabinieri said the thieves …

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.  The court’s five conservative justices gave the administration the green light to begin work on four contracts it has awarded using Defense Department money. Funding for the projects had been frozen by lower courts while a lawsuit over the money proceeded. The court’s four liberal justices wouldn’t have allowed construction to start.  The justices’ decision to lift the freeze on the money allows President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump tweeted after the announcement: “Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!”  FILE – A Customs and Border Protection agent patrols on the U.S. side of a razor-wire-covered border wall along the southern U.S. border east of Nogales, Ariz., March 2, 2019. The Supreme Court’s action reverses the decision of a trial court, which initially froze the funds in May, and an appeals court, which kept that freeze in place earlier this month. The freeze had prevented the government from tapping approximately $2.5 billion in Defense Department money to replace existing sections of barrier in Arizona, California and New Mexico with more robust fencing.  The case the Supreme Court ruled in began after the 35-day …

When Ciwan Husen lost his left hand and eye at age 21 in the Kurdish fight against the Islamic State (IS) in northwest Syria, he knew his life would never be the same. In the months leading to his recovery, his efforts to overcome his physical disability and the psychological trauma of war led him to develop a talent he never knew he had: playing drums and cymbals. ‘I thought life was over’ Living in displacement in the Shahba district of northern Aleppo Governorate, Husen has developed a love for music and plays drums even without prosthetics. “At the beginning, when I had just lost one of my hands and one of my eye(s), I thought life was over and I couldn’t do anything,” Husen told VOA, speaking of his impairment after being hit by an IS explosive in 2016. “But people around me continued to encourage me and told me to trust in God and my will. Their encouragement overtime built this confidence in me,” he added. Husen is originally from the predominantly Kurdish city of Afrin, in northwest Syria. He fled with his family in early 2018 following a Turkish attack to seize the city from Kurdish fighters. Finding his talent While living in Shahba, he bought a drum kit and started practicing, and found he had a talent. His goal, he says, is to become a popular musician. “Here in Shahba, I bought the instruments. I started practicing and improved myself gradually. … I want to establish …

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó says his country has shown that migration can be stopped on the western Balkan route. …

North Korea has formally announced its latest ballistic missile test, saying the launch was a warning to “military warmongers” in South Korea who are set to soon hold joint military exercises with the United States. North Korean state media showed pictures of Kim Jong Un personally supervising the Thursday test of what it called a “new-type tactical guided weapon.” U.S. and South Korean officials say the projectile was a short-range ballistic missile. The official Korean Central News Agency said the test was meant “to send a solemn warning to the south Korean military warmongers who are running high fever in their moves to introduce the ultramodern offensive weapons into south Korea and hold military exercise in defiance of the repeated warnings.” Complaints about South Korea North Korea has repeatedly complained about South Korea’s recent acquisition of U.S. F-35 fighter jets, as well as upcoming U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises. Pyongyang has warned it may not resume working-level talks with the United States if the drills take place. “South Korean authorities show such strange double-dealing behavior as acting a ‘handshake of peace’ and fingering joint declaration and agreement and the like before the world people and, behind the scene, shipping ultra-modern offensive weapons and holding joint military exercises,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA. A view of North Korea’s missile launch Thursday, in this undated picture released by North Korea’s Central News Agency, July 26, 2019. New type of missile South Korea’s National Security Council expressed “strong concern” about the …

There was more flash than substance Thursday as the White House celebrated the anniversary of an initiative to spur job training by companies. The initiative, led by President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has garnered commitments from 300 companies to provide 12 million training opportunities in the years ahead. But there are questions about how much the administration is willing to spend to help U.S. workers, whether the agreements by companies will result in higher salaries and whether employers will stick to their nonbinding pledge if the economy sours. A look at the celebratory rhetoric: Ivanka Trump: “This administration believes that every American should have a chance to earn a great living doing work that they love. … The president’s call to action for the pledge has become a full-blown national movement. Over the last year, more than 300 businesses, 300 businesses, have signed the pledge, businesses large and small, and today we celebrate reaching 12 million pledged commitments. … This pledge is more than just a number. Every single pledge is a commitment to the promise of an individual and his or her potential.” Vice President Mike Pence: “That is an astonishing accomplishment.” The Facts: It’s much too early to declare the pledge a game changer for working Americans. From left, President Donald Trump, joined by Shameka Whaley Green of Toyota, Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America, and his daughter Ivanka Trump speaks during a “Pledge to America’s Workers” ceremony in the State Dining Room of the White House …

RFE/RL contributed to this report. Despite the arrest of a top Kremlin critic and police raids on the homes of several political activists, opposition leaders in Russia remained determined to go ahead with a planned protest in Moscow on Saturday. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was ordered jailed Wednesday for 30 days for calling “unauthorized protests” for this weekend to protest the disqualification of several opposition-minded candidates from the Sept. 8 Moscow city council elections. Election officials have barred about 30 independent candidates from the ballot, saying some of the 5,500 signatures they needed to get on the ballot were invalid. The rejected candidates say the reason for not validating the signatures is to keep genuine independents off the ballots and ensure the ruling United Russia party and others who do President Vladimir Putin’s bidding maintain dominance. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is charged with participation in an unauthorised protest rally, attends a court hearing in Moscow, July 1, 2019. “If the United Russia swindlers don’t register the independent candidates and spit on the opinions of the citizenry, then all of us … will come to the mayor’s office at Tverskaya 13,” Navalny wrote on a social media post earlier this week. Last weekend, more than 20,000 people marched in the streets of Moscow to protest the disqualifications. That’s when Navalny called for an even bigger rally Saturday. Mass protests Rejected candidate Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer with Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, also called for mass protests after a meeting between the …

Joe Biden no longer plans to turn the other cheek.   His front-running status fragile, the former vice president is embracing an aggressive plan to confront Democratic rivals who have tried to undermine his popularity with black voters.   After ignoring his Democratic competition for much of the year, Biden and his team shrugged off the risks Thursday and leaned into a deliberate campaign to push back against New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris, the only high-profile African-American candidates in the race.   Biden’s team highlighted Booker and Harris’ past praise of Biden while raising questions about their own records related to race. And Biden’s allies made clear that the former vice president was prepared for a fight in next week’s debate. They also point to numerous surveys showing Biden with durable support among black voters that far exceeds that of Booker or Harris.   “He’s going to forcefully defend his record and not let it get distorted,” declared Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana congressman and national co-chairman of Biden’s campaign. The comments echoed Biden’s own from the night before in Detroit when he warned his competitors that he was “not going to be as polite” in the upcoming prime-time faceoff, where Biden will share the stage with both Booker and Harris.   Biden’s shift underscores the escalating racial rift roiling the Democratic primary just days after President Donald Trump issued racist calls for four female congresswomen of color to leave the country, even though all of …

The U.S. government plans to resume executions after a 16-year hiatus, picking five killers of children to be the first to die. The five men — four white and one black — range in age from 37 to 67. They are being held in a high-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where they will be executed. Here is a look at the five men and their crimes: Daniel Lee, 46, is scheduled for execution Dec. 9. Lee, a white supremacist, was convicted in 1999 for killing an Arkansas gun dealer, along with his wife and 8-year-old daughter. Lezmond Mitchell, 37, is scheduled for execution Dec. 11. Mitchell was convicted in 2003 for killing a 63-year-old grandmother and her 9-year-old granddaughter in Arizona. After stabbing the grandmother to death, Mitchell and his accomplice forced the child to sit next to the body for a more than 50-kilometer drive, before fatally slashing her throat. Wesley Purkey, 67, is scheduled for execution Dec. 13. Purkey was found guilty in 2003 for raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering and burning her body in Missouri. Months before that murder, Purkey had used a hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio. Alfred Bourgeois, 55, is scheduled for execution Jan. 13, 2020. Bourgeois was found guilty by a Texas court in 2004 of the murder of his 2-year-old daughter. Witnesses, including family members, told the court that Bourgeois had repeatedly beaten the child before her death. An autopsy found the girl …

The clamor from “Game of Thrones” fans for a do-over of the drama’s final season has been in vain. HBO programming chief Casey Bloys said Wednesday there was no serious consideration to remaking the story that some viewers and critics called disappointing. There are few downsides to having a hugely popular show like “Game of Thrones,” Bloys said, but one is that fans have strong opinions on what would be a satisfying conclusion. Bloys said during a TV critics’ meeting that it comes with the territory, adding that he appreciates fans’ passion for the saga based on George R.R. Martin’s novels. Emmy voters proved unswayed by petitioners demanding a remake: They gave “Game of Thrones” a record-breaking 32 nominations earlier this month. The series also hit record highs for HBO. HBO will want to keep the fan fervor alive for the prequel to “Game of Thrones” that’s in the works. The first episode completed taping in Ireland and the dailies look “really good,” Bloys said. The planned series stars Naomi Watts and is set thousands of years before the original. Asked whether negative reaction to the “Game of Thrones” conclusion will shape the prequel, Bloys replied, “Not at all.” …

A federal judge is considering whether to order Georgia to immediately stop using its outdated voting machines, even as state officials prepare to announce their replacement. A lawsuit filed by election integrity activists argues that the paperless touchscreen voting machines Georgia has used since 2002 are unsecure, vulnerable to hacking and can’t be audited. It seeks statewide use of hand-marked paper ballots. A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system, which state officials said will be in place for the 2020 presidential election. But the plaintiffs are asking U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg to order the state to immediately stop using the current system, which it plans to use for special and municipal elections this year and which the plaintiffs fear would be used in 2020 if a new system isn’t implemented in time. Totenberg has scheduled a hearing Thursday on those requests. Georgia’s voting system drew national scrutiny last year during the closely watched governor’s race in which Kemp, a Republican who was the state’s top election official at the time, narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams. The plaintiffs in this case _ the Coalition for Good Governance and individual voters asked Totenberg last August to force Georgia to use hand-marked paper ballots for the November election. While Totenberg expressed grave concerns about vulnerabilities in the state’s voting system and scolded state officials for being slow to respond to evidence of those problems, she said a switch to paper ballots so …

An African Union special envoy is urging South Sudan’s leaders to enact and enforce laws to end the pervasive problem of sexual violence in the country. AU special envoy on youth, Aya Chebbi, said authorities must involve men if South Sudan is going to end gender-based violence.  “Men should be doing all these initiatives to end gender-based violence. Why? Because these women are their mothers, their sisters, their daughters, they are not some women out there who are suffering and I don’t care about; these are their communities,” Chebbi told South Sudan in Focus. During a five-day visit to South Sudan, she said the AU’s plan for ending gender-based violence focuses on eliminating all forms of violence, including genital mutilation and child marriage.  “So I call on civil society to advocate for legal frameworks that protect women. For the communities, there is also resilience and community policing which means the community must protect itself,” Chebbi told VOA. Simon Marot Tonloung, a member of the African Union’s Youth Advisory Council, says preventing sexual violence begins at home.   “How will you feel if your sister, if your daughter, or your mother undergoes such kinds of troubling experiences? It’s sad. So it will start from families. It will not come from outside,” Tonloung told South Sudan in Focus. FILE – women and girls speak to members of a UN peacekeeping patrol as they walk to get food in Bentiu, a 38 kilometers (24 mile) journey where there are fears of being attacked on …

ASAP Rocky will be tried for an alleged assault next week over a June street brawl, a Swedish court said Thursday, in a decision likely to infuriate fans already indignant over his three weeks in custody. “Today I have pressed charges against the three suspects for assault, because in my judgement what has happened amounts to a crime, despite the objections about self-defence and provocations,” prosecutor Daniel Suneson said in a statement published Thursday morning. The 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was arrested on July 3 along with three other people, following the brawl in Stockholm on June 30. One of them, the rapper’s bodyguard, was later released. Part of the fight was captured in an amateur video published by US celebrity news outlet TMZ. The rapper later published videos of his own to Instagram purporting to show the lead up to the fight. Mayers has claimed he was acting in self-defence, saying he was responding to harassment and provocations by the plaintiff. But Suneson said in his statement: “I have had more material to consider than what has been available on the internet.” Heading to trial According to the charge document filed with the Stockholm District Court, the evidence includes surveillance footage, witness testimony and text conversations that the prosecutor says prove there was no need for self defence and that a bottle was used as a weapon in the alleged assault. On July 5 the court ordered that Mayers should be kept in custody pending …

Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls, was found unconscious in a Manhattan jail cell with injuries to his neck, media reported late on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources. Epstein was found by guards sprawled on the floor of cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Wednesday, media reported. Some media reported that his face appeared blue. The billionaire financier was taken to hospital, the New York Post reported, but it was unclear where he was taken or what his condition was. It was not clear how he suffered his injuries. Neither a representative for the correctional center nor Epstein’s attorney returned calls or email inquiries from Reuters. Epstein was recently denied bail, a move his lawyers plan to appeal according to a court notice made public on Tuesday. Epstein was expected to ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the judge’s July 18 rejection of his request to remain under house arrest in his $77 million mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Epstein has pleaded not guilty to the charges and the appeal for bail was expected. His lawyer Reid Weingarten did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan declined to comment. The charges, concerning alleged misconduct from at least 2002 to 2005, were announced more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida. In denying him bail, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan said …

The Trump administration’s new asylum rule survived an initial court challenge Wednesday, keeping in place a directive that disqualifies a significant proportion of mostly Central American asylum-seekers who reach the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly denied requests to block the rule while a pending court case goes forward, saying, “It’s in the greater public interest to allow the administration to carry out its immigration policy.”  Announced earlier this month, the new rule bars asylum for migrants who reach the U.S. southern border without having applied for and been denied asylum in any country they passed through on their way to the United States. FILE – A group of Central American migrants surrenders to U.S. Border Patrol Agents south of the U.S.-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, March 6, 2019. The case was brought by two immigrant rights organizations: the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and RAICES, or Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. Both organizations argued the asylum rule would harm migrants fleeing dangerous situations. Kelly, who serves on the U.S. District Court in the nation’s capital, voiced doubts that plaintiffs could demonstrate the administration exceeded its authority by issuing the asylum rule.  The White House’s legal victory could be short-lived, as a federal judge in San Francisco was to consider a separate challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union later in the day. “We’ve filed suit to stop the Trump administration from reversing our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect …

The Gulf of Guinea is a hot spot for illegal activities, which affect global trade and security. This week a conference in Ghana’s capital, Accra, seeks solutions to overcome issues that plague the region. Experts say collaboration will be the focus of a seaborne law enforcement effort. On board the USNS Carson City, which is visiting Sekondi, in Ghana’s Western Region, Admiral James Foggo thanked the American crew, telling personnel how important its role is in building partnerships and bringing security to the Gulf of Guinea – a coastal region of West and Central Africa. The ship arrived for a port visit Sunday as part of the U.S. Navy’s effort to support African navies in anti-piracy, small boat maintenance and marine law enforcement. Personnel from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian forces are also part of the collaborative mission. The USNS Carson City is seen in Ghana’s Sekondi port. (Stacey Knott for VOA) Alongside naval leaders from other nations, Foggo toured U.S., Ghanaian and Nigerian vessels at the port of Sekondi. “Our interest in the Gulf of Guinea is helping our African partners and friends legitimize and control the sea lines of communication that lead to the ports of Africa. Ninety percent of their commerce travels by those sea lines of communication. There is a lot of activity that is legal, probably more legal than illegal. We want to stop the illegal activity, it takes away from their tax base, their profitability and detracts from their economy,” Foggo said. But for success …

The acting head of the Homeland Security Department is complimenting what he says is cooperation with Guatemala to tighten immigration security. Kevin McAleenan’s statement comes a day after President Donald Trump railed against Guatemala and threatened retribution against the Central American nation over immigration.   McAleenan says the collaboration is “already yielding significant results” and he mentions a joint operation in Guatemala that broke up a human smuggling ring in May.   McAleenan tells counterparts from Honduras, El Salvador and Panama, and the Costa Rican ambassador that he wants similar cooperation.   Trump tweeted that he may impose tariffs and tax remittance money, and he alleged that Guatemala refused to sign an asylum deal with the U.S. even though the country’s government didn’t say it had agreed to the arrangement.   …