Lawmakers from Israel’s ruling Likud party say they will only accept Benjamin Netanyahu as the party’s candidate for prime minister, “regardless of the election results.”
Netanyahu’s party issued a statement Sunday saying that all of its Knesset members signed a “unity petition” affirming that Netanyahu “is the only Likud candidate for prime minister – and there will be no other candidate.”
The move appeared aimed at quashing any demand by potential coalition partners that Netanyahu step down.
Netanyahu passed David Ben-Gurion last month as Israel’s longest serving prime minister and seeks re-election for a fourth consecutive term. Israel is holding an unprecedented repeat election on September 17 after Netanyahu failed to form a government following April’s vote.
He also faces a pre-indictment hearing in a series of corruption cases.
Mexican officials said Saturday they would investigate the killing of a journalist in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz who was the third reporter to be killed in a week in Mexico as the country grapples with a record homicide rate.
Jorge Ruiz Vazquez, a reporter at the Grafico de Xalapa newspaper in Veracruz’s capital, died in spite of procedures in place to protect him, the state prosecutor’s office said.
“The prosecutor will investigate why protection measures granted to the victim and his family, which were active, were not enforced,” the entity said in a statement.
Ruiz’s death brings the number of Mexican journalists this year to at least eight compared with nine last year, according to free-speech advocacy group Article 19.
A reporter in Guerrero state who also served as a municipal official was shot and killed Friday, while earlier last week, a reporter who covered the police in the same state was found dead in the trunk of a vehicle with signs he had been shot and tortured.
Homicides in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data. The spiraling violence underscores the challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has faced since taking office in December with a vow to reduce violence in the country ravaged by notorious drug cartels.
Ruiz had reported death threats in October and November of 2018, said Ana Laura Perez, president of Veracruz’s commission to protect journalists (CEAPP), in an interview with Veracruz news outlet XEU Noticias.
She added that Ruiz had been shot and killed at his home in a municipality near Xalapa.
Veracruz’s governor, Cuitlahuac Garcia, said Friday evening that efforts were underway to find the people responsible for Ruiz’s death.
“We condemn the cowardly murder of a reporter from a local outlet, Jorge Ruiz,” he said on Twitter. “His killing will not go unpunished.”
LONDON — Lawmakers will be unable to stop a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 by bringing down Britain’s government in a vote of no confidence next month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aide has advised, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
Dominic Cummings, one of architects of the 2016 campaign to leave the European Union, told ministers that Johnson could schedule a general election after the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline if he loses a vote of no confidence in parliament, the newspaper said, citing sources.
Johnson has promised to lead Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal but has a working majority of just one after his Conservative Party lost a parliamentary seat on Friday.
Some of his lawmakers have hinted they would vote against him to prevent a no-deal Brexit — a rising prospect that has sent the pound tumbling to 30-month lows against the dollar over the last few days.
Lawmakers are unable to table a motion of no confidence before next month because the House of Commons is in recess until Sept. 3.
“[Lawmakers] don’t realize that if there is a no-confidence vote in September or October, we’ll call an election for after the 31st and leave anyway,” Cummings was quoted by one of the Sunday Telegraph’s sources as saying.
Johnson has said he would prefer to the leave the EU with a deal but has rejected the Irish backstop — an insurance policy to prevent the return of a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland — which the EU says is key to any agreement.
The main opposition Labour Party has said it will oppose any Brexit deal brought forward by Johnson if it does not protect jobs, workers’ rights and the environment.
MEXICO CITY — U.S. federal prosecutors have accused the Honduran government of essentially functioning as a narco-state, with the current and former presidents having received campaign contributions from cocaine traffickers in exchange for protection.
A 49-page document filed in New York’s southern district on Friday refers to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez as a co-conspirator who worked with his brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, and former President Porfirio Lobo “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.”
It says that the president and his predecessor “relied on drug proceeds” to fund political campaigns and cites “evidence of high-level political corruption.”
The filing came months after other U.S. federal court documents showed the current president and some of his closest advisers were among the targets of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, casting further doubt on the United States’ assertion that Honduras has helped stop the flow of drugs.
U.S. support
The U.S. government has been a staunch supporter of Hernandez’s government, pouring millions of dollars into security cooperation to stop cocaine headed to the U.S. from South America.
The office of the Honduran president said via Twitter on Saturday that Hernandez “categorically denies the false and perverse accusations.”
It later issued a separate, lengthier statement suggesting that the allegations in New York were put forward by drug dealers seeking retaliation against the president, who was head of the Central American country’s congress in 2012 when the legislature authorized extradition of Honduran nationals to face drug-trafficking charges in the U.S.
Since then, the president’s office said, more than 40 Hondurans have been extradited and others have negotiated plea deals with U.S. officials in exchange for information.
“President Hernandez has been relentless in the fight against drug traffickers despite predictable reprisals, to the point that one of his 17 siblings, a younger brother, is now being tried in New York,” the office said.
Specifically, New York prosecutors allege that the president used $1.5 million in drug trafficking proceeds to help secure power in 2013. That campaign support came via cash bribes to Honduran officials as well as gifts and favors to local politicians, prosecutors argue. Hernandez won re-election in 2017, despite term limits in Honduras and widespread allegations of election fraud.
FILE – Former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa.
The filing also alludes to multiple payments of $1 million or more from drug dealers to Lobo.
Lobo’s wife was arrested by Honduran officials in 2018 on charges of diverting $700,000 in public funds. His son, Fabio, was sentenced in the U.S. to 24 years in prison in 2017 for drug trafficking.
Lobo was Hernandez’s mentor and oversaw his rise to power.
Upcoming case
The filing forms part of pre-trial documents in an upcoming case against Tony Hernandez, who was arrested in 2018 in Miami on charges of smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the U.S.
Prosecutors describe Tony Hernandez as a “violent, multi-ton drug trafficker” with significant influence over high-ranking Honduran officials, who in turn protected his shipments and turf. They also say that members of the Honduran National Police escorted his cocaine through the country’s waters and airspace, while Lobo once deployed military personnel to the nation’s border with Guatemala to deter another drug trafficker from encroaching on territory in western Honduras.
On at least two occasions, prosecutors say Tony Hernandez helped arrange murders of drug-trafficking rivals, one of whom he had executed by a member of the national police. That hit man was later promoted to chief of police, they say.
The court filing included an image of a kilo of cocaine monogrammed with the initials TH, which prosecutors say stood for Tony Hernandez.
The DEA says Tony Hernandez’s trafficking career began in 2004 and continued after he won a seat in Honduras’ congress in 2014. It’s unclear why Hernandez was in Miami when U.S. officials arrested him last year.
Separately, on Friday, a New York judged sentenced Honduran Hector Emilio Fernandez Rosa to life in prison for drug trafficking.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, who is also handling the Tony Hernandez case, said Fernandez paid millions of dollars in bribes to Honduran officials during his career, including a $2 million payment to former President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
Zelaya was forced out of office via a 2009 coup, after which Lobo was elected president.
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings took the high road Saturday, inviting President Donald Trump and other Americans to visit Baltimore but declining to respond in kind to the barrage of presidential tweets and comments disparaging him and the majority-black city he has long represented.
“We are a great community,” Cummings, the chairman of the powerful House Oversight committee investigating the administration, said in his first public remarks about the controversy as he participated in the midday opening of a small neighborhood park near his home.
Community leaders and residents gathered to cut the ribbon on a pocket of greenery and flowers, built from what had been a vacant lot often used as a dumping ground for trash.
“Come to Baltimore. Do not just criticize us, but come to Baltimore and I promise you, you will be welcomed,” he said.
A boy rides his bicycle, July 29. 2019, after volunteering to paint a mural outside the New Song Community Church in the Sandtown section of Baltimore.
‘President welcome to our district’
Cummings said he doesn’t have time for those who criticize the city where he grew up but wants to hear from people willing to help make the community better. He noted the outpouring of support he has received, thousands of emails, and the presence at the event of leaders from the University of Maryland’s medical center, foundations and businesses. He wore a hat and polo shirt by Under Armour, the popular apparel maker headquartered in Baltimore.
Asked directly by reporters afterward if there would be a meeting with Trump, the congressman said he’d love to see Trump in the city.
“The president is welcome to our district,” he said.
In a weeklong series of attacks, Trump called the Baltimore district a “rat and rodent infested mess” and complained about Cummings, whose district includes key parts of the city.
The president widened his attack on other cities he did not name but complained are run by Democrats. His comments were widely seen as a race-centered attack on big cities with minority populations.
FILE – House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., speaks to members of the media before Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan appears before a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 18, 2019.
Cummings’ comments Saturday came at another pivotal juncture for the administration, as half of House Democrats now say they favor launching an impeachment inquiry against Trump. It’s a threshold that pushes renewed focus on the issue, even though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declined to move ahead with proceedings unless there is a greater groundswell, including in public opinion.
Cummings, whose committee is one of the six House committees investigating the Trump administration, said Saturday he was not yet ready to support impeachment.
“There may well come a time when impeachment is appropriate,” he told reporters. But for now, he said, he agrees with Pelosi’s approach and said that his committee would continue its investigations. “I’m trying to be fair to him,” he said. “That’s why we need to do our research.”
An entire block of vacant row houses in West Baltimore, within the 7th Congressional District of Representative Elijah Cummings. (VOA/C. Presutti)
A long-struggling city
Under sunny skies, with a light breeze, the neighborhood situated in a historic part of West Baltimore offered another view of a city that struggled long before Trump’s disparaging tweets, a once-gilded American seaport now confronted with other problems.
Leaders from the community spoke of the region’s historic segregation in housing and how that legacy impacted neighborhoods.
Cummings recounted the city’s famous residents, including the late Thurgood Marshall, a justice of the Supreme Court, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, a noted black scholar who testified recently in Congress on reparations for slavery. The congressman also gave a nod to his own family’s history, his parents arriving from a Southern state, to build a better life for their children, and his ascent from the community to law school and the halls of Congress for two decades.
To residents, especially young people, he said, “Let no one define you.”
A woman enjoys lunch at the Mount Vernon Place Square in the Mount Vernon section of Baltimore, July 29, 2019.
Trying to ‘lift up’ president
Residents said they were heartened by the attention being paid to Baltimore, and they too urged the White House to consider the way the president’s comments may land in a community.
Jackie Cornish, a founder of the Druid Heights community development corporation more than 40 years ago, said she hoped Trump and Cummings could put their collective power together and work for the good of the city. While she feels the president has “disrespected our congressman as well as disrespected our city,” she also said: “We still respect our president. As long as he’s president, we’re trying to lift him up.”
Amos Gaskins, who lives across the street from the park and stepped out to greet Cummings, said the congressman has been through “a lot” and added, “He’s doing a great job, a beautiful job.”
“We’re not what you call a dirty city and a dirty people,” Gaskins said. “Donald Trump shouldn’t have said that. That’s uncalled for.”
A list of some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the last two years:
May 31, 2019: Longtime city worker DeWayne Craddock opened fire in a building that houses Virginia Beach government offices. He killed 12 people and wounded several others before he was gunned down by police.
Feb. 15, 2019: Gary Martin killed five co-workers at a manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, during a disciplinary meeting where he was fired. He wounded one other employee and five of the first police officers to arrive at the suburban Chicago plant before he was killed during a shootout police.
FILE – Mourners react outside a reception center for families of victims of a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Nov. 8, 2018.
Nov. 7, 2018: Ian David Long killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, California, before taking his own life. Long was a Marine combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan.
Oct. 27, 2018: Robert Bowers is accused of opening fire at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and injuring others. It’s the deadliest attack on Jews in the U.S. in history.
June 28, 2018: Jarrod Ramos shot through the windows of the Capital Gazette offices in Annapolis, Maryland, before turning the weapon on employees there, killing five at The Capital newspaper. Authorities say Ramos had sent threatening letters to the newspaper before the attack.
FILE – Daniel Hernandez, a local imam, comforts Dih-Anaa Forero of Missouri City, near the site of the shooting at the Santa Fe High School, in Santa Fe, Texas, May 19, 2018.
May 18, 2018: Dimitrios Pagourtzis began shooting during an art class at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. The 17-year-old killed eight students and two teachers and wounded 13 others. Explosive were found at the school and off campus.
Feb. 14, 2018: Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It surpassed Columbine High School as the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history.
Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Patrick Kelley, who had been discharged from the Air Force after a conviction for domestic violence, used an AR-style firearm to shoot members of a congregation at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing more than two dozen.
Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock opened fire on an outdoor music festival on the Las Vegas Strip from the 32nd floor of a hotel-casino, killing 58 people and wounding more than 500. SWAT teams with explosives then stormed his room and found he had killed himself.
Scientists say evidence is mounting that trees can have a far-reaching effect in stemming global warming by removing huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. A recent study bolsters this idea, and tree-planting advocates say it’s something they’ve known for decades.
The recent European study published in Science magazine July 5 says trees could potentially absorb two-thirds of the carbon that has been added to the atmosphere as a result of human activity since the Industrial Revolution.
The study, headed by researchers at the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, a technical university, found that an extra 500 billion trees, covering an area roughly the size of the United States, could remove 200 gigatons of carbon from the air when they reach maturity.
The study’s authors say that combined with reduced greenhouse gas emissions, adding so many extra trees could replenish the world’s shrinking stock by 2050 and provide the most effective climate change solution to date.
The scientists say that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, the goal of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will require an extra billion hectares of forest, an increase of nearly 20% over existing forest land.
It is a race against time, however, since a warming planet means the area available for tree planting is shrinking.
Scientific Studies Say Planting Trees Helps Mitigate Global Warming video player.
WATCH: Scientific Studies Say Planting Trees Helps Mitigate Global Warming
Act locally
There are a few remaining trees in a section of the Angeles National Forest, northeast of Los Angeles, where volunteers are removing invasive species such as mustard and types of thistle, and restoring native plants “… about 40 different species,” said Thierry Rivard of the nonprofit TreePeople.
The newly sown plants are grasses, Rivard said. “Some of them are what you would call shrubs. Some of them are trees — oaks, elderberries.”
They had thrived in this area in a balanced ecosystem until recent times, when they were crowded out by other species brought by human activity.
On a recent weekend, dozens of volunteers pulled out invasive plants and carried water buckets through the rolling hills to nurture saplings.
The restoration will make the hillsides more resistant to wildfires, since invasive plants dry out in the summer to create conditions for flash fuels.
At the heart of the project are trees.
“Trees have multiple benefits,” said Cindy Montanez, the CEO of TreePeople. “Trees shade humans, the environment, as we see dramatic increases in extreme heat. Trees help retain water in situations where there’s flooding (and) we’re trying to prevent water runoff,” she added.
FILE – In the Atlantic Forest in Bahia, fire and deforestation of hill slopes are forbidden by Brazilian law, but law enforcement is ineffective. (Credit: IESB archive)
Reducing deforestation
A major effort to reduce deforestation and expand existing forests is underway around the world, including the Thirty Hills project in Sumatra’s forests, and Trillion Trees, with efforts focused, so far, in parts of South America and Africa .
Both projects were undertaken by the World Wildlife Fund and partner organizations as part of a comprehensive approach that encourages ecologically sound industries. For example, forest-friendly methods of cocoa production in Africa and honey production in Indonesia.
Forest restoration is not without challenges, and researchers must take into account “areas where we have grazing lands, or we have important grasslands, or we need to consider what the land ownership is,” said Christa Anderson, a research fellow with the World Wildlife Fund.
Anderson said studies have found that so-called boreal forests in northern latitudes absorb light from the sun and can have a warming effect, and that reforestation works better in some places than others. The research paper in Science says six countries have the potential to restore more than half of the needed trees: Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil and China.
Scores of governments have pledged to help, joining the Bonn Challenge, an effort to restore 150 million hectares of forest by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030.
“It’s one of the pieces, and another huge piece is reducing our energy and industry emissions. We really need both things,” Anderson said.
FILE – Mexico’s new climate law promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, which should make a difference in Mexico City, among the most polluted cities in the world.
Individuals and local communities can also help, Montanez said.
“Take personal responsibility, help plant trees,” she said. “It’s fun, it makes our communities greener, more climate-resilient, more sustainable.”
And trees make our planet more livable, she added.
After three summits and several exchanges of letters between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Washington must now deal with Pyongyang’s five missile tests since February and near muted talks on denuclearization, results generated by Trump’s lack of criticism of the launches, experts said.
North Korea fired two more missiles Friday, making the launch a third test in just more than a week. The launch follows two other tests it conducted Wednesday and last Thursday.
Kim Jong Un and North Korea tested 3 short range missiles over the last number of days. These missiles tests are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short range missiles when we shook hands. There may be a United Nations violation, but..
Earlier this year, on May 4 and May 9, North Korea conducted launches and broke 18 months of abstaining from raising provocations on the Korean Peninsula as it began denuclearization diplomacy with the Trump administration that culminated in the historical Singapore summit in June 2018.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo links hands with Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai at the East Asia Summit meeting in Bangkok, Aug.2, 2019.
Also Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said a meeting with North Korea is unlikely to take place in Bangkok at the annual security meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the venue the two sides have used to meet for sideline talks in the past. This year, North Korea did not send Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho to the event.
“We stand ready to continue our diplomatic conversations with the North Koreans,” Pompeo said at a news conference in Bangkok. “I regret that it looks like I’m not going to have the opportunity to do that while I’m here in Bangkok, but we’re ready to go.”
Pompeo remained optimistic that the working-level talks Trump and Kim agreed to resume at their impromptu inter-Korean border summit in June “will happen before too long.”
People watch a TV that shows a file picture of a North Korean missile for a news report on North Korea firing short-range ballistic missiles, in Seoul, South Korea, July 31, 2019.
‘No progress’
Experts said despite the U.S. efforts, the prospects for denuclearizing are fading as North Korea takes opposite steps as seen through its tests.
“There has been no progress toward North Korean denuclearization since the Singapore summit,” said Bruce Klingner, former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and a current fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Instead, Pyongyang has built another six to seven estimated nuclear weapons and improved the production facilities for its fissile material.”
Evans Revere, acting assistant secretary for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, said, “The opposite of denuclearization is happening, as North Korea continues to expand and enhance its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals.”
Revere said the string of launches demonstrates Pyongyang’s weapons development is becoming more advanced.
In May, Pyongyang tested “an apparent new ballistic missile system that is designed to conduct deep strikes against U.S. and [South Korean] military bases, forces and population centers,” Revere said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the test-fire of two short-range ballistic missiles, in this undated picture released by North Korea’s Central News Agency, July 26, 2019.
The launch July 25 was aimed at signaling the U.S. that it is determined to ramp up “its nuclear, missile, and first-strike missile capabilities,” he said.
The projectiles launched Friday, assessed by the U.S. and South Korea to be short-range ballistic missiles, are considered similar to the previous ones.
Following Wednesday’s test, North Korea said the new multiple rocket launch system was developed in an effort to modernize its military. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that North Korea’s new submarine, unveiled July 23, is capable of launching ballistic missiles.
FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump holds up the document he and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un signed, June 12, 2018, in Singapore.
Details lacking
The prospects of denuclearizing North Korea began with the historical Singapore summit held in June 2018 when Trump and Kim met and agreed to work toward denuclearization and achieving peace on the Korean Peninsula, although critics argue the joint statement the two issued lacked detailed denuclearization agreements.
Also notable at the Singapore summit was the budding of the so-called Trump-Kim bromance, a relationship that blossomed via several exchanges of “love” letters between the two since then. Trump said he “fell in love” with Kim and has described several letters from him as “beautiful.”
Optimism that had been building toward denuclearization proved to be too tenuous at the Hanoi summit when North Korea revealed it wanted sanctions relief for taking a partial denuclearization step, an offer the U.S. rejected. The summit was abruptly cut short, leading to a diplomatic impasse that lasted several months.
The bromance continued, however, despite lack of progress on denuclearization talks. Even after Pyongyang launched in May what experts described as advanced missiles capable of evading South Korean missile defense system designed to intercept incoming missiles, Trump appeared confident that Kim would denuclearize, emphasizing the pair’s relationship.
FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in leave after a meeting at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019.
While visiting Seoul in June for a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump invited Kim to “shake his hand and say Hello” via Twitter. Trump met with Kim at the inter-Korean border, even stepping across the North Korean side of the border. There, the two agreed to resume working-level talks.
But less than a month later, Pyongyang fired missiles last Thursday and again this week on Wednesday and Friday, jolting its neighbors and unnerving North Korean observers in the U.S.
Trump downplayed the provocations saying, “I have no problem,” in response to Friday’s launch, in an apparent effort to save diplomacy.
In response to last week’s launch, Revere, of the State Department, said, “The Trump administration is prepared to go very far to keep the prospect of dialogue with North Korea alive.”
Following North Korea’s missile launches Wednesday, “It was unacceptable for the U.S. president to twice dismiss the threat posed by North Korea’s development” of advanced missiles that is intended to attack [South Korea] and U.S. troops deployed in South Korea,” he added.
Questionable relationship
Experts said North Korea’s tests make the Trump-Kim relationship look questionable and prospects for diplomatic solutions dubious, while Trump’s lack of criticism on North Korea’s launches fosters bad behavior.
Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council said, “North Korea’s continued work on its nuclear weapons program and missiles as demonstrated by testing new short-range missiles is beginning to make the Trump-Kim relationship wear thin, if not look like a bit of a fraud.”
Christopher Hill, a chief negotiator with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration, said, “I’m skeptical that they have much traction on [diplomacy] right now.”
Revere said, “The lack of a clear and vigorous response to earlier launches effectively gave [North Korea] carte blanche to continue to develop and test these dangerous weapons.” He added, “We have now basically normalized such launches.”
The missile launches are also making experts doubt the prospects for working-level talks with Pyongyang.
Hill said, “I don’t think the North Koreans are really prepared for a serious negotiation. But since they agreed to have a negotiation, I think they ought to move ahead.”
Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s senior director for East Asia affairs during the George W. Bush administration, said, “Kim has never been interested in working-level talks with Washington. And I think that’s going to be kind of his continued position.”
If Pyongyang continues to dodge Washington, Hill said, “It’s possible the talks could reach a dead end. That could happen at some point. It may have happened [already], but we don’t know that.”
Wilder said, “It would certainly lead to another very serious deterioration in the U.S.-North Korean relations, as we had at the end of 2017 where there would be threats and counterthreats.”
Wilder, however, did not rule out a sudden turnaround, a possibility in top-down diplomacy where negotiations occur at the leadership level.
“This is the unique feature of Trump diplomacy at this very high level,” Wilder said. “It can change overnight. … When you have two chief executives, who can suddenly make dramatic shifts, possibilities are much wider.”
WASHINGTON — U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer says an unresolved extortion investigation in North Macedonia could undermine prospects for the small Balkan nation’s long-awaited European Union accession talks.
North Macedonia’s former chief Special Prosecutor, Katica Janeva, unexpectedly tendered her resignation last month amid allegations that she masterminded a scheme to extort millions from an indicted businessman in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Janeva’s Special Prosecution Office (SPO), an organized-crime-busting outfit also tasked with addressing high-level corruption, has long been emblematic of the former Yugoslav republic’s transatlantic aspirations. By spearheading investigations of the now-ousted authoritarian regime of former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Janeva’s office was largely mandated to restore rule of law.
“These are serious charges and all such serious charges require a serious response,” Palmer told VOA’s Serbian Service. “We support a complete, thorough, transparent investigation of these charges and, if the evidence is there, then appropriate prosecution. This is really an opportunity for the authorities in North Macedonia to demonstrate fealty to adherence to the rule of law.”
FILE – Newly elected President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski, right, walks with outgoing president Gjorge Ivanov, during his inauguration ceremony in Skopje, North Macedonia, May 12, 2019.
The country changed its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia in February, ending a more than two-decade dispute with Greece over its name, and removing an obstacle to EU and NATO membership.
Just last week, EU commissioner Johannes Hahn said Skopje needs to reform the judiciary to ensure it can handle high-level crime and corruption cases before the EU can set a date to start accession talks, but that he was “confident that the decision (on the start of EU accession talks) will be taken in October.”
Palmer said he’s optimistic talks can begin this fall, but that resolving the Janeva investigation will be key to ensuring it happens.
Both of North Macedonia’s major political parties have been squabbling over the drafting of a law to regulate the prosecution, which will determine the fate of the special prosecutor’s office that Janeva used to run.
“We believe that North Macedonia has earned that opportunity [to have EU accession talks begin this year], but … signals that the government sends — and the success of the SPO law — will be important to that.”
FILE – Protesters take part in a demonstration near the Greek Parliament against the agreement with Skopje to rename neighbouring country Macedonia as the Republic of North Macedonia, Jan. 20, 2019 in Athens.
Whether new legislation can be ratified, a precondition for EU accession talks, will determine the pace of North Macedonia’s European accession process, which is why both U.S. and EU officials have repeatedly pressed both parties, the right-wing opposition VMRO-DPMNE and ruling Social Democratic Union, to come to an agreement.
Meetings between party officials earlier this week produced indications of progress, but working groups are still in negotiations.
“It’s important that these parties come together, negotiate, resolve their differences and reach an agreement on how the SPO can be reformed or modified in a manner that advances the interests of the country,” Palmer told VOA.
“There’s been enough politicking. The time for politicking is over. Now is the time for statesmanship,” he said.
Another scientific study has confirmed that trees can have a far-reaching effect in stemming global warming by removing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Tree-planting advocates say this is something they’ve known for decades, and the world is finally getting the message. Mike O’Sullivan has more from Los Angeles.
There are 48 insects included on the U.S. Endangered Species List, and the only way any insect has ever come off the list is through extinction. This is especially troubling for the world’s butterfly populations, which have declined by 20% in the last decades. Erika Celeste takes us to visit one of the rarest wild butterfly populations in the world, the Mitchell’s satyr butterfly at the Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has come under fire for stacking his new cabinet with ageing party loyalists despite hopes he might opt for more technocrats in his final term.
The senate this week approved the list of 43 ministers after the former military ruler finally settled on their names some two months after his inauguration in May.
Buhari, 76, is yet to hand out their portfolios but already his choice of stalwarts from his All Progressives Congress (APC) party has caused dismay.
“One would have expected that the president would shop for more people with more expertise” to assuage worries about the future, said Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, head of Abuja-based Transition Monitoring Group organisation.
She said she doubted the ability of those chosen “to push the agenda for development for Nigeria”.
Buhari faces a raft of challenges in his second term at the helm of Africa’s most populous nation — from tackling a grinding Islamist insurgency and spreading insecurity to trying to bolster a fragile economic recovery.
During his first four years he earned the nickname “Baba go-slow” after he took six months to name a cabinet and was seen to proceed with decisions at a glacial pace.
Far from cutting lose for his second, and final stint in power, he now appears to have fallen back on familiar faces.
In a country with more than half the population under 30, not one of the ministers is less than 40 years old.
Only seven of those chosen are women.
“16.3 percent representation is abysmal,” Ndi Kato, a 28-year-old female politician told local media.
“We have an abundance of qualified women and we have been advocating throughout the process of selecting ministers. The disrespect of tossing out the requests of women like it doesn’t matter is traumatic.”
‘More patronage’
Analysts said the decision to reward loyalists and keep key players in place means there are unlikely to be major reforms in the years ahead.
Fourteen of the ministers in the new cabinet served Buhari during his first term from 2015 to 2019.
Among those coming back are heavyweights like Babatunde Fashola, a former Lagos governor, transport minister Rotimi Amaechi, who ran oil-rich Rivers state, finance minister Zanaib Ahmed, foreign minister Geoffrey Onyema and education minister Adamu Adamu.
“Rewarding APC powerbrokers will improve party cohesion in the second term but also risks eroding first-term gains in curbing patronage,” said the Eurasia consultancy group in a note.
The president appeared to be prioritising APC unity and making up for 2015 when some leading backers in the party complained they had been overlooked, the group said.
“It also signals to party officials that Buhari will condone more patronage and possible leakages from government coffers than during his first term,” it said.
The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which is still challenging Buhari’s election victory, has been quick to criticise the government selection as uninspiring and unable to tackle the challenges ahead.
“In recycling failed yesterday’s men for today’s assignment, President Buhari and the APC have left no one in doubt that they have no vision to move our nation out of the economic and security predicaments into which they have plunged us in the last four years,” the party said in statement.
Rooting out graft
Anti-graft crusaders also worried that the appointments did not look promising for attempts to seriously tackle Nigeria’s endemic corruption.
Rooting out graft was one of Buhari’s big pledges in 2015 and he has promised to step it up this time round.
But critics have accused him of using the corruption crackdown to target his political opponents.
Debo Adeniran of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) pressure group, pointed to new ministers with major questions hanging over them.
Although Adeniran did not give their names, Fashola has been asked by CACOL to step down over fraud allegations while at the helm in Lagos.
Goodwill Akpabio, a former opposition leader, senator and governor of southern oil-rich Akwa Ibom state who defected to Buhari’s ruling party ahead of the 2019 elections has also faced accusations of looting his state treasury.
Another name is former information minister Lai Mohammed, who has been summoned by a court to clear his name over a phony contract awarded in his department.
“I don’t think there was due diligence on the nominees. Otherwise, the president would not have considered many of them,” Adeniran said.
“For Buhari’s integrity and fight against corruption to be taken serious, he has to do away with many of his appointees.”
As a new Ebola outbreak rages in Congo, two of the first Ebola virus patients to be successfully treated in the United States during the deadliest recorded outbreak five years ago are reuniting with their doctors.
Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol were among the four Americans who were treated and recovered at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital in 2014.
They plan to join Emory medical staff for a media briefing on Friday, the fifth anniversary of Brantly’s arrival. He was the first to come to Emory after being infected while working in Liberia.
A third former patient, Dr. Ian Crozier, had planned to join them but is back in Congo, helping to fight the current outbreak.
The outbreak in Congo is the second deadliest recorded and has already killed more than 1,800 people, nearly a third of them children.
The 2014-16 outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people.
A U.S.-trained Kenyan bomb disposal technician stood in a field showing colleagues from more than 20 countries how to collect evidence after the detonation of a roadside explosive.
Security experts who met in the Kenyan capital Nairobi this week say African nations must do more of such intelligence-sharing to counter weapons widely considered the greatest threat to their security forces: improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Popularized by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, homemade bombs were deployed by militants in nine African countries last year and killed about 3,600 people, according to U.S. Defense Department figures.
Some groups now use the weapons in complex attacks targeting civilians, including in January when a suicide bomber and gunmen from Somalia-based al Shabaab stormed an office and hotel complex in Nairobi, killing 21 people.
African officials at this week’s meeting, organized by the U.S. military, acknowledged IEDs pose a major challenge to their forces, in part because the devices are constantly evolving as are the militant groups who use them.
“The enemy adapts faster than we react,” said a Western official at the conference who asked not to be identified.
‘Common enemy’
Training for Africa’s police and military forces has typically focused on ways to avoid and defuse IEDs.
Now governments are looking to the next step: attacking networks that deploy them. This requires new skills, including analyzing remnants of a bomb to glean information about who made it and how it works.
But acquiring that intelligence is only half the battle, U.S. military and FBI experts told the conference. Ensuring it is disseminated throughout national security agencies and shared with counterparts in other countries is the other half.
Groups such as al Shabaab and Nigeria-based Boko Haram launch attacks in multiple countries, they reminded the conference.
“Unless intelligence is being shared at the appropriate levels and in a timely way, we’ll never get ahead of the curve in dismantling these networks,” said Matt Bryden, director of Sahan Research, a Nairobi-based think tank.
The amount of cooperation between security agencies varies in Africa, said Michael Solis, who helps lead counter-IED programs at the U.S. Africa Command.
“It is still a very nascent concept to share information,” he added. “We had the same evolution in the U.S. … We went through it decades ago, and now we have an effective multi-agency security sector.”
Kenya, which is improving its bomb squad with training and support from the United States and other Western nations, is further ahead than most, U.S. experts said.
“It’s essential for the military and the police to work together, so that we can win the battle against the common enemy,” said Patrick Ogina, senior superintendent of the Kenyan police and deputy head of its bomb disposal unit.
Stephanie Frappart has been appointed as the referee for the European Super Cup between Liverpool and Chelsea, making her the first woman to officiate a major UEFA men’s showpiece event.
UEFA announced Frappart’s appointment on Friday, adding that the Frenchwoman will lead a team of predominantly female officials, with Manuela Nicolosi of France and Michelle O’Neal from the Republic of Ireland serving as assistant referees. The 35-year-old Frappart was also in charge at the Women’s World Cup Final between the United States and the Netherlands.
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin says: “I have said on many occasions that the potential for women’s football has no limits.”
It is not the first time a female has refereed a men’s UEFA competition match. Switzerland’s Nicole Petignat officiated three UEFA Cup qualifying-round matches between 2004 and 2009.
The Super Cup is the traditional curtain raiser to the season, between the winners of the Champions League and Europa League. This year it will take place at the Besiktas Park in Istanbul on Aug. 14.
Frappart also became the first female referee to officiate a French league match in April. She has been promoted to the pool of French top-flight referees on a permanent basis for the upcoming season.
Ceferin adds: “I hope the skill and devotion that Stephanie has shown throughout her career to reach this level will provide inspiration to millions of girls and women around Europe and show them there should be no barriers in order to reach one’s dream.”
U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about trade, next-generation 5G mobile networks and global security, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement on Friday.
Trump told Johnson during a call on Thursday that he looked forward to meeting him at the G7 economic summit in France later this month, the White House said.
The United States is pressuring its allies, including Britain, to avoid using equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in its 5G mobile networks. Washington says Huawei is a national security risk.
Britain’s National Security Council, chaired by Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, had decided in principle to give Huawei limited access to sensitive parts of the 5G network. But the council has yet to make a final decision, and Johnson is more publicly aligned with Trump than May was.
Trump has pushed for a trade deal between the United States and Britain following the latter’s planned exit from the European Union.
Facebook has removed hundreds of accounts linked to Saudi Arabia’s government as part of an effort to end what it described as “inauthentic behavior,” a Facebook security official said.
A press release says individuals affiliated with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia used Facebook and related social media platforms to publicize government objectives and spread propaganda under the guise of fake accounts.
The social media company says it removed 217 accounts, 144 pages, five groups and five Instagram accounts that were linked to the government of Saudi Arabia.
“Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found links to individuals associated with the government of Saudi Arabia,” Facebook Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher said Thursday.
This is the first time Facebook has identified Saudi Arabia as being behind deceptive social media messages.
The U.S. company said online posts both promoted domestic policies and took aim at regional rivals and were often portrayed as local news outlets.
“Postings focused on, among other things, “Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, his economic and social reform plan, “Vision 2030,” and successes of the Saudi Armed Forces, particularly during the conflict in Yemen,” Gleicher wrote.
“They also frequently shared criticism of neighboring countries, including Iran, Qatar and Turkey, and called into question the credibility of the Al-Jazeera television channel and rights group Amnesty International,” he continued.
According to Facebook, approximately 1.4 million people followed at least one of the accounts linked to Saudi Arabia.
Facebook also took down 259 accounts, 102 Pages, five groups, four events and 17 Instagram accounts linked to two marketing firms: New Waves in Egypt & Newave in the UAE. The accounts were not related to Saudi Arabia-backed accounts, however they targeted the same countries.
American regulators and lawmakers have applied increased scrutiny on Facebook as intelligence officials say Russia used social media sites to meddle in U.S. elections.
“We’re constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,” said Gleicher. “We’re taking down these pages, groups and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted.”
Human Rights Watch has accused Kenya’s police force of carrying out extrajudicial killings of at least 21 young men and boys in the informal settlements of Nairobi over the past year. In a report published last week, the human rights group said it has documented the 21 murders but says there are many more. As Sarah Kimani reports from Nairobi, police have not responded to VOA requests for comment.
