The Islamic State group gloated over the recent U.S. killing of a senior Iranian general, who rose to prominence by advising forces fighting the extremists.
In the first IS comments since Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s slaying, the group said his death “pleased the hearts of believers.” The editorial was released in the group’s al-Nabaa online newspaper late Thursday.
Although the U.S. and Iran strictly avoided working together directly, they were once on the same side in the fight against IS. Neither side wants to see the extremists stage a comeback.
But as the various players in Iraq jockey to come out ahead in a post-Soleimani landscape, Islamic State militants may find an opening. Thousands of fighters are scattered among the group’s sleeper cells, and have claimed attacks in both Iraq and neighboring Syria in recent months.
As the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Soleimani was one of the main commanders on the ground spearheading the fight against IS. He sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters to Iraq and Syria to battle the extremists, and directed Iraqi Shiite militias as well. A top Iraqi militia commander was killed alongside Soleimani in last week’s U.S. drone strike.
The IS editorial said that its members tried for years to kill the two commanders, but that “God brought their end at the hands of their allies.” It said both men “have gone too far in shedding the blood of Muslims in Iraq and Syria.”
Iraq’s caretaker prime minister has now asked Washington to start working out a road map for withdrawing the more than 5,000 American troops in Iraq, in response to Soleimani’s killing. But the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the request.
Iraqis have felt furious and helpless at being caught in the middle of fighting between Baghdad’s two closest allies.
The United Nations human rights office accused members of the ethnic-Lendu community in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri Province of mass violations against the ethnic Hema community, which could constitute crimes against humanity.
Inter-ethnic tensions between the Lendu and Hema communities over land and other resources have gone on for decades. But the U.N. human rights office reports those disputes have spiraled out of control and become particularly dangerous and alarming.
A U.N. investigation from December 2017 to September 2019 found more than 700 people were killed, 168 injured and at least 143 people sexually violated in the territories of Djugu and Mahagi in DRC’s Ituri Province. U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said most of the perpetrators are Lendu and most of the victims are Hema.
“The report documents numerous cases of women being raped, of children—some in school uniforms—being killed, and of looting and burning of villages,” he said. “The violence could contain some elements of crimes against humanity through murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillage and persecution.”
The report said the barbarity of the attacks reflects the desire of the attackers to inflict lasting trauma to the Hema communities and force them to flee and not return to their homes. The U.N. said schools and health clinics were attacked and destroyed, houses and villages burned to the ground. The attacks occurred in June and December during the harvest and planting seasons and aimed to prevent the Hema from cultivating their land and have them experience food shortages.
Colville told VOA those tactics have some characteristics of genocide. But he said the burden of proof for genocide is so high one has to be very cautious before jumping to such conclusions.
“I think what they are doing in the report is just flagging this element is there,” he said. “It is inter-ethnic. It appears to be targeting on a big scale. It is organized and systematic, and there are elements that could lead to, perhaps depending on what happens in the future to a characterization of genocide. But it is a very tentative reference. It is not dwelled on at any length.”
The U.N. human rights office recommended DRC authorities address the root causes of the Lendu-Hema conflict, urged authorities to conduct an independent and impartial investigation into the violence, and to compensate the victims.
South Sudanese First Vice President Taban Deng Gai is denying allegations of human rights abuses and criticizing U.S. sanctions against him.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Deng on Wednesday. Officials say Deng arranged and directed the deaths of two prominent activists — human rights lawyer Samuel Dong Luak and opposition politician Aggrey Iddri — and tried to derail South Sudan’s peace process. Conflict broke out in 2013 following a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and then-Vice President Riek Machar.
The U.S. government also says Deng worked to divide opposition opponents and members of the broader ethnic Nuer community who were displaced because of the conflict. Officials say he directed the actions to solidify his position within Kiir’s government and to intimidate members of the SPLM-IO, of which Iddri was a member.
FILE – Children play with a suitcase in a displaced persons camp for the Nuer ethnic group inside the UNMISS compound in Bor, South Sudan, Feb. 27, 2014.
Deng called the sanctions “regrettable and baseless.”
The U.S. move is the latest in a series of sanctions against South Sudanese individuals.
The Treasury Department accuses South Sudan’s government of refusing to create “political space for dissenting voices, from opposition parties, ethnic groups, civil society, or media,” an issue it said has been a key factor in the country’s inability to implement a peace agreement and ongoing acts of violence against civilians.
In September 2018, Kiir and Machar signed a revitalized peace agreement that called for the formation of a national unity government by May 2019. Government and opposition leaders extended that deadline twice, but have not taken steps to create a unified national army — one of the measures seen as key to implementing the peace deal. The biggest remaining obstacle between the government and the opposition is the dispute over the number of states and their boundaries.
Kiir and Machar are scheduled to form the unity government in February.
Defending Deng
Deng’s office manager defended his boss and his activities.
“In discharging his duties as the first vice president of the Republic of South Sudan, he dedicated and committed himself to working for the unity and peaceful co-existence among the people of South Sudan to secure a future for them,” Adel Sandrai told VOA.
The U.S. said the sanctions fall under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption.
FILE – South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai, left, speaks with President Salva Kiir after Taban was sworn in, replacing opposition leader Riek Machar, at the presidential palace in Juba, South Sudan, July 26, 2016.
The Treasury Department noted in its statement that since the September 2018 peace deal, which included a permanent cease-fire, hundreds of civilians have been killed, raped and abducted. It said the U.S. will not hesitate to target individuals who have perpetuated the conflict.
Sandrai maintains that Deng has worked to restore peace in South Sudan.
“Despite the sanctions wrongly imposed on him, H.E General Taban Deng Gai pledges to continue to work with the United States and the international community to demonstrate such commitment and to prove the unfounded nature of the allegations against him,” Sandrai said.
The sanctions freeze all cash or assets held in the U.S. and block Deng from accessing the American financial system.
Next steps
Abraham Kuol Nyuon, professor of political science at the University of Juba, said Kiir should fire the officials already on the list of people sanctioned by the United States.
“The president should be able to redeem himself by trying to make sure he disassociates himself from the people who have already been sanctioned and the people who have become spoilers to the peace agreement,” Nyuon told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus program.
Nyuon said he believes the only way Kiir can turn things around is by convincing the international community he is ready to cooperate.
“All the people around the president are already sanctioned and now the United States is seriously watching every step of the president,” Nyuon said.
In December, the U.S. sanctioned Defense Minister Kuol Manyang Juuk and Cabinet Affairs Minister Martin Elia Lomuro, saying they fueled the five-year conflict and obstructed peace in South Sudan, the world’s youngest country. Five other South Sudanese were sanctioned last month.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the House will take steps next week to send articles of impeachment to the Senate for President Donald Trump’s Senate trial.
In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said she has asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
“I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further,” Pelosi wrote.
Pelosi has held on to the articles in a standoff with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The protracted showdown has scrambled the politics of impeachment and the congressional calendar three weeks after the House Democrats impeached Trump on charges of abuse and obstruction over his actions toward Ukraine.
Transmittal of the documents and naming of House impeachment managers are the next steps needed to start the Senate trial. Pelosi indicated she may be communicating to her colleagues, as she often does with a letter on her thinking.
McConnell wants to launch a speedy trial without new witnesses but Pelosi is warning against a rush to acquit the president.
Trump mocked Pelosi with his tweets Friday and derided her and other Democrats late Thursday in Toledo, his first rally of 2020.
Pelosi, D-Calif., faces mounting pressure to act. Republicans say Democrats are embarrassed by their vote. But Pelosi countered that Democrats are “proud” of upholding the Constitution and said she doubted that Senate Republicans will do the same.
Many on Capitol Hill expect the Senate impeachment trial to begin next week.
“I’ll send them over when I’m ready. That will probably be soon,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol Thursday, noting she is not postponing it “indefinitely.”
The House impeached Trump in December on the charge that he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine’s new leader to investigate Democrats, using as leverage $400 million in military assistance for the U.S. ally as it counters Russia at its border. Trump insists he did nothing wrong, but his defiance of the House Democrats’ investigation led to an additional charge of obstruction of Congress.
Pelosi’s delay in sending the articles of impeachment over for a Senate trial has led to a standoff with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., over what would be the third impeachment trial in the nation’s history.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., heads to a briefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other national security officials.
McConnell said that if Pelosi and House Democrats are “too embarrassed” to send the articles of impeachment, the Senate will simply move on next week to other business.
“They do not get to trap our entire country into an unending groundhog day of impeachment without resolution,” McConnell said.
McConnell told GOP senators at a lunchtime meeting to expect the trial next week, according to two people familiar with his remarks. The people requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
At the same time, McConnell signed on to a resolution from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to allow for the dismissal of articles of impeachment if the House doesn’t transmit them in 25 days. That change to Senate rules appears unlikely to happen before Pelosi transmits the articles.
In the weeks since Trump was impeached, Democrats have focused on new evidence about Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and they pushed the Senate to consider new testimony, including from former White House national security adviser John Bolton. Republicans are just as focused on a speedy trial with acquittal.
Republicans have the leverage, with a slim 53-47 Senate majority, as McConnell rebuffs the Democratic demands for testimony and documents. But Democrats are using the delay to sow public doubt about the fairness of the process as they try to peel off wavering GOP senators for the upcoming votes. It takes just 51 senators to set the rules.
“When we say fair trial, we mean facts, we mean witnesses, we mean documents,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., promising votes ahead. “Every single one of us, in this Senate, will have to have to take a stand. How do my Republican friends want the American people, their constituents, and history to remember them?”
Trump weighed in from the White House suggesting that he, too, would like more witnesses at trial. They include former Vice President Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination now, and his son Hunter, as well as the government whistleblower whose complaint about the president’s pressure on Ukraine sparked the impeachment investigation.
On a July telephone call with Ukraine’s new president, Trump asked his counterpart to open an investigation into the Bidens while holding up military aid for Ukraine. A Ukrainian gas company had hired Hunter Biden when his father was vice president and the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.
Trump suggested that his administration would continue to block Bolton or others from the administration from appearing before senators. Many of those officials have defied congressional subpoenas for their testimony. When we start allowing national security advisers to just go up and say whatever they want to say, we can't do that,'' Trump said during an event with building contractors. "So we have to protect presidential privilege for me, but for future presidents. That's very important."<br /><br />
Bolton, one of four witnesses that Democrats have requested, said this week that he would testify if subpoenaed.<br /><br />
McConnell has said from the start he is looking to model Trump's trial on the last time the Senate convened as the court of impeachment, for President Bill Clinton in 1999. McConnell has said there will be "no haggling" with House Democrats over Senate procedures.<br /><br />
"There will be no unfair, new rule rule-book written solely for President Trump," McConnell said Thursday.<br /><br />
McConnell, who met with Trump late Wednesday at the White House, suggested last month it would be "fine with me" if the House never sent the articles. More recently, he has drawn on the Constitution's intent for the Senate to have the ultimate say on matters of impeachment. He scoffed that Pelosi has `'managed to do the impossible by uniting Democrats and Republicans who want the trial to begin.
Some Democrats have been showing increased anxiety over the delay as Americans remain divided over Trump’s impeachment.
The delay on impeachment has also upended the political calendar, with the weekslong trial now expected to bump into presidential nominating contests, which begin in early February. Several Democratic senators are running for the party’s nomination.
One 2020 hopeful, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told The Associated Press’s Ground Game podcast that a looming impeachment trial and other pressing issues in Washington could deal a “big, big blow” to his presidential campaign by keeping him away from Iowa in the final weeks before the Feb. 3 caucuses.
As Pelosi dashed into a morning meeting at the Capitol, she was asked if she had any concerns about losing support from Democrats for her strategy. She told reporters: “No.”
“I know exactly when” to send the impeachment articles over, Pelosi said. “I won’t be telling you right now.”
Pelosi is seeking what she says she wanted from the start – “to see the arena” and “terms of the engagement” that McConnell will use for the trial – before sending her House managers to present the articles of impeachment in the Senate. She has yet to choose the managers, a source of political intrigue as many lawmakers want the high-profile job.
Independent news organizations in Cambodia are struggling to recover from a major crackdown on the free press during the 2018 election. VOA’s Brian Padden reportsthe Cambodian government eased its pressure on the media somewhat after the EU threatened sanctions, but journalists continue to face increased risks of imprisonment and persecution.
At least 40 victims of the Ukrainian plane crash in Tehran were students or researchers active in Canadian universities or research communities.
Most were students returning to Canada after spending winter break in Iran, according to University Affairs (UA) of Canada. Dozens of students, professors and researchers from at least 18 universities across the country have been identified among the victims, the UA news service reported. Among the 176 killed in the crash, 140 were traveling to Canada, with a stopover in Kyiv, Ukraine. Sixty-three were Canadian citizens.
“We have learned, with profound sorrow, that several U of T students were among the 176 people killed in the crash,” University of Toronto President Meric Gertler wrote. “On behalf of the entire University of Toronto community, I want to say how deeply saddened we are, and how concerned we are for the families and friends of those who lost their lives.”
With great sadness, We received the heartbreaking news about the tragic death of two of our students, Shahab Raana & Sahand Hatefi-Mostaghim, following a plane crash in Iran.
On behalf of Aviron, we offer their families our sincere condolences.
Newlyweds Arash Pourzarabi and Pouneh Gorji were master’s students in computer science at the University of Alberta.
The university also lost Mojgan Daneshmand, a Canada Research Chair in radio frequency microsystems, who was returning to Canada with her husband, Pedram Mousavi, a professor of mechanical engineering. The couple’s two daughters were also killed in the crash.
University of Alberta President David H. Turpin wrote, “Words simply cannot express the loss I know we all are feeling. On behalf of the University of Alberta, I wish to extend our deepest condolences to the families, friends, colleagues and loved ones of the victims of this tragedy.”
“Ours is a closely interconnected community, and we grieve with everyone touched by this terrible loss — friends, classmates, roommates, professors, students, mentors and colleagues,” Turpin added.
In some cases, the victims included family members — such as Dalhousie University engineering student Masoumeh Ghavi and her younger sister Mandieh Ghavi. The younger sister was an incoming student at the Nova Scotia school, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Among those killed in the crash were undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students in fields including electrical engineering, computer systems technology, human and veterinary medicine, geography, finance, business, environment, geomatics, marketing and consumer studies, molecular genetics and human resources.
“The Science Students’ Association is deeply saddened by the loss of our peers in the tragic plane crash in Iran,” tweeted @SSA_AES. “We extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those affected. Our thoughts are with you as we face this very sad time.”
The Science Students’ Association is deeply saddened by the loss of our peers in the tragic plane crash in Iran. We extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those affected. Our thoughts are with you as we face this very sad time.? https://t.co/wmCb84tN9k
The educational institutions impacted were the University of Toronto, University of Alberta, Carleton University, Dalhousie University, University of Guelph, McMaster University, University of Manitoba, Ontario Tech University, University of Ottawa, University of Quebec, Queen’s University, Ryerson University, Saint Mary’s University, University of Victoria, University of Waterloo, Western University, University of Windsor and York University.
“This is not right,” London, Ontario, Mayor Ed Holder told the Western News, his voice breaking with emotion. “We should not be here this afternoon grieving the loss of these four young people. We should be celebrating their return home. It’s not right.”
Vietnamese startups are heading into the new year looking to avoid the mistakes of such companies as Uber and WeWork, which disappointed investors in 2019 for failing to turn a profit after so much buildup.
Investors and entrepreneurs in the communist nation are taking a more critical look at their businesses after seeing others get burned overseas. WeWork, which rents out shared workspaces, was seen as a cautionary tale of a startup that did not live up to expectations and was not profitable.
For years, investors were willing to back losing businesses to gain market share. But now, there is more scrutiny of new investments.
Benchmarks set
The Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA) requires its technology startups to meet a list of benchmarks throughout their time in the program.
“Apart from very intuitive selection criteria that all applying startups have to go through, the program has introduced a new development measurement method, which helps us to capture the progress of startups that are accepted into VIISA,” Hieu Vo, a board member and chief financial officer at VIISA, said. “I think this process will bring out the best in each person for the particular business they have founded and committed to.”
Vo said his colleagues sit down with startups when they join the accelerator to discuss key performance indicators, or KPI, that will be set as goals. VIISA also does training for the young businesses so they have quantifiable skills, such as how to structure a business deal, or how to set up their accounting system.
Having metrics and ratings, Vo said, supports “both business performance, as well as personal transformation of founders.”
Founder scrutiny
The founder as an individual has become a point of scrutiny for investors, who used to be more forgiving of an eccentric or aggressive founder, seen as part of the package to have a tech genius head an innovative business. But there has been a backlash among those who think too much permissiveness can damage a business, from the sexual misconduct amid the workplace culture of Uber, to the conflicts of interest in business decisions at WeWork.
It helps to not just think short term and to have an outside perspective, according to Pham Manh Ha, founder and chief executive officer of Beekrowd, an investment platform in Ho Chi Minh City.
“As a first-time founder, it seems impossible for us to look beyond the first six months to a year of our business,” he said, adding that experienced third parties can help businesses take the long view. “They stand outside the trees that are blocking us from seeing the forest.”
To see the forest, Vietnamese businesses like his are taking a more measured approach. Vietnam has seen an escalation of tech startups, as investors have rushed to put their money to work and take advantage of the economy’s fast growth.
They also remember the dot-com bubble in the United States, and the more recent global tech bubble, two reminders for caution.
The agency that oversees the United States’ nuclear arsenal says it doesn’t need to do any broad environmental reviews of a proposal that calls for ramping up production of plutonium triggers at federal installations in New Mexico and South Carolina.
The National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday released a supplemental analysis related to the project, saying the determination was made after reviewing extensive documentation and public comments that were received last year.
Nuclear watchdogs, government accountability advocates and other critics argue that the decision skirts requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and a decades-old court order that included a mandate for an environmental review when the federal government embarked on plans to boost production to more than 80 of the nuclear cores a year.
A key component of every nuclear weapon, most of the plutonium cores in the stockpile were produced in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the nuclear agency.
FILE – Barrels of radioactive waste are loaded for transport to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, at the Radioactive Assay Nondestructive Testing (RANT) facility in Los Alamos, N.M., April 9, 2019.
Federal officials have set a deadline of 2030 for ramped-up core production, with work being split between Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At stake are jobs and billions of dollars in federal funding that would be needed to revamp existing buildings or construct new factories to support the work.
The NNSA said it would prepare an environmental impact statement on core-making at Savannah River. A less extensive review is being done for Los Alamos, but watchdogs say that analysis will fall short of the nationwide public review required by such a significant proposal.
Legal challenge
Lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment first threatened legal action last fall. They reiterated Thursday that a legal challenge is possible since the nuclear agency has declined to prepare a broader review.
“We need to find smart ways to face the world’s renewed nuclear arms race. Unnecessary expanded production of questionable plutonium bomb cores is not the way to do it,” said Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Waste New Mexico.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, Coghlan said the federal government should be considering credible alternatives to ensuring the reliability and sustainability of the nuclear arsenal rather than the rubber stamping of a “nukes forever” agenda that is funded by taxpayers.
Years-long debate
While the NNSA’s decision comes as President Donald Trump on Thursday proposed overhauling the half-century old National Environmental Policy Act, the issues surrounding plutonium pit production have spanned multiple presidential administrations.
Elected leaders in New Mexico and South Carolina long have been jockeying for the lucrative mission. Some members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have resisted the nuclear agency’s plan, arguing that production should be centered at Los Alamos — the once-secret city in northern New Mexico where the atomic bomb was developed decades ago as part of the Manhattan Project.
The mission of producing the cores has been based at Los Alamos for years but none have been made since 2011 as the lab has been dogged by a string of safety lapses and concerns about a lack of accountability.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico criticized the Trump administration Thursday for its proposed rollbacks, saying the environmental policy act is the only law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental and climate related consequences of federal actions. As for the plutonium project, the senior senator has yet to say whether he would support more environmental reviews.
