Month: July 2019

A 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck southwest Iran near the border with Iraq on Monday, causing one death due to a heart attack and dozens of injuries, the country’s relief and rescue organisation said.

The quake, whose epicenter was in the Masjed Soleiman area of Khuzestan province, hit at 11:30 am (0700 GMT) at a depth of 17 kilometers, the national seismological center reported.

The region was rattled by seven aftershocks, the strongest of which measured 4.7 magnitude, it said.

At least 45 people were injured, the head of Iran’s relief and rescue organization, Morteza Salimi, told state TV.

“One citizen at Masjed Soleiman also passed away due to a heart-attack after the earthquake,” Salimi said.

In nearby cities and villages affected by the quake, there were “only minor cracks in buildings” and roads to some villages were cut off.

Iran sits on top of major tectonic plates and sees frequent seismic activity.

In November 2017 a 7.3-magnitude tremor in the western province of Kermanshah killed 620 people.

In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake in southeast Iran decimated the ancient mud-brick city of Bam and killed at least 31,000 people.

Iran’s deadliest quake was a 7.4-magnitude tremor in 1990 that killed 40,000 people in northern Iran, injured 300,000 and left half a million homeless.

…

Monday the country had surpassed the limits on how much it was allowed to enrich uranium under the 2015 international nuclear deal.

Iranian state media quoted spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi as saying enrichment levels had reached nearly 5%, breaching the 3.67% limit set in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

He also said Iran could consider continuing on to enriching uranium to 20% as the next step in its move to back away from its commitments under the nuclear deal, unless it gets the help it wants on sanctions relief.

Uranium enriched to 5% is sufficient to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, but still far below the 90% needed for building a nuclear weapon.

Iran has been hinting at, and subsequently following through on, pledges to increase its nuclear activity while demanding other signatories to the nuclear agreement — particularly those in Europe — do more to help Iran economically as it deals with negative effects of sanctions the United States has imposed since pulling out of the deal last year.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said last week Iran was prepared to enrich “any amount that we want” beyond the 3.67% level. He further pledged to resume construction of the Arak heavy water reactor, a project Iran agreed to shut down when it signed the 2015 deal.  Iran has also already gone past the limit for the amount of enriched uranium it is allowed to keep in its stockpile.

The moves have drawn concern from Europe.  EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic told reporters Monday the bloc is “extremely concerned” about Iran’s boost in enrichment and that it is urging Iran to “stop and reverse all activities” that are not consistent with its commitments under the nuclear deal.

In the United States, President Donald Trump warned Iran on Sunday it “better be careful.”  

He did not specify to reporters any specific reactions his administration was considering, but reiterated the position that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump made his comment hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that Iran’s decision will lead to “further isolation and sanctions.”

“Nations should restore the longstanding standard of no enrichment for Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s regime with nuclear weapons would pose an even greater danger to the world,” Pompeo wrote.

The deal came in response to allegations Iran was working to develop nuclear weapons, and in return for the restrictions that were put in place to allay those concerns, Iran won badly needed relief from sanctions that harmed its economy.

…

A South Korean man has defected to North Korea to permanently live there and work for its unification with the South, Pyongyang’s state media reported.

Choe In-guk is the son of two high level diplomats who also defected to the communist North in 1984 after a political dispute with then-South Korean President Park Chung-hee.

The state-run North Korean Uriminzokkiri website reported that Choe would work at the guidance of the country’s Chairman Kim Jong Un.

The website published images and footage showing Choe in a beret reading a statement upon his arrival at Pyongyang’s international airport.
 
Choe said he is over 70 years old and that he  made the decision to fulfill his parents’ “dying wishes” for him to “follow” North Korea and work for the unification of both countries,  a written statement published on the website said.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Choe was in North Korea without special permission from the Seoul government. A ministry spokesman told reporters Monday that authorities were trying to find out details about Choe’s travel to the North.

The ministry also said that Choe had been allowed to make 12 authorized trips to North Korea since 2001 to visit his parents’ cemetery and attend a death anniversary for his mother.

South Koreans defection to North Korea is very rare and the North is known to have repatriated them in the past.  

…

The heavily favored United States team has defeated Netherlands 2-0 in the women’s World Cup soccer final in Lyon, France, securing its fourth title and winning back-to-back tournaments for the first time.

The Americans defeated four other European teams — Sweden, Spain, France and England — on their way to the final, and dominated Sunday in defeating the reigning European champion Dutch.

Football analysts say the United States women’s national team went into the match as favorites because of their greater depth and experience than the Dutch.

One of the top American players, Megan Rapinoe, who sat out the semi-final win over the British with a slight hamstring strain, scored the opening goal for the U.S. side on a penalty kick in the 61st minute. Rose Lavelle added a goal in the 69th minute to seal the victory.

Former U.S. soccer star Julie Foudy explained before the match what was at stake for the Americans.

“They’ve done all the hard stuff. Weathering the storm that was the Spanish game. Beating the hosts in Paris. Knocking out a very good English team. But they … must bring it home to secure their legacy, especially against a team that doesn’t have the same depth of talent and which is playing on less rest,” she said.

Even as its success in the tournament earns it unprecedented acclaim at home, the U.S. women’s team is suing the country’s soccer federation for equal pay with members of country’s much less successful men’s national team. The pay disparity is pronounced, with female soccer players’ base salary roughly $30,000 less a year than their male counterparts. The players agreed to submit to arbitration following the end of the tournament.

The soccer federation awarded the men’s team a $5.4 million bonus after it lost in the round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup, while handing the women’s team $1.7 million when it won in 2015.

Rapinoe has also feuded with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying that in opposition to his presidency she would not accept an invitation to go to the White House if the Americans won the title.

Trump said in response, “Megan should WIN before she TALKS,” and invited the whole team whether it wins or loses the title.

…

Malawi President Peter Mutharika has warned of unspecified action against the leaders of violent protests following his narrow recent election victory. 

Mutharika, whose legitimacy is being challenged by key opposition leaders, said during the country’s 55th Independence Day celebration in Blantyre on Saturday that he has learned the protests have nothing to do with election results, but are aimed at toppling his government. The protests organizers dispute this and say they cannot be intimidated.

The celebrations started with a morning of prayer, with religious leaders appealing for the return of peace and unity to a country now torn by political violence.
 
Malawi has faced street protests, which in many cases turned violent, since the Malawi Elections Commission announced on May 27 that President Mutharika had been re-elected.
 
The MEC declared Mutharika the winner with 39 percent of the vote, and said opposition Malawi Congress Party leader Lazarus Chakwera was a close second with 35 percent.
 
Vice President Saulos Chilima’s opposition United Transformation Movement Party came in third with 20 percent.
 
Chakwera and Chilima are challenging the election results in court, alleging ballot-stuffing and the use of a popular correction fluid to alter ballots.
 
Both opposition leaders shunned Mutharika’s Independence Day speech, in which he called for peace.

“This is the day we must raise our flags of patriotism,” said Mutharika. “This is a day everyone must show how we love this country. Malawi is the only country that we have. If we destroy this country, as we are currently doing, we have destroyed ourselves.”
 

However Mutharika had harsh words for the organizers of the protests. He said he knows that opposition leaders want to use the protests to unseat him because they lost the election “big time.”   

“Let me assure them that they will take over this government over my dead body. They will never, never take over this country. Let me warn them,” he said.
 
Mutharika said his government will soon hold accountable those who are leading the violent protests.
 
Gift Trapence is the deputy chairperson of the Human Rights Defenders Forum, a civil society group organizing the protests.

“We are not targeting unseating the government.  But our issue is with Dr. Jane Ansah, who failed to manage the election,” said Trapence.
 
Trapence said the protests will continue until Ansah resigns.
 
“You cannot be intimidated because for us to do demonstration is in our [Malawi] constitution. So, for us to be intimidated because people were exercising their rights, that’s something regrettable,” he said. 
 
Political commentator Vincent Kondowe said Mutharika could have used the occasion to call for peace talks with the opposition leaders.

“I think the president coult have gone further and reach out to the opposition and probably call for dialogue and then thereafter, moving forward peacefully. Because what it means now, where the tempers are already very high, it sparks more violent protests, on the side of opposition,” said Kondowe.

The protesters said Friday that they would hold another protest in Blantyre on Monday should Ansah fail to resign by before then.
 

…

Discord broke out in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition Sunday, after the United States urged the country to send ground troops to Syria as Washington looks to withdraw from the region.

“We want ground troops from Germany to partly replace our soldiers” in the area as part of the anti-Islamic State coalition, U.S. special representative on Syria James Jeffrey had told German media including Die Welt newspaper.

Jeffrey, who was visiting Berlin for Syria talks, added that he expects an answer this month.

Last year U.S. President Donald Trump declared victory against IS and ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 American troops from Syria.

A small number have remained in northeastern Syria, an area not controlled by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and Washington is pushing for increased military support from other members of the international coalition against IS.

“We are looking for volunteers who want to take part here and among other coalition partners,” Jeffrey said.

A clear rejection of the American request came from Merkel’s junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD).

“There will be no German ground troops in Syria with us,” tweeted a member of the interim SPD leadership, Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel.

“I don’t see people wanting that among our coalition partners” in Merkel’s centre-right CDU, he added.

But deputy conservative parliamentary leader Johann Wadephul told news agency DPA that Germany should “not reflexively reject” the US call for troops.

“Our security, not the Americans’, is being decided in this region,” added Wadephul, seen as a candidate to succeed Ursula von der Leyen as defense minister if she is confirmed as European Commission chief.

Syria’s war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.

‘This isn’t a banana republic’

Washington has two goals in northeastern Syria: to support the US-backed Kurdish forces that expelled IS from northern Syria as they are increasingly threatened by Turkey, and to prevent a potential IS resurgence in the war-torn country.

The US is hoping Europe will help, pressuring Britain, France and now Germany, which has so far deployed surveillance aircraft and other non-combat military support in Syria.

However Germany’s history makes military spending and foreign adventures controversial.

Berlin sent soldiers to fight abroad for the first time since World War II in 1994, and much of the political spectrum and the public remains suspicious of such deployments.

As well as the SPD, the ecologist Greens, liberal Free Democrats and Left party all urged Merkel to reject the US request for troops.

The US appeal comes after Trump has repeatedly urged Berlin to increase its defence spending, last month calling Germany “delinquent” over its contributions to NATO’s budget.

But such criticisms have more often hardened resistance to forking out more on the military rather than loosening the country’s purse strings.

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told business newspaper Handelsblatt on Saturday that Trump wanted “vassals” rather than allies.

“I’d have liked the federal government to tell him once or twice that it’s none of his business” how much Germany spends on defense, Schroeder said.

“This isn’t a banana republic here!”

…

British Interior Minister Sajid Javid will soon formally endorse Boris Johnson to be the next leader of the Conservative Party and the country’s next prime minister, the Sunday Times reported. 

Johnson is the front-runner in a contest with Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt to be the next leader. Voting is due to close on July 22, with the winner set to be announced the following day. 

Johnson has pledged to leave the European Union with or without a deal on Oct. 31 if he becomes prime minister, while Hunt has said that he would, if absolutely necessary, go for a no-deal Brexit. 

The Sunday Times said Javid has positioned himself to be Johnson’s finance minister, taking over from current Finance Minister Philip Hammond. 

It reported that in a speech on Tuesday, Javid will say: “Trust in our democracy will be at stake if we don’t make Oct. 31 a ‘deal or no deal’ deadline. To prepare that, we are agreed on the need for ramped-up no-deal preparations, including a budget.” 

The newspaper also said that Johnson would visit the United States before the end of September to meet President Donald Trump. 

…

Tunisia’s Coast Guard recovered on Saturday the bodies of 14 African migrants who drowned when their boat carrying more than 80 people sank after setting off for Europe from neighboring Libya, the Tunisian Red Crescent said.

Tunisian fishermen rescued four people but one later died at a hospital, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said Thursday. The others on the overcrowded boat were feared drowned.

At least 65 migrants heading for Europe from Libya drowned last May when their boat capsized off Tunisia.

Libya’s west coast is a main departure point for African migrants hoping to reach Europe, though numbers have dropped because of an Italian-led effort to disrupt smuggling networks and support the Libyan Coast Guard.

Although the fighting in Libya has made the situation more difficult for human smugglers, international aid officials have warned it could also prompt more Libyans to flee their country.

Libyans who are picked up by the Libyan Coast Guard are routinely taken back to Libya and detained. The United Nations has pleaded with Libya’s government to free the detainees, some of whom have been locked up for years.

In May, 108 migrants and refugees were sent to the Tajoura detention center near Tripoli, which was hit by airstrikes on Tuesday night that killed at least 53 people.

…

Officials in Southern California expressed relief Saturday that damage and injuries weren’t worse after the largest earthquake the region has seen in nearly 20 years, while voicing concerns about the possibility of major aftershocks in the days and even months to come.

No fatalities or major injuries were reported after Friday night’s 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which jolted an area from Sacramento to Mexico and prompted the evacuation of the Navy’s largest single landholding, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the Mojave Desert.

The quake struck at 8:19 p.m. Friday and was centered 11 miles (18 kilometers) from Ridgecrest, the same area of the desert where a 6.4-magnitude temblor hit just a day earlier. It left behind cracked and burning buildings, broken roads, obstructed railroad tracks and leaking water and gas lines.

The light damage was largely because of the remoteness of the area where the earthquake occurred, but Gov. Gavin Newsom cautioned after touring Ridgecrest that “it’s deceiving, earthquake damage. You don’t notice it at first.”

He estimated more than $100 million in economic damages and said President Donald Trump called him to offer federal support in the rebuilding effort.

“He’s committed in the long haul, the long run, to help support the rebuilding efforts,” Newsom said of Trump.

City of 28,000

About 28,000 people live in the Ridgecrest area, which is sandwiched between more populated areas of Southern California and Las Vegas’ Clark County. But seismologists warned that the area could see up to 30,000 aftershocks over the next six months.

April Hamlin said she was “already on edge” when the second quake rattled her Ridgecrest home. She and her three kids initially thought it was another aftershock.

“But it just kept on intensifying,” she said. “The TV went over, hanging by the cord. We heard it break. We heard glass breakage in the other rooms, but all we could do was stay where we were until it stopped.”

With the possibility of aftershocks and temperatures forecast to reach 100 degrees (38 Celsius) over the next several days, officials were taking precautions.

Emergency aid

The California National Guard was sending 200 troops, logistical support and aircraft, Maj. Gen. David Baldwin said. The Pentagon had been notified, and the entire California Military Department was put on alert, he said.

Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake said in a Facebook post that nonessential workers were evacuated and operations halted. The epicenters of both quakes were on the base, and officials said they are continuing to assess damage. Officials said most employees live off the base and in Ridgecrest, but they authorized the evacuation so those who live on base can be eligible for reimbursements.

The California Office of Emergency Services brought in cots, water and meals and set up cooling centers in the region, Director Mark Ghilarducci said.

State highway officials shut down a 30-mile (48-kilometer) section of State Route 178 between Ridgecrest and the town of Trona southwest of Death Valley because of a rockslide and severe cracking. The move left Trona temporarily cut off. California Department of Transportation spokeswoman Christine Knadler said crews worked through the night to patch the roadway, but it remained rough and uneven.

Ron Mikulaco, 51, and his nephew, 23-year-old Brad Fernandez, stood on the road Saturday looking at the cracks. The pair drove from Huntington Beach, about 170 miles (274 kilometers) southwest of Ridgecrest. Mikulaco, an amateur geologist, wanted to show his nephew “the power of Mother Nature,” and they had the epicenter’s latitude and longitude coordinates ready.

“We put that in the GPS, and we’ll get as close as we can,” Fernandez said.

In Ridgecrest, local fire and police officials said they were initially swamped by calls for medical and ambulance service. But police Chief Jed McLaughlin said there was “nothing but minor injuries such as cuts and bruises, by the grace of God.”

Two building fires, one involving a mobile home, were quickly doused, McLaughlin said, and natural gas lines where leaks were reported were shut off.

When asked to describe what he has been going through in the past two days, the chief said: “Grief, shock and then, for me, pride in what I’ve seen from here, my people. It’s been a vast range of emotions, and I think the whole community’s going through that.”

Town cut off

In Trona, a town of about 2,000 people considered the gateway to Death Valley, fire officials said up to 50 structures were damaged. San Bernardino County Supervisor Robert Lovingood said FEMA delivered a tractor-trailer full of bottled water because of damage to water lines. Newsom declared a state of emergency for the county.

Julia Doss, who maintains the Trona Neighborhood Watch page on Facebook, said the only food store in town is a Family Dollar store that was shuttered Saturday.

“The only way to get food is to drive to Ridgecrest, and with only three gas stations in town I’m worried we may soon run out of fuel,” Doss said.

Antoun Abdullatif, 59, owns liquor stores and other businesses in Ridgecrest and Trona.

“I would say 70% of my inventory is on the floor, broken,” he said. “Every time you sweep and you put stuff in the dust bin, you’re putting $200 in the trash.”

But he has stopped cleaning up, believing another earthquake is on the way.

Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology and a former science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey, said the new quake probably ruptured along about 25 miles (40 kilometers) of fault line and was part of a continuing sequence. The seismic activity is unlikely to affect fault lines outside of the area, Jones said, noting that the gigantic San Andreas Fault is far away.

Egill Hauksson, another Caltech seismologist, said later in the day that scientists believe the continuing sequence could produce more than 30,000 quakes of magnitude 1 or greater over six months. He said the probability of a magnitude 7 over the next week is about 3%, but one or two magnitude 6 quakes are expected. 

…

Turkey fired its central bank governor Saturday and replaced him with the bank’s deputy governor, a presidential decree published on the official gazette showed.

Murat Cetinkaya, who had been serving as the governor since April 2016, was removed from the role and was replaced by his deputy Murat Uysal, the order showed.

No official reason was given for the sacking, but markets have speculated over recent weeks that Cetinkaya may be pushed out by the government because of his reluctance to cut rates.

The central bank has faced pressure in the past from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to lower interest rates to boost economic growth.

Two government sources told Reuters that differences between the government and the governor over the conduct of monetary policy have deepened in the past few months.

“The difference of opinions between the governor and the ministers in charge of the economy has deepened in the recent period,” said one of the sources.

“The president and the finance minister demanded his resignation, but Cetinkaya reminded of the bank’s independence and declined to resign,” the other source said.

In a statement Saturday, the central bank said it will continue to operate independently and that the new governor will focus on maintaining price stability as its key goal.

Data earlier in the week showed Turkey’s consumer inflation slowed to its lowest level in a year in June, mainly because of a high base effect from the prior year and a drop in food prices, potentially paving the way for the country’s first interest rate cut since last year’s currency crisis.

Analysts expect the central bank could ease monetary policy at a July 25 meeting if the lira is not hit this month by threatened U.S. sanctions over Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system.
 

…

President Donald Trump said Friday that mass deportation roundups would begin “fairly soon” as U.S. migrant advocates vowed their communities would be ready when immigration officers come.

Trump, who has made a hard-line immigration stance a key issue of his presidency and his 2020 re-election bid, postponed the operation last month after the planned date was leaked to the press, but Monday he said the roundups would take place after the July 4 holiday.

“They’ll be starting fairly soon, but I don’t call them raids, we’re removing people, all of these people who have come in over the years illegally,” he told reporters at the White House Friday.

Targeting the recently arrived

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month said raids would target undocumented migrants who had recently arrived in the United States so as to discourage a surge of Central American families at the southwest border.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statement. ICE operations are expected to involve “collateral arrests” in which undocumented migrants not directly targeted by officers are picked up in raids.

Government documents published this week by migrant rights groups showed some past ICE raids had more collateral arrests than apprehensions of targeted migrants. Migrant rights groups say this general, looming threat to undocumented migrants is harmful to communities and the U.S. economy, as it forces adults to miss work and children to skip school out of fear they may be picked up and separated.

“We have to be ready, not just when Trump announces it, because there are arrests every day and they have been increasing,” said Elsa Lopez, an organizer for New Mexico immigrant and workers’ rights group Somos Un Pueblo Unido. 

Situation at the border

Migrant apprehensions on the southwest border hit a 13-year high in May but eased in June as Mexico increased immigration enforcement.

An increasing number of migrants are coming from countries outside Central America, including India, Cuba and Africa. The Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol sector Friday reported the arrest of more than 1,000 Haitians since June 10.

Democratic lawmakers visited an El Paso, Texas, Border Patrol station on Monday and said migrants were being held in atrocious conditions, with women told to drink out of a toilet.

To dispel what he called “the misinformation,” Chief Border Patrol Agent Roy Villareal put out a video showing fresh water available from a cooler and a faucet in a cell at a Tucson, Arizona, sector migrant processing center.

“We’re not forcing aliens to drink out of the toilet,” said Villareal, head of an area that in May apprehended nearly six times fewer people than the El Paso sector, a stretch of border that has borne the brunt of the migrant surge.

…

A quake with a magnitude of 7.1 jolted much of California, cracked buildings, set fires, broke roads and caused several injuries while seismologists warned that large aftershocks were expected to continue.

The quake, preceded by Thursday’s 6.4-magnitude temblor in the Mojave Desert, was the largest Southern California quake in at least 20 years and was followed by a series of large and small aftershocks, including a handful above magnitude 5.0.

There is about a 1-in-10 chance that another 7.0 quake could hit within the next week, said Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology and a former science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey.

The chance of a 5.0-magnitude quake “is approaching certainty,” she added.

However, the quake was unlikely to affect fault lines outside of the area, Jones said, noting that the gigantic San Andreas Fault was far away.

The quake struck at 8:19 p.m. and was centered 11 miles from Ridgecrest in the same areas where the previous quake hit. 

“These earthquakes are related,” Jones said, adding that the new quake probably ruptured along about 25 miles of fault line.

The quake was felt as far north as Sacramento, as far east as Las Vegas and as far south as Mexico.

Latest #RidgecrestQuake data from @USGS. https://t.co/NuaxdKb3Hxpic.twitter.com/HFtIaAmEcI

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) July 6, 2019

Early magnitude estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey wavered between 6.9 and 7.1. It was measured at 7.1 by the 
European-Mediterranean Seismological Agency.

Multiple injuries, fires

The area in and around Ridgecrest, trying to recover from the previous temblor, took the brunt of damage.

Megan Person, director of communications for the Kern County Fire Department, said there were reports of multiple injuries and multiple fires, but she didn’t have details.

The county opened an emergency shelter. Meanwhile, a rockslide closed State Route 178 in Kern River Canyon, where photos from witnesses also showed that a stretch of roadway had sunk.

San Bernardino County firefighters reported cracked buildings and one minor injury.

In downtown Los Angeles, 150 miles away, offices in skyscrapers rolled and rocked for at least 30 seconds.

Gov. Gavin Newsom activated the state Office of Emergency Services operations center “to its highest level.”

“The state is coordinating mutual aid to local first responders,” he said.

Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology and a former science adviser at the Geological Survey, tweeted that Thursday’s earthquake was a “foreshock” and that Friday’s quake was on the same fault system as the earlier quake.

This is the same sequence. You know we say we 1 in 20 chance that an earthquake will be followed by something bigger? This is that 1 in 20 time

— Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) July 6, 2019

“You know we say we have a 1 in 20 chance that an earthquake will be followed by something bigger? This is that 1 in 20 time,” she tweeted.

Firefighters around Southern California were mobilized to check for damage.

An NBA Summer League game in Las Vegas was stopped after the quake. Speakers over the court at the Thomas & Mack Center continued swaying more than 10 minutes after the quake.

In Los Angeles, the quake rattled Dodger Stadium in the fourth inning of the team’s game against the San Diego Padres.

The quake Friday night happened when Dodgers second baseman Enrique Hernandez was batting. It didn’t appear to affect him or Padres pitcher Eric Lauer.

Like any quake, today’s M7.1 has a 1 in 20 of being followed by something even bigger. Smaller quakes – M5s are likely and a M6 is quite possible.

— Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) July 6, 2019

Hours earlier, seismologists had said that quake had been followed by more than 1,700 aftershocks and that they might continue for years. 

Jones said aftershocks from the new main quake could occur for three years.

Changes to alert system

Earlier Friday, Los Angeles had revealed plans to lower slightly the threshold for public alerts from its earthquake early warning app. But officials said the change was in the works before the quake, which gave scientists at the California Institute of Technology’s seismology lab 48 seconds of warning but did not trigger a public notification.

“Our goal is to alert people who might experience potentially damaging shaking, not just feel the shaking,” said Robert de Groot, a spokesman for the USGS’s ShakeAlert system, which is being developed for California, Oregon and Washington.

Construction of a network of seismic-monitoring stations for the West Coast is just over half complete, with most coverage in Southern California, San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle-Tacoma area. Eventually, the system will send out alerts over the same system used for Amber Alerts to defined areas that are expected to be affected by a quake, de Groot said.

California is partnering with the federal government to build the statewide earthquake warning system, with the goal of turning it on by June 2021. The state has spent at least $25 million building it, including installing hundreds of seismic stations throughout the state.

This year, Newsom said the state needed $16.3 million to finish the project, which included money for stations to monitor seismic activity, plus nearly $7 million for “outreach and education.” The state Legislature approved the funding last month, and Newsom signed it into law.

…

Marilyne Tatang, 23, crossed nine borders in two months to reach Mexico from the West African nation of Cameroon, fleeing political violence after police torched her house, she said.

She plans soon to take a bus north for four days and then cross a 10th border, into the United States. She is not alone, a record number of fellow Africans are flying to South America and then traversing thousands of miles of highway and a treacherous tropical rainforest to reach the United States.

Tatang, who is eight months pregnant, took a raft across a river into Mexico on June 8, a day after Mexico struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump to do more to control the biggest flows of migrants heading north to the U.S. border in more than a decade.

Trump threats encourage migrants

The migrants vying for entry at the U.S. southern border are mainly Central Americans. But growing numbers from a handful of African countries are joining them, prompting calls from Trump and Mexico for other countries in Latin America to do their part to slow the overall flood of migrants.

As more Africans learn from relatives and friends who have made the trip that crossing Latin America to the United States is tough but not impossible, more are making the journey, and in turn are helping others follow in their footsteps, migration experts say.

Trump’s threats to clamp down on migrants have ricocheted around the globe, paradoxically spurring some to exploit what they see as a narrowing window of opportunity, said Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

“This message is being heard not just in Central America, but in other parts of the world,” she said.

Record breaking numbers from Africa

Data from Mexico’s interior ministry suggests that migration from Africa this year will break records.

The number of Africans registered by Mexican authorities tripled in the first four months of 2019 compared with the same period a year ago, reaching about 1,900 people, mostly from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which remains deeply unstable years after the end of a bloody regional conflict with its neighbors that led to the deaths of millions of people.

‘They would have killed me’

Tatang, a grade school teacher, said she left northwest Cameroon because of worsening violence in the English-speaking region, where separatists are battling the mostly French-speaking government for autonomy.

“It was so bad that they burned the house where I was living … they would have killed me,” she said, referring to government forces who tried to capture her.

At first, Tatang planned only to cross the border into Nigeria. Then she heard that some people had made it to the United States.

“Someone would say, ‘You can do this,’” she said. “So I asked if it was possible for someone like me too, because I’m pregnant. They said, ‘Do this, do that.’“

Tatang begged her family for money for the journey, which she said so far has cost $5,000.

Epic journey

She said her route began with a flight to Ecuador, where Cameroonians don’t need visas. Tatang went by bus and on foot through Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala until reaching Mexico.

She was still deciding what to do once she got to Mexico’s northern border city of Tijuana, she said, cradling her belly while seated on a concrete bench outside migration offices in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula.

“I will just ask,” she said. “I can’t say, ‘When I get there, I will do this.’ I don’t know. I’ve never been there.”

Reuters spoke recently with five migrants in Tapachula who were from Cameroon, DRC and Angola. Several said they traveled to Brazil as a jumping-off point.

They were a small sampling of the hundreds of people, including Haitians, Cubans, Indians and Bangladeshis, clustered outside migration offices.

Political volatility in Cameroon and the DRC in recent years has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

People from the DRC made up the third largest group of new refugees globally last year with about 123,000 people, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, while Cameroon’s internally displaced population grew by 447,000 people.

The number of undocumented African migrants found by authorities in Mexico quadrupled compared with five years ago, reaching nearly 3,000 people in 2018.

Most obtain a visa that allows them free passage through Mexico for 20 days, after which they cross into the United States and ask for asylum.

More families coming, too

Few choose to seek asylum in Mexico, in part because they don’t speak Spanish. Tatang said the language barrier was especially frustrating because she speaks only English, making communication difficult both with Mexican migration officials and even other Africans, such as migrants from DRC who speak primarily French.

Those who reach the United States often send advice back home, helping make the journey easier for others, said Florence Kim, spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration in West and Central Africa.

Like their Central American migrant counterparts, some Africans are also showing up with families hoping for easier entries than as individuals, said Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute.

U.S. data shows a huge spike in the number of families from countries other than Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras at the U.S. southern border. Between last October and May 16,000 members of families were registered, up from 1,000 for the whole of 2018, according to an analysis by the MPI.

Regional approach

The grueling Latin America trek forces migrants to spend at least a week trudging across swampland and hiking through mountainous rainforests in the lawless Darien Gap that is the only link between Panama and Colombia.

Still, the route has a key advantage: Countries in the region typically do not deport migrants from other continents partly because of the steep costs and lack of repatriation agreements with their home countries.

That relaxed attitude could change, however.

Under a deal struck with United States last month, Mexico may start a process later this month to become a safe third country, making asylum-seekers apply for refuge in Mexico and not the United States.

To lessen the load on Mexico, Mexico and the United States plan to put pressure on Central American nations to do more to prevent asylum-seekers, including African migrants, from moving north.

For the moment, however, more Africans can be expected to attempt the journey, said IOM’s Kim.

“They want to do something with their life. They feel they lack a future in their country,” she said.

…