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The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it was opening a broad investigation of major digital technology firms into whether they engage in anticompetitive practices, the strongest sign the Trump administration is stepping up its scrutiny of Big Tech.

The review will look into “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The Justice Department did not identify specific companies but said the review would consider concerns raised about “search, social media, and some retail services online” — an apparent reference to Alphabet, Amazon.com and Facebook, and potentially Apple.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to provide a list of companies that would be scrutinized.

Google and Apple declined to comment, referring to prior statements by executives, while Facebook and Amazon did not immediately comment.

Facebook fell 1.7% in after-hours trading, while Alphabet fell 1%, Amazon was down 1.2% and Apple was 0.4% lower.

The announcement comes a day before the Federal Trade Commission is set to announce a $5 billion penalty to Facebook for failing to properly protect user privacy.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said the Justice Department “must now be bold and fearless in stopping Big Tech’s misuse of its monopolistic power. Too long absent and apathetic, enforcers now must prevent privacy abuse, anticompetitive tactics, innovation roadblocks, and other hallmarks of excessive market power.”

In June, Reuters reported the Trump administration was gearing up to investigate whether Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google misuse their massive market power, setting up what could be an unprecedented, wide-ranging probe of some of the world’s largest companies.

A person briefed on the matter said the Justice review may also include some state attorneys general.

The Justice Department said the review “is to assess the competitive conditions in the online marketplace in an objective and fair-minded manner and to ensure Americans have access to free markets in which companies compete on the merits to provide services that users want.”

Reuters reported on May 31 that the Justice Department was preparing an investigation of Google to determine whether the tech giant broke antitrust law.

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill alike are expressing growing concerns about the size of the largest tech firms and their market power. Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has called for breaking up companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook and unwinding prior acquisitions.

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel pressed executives from the four firms about their competitive practices and noted that Google, Facebook, Amazon had a rising share of key markets.

Congress held a series of hearings last year looking at the dominance of major tech companies and their role in displacing or swallowing up existing businesses.

It is rare for the government to seek to undo a consummated deal. The most famous case in recent memory is the government’s effort to break up Microsoft Corp. The Justice Department won a preliminary victory in 2000 but was reversed on appeal. The case settled with Microsoft intact.

“There is growing consensus among venture capitalists and startups that there is a kill zone around Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple that prevents new startups from entering the market with innovative products and services to challenge these incumbents,” said Representative David Cicilline, a Democrat who heads the subcommittee.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told CBS News last month that scrutiny was fair but “if you look at any kind of measure about is Apple a monopoly or not, I don’t think anybody reasonable is going to come to the conclusion that Apple’s a monopoly. Our share is much more modest. We don’t have a dominant position in any market.”

Google’s Adam Cohen told the House Judiciary subcommittee last week that the company had “created new competition in many sectors, and new competitive pressures often lead to concerns from rivals.”

Technology companies face a backlash in the United States and across the world, fueled by concerns among competitors, lawmakers and consumer groups that they have too much power and are harming users and business rivals.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called for closer scrutiny of social media companies and Google, accusing them of suppressing conservative voices online, without presenting any evidence.

Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, praised the investigation and said a Senate tech task force she chairs would be looking at how to “foster free markets and competition.”

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U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who has been the target of some of President Donald Trump’s  fiercest attacks, has called on supporters to confront racism and false accusations while at the same time remain focused on defeating Trump in the 2020 presidential election.  Omar spoke to Muslim American democratic activists Tuesday as the president continued his attacks against Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen of color for what Trump has called their unpatriotic criticism of the U.S.  More from VOA’s Brian Padden.

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A senior U.S. official tasked with finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue told the United Nations Tuesday that international law and consensus are not the keys to resolving the decades-old dispute.

“Those who continue to call for international consensus on this conflict are doing nothing to encourage the parties to sit down at the negotiating table and make the hard compromises necessary for peace,” Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “In fact, they are doing the opposite –  allowing people to hide behind words that mean nothing.” 
 
Greenblatt said that international consensus is often “nothing more than a mask for inaction.”
 
“So let’s stop kidding ourselves. If a so-called international consensus had been able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would have done so decades ago. It didn’t,” he said. “This conflict is also not going to be resolved by reference to “international law” when such law is inconclusive.”
 

Israel Begins Demolition of Palestinian Homes

Homeowners said they had permits from the Palestinian Authority to build but Israel says the area is closed to construction

Greenblatt also took aim at the Security Council resolutions agreed on the issue since 1967 – all are binding under international law – saying they have not succeeded and would not provide a path to peace.
 
The council has laid out the basic principles for a negotiated peace in its resolutions, including land-for-peace, affirming the vision of a two-state solution, and endorsing the so-called Quartet’s (U.N., Russia, U.S. and European Union) road map. More recently, in December 2016, it said Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are illegal under international law and a major obstacle to peace.
 
The international community has been awaiting a proposed peace plan from the Trump administration. Greenblatt, along with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, have been working on the proposal for many months.

Nine in Ten Palestinians Distrust US Economic Plan: Poll

President Donald Trump’s administration presented the economic part of its Israeli-Palestinian peace proposals, dubbed ‘Peace to Prosperity, in the Bahraini capital Manama on June 25-6

Greenblatt said Tuesday that Trump has not decided when the political plan would be released, but that when it is, it would not be ambiguous. An economic road map was unveiled to mixed reviews at a conference in Bahrain in late June.
 
“I ask all of you to reserve judgment until we publish, and you read, the 60 or so pages that detail what peace could look like,” Greenblatt said. “Achieving that vision will require difficult compromises by both parties, if they are willing to make such compromises. But we believe both sides will gain far more than they give.”  
 
He emphasized that a solution could not be forced upon the parties and said, “Unilateral steps in international and multilateral fora will do nothing to solve this conflict.”
 
The Trump administration came in for widespread international criticism in December 2017 when it took the unilateral step of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announcing that it would move its embassy there.
 
Greenblatt raised the issue of Jerusalem, saying that the Palestinians continue to assert that East Jerusalem must be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
 
“But let’s remember, an aspiration is not a right,” Greenblatt said. He then added that his statement should not be interpreted as an indication of the content of the political part of the peace plan.
 
“Aspirations belong at the negotiating table,” he added. “And only direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians can resolve the issue of Jerusalem, if it can be resolved.”
 
The status of Jerusalem is seen internationally as a final status issue that must be resolved at the negotiating table.
 
Several council members took issue with Greenblatt’s demotion of international law and consensus.
 

“For us, international law is relevant; international law is not futile,” said German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen. “We believe in the force of international law; we do not believe in the force of the strongest.”
 
He emphasized that council resolutions are binding under international law.
 
“For us, international law is not menu a la carte,” Heusgen added. He noted that there are many instances where U.S. diplomats insist on the respect and implementation of council resolutions, such as on North Korea.
 
Russia’s envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, also challenged Greenblatt’s assertions.
 
“This international consensus is international law, because Security Council resolutions are international law – they merely need to be complied with,” Nebenzia said. “The matter lies not with a lack of international consensus; rather the matter has to do with the fact that there is utter disregard for this internationally-acknowledged consensus by the United States at present.”

While the Trump administration’s peace plan has yet to be delivered, it is seen by some as already dead on arrival, as the Palestinians have rejected Washington’s ability to be an impartial mediator after its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval rating hit a new high because of his anti-crime work and populist appeal across class lines, a survey shows.
While many nations and groups around the world criticize him, Duterte earned a net satisfaction rating of 68 in the second quarter of 2019, according to a July 8 public opinion survey by Manila area research institution Social Weather Stations. The rating marked a new “personal record high,” the president said on his office website. He had scored 66 in March as well as in June 2017.

The president fared well in the heavily watched survey of 1,200 adults because his anti-crime campaign has made people feel safer in urban neighborhoods, common Filipinos and scholars in the country say. Duterte, elected in 2016, got there in part by letting police shoot drug crime suspects on the spot, outraged overseas rights groups believe.

Duterte also makes sense to common people because of speech and demeanor that cast him as a political outsider, analysts say. Fast economic growth has given him a boost, they observe.

“The way he presents himself is that he speaks street language,” said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman. “He looks like a person who does things immediately, even of course at the expense of rule of law.”

Anti-crime wave

Duterte vowed after taking office to eradicate major crimes within three to six months. The 74-year-old leader has acknowledged personally killing criminal suspects while mayor of the second-largest Philippine city, Davao.

On the presidential office website, Duterte once swore he would “eradicate everyone involved in the illegal drug trade.”

Crime decreased to 115,539 incidents logged in the first quarter this year, down 3.3% from the same period of 2018, domestic media outlet BusinessWorld says, citing police figures.

Populist aura

The Middle class resents the failed promises of previous presidents, adding to their satisfaction with Duterte, Atienza said. Past administrations were lighter on crime, including corruption.

The middle class is solid, thanks to economic growth of more than 6% every year since the president took office.

“Duterte has created an aura for himself. It’s probably quite difficult to knock down,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. “He is seen as an ordinary guy, (an) outsider.”
Criticism from domestic political opponents tends to raise his popular appeal, casting him as an “underdog,” Araral said.

Condemnations offshore

New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch has estimated there have been more than 12,000 extrajudicial killings under Duterte, nearly double an official figure of 6,600. Teenagers are among the dead. “The Philippine government’s brutal ‘war on drugs’ has devastated the lives of countless children,” the group said in a June 27 report.

Western governments as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have questioned the extrajudicial killings since 2016, sparking sharp rebuttals from Duterte.

He called former U.S. President Barack Obama, for example, a “son of a whore” in 2016 over Obama’s comments about the Philippine anti-drug campaign. Duterte later apologized for the remark.

A lot of people in the Philippines want the U.N. Human Rights Commission to investigate the extrajudicial killings even if Duterte himself gets high satisfaction ratings, said Renato Reyes, secretary general of the Manila-based Bagong Alyansang Makabaya alliance of leftist causes.

“We would rather look at how people stand or at how people rate the policies of the government rather than look at the overall quote, unquote, ‘satisfaction and approval ratings,’” Reyes said.

Three-year honeymoons

Three previous Philippine presidents also posted high net satisfaction ratings in the first half of their terms. They were Fidel Ramos, Corazon Aquino and later, her son Benigno Aquino. Ratings for all three fell in the second half of their terms, Social Weather Stations data show.

Duterte acknowledged the second-quarter approval figure without suggesting a reason. He must step down in 2022 due to the country’s limit of one term per president.

“As always… if you are satisfied with my work, then I’m happy. If you are not satisfied, then I’ll work more,” Duterte said July 9 in a statement on the presidential website.
 

…

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Army Secretary Mark Esper to be secretary of defense, ending the longest period by far that the Pentagon has been without a permanent top official.

As voting continued, the Senate overwhelmingly backed Esper, a former lobbyist for weapons maker Raytheon Co., to be President Donald Trump’s second confirmed leader of the Pentagon.

Esper, 55, received strong bipartisan support despite some sharp questioning during his confirmation hearing by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren about his ties to Raytheon and his refusal to extend an ethics commitment he signed in 2017 to avoid decisions involving the company.

Warren, a 2020 presidential hopeful, was the only member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to voice opposition to Esper’s confirmation during the hearing.

Raytheon is the third-largest U.S. defense contractor.

There has been no confirmed defense secretary since Jim Mattis resigned in December over policy differences with Trump.

Many members of Congress from both parties have urged the Republican president to act urgently to fill the powerful position.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on members to support Esper as he opened the Senate on Tuesday morning.

“The nominee is beyond qualified. His record of public service is beyond impressive. His commitment to serving our service members if beyond obvious. And the need for a Senate-confirmed secretary of defense is beyond urgent,” McConnell said.

An Army veteran, Esper had served as a congressional aide and a Pentagon official under Republican President George W. Bush, before working for Raytheon. He has been Army secretary since November 2017.

Trump’s previous pick to be secretary of defense, Patrick Shanahan, withdrew from consideration on June 18 after reports emerged of domestic violence in his family.

…

The Milky Way, home to our sun and billions of other stars, merged with another smaller galaxy in a colossal cosmic collision roughly 10 billion years ago, scientists said Monday, based on data from the Gaia space observatory.

The union of the Milky Way and the so-called dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus increased our galaxy’s mass by about a quarter and triggered a period of accelerated star formation lasting about 2 to 4 billion years, the scientists said.

“Yes, indeed it was a pivotal moment,” said astronomer Carme Gallart of Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in Spain, lead author of the research published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Galaxies of all types including the Milky Way began to form relatively soon after the Big Bang explosion that marked the beginning of the universe some 13.8 billion years ago, but were generally smaller than those seen today and were forming stars at a rapid rate. Subsequent galactic mergers were instrumental in configuring galaxies existing now.

High-precision measurements of the position, brightness and distance of around a million stars within 6,500 light years of the sun, obtained by the Gaia space telescope operated by the European Space Agency, helped pinpoint stars present before the merger and those that formed afterward.

Certain stars with higher content of elements other than hydrogen or helium arose in the Milky Way, they found, and others with lower such content originated in Gaia-Enceladus, owing to its smaller mass.

While the merger was dramatic and helped shape what the Milky Way has become, it was not a star-destroying calamity.

“This crash was big in cosmic terms, but if it was happening now, we could probably not even notice at a human or solar system level,” Gallart said.

“The distances between stars in a galaxy are so huge — a galaxy is basically empty space — that the two galaxies intermix, change their global shape, more star formation may happen in one, and maybe the small one stops forming stars.

“But the individual stars in each galaxy don’t collide, don’t really notice the force of the event in a way that affects their individual evolution or the evolution of the planetary systems that may be attached to them,” Gallart said.

The Milky Way, spiral shaped with a central bar-like structure composed of stars, includes 100 to 400 billion stars, including the sun, which formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, far after the merger.

…

New Zealand on Monday unveiled the second round of restrictions on gun ownership in the aftermath of a deadly shooting at two mosques in Christchurch earlier this year.

The new rules include establishing a gun registry, banning gun purchases by foreign visitors, and requiring gun owners to renew licenses every five years, instead of every 10. 

The proposed changes will “enshrine in law that owning a firearm is a privilege” rather than a right, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

Wellington moved swiftly after the attacks in March that killed 51 people and wounded dozens. 

New Zealand Announces Assault Weapons Ban in Wake of Christchurch Mass Shootings

Nearly one week after 50 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand were gunned down, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed an immediate ban on all military-style semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles.

The ban, which Prime Minister Ardern announced Thursday in Wellington, includes high-capacity magazines, which can hold multiple rounds of ammunition, and accessories that can convert ordinary rifles into fast-acting assault rifles.

Six days after the attack, Ardern announced a ban on semiautomatic weapons, including the type used by the gunman in the attacks. 

Since then the government has launched a buyback program to compensate people for the outlawed semi-automatics, and has collected and destroyed more than 3,200 weapons. The gun buyback and amnesty runs until December.

Police Minister Stuart Nash said the new law would allow police to monitor people’s social media accounts to determine whether they were fit to own weapons.

“What we do know is that the Christchurch terrorist was engaged on some sites which were promoting some pretty horrific material,” Nash said. “So that’s one thing police will have the ability to assess when they determine if someone is fit and proper to have a firearms license.”

The new legislation is expected to be introduced into the Parliament next month. After that, it will be subject to three months of public feedback, before it is voted on by lawmakers.

…

Residents of Hong Kong, already tense after weeks of protests against the city’s leader and police, were deeply shaken after masked assailants wearing white T-shirts savagely beat people dressed in black, the color of this summer’s democracy movement. 

The attackers descended late Sunday on an MTR rail station in the far northern district of Yuen Long, along the border with mainland China. Victims and rail riders uploaded dozens of videos that showed people bloodied and dazed. 

One witness complained that police arrived after a half hour and allegedly left after 15 minutes.  

Six were arrested, as police searched for the people responsible for the beatings of 45 people late Sunday night. The targeted victims included a lawmaker, journalists, and passersby. Businesses were so worried about further tensions that shops and  malls remained closed.

Kaylee Lee, a registered nurse, retreated to a women’s restroom at the station and treated wounded people with a physician. People kept pushing in to get away from the attackers.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Lee said. “Some passengers were so injured, they couldn’t walk by themselves. … It was like a zombie movie. Some zombies wanted to get inside and attack us. We keep asking them to hold the door. Don’t let them come inside.”

As the government has been accused of ignoring demonstrators’ demands, protests have grown angrier. Hours after Sunday’s march, thousands of mostly young people wearing black clothing and construction helmets, joined rolling protests.

Participants threw black paint at the Chinese national emblem outside state offices, blocked off highways and built barricades from street signs. 

By 2:30 Monday morning, all but a hundred or so protesters had left the unrest on Hong Kong Island.

Carrie Lam, the city’s deeply unpopular chief executive, condemned the rail station attacks, but criticized protesters who defaced the national emblem on Beijing’s liaison office.

“They blatantly challenged China’s national sovereignty … and angered the whole city,” she said at a press conference.

Witnesses to Sunday’s chaos faulted the police’s slow and minimal response.

“The police really cooperated with the white-colored T-shirt people,” said Mario, a bystander who asked that his last name be withheld out of fear that police might target him. “Why did the staff not do anything?” he asked. 

Lam Cheuk Ting, a pro-democracy lawmaker who was bloodied in the event, said the attackers could be triad, or gang members, and said the police deliberately declined to act.

“It is a very serious misconduct in public office.  It’s an offense,” he told journalists. “It’s not just a disciplinary problem, but a criminal liability they have to bear.”

A few people at the MTR station tried to hold off the attackers by spraying them with water hoses.  In a video posted on his Facebook page, Lam and a few others appear to lead people up the stairs and onto an awaiting train. Downstairs, the concourse filled with several dozen masked assailants who ran up the station stairs chasing passengers. One lunged for Lam, while others beat and kicked other passengers. 

The conductor left the train doors open, and minutes later, some of the attackers burst into the train carriage waving sticks. Some passengers beat them back with umbrellas. One passenger begged the assailants to stop but was punched so hard, he fell backwards. Another attacker lunged for Lam. With glasses in hand, he sat dazed, as blood poured from his mouth. 

Bystander Mario said he tried to fend off the attackers with a fire hose, but escaped by slipping under the metal gate of a closing shop. 

He was still furious on Monday. 

“I don’t know why suddenly there are no police in Yuen Long,” Mario said. “Why would the government do that? Why did they allow people to attack lots of people?”

Protesters demand that an independent investigation be conducted into the forceful tactics used by police during previous demonstrations. Riot squads deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds against mostly unarmed protesters, causing serious injuries.

…

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele hailed a new chapter in his country’s relationship with the United States, thanking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for being the first top U.S. diplomat to visit his country in ten years.

For his part, Secretary Pompeo praised Bukele’s shift towards the United States.

“El Salvador with its new leadership has made a clear choice to fight corruption, promote justice and partner with the United States, and together both of our peoples will reap those benefits.”

Pompeo also praised El Salvador for declaring it does not recognize what he termed “the corrupt Maduro regime” as the legitimate government of Venezuela.

El Salvador’s Bukele spoke in English and it was clear that he has a warm rapport with Pompeo.

“We talk about fighting the gangs together, we talk about interdicting narcotics together, we talk about reducing immigration together.  So I think this was a very, very important meeting.  I think that it’s a game-changer.”

Asked about the U.S. freezing its foreign aid for El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to compel their leaders to stem the flow of migration to the U.S. southern border, Bukele had a strong response.

“What do we want to do in El Salvador? Do we want to get more free money?  Do we want more blank checks?  No. We want to improve the conditions at home.”

Bukele said it “sounds tacky” to have the top U.S. diplomat visiting and to ask him for free money. 

Benjamin Gedan of the Wilson Center told VOA Bukele is much more pro-American than his predecessor, and is committed to a new approach to fighting violent gangs and drug traffickers with the U.S.

“The new president [of El Salvador] from the very beginning was very enthusiastic about the idea of working closely with the United States on any number of issues and in fact was skeptical about the role of China in El Salvador which was a source of tension with his predecessor.”

U.S. lawmakers from both major political parties are calling on the Trump administration to restore U.S. foreign aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, saying it is counterproductive to punish countries fighting extreme poverty and violence, while at the same time calling on them to reduce the flow of migration.  

Before heading to San Salvador, Pompeo met with Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard on an overnight stop in Mexico City.  Asked by VOA whether Mexico has done enough to meet the requirements of a 45-day U.S. deadline on imposing potential tariffs, Pompeo said there has been progress, but he would consult with President Donald Trump.

“There are fewer apprehensions taking place today along our southern border, but we’ve got a long way to go yet.  There is still much more work to do.”

Mexico has deployed forces to its southern border to stem the flow of migration from Central America. But Benjamin Gedan of the Wilson Center said he is skeptical that Mexico has the resources to sustain this for a long time.

“Rather than addressing the root causes of migration flows from northern Central America, there is this effort to harden the U.S. border, to encourage Mexico to harden its southern border and to have Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador take their own steps to really impede the flows of individuals north to the United States.”

Before going to Mexico, Pompeo made a stop Saturday in Guayaquil, Ecuador to meet with President Lenin Moreno, the first visit by a U.S. Secretary of State to that country in nine years.  They also stressed common goals and improved relations between the two countries.  Moreno asked for more help from the U.S. and the international community to deal with the influx of refugees to his country from neighboring Venezuela, calling it a “social apocalypse.”  Pompeo discussed the ongoing crisis in Venezuela at every stop.

Pompeo started his jam-packed Latin America trip Friday in Argentina.  He confirmed the U.S. has imposed financial sanctions against a Hezbollah militant group leader suspected of directing a deadly bombing in 1994 of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

“They were killed by members of a terrorist group, Hezbollah, and had help that day from Iran,” which provided “logistical support and funding through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Pompeo said at an event in Buenos Aires to rally support from Latin American leaders in the U.S. fight against Middle East militant groups.

Standing at a memorial at the site of the car bombing, Pompeo lit a candle with AMIA President Ariel Eichbaum and said the worst terrorist attack in Argentina is a stark reminder of the danger to the Western Hemisphere from Hezbollah and other groups based on the other side of the world.

“It was a moving reminder that our discussion today isn’t abstract; it’s not theoretical. The risk of terrorism is real for each and every one of us and each and every one of our citizens.”

…

Paul Krassner, the publisher, author and radical political activist on the front lines of 1960s counterculture who helped tie together his loose-knit prankster group by naming them the Yippies, died Sunday in Southern California, his daughter said. 

Krassner died at his home in Desert Hot Springs, Holly Krassner Dawson told The Associated Press. He was 87 and had recently transitioned to hospice care after an illness, Dawson said. She didn’t say what the illness was. 

The Yippies, who included Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and were otherwise known as the Youth International Party, briefly became notorious for such stunts as running a pig for president and throwing dollar bills onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Hoffman and Rubin, but not Krassner, were among the so-called “Chicago 7” charged with inciting riots at 1968’s chaotic Democratic National Convention. 

By the end of the decade, most of the group’s members had faded into obscurity. But not Krassner, who constantly reinvented himself, becoming a public speaker, freelance writer, stand-up comedian, celebrity interviewer and author of nearly a dozen books. 

“He doesn’t waste time,” longtime friend and fellow counterculture personality Wavy Gravy once said of him. “People who waste time get buried in it. He keeps doing one thing after another.”

He interviewed such celebrity acquaintances as authors Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller and the late conservative pundit Andrew Breitbart. The latter, like other conservatives, said that although he disagreed with everything Krassner stood for, he admired his sense of humor. 

An advocate of unmitigated free speech, recreational drug use and personal pornography, Krassner’s books included such titles as Pot Stories For The Soul'' andPsychedelic Trips for the Mind,” and he claimed to have taken LSD with numerous celebrities, including comedian Groucho Marx, LSD guru Timothy Leary and author Ken Kesey. 

He also published several books on obscenity, some with names that can’t be listed here. Two that can are “In Praise of Indecency: Dispatches From the Valley of Porn” and “Who’s to Say What’s Obscene: Politics, Culture & Comedy in America Today.” 

For his autobiography, Krassner chose the title, “Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture,” using a phrase taken from an angry letter to the editor of a magazine that had once published a favorable profile of him. 

“To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute,” the letter writer said. “He’s a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.”

What he really was, Krassner told The Associated Press in 2013, was a guy who enjoyed making people laugh, although one who brought a political activist’s conscience to the effort. 

He noted proudly that in the early 1960s, when abortion was illegal in almost every state, he ran an underground abortion referral service for women. 

“That really was a turning point in my life because I had morphed from a satirist into an activist,” he said. 

His original career choice, however, had been music. 

A child prodigy on the violin, he performed at Carnegie Hall at age 6. Later he all but gave up the instrument, only occasionally playing it as a joke during lectures or comedy routines. 

“I only had a technique for playing the violin, but I had a real passion for making people laugh,” he would say. 

After studying journalism at New York’s Baruch College, Krassner went to work for Mad Magazine before founding the satirical counterculture magazine The Realist in 1958. He continued to publish it periodically into the 1980s. 

For a time in the 1950s, he also appeared on the stand-up comedy circuit. There, he would meet his mentor, Lenny Bruce, the legendary outlaw comic who pushed free speech to its limits with routines filled with obscenities and sexual innuendo that sometimes landed him in jail. 

Krassner interviewed Bruce for Playboy Magazine in 1959 and edited the comedian’s autobiography, “How To Talk Dirty and Influence People.” 

When the counterculture arrived in earnest in the ’60s, Krassner was working as a comedian, freelance writer, satirist, publisher, celebrity interviewer and occasional creator of soft-core pornography. To mark the death of Walt Disney in 1966, he published a colorful wall poster showing Disney cartoon characters engaging in sex acts. 

When he and other anti-war activists, free-speech advocates and assorted radicals began to plot ways to promote their causes, Krassner said he soon realized they would need a clever name if they wanted to grab the public’s attention. 

“I knew that we had to have a who' for thewho, what, where, when and why’ that would symbolize the radicalization of hippies for the media,” Krassner, who co-founded the group, told the AP in 2009. “So I started going through the alphabet: Bippie, Dippie, Ippie, Sippie. I was about to give up when I came to Yippie.” 

As one of the last surviving Yippies, he continued to write prolifically up until his death, his daughter said. 

His newest book, “Zapped by the God of Absurdity,” will be released later this year. And he recently wrote the introduction for an upcoming book about his old friend Abbie Hoffman, Dawson said. 

Krassner also had hoped to publish his first novel, a mystery whose protagonist is a crime-solving comedian modeled after Lenny Bruce. He got so into the story, Krassner once said, that he began to believe he was channeling Bruce’s spirit. That ended, however, when the spirit reminded his old friend one day that Krassner was an atheist. 

“He said to me, ‘Come on, you don’t even believe that (expletive),”’ Krassner recalled with a laugh. 

He is survived by his wife, Nancy Cain; brother, George; daughter, Holly Krassner Dawson; and one grandchild. 

…

The German airline Lufthansa resumed daily direct flights to Cairo on Sunday after a one-day suspension due to unspecified safety concerns.

But British Airways still has all its flights to the Egyptian capital grounded and plans to keep them that way for six more days.

The two airlines on Saturday abruptly canceled all flights to Cairo after the British government warned of a “heightened risk of terrorism against aviation.”

Egypt’s minister of civil aviation, Lt. General Younes Elmasry, on Sunday expressed frustration that the airline suspended flights without consulting Egyptian authorities.  He met with Britain’s Ambassador to Egypt Geoffrey Adams and said the two sides would work to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

Passengers scrambled to find alternative flights after receiving a notification from the airline informing them about the decision which came into effect immediately.

In a statement, British Airways said the move was “a precaution to allow for further assessment”, without offering further details.

The U.S. State Department warned citizens Friday about traveling to Egypt. “A number of terrorist groups, including Islamic State, have committed multiple deadly attacks in Egypt, targeting government officials and security forces, public venues, tourist sites, civil aviation and other modes of public transportation, and a diplomatic facility,” the State Department said. “Terrorists continue to threaten Egypt’s religious minorities and have attacked sites and people associated with the Egyptian Coptic Church.”

It also warned of “risks to civil aviation operating within or in the vicinity of Egypt.”

No American flights have been affected so far.

…

The World Bank estimated Sunday that Afghanistan’s economy grew by less than two percent (1.8 %) in 2018 primarily due to ongoing war, drought and political uncertainty, likely leading to further increases in poverty.

In its latest assessment of the Afghan economy, the Bank noted that sustained and substantial improvement in the security situation are key to better economic conditions required to reduce poverty from high current levels.

“Any political settlement with the Taliban could bring major economic benefits through improving confidence and encouraging the return of Afghan capital and skilled workers from overseas,” the assessment noted.

The report comes as the United States has been holding negotiations with Taliban insurgents to try to bring an end to the 18-year-old Afghan war. The two adversaries are said to have come closer to signing a peace deal that could also jumpstart intra-Afghan negotiations for permanent cessation of four decades of hostilities in the country.

“Whatever happens, rapid growth will only be possible with improved security under a government that remains committed to private sector development, respects the rights of investors, and maintains the gains Afghanistan has achieved over the past two decades towards establishing strong and impartial government institutions” said  Henry Kerali, the World Bank Afghanistan country director.

Sunday’s report, however, hailed progress in government policies and a strong economic management, saying it has improved prospects for 2019, with growth expected to accelerate to 2.5 percent with the easing of drought conditions.

“Government revenues reached a new high of nearly 190 billion afghanis in 2018, up seven percent from 2017 while budget execution rates also reached record levels,” it noted.

It urged the government to do more to improve the business environment, ensure a smooth election process and prevent corruption and management of scarce fiscal resources over the difficult months to come.

Afghan election officials are preparing to hold the repeatedly-delayed presidential vote on September 28. Presidential hopefuls alleged incumbent President Ashraf Ghani, who is also seeking re-election, is using state machinery and resources to undermine his rivals.

Presidential spokespeople, however, reject the charges.

…

The United States said it’s concerned by reports of China’s interference with oil and gas activities in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, where Vietnam accuses Beijing of violating its sovereignty.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that China’s “repeated provocative actions aimed at the offshore oil and gas development of other claimant states threaten regional energy security and undermine the free and open Indo-Pacific energy market.”

Vietnam on Friday demanded China remove a survey ship from Vanguard Bank, which it says lies within Vietnam’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone. China claims the South China Sea almost in its entirety and has rattled smaller neighbors by constructing seven man-made islands in the disputed waters and equipped them with military runways and outposts.

Chinese coast guard vessels also have been reported near a drilling rig in the same Vanguard Bank area where Vietnam has contracted Russia’s Rosneft to develop gas fields.

“Vietnam has made contact with China on multiple occasions via different channels, delivered diplomatic notes to oppose China’s violations, and staunchly demanded China to stop all unlawful activities and withdraw its ships from Vietnamese waters,”Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said in a statement Friday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang earlier in the week urged Hanoi to respect China’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction, “and not to take any move that may complicate matters.”

In May 2014, Chinese and Vietnamese vessels engaged in a dangerous confrontation when China’s national oil company moved its oil platform into waters Vietnam considers its territory.

Ortagus calls on China to “cease its bullying behavior and refrain from engaging in this type of provocative and destabilizing activities.”

…

Protesters in Hong Kong pressed on Sunday past the designated end point for a march in which tens of thousands repeated demands for direct elections in the Chinese territory and an independent investigation into police tactics used in previous demonstrations.

Around 10,000 people gathered in Admiralty, the district housing the city’s government complex, despite orders from police to disperse immediately. Others continued toward Central, a key business and retail district and the site of the 2014 Umbrella Movement sit-ins.

Large protests began last month in opposition to a contentious extradition bill that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to stand trial in mainland China, where critics say their rights would be compromised.

Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has declared the bill dead, but protesters are dissatisfied with her refusal to formally withdraw the bill. Some are also calling for her to resign amid growing concerns about the steady erosion of civil rights in city.

A former British colony, Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, and was promised certain democratic freedoms under the framework of “one country, two systems.” Fueled by anger at Lam and an enduring distrust of the Communist Party-ruled central government in Beijing, the demonstrations have ballooned into calls for electoral reform and an investigation into alleged police brutality.

Walking in sweltering heat, protesters dressed in black kicked off Sunday’s march from a public park, carrying a large banner that read “Independent Inquiry for Rule of Law.”

“Free Hong Kong! Democracy now!” the protesters chanted, forming a dense procession through Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district as they were joined by others who had been waiting in side streets.

“I think the government has never responded to our demands,” said Karen Yu, a 52-year-old Hong Kong resident who has attended four protests since last month. “No matter how much the government can do, at least it should come out and respond to us directly.”

Marchers ignored orders from police to finish off the procession on a road in Wan Chai, according to police and the Civil Human Rights Front, the march’s organizers.

Protesters repeated the five points of their “manifesto,” which was first introduced when a small group of them stormed the legislature earlier this month. Their main demands include universal suffrage – direct voting rights for all Hong Kong residents – as well as dropping charges against anti-extradition protesters, withdrawing the characterization of a clash between police and protesters as a “riot” and dissolving the Legislative Council.

Protesters read the demands aloud in both English and Cantonese in videos released Saturday.

“We did not want to embark on this path of resisting tyranny with our bare bodies,” they said, “but for too long, our government has lied and deceived, and refused to respond to the demands of the people.”

While the demonstrations have been largely peaceful, some confrontations between police and protesters have turned violent. In Sha Tin district last Sunday, they beat each other with umbrellas and bats inside a luxury shopping center. Demonstrators broke into the Legislative Council building on July 1 by moving past barricades and shattering windows. Meanwhile, police officers have used pepper spray, tear gas, bean bag rounds and rubber bullets to quell the crowds.

On Friday, Hong Kong police discovered a stash of a powerful homemade explosive and arrested a man in a raid on a commercial building. Materials voicing opposition to the extradition bill were found at the site, local media said, but a police spokesman said no concrete link had been established and the investigation was continuing.

…

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday that Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven had assured him American citizen and rapper A$AP Rocky would be treated fairly. 
 
Trump said he assured Lofven that Rocky was not a flight risk and personally vouched for his bail. 
 
Swedish prosecutors on Friday extended Rocky’s detention by six days amid their investigation into a street fight in Stockholm. 

…

Pakistan organized its first ever provincial elections Saturday in a northwestern region along the mountainous border with Afghanistan that until a few years ago was condemned as the “epicenter” of international terrorism.

Pakistani officials said the elections in the seven districts of what were formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) are central to steps the government has taken to supplement regional and global efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan and counter violent extremism.

Pakistani election officials said some 2.8 million registered voters were to choose from 285 candidates for 16 seats in the legislative assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

The contestants, including two women, represented major mainstream political parties. The election was held under tight security and no incidents of violence were reported.

The historic vote came on a day when Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan left for the United States for his first meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, where the two leaders will discuss counterterrorism measures among a range of other issues.

A landmark constitutional amendment pushed through the parliament last year paved the ground for the tribal territory to be merged in the adjoining KP province to bring it into the national mainstream.

Until last year, the lawless border regions of FATA were federally administered through a set of British colonial laws that were not applicable to the rest of Pakistan, and residents could vote only in the national assembly, lower house of the parliament.

FATA anti-terror campaign

Civilian and military leaders in Pakistan hailed Saturday’s democratic process as testimony that years-long security operations have rid most of the ex-FATA of militant groups, including al-Qaida and fighters loyal to the Taliban waging a deadly insurgency against U.S.-led intentional forces on the Afghan side of the porous border.

Islamabad has been for years accused by American and Afghan officials of harboring training camps and sanctuaries for the Taliban. Pakistani officials have consistently denied those charges.

The anti-terrorism Pakistan army offensives, backed by airpower, over the years had displaced several million residents of FATA, although officials say 95% of them have since been rehabilitated.

A government document shared with VOA claimed the operations killed more than 15,000 militants and captured another 5,000. The remnants have fled and taken refuge in “ungoverned” border regions of Afghanistan, it added.

It was not possible to ascertain the veracity of the data through independent sources because conflict zones in FATA had remained inaccessible for journalists and aid workers during military operations.

In recent months, however, the military has organized media trips to showcase infrastructure development, particularly in North Waziristan, which Pakistani officials say was the final battleground in their bid to clear FATA of terror.

The retaliatory terrorist attacks and suicide bombings in FATA districts and elsewhere in the country also killed thousands of Pakistanis, including about 8,000 military personnel, according to Pakistani officials.

The violence, which stemmed from Pakistan’s participation in the U.S. “war on terror,” also has inflicted direct and indirect losses to the national economy totaling more than $200 billion, according to government estimates.

Foreign critics also had been referring to FATA as the “most dangerous place”on the globe, and the U.S. repeatedly called for Pakistan to dismantle the terrorism infrastructure.

“This most dangerous spot on the map may well be the source of another 9/11 type of attack on the Western world or its surrogates in the region,” concluded the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a 2009 study on FATA..

Border security and reconstruction 

The Pakistani army is currently building a robust fence and new posts along most of the 2,600-kilometer Afghan border to deter militant infiltration in either direction. The massive border management project is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

“With fencing of Pak-Afghan border, cross border movement of terrorists, drugs and smugglers has reduced to almost 5% of what was happening before,” according to a Pakistani government document shared with VOA.

The ensuing reconstruction effort has established roads, bridges and telecommunication networks, schools, health facilities and markets.

The key infrastructure was previously almost non-existent in many FATA districts. Pakistani officials cited a lack a government authority in the region for decades, saying it long served as a “transit zone for Jihadi groups where they had established a de-facto government.”

The military lately, however, has faced allegations of abuses from a newly emerged group in FATA, known as Pakistan Tahafuz Movement or PTM. But both army and government officials deny the charges, alleging that some of the PTM leaders are being supported by Afghan and Indian spy agencies in their bid to undermine Pakistan’s counterterrorism gains.  

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s nearly one-year-old government takes credit for arranging an ongoing peace dialogue between the U.S. and the Taliban aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan.

During recent trips to FATA districts, Khan has announced new projects and allocated substantial funds for the development of the regions, hoping they will become a commercial and transit trade hub between Pakistan and Afghanistan if peace eventually returns to the neighboring country.

…

Saudi-coalition spokesman Col. Turki al Maliki says that coalition fighter jets took out at least five Houthi air defense sites around the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, early Saturday. Amateur video showed a number of explosions rocking Sanaa, overnight. 

Amateur video broadcast by Arab media showed a series of explosions around the Yemeni capital Sana’a, early Saturday, followed by loud percussive explosions.

Saudi-owned media, quoting coalition spokesman Turki al Maliki, indicated that at least five Houthi air defense sites were bombed by Saudi warplanes. Maliki claimed that a number of Houthi ballistic missiles were destroyed in the air attacks.

The Saudi-owned Asharqalawsat newspaper quoted Maliki as saying the “operation [overnight] targeted the Houthis air defense capabilities, as well as their ability to launch aggressive attacks.” Maliki went on to say the coalition raids “conformed with international human rights law.”
Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut, tells VOA that he doesn’t think the Saudi air raids are going to have much effect on the ongoing war or the Houthis military capabilities:

“This is not the first time the Saudis announced launching attacks on missile sites in Yemen,” he said. “It happened in the past and it’s highly unlikely that such attacks are going to have any tangible effects on the Houthi war effort.”

Khashan stressed that most of the Houthis’ attacks on Saudi territory in recent weeks have been launched “using drones, rather than by firing ballistic missiles.”

Airstrike Kills, Injures Dozens of Civilians in Yemeni Capital

U.N. agencies are expressing anger and sadness at the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians, including children, hit by airstrikes on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Thursday night.

This is just the latest tragedy to hit Yemen, which has been at war for more than four years.The U.N. human rights office reports nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed and 10,800 wounded as of November 2018.

Most of the deaths and injuries are due to aerial bombardments by the Saudi-led coalition, it reports.

The Houthis military spokesman, Gen. Yahya Saree, claimed Saturday that his group had launched a retaliatory drone attack Saturday, which “destroyed several radar [sites] and other military equipment at the King Khaled airbase in southern Saudi Arabia.” Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV countered that the drone was shot down near Abha and “hit no targets.”

The Saudi air attacks on Houthi missile sites come one day after unknown drones struck a Shi’ite militia camp that allegedly contained Iranian ballistic missiles in the north of Iraq. Some Iraqi analysts accused Saudi Arabia of the attack, but it was not immediately clear who was responsible. A number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces and Lebanese Hezbollah advisers allegedly were killed or wounded in the raid.

…

Marylou Whitney, a successful thoroughbred breeder and owner whose family helped keep Saratoga Race Course open in the 1970s, has died. She was 93. 

The New York Racing Association said she died Friday at her estate in Saratoga Springs after a long illness. No further details were provided. 

Whitney became the first woman in 80 years to own and breed a Kentucky Oaks winner in 2003 with Bird Town, a filly trained by Hall of Famer Nick Zito. In 2004, Whitney and Zito teamed with Birdstone to win the Belmont Stakes, spoiling Smarty Jones’ Triple Crown bid. Birdstone won the Travers, Saratoga’s signature race, later that summer. 

Her stable had over 190 winners starting in 2000 and into the current year.

Opens her own stable in 1992

Before opening her own stable in 1992, Whitney teamed with her husband, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, to race horses. They won the Travers in 1960 with Tompion and again in 1968 with Chompion. C.V. Whitney co-founded the National Museum of Racing and Pan American Airlines in 1958.

In the 1970s, the couple helped convince NYRA to keep Saratoga open at a time when wagering and attendance sagged. Their efforts and long-term vision paid off, with Saratoga’s summer meet attracting more than 1 million fans annually.

Whitney was nicknamed “Queen of Saratoga” for her philanthropic initiatives in Saratoga Springs.

The Whitneys founded the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, which opened in 1966 and continues to host world-class musical and dance performances.

C.V. Whitney died at age 93 in 1992. 

Eclipse Award of Merit 

In 1997, Whitney married John Hendrickson, who was 40 years her junior and an aide to Alaska’s then-governor, Wally Hickel. The couple continued her philanthropic endeavors, helping establish a program to help Saratoga stable workers.

“Marylou’s passion for racing was only matched by her love for the city of Saratoga Springs and her support for the backstretch community,” NYRA CEO and President Dave O’Rouke said. “Her generosity was unparalleled and the list of her contributions is endless. Saratoga would not be the destination it is today without the esteemed leadership, dedication and support of Marylou.”

Whitney received an Eclipse Award of Merit in 2010 for her contributions to racing and was elected to The Jockey Club in 2011. 

“Whether it was her extraordinary philanthropic endeavors, her festive galas or her racing stable of stakes winners, Marylou devoted all of her energies to our sport and its traditions, most prominently, her beloved Saratoga,” the Breeders’ Cup said in a statement. “Marylou has left an indelible mark of distinction, class and style upon thoroughbred racing.” 

‘Irreplaceable icon’

Last year, she was in attendance as the Racing Hall of Fame inducted three generations of Whitneys as Pillars of the Turf, including C.V. Whitney, his father, Harry Payne Whitney, and his grandfather, Williams Collins Whitney, who purchased Saratoga in 1900 and also helped create Belmont Park.

“Mrs. Whitney was a beloved and irreplaceable icon whose extraordinary legacy will have a lasting effect on future generations,” the Racing Hall of Fame and Museum said in a statement. 

Born Marie Louise Schroeder on Dec. 24, 1925, she grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. 

After graduating from Southwest High School, she attended the University of Iowa for a time before working as an actress, appearing in movies and television shows and in radio. 

Besides Hendrickson, she is survived by her five children, Louise, Frank, Henry, Heather and Cornelia. 

…

The U.S. government on Friday expanded its policy requiring asylum seekers to wait outside the country to one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities, where thousands of people are already camped, some for several months.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would implement its Migrant Protection Protocols in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. DHS said it expected the first asylum seekers to be sent back to Mexico starting Friday.

Under the “Remain in Mexico” policy, asylum seekers are briefly processed and given a date to return for an immigration court hearing before being sent back across the southern border. Since January, the policy has been implemented at several border cities including San Diego and El Paso, Texas. At least 18,000 migrants have been sent back to Mexico under the policy, according to Mexico’s National Migration Institute.

The U.S. is trying to curtail the large flow of Central American migrants passing through Mexico to seek asylum under American law. The busiest corridor for unauthorized border crossings is South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where Brownsville is located. Other cities in the Rio Grande Valley were not immediately included in the expansion.

DHS said it had coordinated with the Mexican government on the policy. The Mexican government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But the Trump administration has pressured Mexico to crack down on migrants, threatening earlier this year to impose crippling tariffs until both sides agreed on new measures targeting migration. 

Matamoros is at the eastern edge of the U.S.-Mexico border in Tamaulipas state, where organized crime gangs are dominant and the U.S. government warns citizens not to visit because of violence and kidnappings.

The city is also near where a Salvadoran father and his 23-month-old daughter were found drowned in the Rio Grande, in photos that were shared around the world.

Many people have slept for the last several months in a makeshift camp near one of the international bridges, including families with young children. Thousands more stay in hotels, shelters or boarding houses. Only a few migrants daily have been allowed to seek asylum under another Trump administration policy limiting asylum processing known as “metering.” 

A list run by Mexican officials has more than 1,000 people on it, said Elisa Filippone, a U.S.-based volunteer who visits Matamoros several times a week to deliver food and donated clothes. But many others not on the list wait in shelters. There are frequent rumors that migrants are shaken down for bribes to join the list, Filippone said.

She described a desperate situation that could be made worse if people are forced to wait longer in Mexico for their asylum claims to be processed.

“I’m afraid that Matamoros is about to catch on fire,” she said.

Filippone said Friday that she saw the camp closest to one of the bridges being cleared away, though it was not immediately clear why or where the people detained would go. 

DHS recently implemented the “Remain” policy for migrants in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. About 1,800 asylum seekers and migrants are currently waiting in Nuevo Laredo, where some have reported being kidnapped and extorted by gangs.

“I don’t want to go out on the street. I’m afraid the same men … will do something to me or my boys,” said one woman, insisting on speaking anonymously out of fear for their safety.

People in Nuevo Laredo were told to return in September for U.S. court dates. At other points along the border, wait times have stretched to several months. 

Unlike in criminal court, the U.S. government does not have to provide lawyers to people in the immigration court system. Attorneys in South Texas have long questioned where they could meet with potential clients in Tamaulipas.

Many migrants who get to the U.S. have exhausted all their resources by the time they arrive, said Lisa Brodyaga, an attorney who has represented asylum seekers for decades. 

“It would be extremely difficult for them to find attorneys who would have the time and the ability and the willingness to expose themselves to what’s going in Matamoros,” she said. “I’m not sure how it’s going to work.”

…

Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

Back to the border

The head of U.S. Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan, found himself in a familiar place this week: testifying before members of Congress, again facing tough questions about how department employees treat people detained along the U.S.-Mexico border, especially children.  The hearing was sandwiched between two trips the acting secretary took to the border. He flew to Washington after one trip that concluded Wednesday, headed to Capitol Hill on Thursday, and as of Friday was scheduled back in McAllen, Texas. There, along with a group of senators, he was to tour multiple facilities where migrants are held after apprehension. 

Asylum ban in the Southwest

The Trump administration is locked in another legal battle over its migration policies, this time regarding asylum. Through a rule change announced early this week, the federal government is seeking to block people from requesting asylum if they entered the U.S. by land through Mexico, are not Mexican or Canadian, or had the ability to request asylum in another country they passed through before arriving in the U.S.

 It was the latest attempt to limit the number of people claiming humanitarian grounds to travel to or remain in the country. The U.N. says the new regulation will put vulnerable families at risk.  The Trump administration says many who request asylum ultimately are denied, and accuses migrants of abusing the U.S. system.

Death in Australian detention 

The death of an Afghan refugee in an Australian immigration detention center is raising questions similar to those in U.S. facilities — how is indefinite detention affecting people, especially when the average period of time for those held in detention was more than 500 days? And could these deaths be prevented?  

The country faced challenges on multiple fronts regarding migration this week, as Papua New Guinea told Canberra to resolve what it would do with hundreds of refugees after the closure of a migrant camp. 

Immigration raids fizzle

For the second time in as many months, U.S. officials threatened massive raids to capture immigrants without legal status. And when the day came, such roundups failed to happen. But for the undocumented community, the fear of deportation was there, even if the federal agents weren’t.

Verbal attack

Congresswoman. Former refugee. Somali-American. There are plenty of straightforward ways to describe Ilhan Omar. But the lawmaker was the focus of virulent and xenophobic comments this week.

She is one of four new members of Congress, all women of color, who repeatedly have been criticized by President Donald Trump since Sunday on social media and in public comments.

Omar responded on Twitter with an often-quoted stanza from a Maya Angelou poem: “You may shoot me with your words / You may cut me with your eyes / You may kill me with your hatefulness / But still, like air, I’ll rise.” 

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

-Maya Angelou https://t.co/46jcXSXF0B

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 18, 2019

Deportability cases

According to the latest data from immigration courts through June 2019, just 2.8 percent of recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security filings based deportability claims on any alleged criminal activity. Syracuse University’s TRAC found that despite the “rising number of ICE interior arrests and individuals who are detained, fewer and fewer immigrants in the Immigration Court’s growing workload are being cited as deportable based upon criminal activity.” 

Immigrant legal services

The American Immigration Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association and Immigrant Defense Project filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in the Southern District of New York. The organizations seek information about a program that “operates largely outside of public view and with little regard for due process.” 

From the Feds:

— Border Patrol agents in one sector continue to document the apprehensions of African border crossers entering without authorization. The Del Rio sector said more than 1,100 people from 19 African countries were detained since the end of May. 

— A Texas woman was sentenced to five years in prison this week for running a human smuggling ring from India to the U.S. Among Hema Patel’s assets seized by the federal government: her home, two hotels, $400,000 in cash and 11 gold bars. 

…

As Libya’s two rival governments fight for control of the capital, Tripoli, airstrikes and artillery fire continue to batter the city. Nearly 1,100 people have died and more than 100,000 have been displaced by the war. As VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Tripoli, officials say if the fighting does not slow down, the country is headed toward “disaster.”
 

…

The governor of Puerto Rico is not backing down despite massive street protests in the capital, San Juan, demanding his resignation. Thousands of people have taken to the streets after Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of leaked text messages in which Gov. Ricardo Rossello used homophobic and misogynistic language.  VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the governor said in a statement Thursday that his commitment to Puerto Rico is stronger than ever.

…

This week, President Donald Trump came under fire for verbal attacks on four minority Democratic congresswomen. The House of Representatives condemned some of the president’s comments as racist. And Democrats remain divided over whether to try to impeach Trump or focus on defeating him in next year’s presidential election. The clash has plunged the country into an angry debate over race, immigration and political ideology, as we hear from VOA National correspondent Jim Malone in Washington.
 

…

Iranian state television said Thursday forces from the country’s Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign tanker accused of smuggling oil.

The report said the vessel was intercepted Sunday in a section of the Strait of Hormuz south of Iran’s Larak Island with 12 crew members on board.

It said the tanker was involved in smuggling one million liters of fuel, but did not give details about its country of origin.

The seizure comes after the Panamanian-flagged tanker MT Riah, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, disappeared from ship tracking maps in Iranian territorial waters on July 14.

The Revolutionary Guard said it received a distress call from the vessel, which was “later seized with the order from the court as we found out that it was smuggling fuel,” a report said. It said Iranian smugglers intended to transport the fuel to foreign customers.

The seizure comes amid heightened U.S.-Iran tensions, which began to escalate when President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal with Iran and world powers last year and imposed stiff sanctions on Iran, including on its oil exports.

Iran has recently exceeded uranium production and enrichment limits in violation of the agreement in an effort to pressure Europe to offer more favorable terms to allow it to sell its crude oil abroad.

The U.S. has also deployed thousands of additional troops, nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets to the Middle East.

Veiled attacks on oil tankers and Iran’s downing of a U.S. military surveillance drone have further fueled concerns of a military conflict in the Persian Gulf region.

An unnamed U.S. defense official told Associated Press earlier this week the U.S. “has suspicions” Iran seized the tanker MT Riah when it turned off its tracker.

…

India’s space agency says it will make a second attempt to launch an unmanned probe to the Moon’s south pole next Monday, July 22.

The launch of the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft will take place exactly one week after its first attempt was aborted less than an hour before liftoff due to a “technical snag” on the giant Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three rocket.

Chandrayaan, the Sanskrit word for “moon craft,” is designed for a soft landing on the far side of the moon and to send a rover to explore water deposits confirmed by a previous Indian space mission.  

If the $140 million mission is successful, India will become just the fourth nation to pull off a soft landing of a spacecraft on the lunar surface, after the United States — which is observing the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 mission this week — Russia and China.

…

A survey by the International Organization for Migration finds Venezuelan migrants and refugees are at high risk of exploitation and abuse.  More than 4,600 people were surveyed in five Caribbean and Central American countries between July and December 2018.

The survey provides a snapshot of the hardships encountered by a fraction of the four million people who have fled Venezuela’s political and economic crisis over the past few years.   

One in five Venezuelans interviewed said they were forced to work under dire conditions without pay or were held against their will until they paid off a debt they incurred while escaping from Venezuela.  

Rosilyn Borland is an IOM senior regional migrant protection and assistance specialist based in Costa Rica.  On a telephone line from the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, she tells VOA both men and women fall victim to traffickers who force them into abusive situations.

“It is good to remember that these criminal networks, they focus on the vulnerabilities,” she said.  “So, those can be linked to your gender or they can be linked to other things.  So, often we see trafficking and exploitation of women linked to gender-based violence and inequalities that women face.  But also, men who are searching for a way to support their families… may also find themselves in situations of vulnerability.” 

Borland says many migrants and refugees face discrimination while in transit or in destination countries.  She says massive flows of people often bring out the worst tendencies in host communities.  

“Part of our reasons for asking these questions has to do with fighting against xenophobia and things that, unfortunately, sometimes happen when communities are hosting large numbers of people.  It is difficult.  It is a strain,” she said. 

Borland says it is important to regularize migrants in the host countries.   She says allowing migrants to work legally brings them out of the shadows so they can fight for their rights.  She says having legal status would make them less vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.  

…

STATE DEPARTMENT — “My father is a fixer, a bridge-builder, a connector. He knows that a better future is one where Han Chinese and Uighur children are in school together, are friends together and have the same opportunities,” said Jewher Ilham, who pleaded for the release of her father, prominent jailed Uighur scholar and economist Ilham Tohti. 
 
She also petitioned Chinese authorities to release all Uighur girls from so-called re-education camps before Beijing hosts the 2022 Winter Olympics.  
 
Tohti has been serving a life sentence on separatism-related charges since 2014. Chinese authorities accused him of encouraging terrorism and advocating separatism in his lectures, articles and comments to foreign media.
 

22 UN Ambassadors Condemn Chinese Treatment of Uighurs

Concerns were expressed in letter to UN Human Rights Council 

The scholar and economist founded the website Uyghur Online, which is aimed at promoting understanding between Uighurs and Han Chinese. He also has been outspoken about Beijing’s treatment of the minority Muslim Uighurs in the far-western Xinjiang region.  
 
“I have not spoken to him since 2014, and I have not seen him since we were separated at the airport in 2013. We were on our way to Indiana University, where my father was supposed to start a yearlong residency,” Jewher Ilham told participants of the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, hosted by the U.S. State Department on Tuesday.  

U.S. lawmakers’ push
 
The appeal came amid a renewed push from American lawmakers urging China to change how it treats Uighurs in Xinjiang. 
 
“The violations [in Xinjiang] are of such scale, are so big, and the commercial interests are so significant that it sometimes tempers our values in terms of how we should act,” said Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Tuesday at the ministerial.  
 
“Unless we are willing to speak out against the violations of religious freedom in China, we lose all moral authority to talk about it any other place in the world,” added Pelosi.  
 
The House speaker also called for U.S. sanctions against Chinese Communist Party leaders in Xinjiang, who are responsible for the re-education camps. 
 
More than 1 million Muslim Uighurs have been detained in re-education camps that critics say are aimed at destroying indigenous culture and religious beliefs.  
 
American officials say the United States has stressed to Chinese authorities the importance of differentiating between peaceful dissent and violent extremism. They say Tohti’s arrest “silenced an important Uighur voice that peacefully promoted harmony and understanding among China’s ethnic groups, particularly Uighurs.”  
 
In January 2019, Tohti was nominated by a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers for the Nobel Peace Prize.
 
China rejected the nomination, calling Tohti a separatist.  
 
“Ilham Tohti is convicted of dismembering the nation. What he did was meant to split the country, stoke hatred and justify violence and terrorism, which cannot be condoned in any country. The international community should have a clear understanding of this,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said this year.  
 

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This story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service. Some information is from AP.

WASHINGTON —  NATO’s supreme commander met with Serbian political and military leaders in Belgrade on Wednesday in his first visit to Serbia since assuming the alliance’s top military post.

U.S. Air Force General Tod Wolters, who in May was sworn in as supreme allied commander in Europe, a post always held by a U.S. military officer, was first hosted by General Milan Mojsilovic, head of the Serbian Armed Forces, before meeting jointly with President Aleksandar Vucic and Defense Minister Aleksandr Vulin.

“We spoke about a wide range of topics and I am glad to say that through hard work and dedication, Serbia is promoting peace and stability in the Western Balkans,” Wolters told VOA’s Serbian Service in a prepared statement.

Wolters did not immediately respond to questions about whether or not he planned to visit Kosovo on this trip to the region.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as a country, but the EU has set normalized relations between the two countries as a condition for Serbia to advance to EU membership.

Talks mediated by EU officials have been stalled for months.

President Vucic issued a statement after meeting with Wolters, in which he called NATO-led international peacekeepers on the ground in Kosovo a guarantor of security for Serbs living in Kosovo.

Vucic also said Wolters agreed to set up an emergency communications hotline between Serbian forces and the NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) to rapidly defuse tensions or episodes of violence.

“Good communication between the Serbian Armed Forces and the KFOR is important so that any crisis situation in Kosovo and Metohija could be immediately prevented,” Vucic said. “This is a security guarantee for the Serbian people in Kosovo.”

Wolters, in response, expressed his support for Serbia’s efforts to maintain stability and develop cooperation in the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron met with Vucic in Belgrade on Monday, when he vowed to help jumpstart stalled negotiations to resolve Serbia’s independence dispute with former province Kosovo so a lasting solution can be found for the decades-long Balkan crisis.

Macron, making the first visit to Serbia by a French president since 2001, also expressed support for the country’s stated goal of joining the European Union even as he reiterated his belief that the EU must adopt reforms before adding more members.

Historically close ties between Belgrade and Paris were severely damaged when NATO forces bombed Serbia in 1999 over the country’s actions in Kosovo, and by France’s recognition of Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.

Serbia has officially been on the path to becoming an EU member since 2008. The country also maintains close ties with Russia and China, whose mounting influence in the Balkans has raised Western concerns.

“I urged France to help us on our European road and in solving the Kosovo crisis,” Vucic said of his meeting with the French president.

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