Month: May 2018

Reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from American trading partners — including the European Union — came fast and furious, with threats of retaliation and warnings they risk sparking a trans-Atlantic trade war.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the European bloc would respond by imposing penalties of its own on American exports.

“Today is a bad day for world trade,” said Cecilia Malmström, the European trade commissioner. EU officials previously informed the World Trade Organization of the bloc’s plan to levy duties on $7.2 billion worth of U.S. exports if the Trump administration proceeded with threats to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum.

Canadian and Mexican officials also threatened retaliatory responses but have as yet not indicated which U.S. products they will target. Both countries had hoped that the White House would continue to exempt them from the tariffs. 

National security cited

Europe, along with Canada and Mexico, had been granted a temporary reprieve from the U.S. tariffs after they were unveiled in March by Trump, who said the levies were needed to stem the flood of cheap steel and aluminum into the U.S. and that to impose them was a national security priority.

In Europe, there was disappointment, but less surprise. 

Juncker called the U.S. action “unjustified” and said Europeans had no alternative but to respond with tariffs of their own and to lodge a case against Washington with the World Trade Organization in Geneva. “We will defend the union’s interests, in full compliance with international trade law,” he said.

The EU had already publicly announced that in the event tariffs did go ahead, it would impose levies on Levi-made jeans, Harley-Davidson motorbikes and bourbon whiskey.

British officials appeared the most alarmed. The government of Theresa May had pinned post-Brexit hopes on securing a trade deal with the U.S., and the imposition of tariffs on steel is adding to fears that negotiating a quick trade liberalization agreement with Trump looks increasingly unlikely.

“We are deeply disappointed that the U.S. has decided to apply tariffs to steel and aluminum imports from the EU on national security grounds,” a government spokesman said. “The U.K. and other European Union countries are close allies of the U.S. and should be permanently and fully exempted.”

Discussion at summit

He said the British prime minister planned to raise the tariffs with the U.S. president personally in Canada at a scheduled G-7 summit of the seven largest advanced economies. That summit is likely to be a frosty affair, much like last year’s in Taormina, Sicily. 

With a week to go before the June 7-8 summit, there’s still no final agreement on the agenda, British and Italian officials said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had earmarked climate change, women’s rights and economic growth as key issues, but there has been pushback from Washington. Thursday’s tariff announcement by the White House will further complicate agreeing on a G-7 agenda.

German reaction to the announcement of the tariffs was among the fiercest. Chancellor Angela Merkel dubbed them “illegal.” Manfred Weber, a key ally of the German chancellor and leader of the biggest bloc in the European Parliament, accused the Trump administration of treating American allies as enemies.

“If President Trump decides to treat Europe as an enemy, we will have no choice but to defend European industry, European jobs, European interests,” he said. “Europe does not want a trade conflict. We believe in a fair trade regime from which everybody benefits.” 

Wilbur Ross, U.S. commerce secretary, who’s in Europe and has been pressing the EU to make concessions to avert the tariffs, dismissed threats of a trade war, saying retaliation would have no impact on the U.S. economy. He held out hope that the tariffs could be eliminated, saying, “There’s potential flexibility going forward. The fact that we took a tariff action does not mean there cannot be a negotiation.” 

Business leaders cautious

Some European business leaders have urged their national leaders to be restrained in response, fearing a tit-for-tat spiral could be triggered quickly. Britain’s Confederation of British Industry warned against overreaction, saying no one would win on either side of the Atlantic if a major trade war erupted.

The director of UK Steel, Gareth Stace, said he feared there was clear potential for a damaging trade war.

“Since President Trump stated his plans to impose blanket tariffs on steel imports almost three months ago, the U.K. steel sector had hoped for the best, but still feared the worst. With the expiration of the EU exemption now confirmed to take effect tomorrow [June 1], unfortunately, our pessimism was justified, and we will now see damage not only to the U.K. steel sector but also the U.S. economy.” 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday pardoned conservative commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who admitted he funded illegal campaign contributions in 2012 to help a Republican Senate candidate in New York.

“He was treated very unfairly by our government!” Trump said in announcing the pardon, although D’Souza four years ago thanked a judge for “imposing a fair sentence” in the case, eight months in a community confinement center he could leave during the day to work and a $30,000 fine.

Later, the White House said Trump felt that D’Souza had been “a victim of selective prosecution.” It said D’Souza was “fully worthy” of a pardon because he had “accepted responsibility for his actions, and also completed community service by teaching English to citizens and immigrants seeking citizenship.”

In the last several years, the Indian-born D’Souza figured prominently in attacks on Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, whom Trump also frequently vilifies. D’Souza wrote a best-selling 2010 book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” and co-directed a 2012 film, “2016: Obama’s America,” which cast a bleak portrayal of what America would look like if Obama won re-election in 2012, which he did.

As he boarded Air Force One for a trip to Texas, Trump said he was considering pardons or commutations of sentences for two other prominent figures convicted in recent years: lifestyle maven and television star Martha Stewart, who served five months in prison in a securities fraud case, and former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who once appeared on Trump’s reality television show, The Celebrity Apprentice. 

Blagojevich is in the midst of serving a 14-year term for trying to sell appointment to the Senate seat in Illinois that Obama vacated when he was elected president. At the time of the TV show, Trump praised Blagojevich for his “tremendous courage and guts,” but then fired him on the fourth episode of the 2010 season.

U.S. presidents have wide discretion in pardoning convicts they feel have been wronged.

Before his pardon of D’Souza, Trump already pardoned two other notable conservatives, former Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America” convicted of engaging in a crackdown on illegal immigrants, and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the one-time chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of lying about the unmasking of the identity of a CIA agent.

Virginia Congressman Don Beyer, a Democrat, criticized Trump’s pardon of D’Souza, saying, “As with the pardon of Joe Arpaio, Trump is sending a message that he will reward political allies for loyalty with get-out-of-jail-free cards. He doesn’t care about the rule of law.”

The 53-year-old D’Souza pleaded guilty to illegally reimbursing two “straw donors” who had donated $10,000 apiece in 2012 to the unsuccessful Senate campaign of of Wendy Long, a woman he had known for years since their days at Dartmouth College in the 1980s. The donations exceeded the $5,000 limit for contributions from individuals that was in place at the time.

“It was a crazy idea, it was a bad idea,” D’Souza said as he was sentenced. “I knew that causing the campaign contributions to be made in the name of another was wrong, and something the law forbids. I deeply regret my conduct.”

Later, however, D’Souza claimed on television shows he had been “selectively” prosecuted — because of his vocal opposition to Obama — by federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump shortly after he assumed power in early 2017.

In a Twitter post, Bharara said, “The President has the right to pardon but the facts are these: D’Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologized for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness. The career prosecutors and agents did their job.”

 
…

Zimbabwe’s President says the Trump administration is easing enforcement of sanctions on the southern African country. The president spoke Thursday in Gweru town, about 350 kilometers south of Harare, a day after setting July 30 as the date for the next election.

In an hour-long speech Thursday to his ZANU-PF party supporters, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said relations with Western countries are warming up since he came to power last November, after his predecessor Robert Mugabe resigned under pressure from the military.

He said the U.S. is overlooking sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe in the early 2000s following reports of human rights abuses and election rigging by the Mugabe regime.

According to Mnangawa, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, known as ZIDERA, has been hurting the southern African country since it was passed nearly 20 years ago.

He said in recent months, his administration has secured billions of dollars in commitments to addressing Zimbabwe’s moribund economy.

“I must say this to you: Americans have ZIDERA which forbids U.S. companies to invest in Zimbabwe,” he said. “But we have big U.S. company which came and wants to do Batoka Gorge Hydroelectricity project at $5.2 billion. We asked them how they would do it when there is ZIDERA and they said, Trump’s administration is giving us a blind eye. So things are changing.”

Mnangagwa said he had already written to his Zambian counterpart President Edgar Lungu about the project, which is supposed to take place on the Zambezi River, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.

U.S. embassy officials in Harare could not be immediately reached if indeed Trump’s administration was now overlooking ZIDERA, a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 2001.

Turning to Zimbabwe’s elections set for July 30, Mnangagwa said he was already planning beyond them.

“We have agreed that five years after this election, we have programs we have put down to improve housing,” he said. “We are saying: 1.2 million houses to be built. We are attracting foreign companies who are willing to invest in houses. As industries are recovering, as electricity is being produced, we believe that in the next five years according to our program, [we have] over 2,000 mega watts of electricity that will come on board.”

Mnangagwa pleaded for unity in ZANU-PF, which has experienced internal strains since Mugabe resigned last November.

In the coming election, Mnangagwa is face challenges from several opponents including 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa of the country’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
…

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan played down a spate of recent Taliban attacks on Wednesday, saying violence levels were still lower than average as some insurgents talked peace — a situation he described as “talking and fighting.”

“You see mid-level, senior-level Taliban leaders engaging with Afghans,” said Army General John Nicholson, adding that a lot of the diplomatic activity was taking place “off the stage.”

Nicholson’s remarks came the same day that gunmen armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers attempted to penetrate the heavily fortified headquarters of the Afghan interior ministry, battling security forces for more than two hours in the latest attack on the capital Kabul.

The attack was a reminder of the challenges facing U.S.-backed Afghan forces even after 16 years of war, including in the capital Kabul. Last month, two explosions in Kabul killed at least 26 people, including nine journalists.

Nicholson said initial indications suggested Taliban and the Haqqani network were behind the attack, even though Islamic State claimed responsibility.

In his remarks to Pentagon reporters, Nicholson sought to underscore data and events he said point to forward progress in America’s longest war. Critics warn the U.S.-backed Afghan army cannot promise to defeat the Taliban or overcome Afghanistan’s vast political divisions and entrenched corruption.

More than 2,400 U.S. forces have died in the conflict.

Nicholson pointed to unreleased data showing a 30 percent decline in attacks initiated by the insurgents between February and April, compared with the average over the previous five years. Attacks increased after the Taliban announced their spring offensive on April 25 but the violence was still 10 to 12 percent lower, he said.

U.S. officials in recent years have declined to offer data on levels of attacks initiated by insurgents, saying that the United States no longer had a big enough intelligence gathering operation in Afghanistan to publish reliable estimates.

Nicholson acknowledged much of his data drew upon the Afghan government’s estimates, which the U.S. government has long considered less reliable. But when pressed during the news briefing, Nicholson said he was still confident in the trend suggested by the data.

“If this were a matter of a few percentage points, I’d have less confidence,” he said.

He also drew comparisons to Colombia, where insurgents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and government forces were fighting before a 2016 peace agreement.

Still, many experts say there are huge differences between the Colombian and Afghan conflicts.

“The idea that we’re making the same kind of progress ]as in Colombia] is grasping at straws for justification,” said Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for New American Security think-tank who deployed twice to Afghanistan.

Nicholson highlighted a grassroots “peace movement,” which he said was not aligned to any party in Afghanistan’s nearly 17-year-old conflict. He said it has held events in 20 Afghan provinces, calling for ceasefires and peace talks.

“And this has never happened before in Afghanistan, to my knowledge, over 20 provinces,” he said.

Asked about how this would affect the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, Nicholson said: “The end state of the policy is to achieve a reconciliation.”
…

One day after the ABC TV network canceled Roseanne Barr’s television show following racist remarks she posted about Valerie Jarrett, an African American who served as a White House adviser to President Barack Obama, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested the network owes him an apology. 

“Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?”

​Barr, who is white, tweeted Tuesday that Jarrett is a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and the “Planet of the Apes.”

Barr later tweeted she was sorry “for making a bad joke” about Jarrett. 

Before it was deleted, Barr’s tweet read: “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = vj.”

Her remarks triggered intense backlash, including ABC’s cancellation of her show, which had been renewed for a second season.

“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” said ABC entertainment President Channing Dungey.

Trump’s Twitter response was somewhat surprising after White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Tuesday in response to a question about Barr that he is focusing on trade, North Korea and other issues and “not responding to other things.”

After saying Tuesday she would stop tweeting, Barr resumed posting, blaming the effects of the sleep medication Ambien for her racist remarks in one of her more than 100 subsequent postings.

“guys I did something unforgivable so do not defend me. it was 2 in the morning and I was ambien tweeting — it was memorial day too — i went 2 far &; do not want it defended — it was egregious indefensible. I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but…don’t defend it please.”

The maker of Ambien, Sanofi S.A., responded to Barr’s claim saying, “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”

Iger, who once considered challenging Trump for the presidency in 2020, called Jarrett to inform her about the show’s cancellation.

“He wanted me to know before he made it public that he was canceling the show,” Jarrett said.

Jarrett has not commented on Trump’s response, nor has Iger replied to Trump’s suggestion he was treated differently by the network. 

Barr’s TV show was a new version of her 1988-97 sitcom Roseanne. It returned this year with Barr playing a character who is supportive of President Trump. 

Barr in real life is an avid supporter of Trump. He hailed the new show two months ago for its strong ratings.

“Look at her ratings! Look at her ratings,” he said at a speech in Richfield, Ohio. “Over 18 million people, and it was about us. They haven’t figured it out yet; the fake news hasn’t quite figured it out yet. They have not figured it out. So that was great.”   

Trump’s response to the Barr controversy was not his only controversial remark in recent days. On Memorial Day, a solemn U.S. holiday to honor military personnel who died in the line of duty, Trump tweeted: “Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!”

The tweet drew criticism from some, including retired army general and former Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, who tweeted: “This day, of all days of the year, should not be about any one of us. No matter how prestigious or powerful, no matter how successful we perceive ourselves to be. Rather, this day should be about those who gave their lives so that we could live ours in freedom. #MemorialDay.”

Retired Admiral John Kirby, a State Department spokesman during the Obama administration, was also critical of the president’s Memorial Day tweet.

“This is one of the most inappropriate, ignorant and tone-deaf things our Commander-in-Chief could have said on a day like today,” Kirby wrote on Twitter.
…

Over the next 18 months, roughly 310,000 people in the United States may lose their ability to live and work legally in the country, as the Trump administration ends the humanitarian Temporary Protected Status program for several nations that have seen the effects of armed conflict and natural disasters improve in the last year, according to federal officials.

But those same officials aren’t sure where those TPS beneficiaries will end up once their status expires. An unprecedented number of people will lose their legal privilege to remain in the country within a relatively short timeframe.

Neither government officials nor lawyers nor activists have a good understanding of what’s about to happen. And U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that oversees the TPS program, said it does not track the outcomes of former TPS recipients, so it can’t extrapolate.

TPS is a non-immigrant status, which means that those who receive it are not on a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship — they are, as the name states, in a temporary holding pattern triggered by a crisis in their home country.

Royce Bernstein Murray, policy director at the American Immigration Council, notes that when paired with the potential extinction of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy — ended by Trump in 2017 and now ensnared in the judicial system — there are potentially a million currently legal foreign-born people in the U.S. who will lose their protected status.

And for a government that cites “national security” as its rationale for immigration restriction policies — humanitarian or otherwise — officials could lose track of those million or so people.

“Who gains when we take away people’s ability to come forward and be forthright about who they are and where they are?” Bernstein Murray said.

“Many of us have long argued that it’s better for everyone — the immigrants themselves and society at large — for people to have a way to come forward, to be vetted, to provide their information, so we know who’s here. No need to wonder where populations are and whether they pose a safety risk,” she added.

Writing for the immigration-restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, David North noted that two of the highest source countries for TPS beneficiaries — El Salvador and Honduras — had fewer recipients in 2014 and 2015. They dropped 29 percent and 42 percent, respectively, compared with the peak re-registration numbers in 2001 and 2003.

What could account for those differences? The same outcomes the U.S. may see in the coming 18 months, as TPS expires: adjusting to a different immigration or non-immigrant status, moving to another country, going back to their home country, dying or becoming undocumented. 

​Options for TPS recipients

There isn’t much — if any — data about what happens to TPS recipients once their status expires or is canceled. Even if there were, the next 18 months will be unprecedented in the volume of recipients who lose legal status.

Barring a dramatic change from Congress or the Trump administration, there are limited options for TPS recipients who are going to lose their status.

Some TPS recipients may go home. Of course, this was the intent of TPS — to wait until the countries were stable and able to welcome their expatriate nationals back. But it is unclear how many TPS recipients do, in fact, return once their status expires. There are some cases from the 1990s and early 2000s of countries for which TPS was terminated, but again, USCIS said it does not “actively track” former TPS beneficiaries. Former recipients could, in theory, also move to a third country.

However, nationals from some countries have been in the U.S. for decades. They’ve raised families, kept jobs and built self-sufficient lives. For about 2,100 TPS recipients, largely from El Salvador (92.3 percent) but also Honduras (7.5 percent) and Nicaragua (0.2 percent), the CIS study found high levels of labor force participation — 94 percent among men and 82 percent of women.

About 1 in 3 own their homes, and 4 in 5 pay income tax, according to the data from the Center for Migration Research. 

“TPS holders’ in-between legal status is reflected in their in-between conditions, as they generally do better than undocumented immigrants on the various indicators discussed in this report but not as well as those immigrants who are authorized or perhaps naturalized, or the U.S. population in general. As such, TPS represents a step in the right direction,” according to the report.

TPS recipients may also:

• Revert to their original status — for example, if they came on a student visa, got TPS, and are still a student;

• Stay illegally and risk deportation if they are caught or detained;

• Adjust to a different status — through marriage, work, family or asylum.

In some cases in the 1990s, Congress acted to provide for a permanent status for nationals from some countries. However, momentum for such action does not appear to be building for residents about to lose their legal status.

The Trump administration terminated TPS for six countries in 2017 and 2018, extended it for two others, and will make decisions about two more this year.
…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday seized on an error by liberal activists who tweeted photos of young-looking immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in steel cages and blamed the current administration for separating immigrant children from their parents.

The photos were taken by The Associated Press in 2014, when President Barack Obama was in office. The photo captions reference children who crossed the border as unaccompanied minors.

Early Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “Democrats mistakenly tweet 2014 pictures from Obama’s term showing children from the Border in steel cages. They thought it was recent pictures in order to make us look bad, but backfires. Dems must agree to Wall and new Border Protection for good of country…Bipartisan Bill!”

The immigration debate has reached a fever pitch in recent months following reports that since October about 700 children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border have been separated from their parents.

The number of separated minors is expected to jump once Trump’s new “zero tolerance” policy is enacted. That policy, embraced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, would enforce criminal charges against people crossing the border illegally with few or no previous offenses. Under U.S. protocol, if parents are jailed, their children would be separated from them.

“The parents are subject to prosecution while children may not be,” Sessions said earlier this month. “So, if we do our duty and prosecute those cases, then children inevitably for a period of time might be in different conditions.”

Enter a June 2014 online story by The Arizona Republic titled “First peek: Immigrant children flood detention center.”

The story linked to photos taken by AP’s Ross D. Franklin at a center run by the Customs and Border Protection Agency in Nogales, Arizona. One photo shows two unidentified female detainees sleeping in a holding cell. The caption references U.S. efforts to process 47,000 unaccompanied children at the Nogales center and another one in Brownsville, Texas.

How or why the story resurfaced on social media four years after it was published is unclear. But among those who took notice was Jon Favreau, Obama’s former speechwriter.

In a now-deleted tweet, Favreau wrote: “This is happening right now, and the only debate that matters is how we force our government to get these kids back to their families as fast as humanly possible.”

Other liberal activists also linked to the Arizona Republic story using the hashtag “WhereAreOurChildren,” which grew out of testimony in April by a federal official that the U.S. government had lost track of nearly 1,500 unaccompanied minor children it placed with adult sponsors in the U.S.

Favreau did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment. But he later issued a corrected tweet: “These awful pictures are from 2014 when the government’s challenge was reconnecting unaccompanied minors.”

He added: “Today, in 2018, the government is CREATING unaccompanied minors by tearing them away from family at the border.”

As the immigration debate lit up social media over the weekend, Trump on Saturday falsely claimed that there was a “horrible law” that separates children from their parents after they cross the border. He has said previously that “we have to break up families” at the border because “the Democrats gave us that law.”

That’s not true. There’s no law mandating that parents must be separated from their children. But if an administration opts to impose harsh criminal charges against an adult for crossing the border illegally, their children would be separated from them as a result.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has defended the Trump administration’s practice of separating children from parents when the family is being prosecuted for entering the U.S. illegally, telling a Senate committee earlier this month that removing children from parents facing criminal charges happens “in the United States every day.”

A 2008 law, passed unanimously by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush, says children traveling alone from countries other than Mexico or Canada must be released in the “least restrictive setting” – often to family or a government-run shelter – while their cases slowly wind through immigration court. It was designed to accommodate an influx of children fleeing to the United States from Central America.
…

The U.S. declared Tuesday that religious freedom is “under assault” across the globe.

“The state of religious freedom is dire,” said Sam Brownback, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, as he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released the agency’s annual report concluding that many countries throughout the world crack down on religious adherents and punish them harshly for their beliefs.

Even as the U.S. works toward a June 12 summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, the State Department report singled out the reclusive communist nation for abuses against believers.

“The government continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings, and arrests,” the report said. “An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions.”

Brownback said, “What we know is we got a gulag system operating in North Korea, and it’s been a terrible situation for many, many years. You can go on satellite — open source satellite — and see some of these camps and their situation. You have people that have gotten out and written about the situation in North Korea. We know it is very difficult and desperate, and particularly for people of faith, and that’s why North Korea has remained a country of particular concern for us.”

The report also condemned abuse of religious believers in China, Iran, Russia and other countries.

The State Department said Beijing “continued to exercise control over religion and restrict the activities and personal freedom of religious adherents when the government perceived these as threatening” the state or the ruling communist party. The report estimated that “hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims have been forcibly sent to re-education centers, and extensive and invasive security and surveillance practices have been instituted.”

Brownback said, “You know, that was a concept you thought was gone decades ago and (is) being experienced in growing amounts. The report cites a number of very, very troubling concerns and a decline in religious freedom” in China.”

In Iran, the report said the government continues to deal harshly with religious minorities, including executing or imprisoning those convicted of waging “war on God.”

The State Department said that in Russia, “Authorities continued to detain and fine members of minority religious groups and minority religious organizations for alleged extremism. In one case, there were reports that authorities tortured an individual in a pretrial detention facility. Authorities convicted and fined several individuals for ‘public speech offensive to religious believers.’”

In releasing the report, Pompeo said, “Advancing liberty and religious freedom advances America’s interests. Where fundamental freedoms of religion, expression, press and peaceful assembly are under attack, we find conflict, instability and terrorism. On the other hand, governments and societies that champion these freedoms are more secure, stable and peaceful. So, for all of the reasons, protecting and promoting global respect for religious freedom is a priority for the Trump administration.”

Pompeo said the State Department is convening a ministerial meeting July 25-26 to promote religious freedom, inviting foreign diplomats from “like-minded governments, as well as representatives of international organizations, religious community, and civil society to reaffirm our commitment to religious freedom as a universal human right.”

He said the gathering “will not be just a discussion group, it will be about action. We look forward to identifying concrete ways to push back against persecution and ensure greater respect for religious freedom for all.”

Brownback said, “The problems are great, but the opportunity for change is, too.”

 
…

Hurricane Maria claimed more than 4,600 lives in Puerto Rico last year, more than 70 times higher than the U.S. government’s official death toll of 64, according to a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

The findings, based on a survey of thousands of Puerto Rican residents conducted by researchers from Harvard University and elsewhere, show the fatalities occurred between September 20 and December 31, 2017.

The U.S. government’s emergency response to the storm had been criticized and President Donald Trump, was faulted when much of the U.S. territory remained without power for months.

The researchers said their latest estimates may be too low and “underscore the inattention of the U.S. government to the frail infrastructure of Puerto Rico.”

Maria inflicted about $90 billion in damage to Puerto Rico, which was already grappling with an anemic economy. Researchers have said Maria was the third costliest tropical cyclone to strike the U.S. since 1900.

More than 8 months after the storm, the territory has been slow to recover. Residents continue to suffer from a lack of water, an unstable power grid and a dearth of essential services, forcing many residents to leave.

While the new study puts the death toll at 4,645, it says there is a 95-percent chance the actual number could be as low as 793 and as high as 8,498. Earlier independent studies have estimated the death toll at about 1,000.

The results of the latest study were based on randomly conducted in-person surveys of 3,299 of an estimated 1.1 million Puerto Rican households earlier this year, including homes in remote areas.

To ensure unbiased results, residents were not paid for their responses and were told their answers would not result in any additional government assistance.

Researchers said they could not compare their findings with the latest government tally because their request for access to the numbers was denied.

The Puerto Rican government stopped publicly disclosing its hurricane death figures in December.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are to meet before a planned summit between Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, according to Japanese officials. 

Trump and Abe spoke Monday as American officials were in North Korea and Singapore to discuss arrangements for the prospective talks.

The White House has not responded to VOA queries about the Trump-Abe discussion.

The phone conversation took place before Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery for a Memorial Day ceremony.There the president made no reference to the situation on the Korean peninsula in his 22-minute scripted remarks.

Nearly 34,000 Americans died as a result of hostile action in the three-year war on the peninsula. Hostilities ceased in 1953 with an armistice but no peace treaty has ever been signed.

It is unclear when or where Trump and Abe will meet before the anticipated Singapore summit, which the U.S. president has said in recent days is likely to occur on June 12 after he declared last Thursday that the summit would not be held on that day.

Both Trump and Abe are set to attend the Group of Seven economic summit June 8-9 in Canada.

U.S. and North Korean officials met again Monday at the Korean demilitarized zone.

Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines and former envoy to South Korea, is leading the U.S. delegation at the preparation talks.Reports say the meetings are expected to last until Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and others from theadministration took a flight Sunday to Singapore. 

“They traveled to Singapore to focus on logistics preparations,” a White House official confirmed to VOA News on Monday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in could also be going to Singapore next month for a three-way summit with his U.S. and North Korean counterparts next month, a government official in Seoul said on Monday.

After a surprise meeting Saturday between Kim and Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president said the North Korean leader is still committed to the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula. 

The U.S. has called for “complete, verifiable and irreversible” dismantling of the Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. North Korea has rejected unilateral disarmament and called for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula without defining what that entails.

For Kim “denuclearization can’t be a one-sided event that he’s giving some stuff up and not getting some comparable U.S. action,” according to Bruce Bennett senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation research group.

There could be division under Kim within North Korea’s hierarchy about the diplomatic approach to the Americans, according to Bennet.

“Kim Jong Un has been anxious for a long time, and his father before him, to meet with the U.S. president and develop the appearance for internal political purposes that he’s the peer of the American president.The nuclear weapons give him the feeling that he should be able to do that now,” Bennett tells VOA. 

Senator Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on CBS News said Sunday he is “not very optimistic” that Kim will agree to abandon his atomic arsenal. “These nuclear weapons are something he’s psychologically attached to.They are what gives him his prestige and importance.”

WATCH: Trump Holds Washington in Suspense Over North Korean Summit​

A former U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, also on CBS, expressed concern Pyongyang may demand the removal or scaling back of American troops in South Korea in exchange for denuclearization.

The North Koreans, after expressing initial enthusiasm about diplomacy with the United States, earlier this month did not show up for a preparatory meeting in Singapore, threatened to use nuclear force, and referred to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy.”

Pence had remarked that North Korea could wind up like Libya – a country mired in chaos since it gave up its nuclear ambitions and saw its longtime dictator killed years later by U.S.-backed rebels. 

But North Korean state media subsequently reported on Kim’s “fixed will” that a summit with Trump should go ahead.

During Moon and Kim’s second border meeting Saturday the two leaders exchanged views on how to prepare for the North’s possible summit with Trump. 

“It was like an ordinary encounter between friends,” Moon told reporters.“What’s uncertain for Kim is not his intention to denuclearize, but the U.S. stance in hostile relations with North Korea and whether the U.S. can really secure and guarantee his regime.”

VOA’s Ira Mellman contributed to this report.
…