Month: March 2019

European allies of the outspoken Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have taken the rare step of suspending his Fidesz party from their center-right alliance in Brussels, citing concerns over the rule of law and attacks on European Union officials. However, the European People’s Party (EPP) stopped short of expelling the party.

Fidesz campaign slogans for the upcoming European Parliament elections feature personal attacks on the head of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the U.S.-based financier George Soros. Prime Minister Orban accuses them of conspiring to force Hungary to accept mass migration.

His spokesman Zoltán Kovács told VOA in a recent interview that the suspension will not change the government’s course.

“If it’s about the fundamental issues, that is migration, the defense of European Christian values, we are not ready to compromise,” Kovács said.

Democracy at risk

It is the fundamental issues of democracy that Hungary’s Western allies accuse the government of putting at risk.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Budapest last month and pledged to increase American engagement in the region. Before his meeting with Orban, he held talks with several non-governmental organizations, among them the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union. The group’s Stefania Kapronczay was at the meeting.

“It was very important both symbolically, and it was a message about democracy,” she told VOA.

The U.S. State Department pledged support for Hungarian NGOs and free media, though no further details have been released. Kovács says the government is unimpressed.

“We don’t believe that we shall be giving lectures and tell other people actually and other countries how to behave. And that’s what we expect from our allies. NGOs are not entitled to participate in political decision-making. That has never been an assignment for them. And there is no democratic mandate behind it.”

Changing EU

Such a position is part of the government’s attempt to stifle criticism and shut down debate, Kapronczay argues.

“The Hungarian government systematically demolishes the rule of law, independent institutions. And the system of checks and balances where government power can be controlled is basically nonexistent in the country. Basically, anyone who dissents or who dares to criticize the government faces stigmatization through the media and press statements from government officials.”

The Fidesz party’s suspension from the EPP will weaken its hand in Brussels. However, the Orban government believes things will change after the May elections.

“We all know, everyone knows in the European political sphere, that the political arithmetic in Europe is going to change,” Kovács said.

That could see Hungary team up with like-minded far right parties in countries like Italy, Poland and France, a move that would reshape the power dynamics of Brussels.
…

The early risers who managed to get to the front of the line on this dark and unseasonably cold Sunday morning in southern Georgia are the lucky ones. They will have the opportunity to warm up while sitting in the sanctuary of Maranatha Baptist Church on the outskirts of the town of Plains.

This is the church where former President Jimmy Carter has been praying and teaching for decades, and he attracts the faithful and the curious from down the street and around the world.

Those who arrived late will have to take a seat in the church’s overflow room and watch the morning’s main attraction from a live video feed.

While those in the sanctuary wait a few hours once they’re in — and get a healthy dose of advance preparation with strict rules explained by church officials in the meantime — they are about to participate in a unique opportunity. And if the rules are followed, will get to have a picture that will forever commemorate the occasion.

​Familiar ritual

“Good morning everybody!” Carter calls out as he takes his place behind the church podium. Clearly, it’s been a long morning for some in the congregation who don’t respond with quite the enthusiasm he’s expecting. 

“I said good morning everybody!” This time a bit louder, and this time with the crowd in unison, cheerfully responding.

It is a familiar ritual for Carter, or Mr. Jimmy, to those who belong to his church and those who know him well, who has led religious lessons in some form or another since he was 18 years old. Now at 94, instead of weekly sessions each Sunday he is home in Plains, he teaches from the podium at church about twice a month. And, instead of standing for the entire 45-minute lesson, he sits on a custom built, hydraulically operated chair that elevates him above the crowd so everyone can see.

After a few minutes spent learning the names of the hometowns and countries of the hundreds of visitors packed into Maranatha Baptist Church this particular week, Carter gets down to the business of spreading the word of God, reciting and exploring passages from the Bible to both believers and non-believers alike, while connecting them to experiences in his own long and interesting life.

Historic milestone

While his week in Plains began like many others since leaving the White House in 1981, it ends with the 39th president reaching a historic milestone in American history. On March 22, 2019, Carter became the longest living former U.S. president, surpassing President George H.W. Bush who reached the age of 94 years and 171 days before his death Nov. 30, 2018.”

Now in the record books, Carter is on a short list of nonagenarian former presidents that includes founding father John Adams, who died on July 4, 1826, the exact date of the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence from British rule. Adams was 90 years and 247 days old, an age not surpassed until Ronald Reagan broke the record in 2002.

For all of the historic overtones, it is a milestone many thought the one-time peanut farmer from Georgia would not live to see.

In an emotional and heartfelt press conference Aug. 20, 2015, Carter told the world he had cancer — melanoma — that had spread to his brain and liver.

“I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he told assembled media at the Carter Center in Atlanta, a week after surgery to remove tumors from his liver. “I’m ready for anything and looking forward to a new adventure.”

That “adventure” included an aggressive treatment plan of targeted radiation and immunotherapy. Four months later, Carter surprised visitors to his weekly Sunday School lesson in Plains with news that it appeared his cancer was gone.

“My most recent MRI brain scan did not reveal any signs of the original cancer spots nor any new ones,” Carter said in a separate announcement released through the Carter Center in December 2015.

WATCH: The Legacy of Jimmy Carter: The Preacher from Plains

​One more wish

Today, Carter continues the longest post-White House career of any former president, a record set in 2012 surpassing Herbert Hoover.

Carter, who turns 95 in October, and his wife, Rosalynn, who turns 92 in August, continue to participate in their well-known, annual weeklong “Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project” with Habitat for Humanity, building houses around the world for those in need, most recently in South Bend, Indiana.

And Politico.com reports the former president who negotiated the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel has told Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, that he is willing to travel to North Korea to speak with Kim Jong Un and restart stalled efforts at nuclear talks.

Even so, both Carter and his wife have scaled back their once routinely busy schedules traveling the world “waging peace, building hope, and fighting disease” supporting various initiatives with their global nonprofit Carter Center.

But there is still one more milestone the former president wishes to reach.

“I would like to see Guinea worm completely eradicated before I die,” he explained during his 2015 press conference.

Eradication of the parasite, which grows in the human body and creates intense pain when it emerges, has been a signature project of the Carter Center’s health programs since the 1980s, when there were more than 3 million cases of infection in 21 countries in Africa and Asia.

In January, the Carter Center reported there are now less than 30 cases in three countries.
…

Indonesia’s national carrier Garuda has told Boeing it will cancel a multibillion-dollar order for 49 Boeing 737 Max 8 jets after two fatal crashes involving the plane, in what is thought to be the first formal cancellation for the model.

“We have sent a letter to Boeing requesting that the order be canceled,” Garuda spokesman Ikhsan Rosan said.

“The reason is that Garuda passengers in Indonesia have lost trust and no longer have the confidence” in the plane, he said.

The spokesman told AFP that Boeing officials will visit Indonesia next week to discuss Garuda’s plans to call off the order.

Garuda had received one of the planes, he said, part of a 50-aircraft order worth $4.9 billion at list prices when it was announced in 2014.

Garuda is also talking to Boeing about whether to return the plane it has received, the spokesman told AFP.

The carrier had so far paid Boeing about $26 million, while the company’s director told Indonesian media outlet Detik that it would consider switching to a new version of the single-aisle jet.

“In principle, it’s not that we want to replace Boeing, but maybe we will replace (these planes) with another model,” Garuda Indonesia director I Gusti Ngurah Askhara Danadiputra told Detik.

Will Lion Air follow?

Shukor Yusof, head of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics, said Garuda’s announcement appeared to mark the first formal plans by a carrier to cancel an order for the 737 MAX 8.

It “will probably not be the last. There is a risk that Garuda’s rival Lion Air, which also has many 737 MAX 8 orders, might make the same decision,” he said.

“That is a risk. This has been made public by the Lion Air CEO. He stated publicly that he is considering” a cancellation.

He added that it was difficult to predict whether more major carriers would follow suit.

“There are many unanswered questions and each airline has specific needs,” Yusof said. “Each airline needs to deliberate how they want to strategize their fleet management.”

Delivery postponed

This month, Lion Air said it was postponing delivery of four of the jets after an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 went down minutes into a flight to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board.

Budget carrier Lion, Southeast Asia’s biggest airline by fleet size and a major Boeing customer, said the planes had been on order for delivery this year, but the company was re-evaluating the situation.

Lion Air operates 10 Max 8 jets, part of a then-record $22 billion order from Boeing made in 2011.

The airlines are the only two that use the Max 8 in Indonesia.
…

Passenger rail traffic along a popular Missouri route was suspended and evacuations continued Wednesday amid flooding along the Missouri River.

Amtrak said Tuesday that it was temporarily halting its Missouri River Runner Service between Kansas City and St. Louis. Because of the flooding, it said, freight traffic was being diverted to tracks Amtrak uses. Buses were transporting passengers instead.

Crews with Union Pacific worked for hours to get rail traffic back to normal in Nebraska and other states hit hard by floodwaters from a massive late-winter storm last week, said the company’s spokeswoman, Raquel Espinoza.

The Missouri River already crested upstream of Rulo, Neb., and the water was expected to make its way downstream in coming days, cresting Thursday in St. Joseph at its third-highest level on record. More than a dozen levees have breached in Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has handed out hundreds of thousands of sandbags to help with the flood fight.

Three dead, two missing

The surging waters have damaged hundreds of homes and been blamed for two deaths in Nebraska and one in Iowa. Two other Nebraska residents, including a man who was last seen on top of his car near a levee, remain missing, authorities said Wednesday.

The flooding has also taken a heavy toll on agriculture, inundating tens of thousands of acres, threatening stockpiled grain and killing livestock.

In northwest Missouri, a levee breached Tuesday and unleashed a torrent that overwhelmed a temporary berm that was built up with excavators and sandbags to protect the small town of Craig, where the 220 residents have been ordered to evacuate.

“They’ve got water running down Main Street,” said Tom Bullock, emergency management director of Holt County, where Craig is located.

Water also was lapping at the edge of the tiny community of Fortescue, and another levee was at risk of breaching and potentially flooding Forest City.

“Every levee we have just about is busted,” Bullock said.

Some of the levees have broken in multiple spots, with some breaches hundreds of feet wide, said Mike Dulin, emergency management specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Kansas City district.  He said the agency also was monitoring several other levees between Holt County and Kansas City.

The 130 residents of Missouri’s Lewis and Clark Village continued evacuating Wednesday amid road closures.

Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday surveyed flooded areas in Nebraska. He promised expedited action on presidential disaster declarations in that state and Iowa, where water is being trucked into several communities because floodwaters forced the shutdown of water treatment plants.

Flooding also has forced the Air Force to cancel the 2019 Defenders of Freedom Open House and Air Show at Offutt Air Force Base south of Omaha.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center said Wednesday that flooding also is a concern across parts of the northwest, northern Rockies and High Plains as warm temperatures this week are leading to accelerated snowmelt and the potential for ice jams.
…

Hurricanes Florence and Michael, that caused widespread death and destruction in the United States last year, have earned the dubious distinction of having their named retired. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday that the two names will be replaced with Francine and Milton, starting with the 2024 hurricane season. 

The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization maintains six lists with 21 names each that are organized alphabetically and alternate between male and female names. 

Each list is used once every six years. The current group goes from 2018 to 2023, with the cycle restarting in 2024. 

Names are retired when meteorologists determine that a hurricane has been so destructive that reusing its name would be insensitive.

The first hurricane name was to be retired was Carol, in 1954. So far, 88 names have been dropped from the list. 
…

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the last pocket of the Islamic State’s land in Syria would be liberated by U.S.-backed forces “by tonight.” 

Trump previously announced the defeat of the group, but sleeper cells of fighters re-emerged. With no signs of fighting on Wednesday, however, the long-running battle to retake the militants’ last outpost in eastern Syria appeared to have reached its conclusion. 

“The caliphate is gone as of tonight,” Trump said in a speech at a factory in Lima, Ohio, where military tanks are assembled. 

End of caliphate

The complete fall of Baghuz would mark the end of IS’s self-declared caliphate, which at its height stretched across large parts of Syria and Iraq. 

During his speech, Trump held up two maps of Syria — one covered in red representing territory held by the militant group when he was elected president in November 2016 and the other that had only a speck of red.  

“When I took over, it was a mess. They were all over the place — all over Syria and Iraq,” said Trump, who has said the U.S. will keep 400 troops in Syria indefinitely.   

For the past four years, U.S.-led forces have waged a destructive campaign against the group. But even after Baghuz’s fall, IS maintains a scattered presence and sleeper cells that threaten a continuing insurgency.  

The militants have been putting up a desperate fight, their propaganda machine working even as their hold on territory has been slipping away. The battle for Baghuz has dragged on for weeks and the encampment had proven to be a major battleground, with tents covering foxholes and underground tunnels. 

​Tens of thousands of civilians

The siege has also been slowed by the unexpectedly large number of civilians in Baghuz, most of them families of IS members. Over past weeks they have been flowing out, exhausted, hungry and often wounded. The sheer number who emerged — nearly 30,000 since early January, according to Kurdish officials — took the Syrian Democratic Forces by surprise. 

Ciyager Amed, an official with the Kurdish-led SDF, said they were searching for any IS militants hiding in tunnels in a riverside pocket in the village of Baghuz. The SDF has not yet announced a victory over IS. 

Associated Press journalists saw SDF soldiers loading women and children into trailer trucks on the hilltop over Baghuz, a sign that evacuations were still underway Wednesday. Black smoke was rising from the village. 

On Tuesday, the SDF seized control of the encampment held by IS after hundreds of militants surrendered overnight, signaling the group’s collapse after months of stiff resistance.
…

A group of asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico was set to cross the border Tuesday for their first hearings in U.S. immigration court in an early test of a controversial new policy from the Trump administration.

The U.S. program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), turns people seeking protection in the United States around to wait out their U.S. court proceedings in Mexican border towns. Some 240 people — including families — have been returned since late January, according to U.S. officials.

Court officials in San Diego referred questions about the number of hearings being held Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to a request for comment. But attorneys representing a handful of clients were preparing to appear in court.

Migrants like 19-year-old Ariel, who said he left Honduras because of gang death threats against himself and his family, were preparing to line up at the San Ysidro port of entry first thing Tuesday morning.

Ariel, who asked to use only his middle name because of fears of reprisals in his home country, was among the first group of asylum-seeking migrants sent back to Mexico on Jan. 30 and given a notice to appear in U.S. court in San Diego.

“God willing everything will move ahead and I will be able to prove that if I am sent back to Honduras, I’ll be killed,” Ariel said.

While awaiting his U.S. hearing, Ariel said he was unable to get a legal work permit in Mexico but found a job as a restaurant busboy in Tijuana, which does not pay him enough to move out of a shelter.

Critics of MPP

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other advocacy groups are suing in federal court to halt the MPP program, which is part of a series of measures the administration of President Donald Trump has taken to try to curb the flow of mostly Central American migrants trying to enter the United States.

The Trump administration says most asylum claims, especially for Central Americans, are ultimately rejected, but because of crushing immigration court backlogs people are often released pending resolution of their cases and live in the United States for years. The government has said the new program is aimed at ending “the exploitation of our generous immigration laws.”

Critics of the program say it violates U.S. law and international norms since migrants are sent back to often dangerous towns in Mexico in precarious living situations where it is difficult to get notice about changes to U.S. court dates and to find legal help.

Scheduling glitches

Immigration advocates are closely watching how the proceedings will be carried out this week, especially after scheduling glitches created confusion around three hearings last week, according to a report in the San Diego Union Tribune.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which runs U.S. immigration courts under the Department of Justice, said only that it uses its regular court scheduling system for the MPP hearings and did not respond to a question about the reported scheduling problems.

Gregory Chen, director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said there are real concerns about the difficulties of carrying out this major shift in U.S. immigration policy.

“The government did not have its shoes tied when they introduced this program,” he said.
…

High-level U.S.-Russian talks on how to defuse Venezuela’s crisis ended on Tuesday with the two sides still at odds over the legitimacy of President Nicolas Maduro.

Russia has said Maduro remains the country’s only legitimate leader whereas the United States and many other Western countries back Juan Guaido, head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly who invoked a constitutional provision in January to assume an interim presidency.

“No, we did not come to a meeting of minds, but I think the talks were positive in the sense that both sides emerged with a better understanding of the other’s views,” U.S. special representative Elliot Abrams told reporters.

The Russian side also said the two sides now understood their respective standpoints better after the two-hour talks in Rome but Moscow’s delegation chief, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was blunter.

“Perhaps we failed to narrow positions on this situation…,” Russian state news agency TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying. “We assume that Washington treats our priorities seriously, our approach and warnings.”

Ryabkov was quoted by Russia’s RIA news agency as saying the talks were difficult but frank and that Moscow had warned Washington not to intervene militarily in Venezuela.

Abrams said “who gets the title of president” in Venezuela was still a point of contention.

He called Tuesday’s talks useful, substantive and serious and said both sides agreed “on the depth of the crisis.” Ryabkov said Russia was increasingly concerned by U.S. sanctions on the Latin American country.

Hours earlier, the United States imposed sanctions against Venezuela’s state-run gold mining company Minerven and its president, Adrian Perdomo.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said all options are on the table for Venezuela, a position Abrams said the Russian side brought up at Tuesday’s meeting.

High-ranking military officers are seen as crucial to keeping Maduro in power in the face of a hyperinflationary economic meltdown that has spread hunger and preventable disease and led to an exodus of some 3 million people since 2015.

Maduro’s government, which retains the backing of Russia and China, drew widespread international condemnation after he was re-elected last year in a vote widely regarded as fraudulent.

Abrams cited recent estimates that over the next few months Venezuela’s vital oil exports would fall below a million barrels a day and that the country’s oil exports were declining by about 50,000 barrels a month.

“This a catastrophe for Venezuela,” Abrams said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused social media platforms Facebook, YouTube and Twitter of favoring his Democratic opponents over him and his fellow Republicans.

“But fear not, we will win anyway, just like we did before! #MAGA,” he said in a tweet. MAGA refers to Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

Facebook and Twitter declined to comment. Alphabet’s Google, which owns YouTube, did not immediately comment.

The president and other conservatives have repeatedly complained that these big tech platforms treat them unfairly.

Trump has previously accused Twitter of restricting the visibility of prominent U.S. Republicans, without any providing evidence, and the avid social media user has promised to investigate the company’s practices.

Trump and other conservatives say Twitter targets fellow Republicans with a practice dubbed “shadow banning,” limiting the visibility of a Twitter user, including in the platform’s auto-populated dropdown search box.

Representative Devin Nunes of California has sued Twitter over the alleged practice, according to court documents.

Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey has said that algorithms have been changed to fix that issue.

The Justice Department held a meeting last fall between federal officials and state attorneys general to discuss allegations that conservative ideas are suppressed online, but so far no concrete action has been taken as a result.
…

Former President George W. Bush welcomed new U.S. citizens Monday during a naturalization ceremony in Dallas, saying that “amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength.” 

Bush and former first lady Laura Bush spoke to about 50 candidates for naturalization during the ceremony at his institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Those becoming citizens at the ceremony came from more than 20 countries around the world. 

He told the group that he hopes “those responsible in Washington can dial down the rhetoric, put politics aside and modernize our immigration laws soon.” 

Participation encouraged

Noting public debate on immigration can get pretty sharp,'' he told them that they signed up with aboisterous democracy.” He encouraged them to participate in it and vote. 

As president, I worked hard on comprehensive immigration reform, and I regret that our efforts came up short,'' Bush said.Today, emotions can cloud the issue. But here at the Bush center, we are clear-eyed about the need to enforce our borders and protect our homeland, and about the critical contributions immigrants make to our prosperity and to our way of life.”  

Bush did not mention President Donald Trump by name, but his words stood in contrast to his fellow Republican’s fiery rhetoric about immigrants. Last week, Trump used the first veto of his presidency to overturn a measure Congress passed that would have overturned his emergency declaration to build a wall along the southern border — a centerpiece of his successful presidential campaign. 

It was not the first time Bush had given such a rebuke of the current administration’s political tone. Bush said at a speech in New York in 2017, “Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children.” 

Last year at a speech in Abu Dhabi, Bush noted there are people willing to do jobs Americans don’t want to do, adding, “We ought to say thank you and welcome them.” 

Immigration is a focus of the George W. Bush Institute, which says it advocates for “smart, skills-based immigration reform.” 

A plus for Texas

Laura Bush said Texas is a state that “thrives due to the prosperity, ingenuity, transformation and generosity of immigrants.”  

George Bush told the group: “I’d like to point out that not only are you becoming an American, but as Laura mentioned, you’re a Texan. And if you walk out of here with a little extra attitude in your step, it shows the culture is taking hold.”
…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a challenge to a Hawaii court ruling against a woman who had turned away a lesbian couple from staying at her Honolulu bed and breakfast.

A Hawaii court ruled against Aloha Bed and Breakfast owner Phyllis Young, saying she’d violated the civil rights of an unmarried lesbian couple when she refused to rent them a room because it went against her Christian beliefs.

Young’s attorney, James Hochberg, criticized the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear her appeal Monday.

“The government went after Ms. Young’s constitutionally protected freedom simply for adhering to her faith on her own property,” he said. “This kind of governmental coercion should disturb every freedom-loving American, no matter where you stand on marriage.”

Attorney Peter Renn of the gay rights group Lambda Legal said Monday, “The freedom of religion does not give businesses a right to violate nondiscrimination laws. The Supreme Court declined to consider carving out an exception from this basic principle when a business discriminates based on the sexual orientation of its customers.”
…