Author: Worldcrew

The U.S. Department of Justice Friday called for the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging President Donald Trump violated the constitution by accepting foreign payments at his hotels.

The lawsuit, filed in January, said Trump violates the Constitution’s “emoluments” clause, which bars him from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval, by maintaining ownership over his business empire despite ceding day-to-day control to his sons.

In a filing in Manhattan federal court Friday, the justice department argued that the plaintiffs in the case — an ethics non-profit, restaurant group and hotel events booker — do not have legal standing to sue.

The government also said payments to Trump’s hotels do not qualify as a violation of the emoluments clause, which is intended to cover personal services performed by the president.

“Plaintiffs’ broad-brush claims effectively assert that the Constitution disqualifies the president from serving as president while maintaining ownership interests in his commercial businesses,” the department said in its court filing.

A spokesman for ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit said businesses such as hotel bookers are injured when foreign governments try to “curry favor” with Trump by favoring his own enterprises.

It said this had occurred since Trump took office, when China granted him trademark rights after he pledged to honor the “One China” policy of his White House predecessors.

The DOJ on Friday said any payments to Trump’s restaurants in New York, a city with 24,000 restaurants, have not caused enough specific harm to plaintiffs to give them the ability to sue.

U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, oversees the litigation.
…

Marches against Islamic law were planned Saturday in more than two dozen cities across the United States, but scholars and others say the protesters are stoking unfounded fears and promoting a distorted and prejudiced view of the religion. 

The group organizing the rallies, ACT for America, claims Shariah “is incompatible with Western democracy and the freedoms it affords.” 

What is Shariah?

But most Muslims don’t want to replace U.S. law with Islamic law, known as Shariah, and only “radical extremist groups” would call for that, said Liyakat Takim, a professor of Islamic studies at McMaster University in the Canadian city of Hamilton, Ontario. 

Shariah, Takim said, refers to guidelines or principles — how Muslims should live. “Fiqh” refers to jurisprudence, or specific laws. The values embedded in Shariah do not change and are shared among Muslims, he said, while fiqh is open to interpretation and change, and in fact differs among Islamic sects and communities. 

“In the public domain, Muslims are not required or expected to impose their laws on the country in which they live as the minority,” Takim said, adding there has never been an understanding “that the same laws would be applicable at all times in all places.” 

“The Quran allows slavery, so does the Old Testament. That doesn’t mean we allow it today, too,” he said. “Laws are amenable to change.” 

The marches come amid a rise in reports of anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S., including arson attacks and vandalism at mosques, harassment of women wearing Muslim head coverings and bullying of Muslim schoolchildren. 

State laws, far-right groups

But while there is little likelihood that Shariah would ever supplant U.S. law, some states have moved to insulate themselves against the possibility. 

Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee have enacted laws prohibiting the use of foreign law in state courts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 

In Idaho a Republican lawmaker earlier this year introduced a measure aimed at preventing Shariah from being applied, though an Idaho judge has never based a ruling on Islamic law. 

Two far-right groups, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, are to provide security at some of the anti-Shariah demonstrations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. 

ACT for America has chapters around the country and says it is focused on fighting terrorism and promoting national security. It says it condemns bias against religious groups and is “proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with peaceful Western Muslims as well as peaceful Muslims worldwide.” 

Counter-marches, freedom of speech

On Saturday counter-demonstrations were planned by opponents who called the events anti-Muslim. 

Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who says her district has the largest population of Muslims in the U.S., said the marchers “will be total failures on Saturday because we will be united against them.” 

Freedom of speech has become a contentious issue surrounding the marches, apparently the first simultaneous anti-Shariah rallies held across the U.S. 

Portland rally moved

A march had been planned for Portland, but an organizer moved it to Seattle after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler called on the federal government to deny a permit. Wheeler said the rally would exacerbate tensions after two men were stabbed to death in May on a commuter train while protecting two teenage girls from a man casting anti-Muslim slurs. 

The organizer said “inflammatory comments” by Wheeler put participants at risk of violence. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon scolded Wheeler, saying trying to deny a permit without imminent threat of violence amounted to unconstitutional government censorship. 

Seattle was one of the cities where a counter-march was planned. Aneelah Afzali, who heads a Seattle-area group that works against discrimination and hate crimes, said she will also be putting up an “ask a Muslim booth” so people can ask questions directly about Islam, and dispel any misconceptions. 

“We want to counter (the anti-Shariah march) and keep it as positive as possible, and educate people about what Islam teaches,” Afzali said in a phone interview. 
…

A White House official has confirmed to VOA that President Donald Trump, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense discussed South Korea’s suspension of deployment of a U.S. anti-ballistic-missile defense system in South Korea.

South Korea announced Wednesday that it would delay the installation of the remaining components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system while it was assessing the system’s environmental impact.

The official said U.S. officials had been “in close contact with our ally South Korea” on the matter. The official added that the South Korean government had assured the U.S. that it would not revert from its previous commitments regarding the missile defense system, and that the United States had given South Korea the same assurances.

The future of the program has been uncertain since South Korea announced the suspension.

New test

On Thursday, North Korea reported it had successfully tested a new “ground-to-sea cruise rocket” capable of striking enemy battleships staging an attack.

The official North Korean news agency KCNA said Pyongyang launched several land-to-sea missiles early Thursday, under the supervision of leader Kim Jong Un. The missiles “accurately detected and hit the floating targets on the East Sea of Korea,” it reported.

The missile test was North Korea’s fourth in a month and came after the U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions on Kim’s government last week.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Thursday that the suspension of THAAD deployment was “part of the conversations” that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had with Trump at an Oval Office meeting on Thursday.

“This is a conversation that’s taken place at the highest level. We are committed to our South Korean ally. That commitment remains ironclad. We are aware, certainly, of the situation and the suspension of additional launchers,” Nauert said.
…

A leader at one of Virginia’s largest mosques has resigned after the imam there made comments in support of female genital mutilation.

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, who was director of outreach at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, posted his resignation Friday on his website.

Abdul-Malik says he’s leaving after “many reprehensible statements” by Dar Al-Hijrah’s senior imam, Shaker Elsayed, including his recent comments on genital mutilation.

In a recorded lecture, Elsayed described the practice as a way to avoid “hyper-sexuality” and “the honorable thing to do if needed.”

Dar Al-Hijrah’s board denounced Elsayed’s comments Monday. Two days later, it placed him on administrative leave.

In the lecture, Elsayed says that the practice, also known as female circumcision, has received a bad name because poorly trained surgeons are too aggressive in the procedure. He said the surgery is properly carried out with a minimalist approach “so that she is not hyper-sexually active. This is the purpose.”

Elsayed later issued a clarification through the mosque’s website saying that “Islam would never support anything that harms anybody’s well-being” and that he should have avoided his comments on hyper-sexuality.

“I hereby take it back. And I do apologize to all those who are offended by it,” Elsayed wrote.

Abdul-Malik says in his resignation that the board’s actions against Elsayed are insufficient.

“Ultimately, The Board of Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center is responsible for the direction of the community and its leadership. They are proceeding in a different direction than I believe is in the best interest of the congregation and the community at-large,” Abdul-Malik wrote.

Neither Abdul-Malik nor Elsayed immediately returned calls Friday morning.

The Falls Church mosque has been mired in controversy since the Sept. 11 attacks, when its imam was Anwar Al-Awlaki, who later left the U.S. and became a senior figure in al-Qaida before being killed in a drone strike.

Elsayed has been controversial in his own right. He served as an unofficial spokesman for the family of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali during his 2005 terrorism trial. Abu Ali, who worshipped at Dar Al-Hijrah, was convicted of joining al-Qaida while studying overseas and plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush.

In a 2005 Associated Press interview, he defended the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. government designates as a terrorist group. “Everybody jumps on Hamas,” Elsayed said. “Look at how long Israel has occupied [Palestinian lands]. How long did it take to say enough is enough?”

He also told the AP that dating is prohibited in Islam and that women cannot marry a man of their choosing without he woman’s family’s consent.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer plans to file a complaint early next week about former FBI Director James Comey’s disclosure of conversations with the president, a person close to the legal team said on Friday.

Lawyer Marc Kasowitz will file the complaint with the Justice Department’s inspector general and will also make a “submission” to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees about Comey’s testimony, said the source, who declined to be identified because the matter was not public.

Comey, in U.S. Senate intelligence committee testimony on Thursday, accused Trump of firing him to try to undermine the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Comey said Trump pressured him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and told Comey that he needed his loyalty, even though FBI directors are supposed to work independently from the White House.

Kasowitz disputed those points and attacked Comey for leaking “privileged communications” to the media.

Legal experts have questioned Kasowitz’s contention that Trump’s private encounters with Comey should be considered privileged communications.

 
…

The U.S. job market is getting stronger, according to Labor Department data published Thursday.

The number of Americans signing up for unemployment assistance fell by 10,000, to a nationwide total of 245,000. Experts say readings below 300,000 indicate a healthy job market, where layoffs are scarce and employers are trying to hang on to workers.

Layoffs have been below this key level now for 118 weeks, the longest such stretch since the early 1970s.

The U.S. unemployment rate is reported separately and stands at a low 4.3 percent. The economy had a net gain of 138,000 jobs in one month. The rate of hiring has slowed recently, as employers say they are having trouble finding people with the right skills.

Next week, leaders of the U.S. central bank will consider the job market and other aspects of the world’s largest economy as they debate how soon and by how much to raise interest rates. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to boost the benchmark interest rate by one-quarter of one percent.
…

On this day in 1949, a report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation named well-known Hollywood figures as members of the Communist Party, setting off a period of paranoia known as the “Red Scare Two.” 

Among those on the report’s list were Frederic March, John Garfield, Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Robeson, and the writer Dorothy Parker.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was cooperating with the House Un-American Activities Committee to find and out so-called Hollywood subversives.

In 1947, Congress cited 10 Hollywood writers and directors for contempt because they refused to divulge their political leanings or name others who might be communists. The “Hollywood Ten,” as they came to be known, were later convicted and sent to prison for varying terms.

John Berry, who directed the documentary below, released in 1950, was himself blacklisted.

​The FBI report relied on accusations made by “confidential informants,” supplemented with analysis later widely viewed as highly questionable. 

‘McCarthyism’

Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin led the charge of stoking fears that communism was spreading in the United States. He held hearings, and claimed that he personally had the names of dozens of American communists working in the government.

The senator made allegations without presenting evidence, smearing reputations and ruining careers.

​‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?’

In the spring of 1954, McCarthy picked a fight with the U.S. Army, charging lax security at a top-secret army facility. 

The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to fight the accusation.

At a session on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of Welch’s attorneys had ties to a communist organization. 

In front of a live and stunned  television audience, Welch lashed out, questioning the senator’s moral compass.

That exchange ended McCarthy’s career. He was censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press. McCarthy died three years later at the age of 48.
…

There’s a saying among Native Americans who rely on the U.S. government for medical care: “Don’t get sick after June — that’s when the federal money runs out.”

Adae Romero-Briones, associate director of Research and Policy for Native Agriculture for the First Nations, cites personal experience.

“How about the time my grandfather went in for cataract surgery — they did one eye,” she told VOA. But when he went in for the second eye, they told him funding had run out for the year and to try again the next year.”

The U.S. government is obligated to provide free health care to federally-recognized tribes in exchange for the millions of hectares of land they ceded to the government. The Indian Health Service (IHS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is the agency that provides that care. But the service has been plagued with scandal and accusations of mismanagement since it was formed more than 60 years ago, including the forced sterilization of Native American women in the 1960s and 1970s.​

Staff shortages, faulty medical diagnoses, outdated equipment and crumbling facilities are just some of the problems tribal leaders described to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in a February hearing. Tribes say these are life and death issues for Native Americans, who die at higher rates from chronic liver disease, diabetes and respiratory disease and, with few exceptions, cannot afford private health insurance.

IHS struggles to attract and keep qualified physicians, who complain about low salaries, inadequate housing and long working hours. Medical staff can also find it difficult to accommodate traditional Native American healing practices.

South Dakota’s Rosebud reservation is among the worst cases cited: Its 45-bed hospital must serve more than 21,000 residents across more than 5,000 square kilometers. The state of health care was so dire in late 2015 that the IHS shut down its emergency room for several months, forcing tribal members seek emergency care in towns about 80 kilometers away — a hardship for tribal members, many of whom live in poverty and lack transportation.

In 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services noted that one IHS hospital was so old that its plumbing had corroded, causing sewage to leak into the operating room.

Lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives have heeded calls for reform and in May introduced parallel bills calling for a complete overhaul of the IHS.

“The long history of failures at IHS are unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), co-sponsor of The Restoring Accountability in the IHS Act (S.1250) said in a statement May 25. “Our bill will ensure tribal members get the medical care they desperately need and deserve.”

The bill seeks to increase transparency and accountability at IHS, streamline the hiring of medical staff, provide incentives for doctors and nurses to stay on the job, and protect whistle-blowers who report violations of health and safety rules.

U.S. Representative Kristi Noem (R-SD) introduced an identical bill in the House. But similar legislation stalled during the Obama Administration, and tribes worry the latest bills will suffer the same fate.

Limited funding means the IHS must ration out the services it provides. VOA spoke with one Native American who praised the service.

“I’ve never had a bad experience and they have been my health care provider for many years,” said a Lakota woman who asked not to be named. “I believe the IHS is only as good as its funding.”  

In his Fiscal Year 2018 budget request, President Donald Trump has asked for Congress to allocate $4.7 billion to the IHS. That’s $300 million less that the amount stipulated in the FY 2017 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which passed in early May.

In the meantime, IHS says it is taking these criticisms seriously. IHS Acting Director, Rear Admiral Chris Buchanan, recently outlined to Senators a number of initiatives to improve the quality of patient care. And on June 1, the agency announced it had hired a new chief medical officer who will be responsible for implementing new policies and monitoring compliance.
…

The momentum of climate change efforts and the affordability of cleaner fuels will keep the United States moving toward its goals of cutting emissions despite the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris global accord, business and government leaders in a growing alliance said.

New York, California and 11 other states representing nearly 40 percent of the U.S. economy, mayors of about 200 cities, and leaders of business giants including Amazon, Apple and Target have signed pledges to keep reducing their fossil-fuel emissions after President Donald Trump announced he would withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate accord.

“Our coalition wants to let the world know that absent leadership from our federal government,” the country will keep cutting its emissions from fossil fuels, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown told reporters Tuesday.

California, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, North Carolina, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Washington state, Vermont, Massachusetts, Delaware, Oregon and Washington, D.C., have signed pledges. The states, most led by Democrats, represent $7 trillion of the U.S. gross domestic product, or 38 percent.

Texas absent from alliance

Texas, the largest producer of climate-changing carbon dioxide in the U.S. and the biggest state economy after California, is a key figure absent from the list. More than two dozen other states, mostly in the country’s middle, already had been fighting stepped-up federal emissions-cutting programs before Trump’s announcement.

Top Texas leaders have had little public comment on the withdrawal from the global accord, although the state’s attorney general praised the move.

New York and California are the only states in the country’s top 10 list of carbon emitters to sign pledges.

Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupsi, who joined former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “We Are Still In” campaign, along with mayors of Houston, Atlanta and hundreds of other local leaders, cited the economics for her state: Utah has a $1 billion skiing industry threatened by climate change and marked 65 percent growth last year alone in solar power, as one of the country’s sunniest states.

“Utah is warming at twice the global average, and our drinking water is at risk,” said Biskupsi, saying she was acting “for the well-being of the planet I’m leaving to my sons and your children.”

Court battles ahead

Undoing most existing U.S. programs that curb car pollution and other climate-changing emissions would probably take years and court battles if Trump tries, climate experts say. A few efforts, such as a reduction on methane emissions introduced by the Obama administration, could be overturned more easily.

The momentum of existing climate-change efforts and the availability natural gas, wind and solar power mean those loyal to the Paris accord in the U.S. will have an easier time, with emissions expected to fall overall for years, said Robert Perciasepe with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, who worked with Bloomberg’s group on the climate pledge.

Some studies suggest the United States will cut emissions as much as 19 percent by 2025 if it simply moves forward as is, he said. That’s not far from former President Barack Obama’s goals for a reduction of 25 to 28 percent as part of the Paris accord, Perciasepe said.

Interest leads to website

Since Thursday, commitments from cities, universities and businesses were happening so fast that organizers had to set up a website where they could sign up automatically, Perciasepe said.

The support from local governments, public institutions and businesses show that climate change efforts are getting something they have long lacked in the U.S. — vocal and enthusiastic support, said William K. Reilly, a former chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who is not involved in the alliances.

“It does perhaps reflect an increasing activism on the part of the public at large” on climate change, Reilly said. “Trump can take some perverse credit for that.”

 
…

This city knows how to do big hearings – even Titanic ones.

Dramatic congressional hearings are something of a Washington art form, a rite of democracy carefully crafted for the cameras.

Suspense is building as fired FBI director James Comey prepares to claim the microphone Thursday in an austere, modern hearing room of the Hart Senate Office Building. He is to testify about his dealings with President Donald Trump and the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia.

A look at past high-drama hearings:

Eleven hours

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s marathon grilling before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in October 2015 was her moment – an extremely long moment – to push back against critics’ suggestions that her State Department failed to protect U.S. diplomats in Libya before the 2012 attack that killed four Americans.

In hours of sometimes testy testimony, Clinton, by then front-runner for the Democratic presidential candidate, said it was “deeply unfortunate” that the Benghazi attacks were being “used for political purposes.” Asked how it felt to be accused of contributing to the deaths of four Americans, she said softly, “I imagine I’ve thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I’ve lost more sleep than all of you put together.”

He said, she said

The 1991 Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas will forever be remembered for the lurid accusations of sexual harassment leveled by a young former subordinate, Anita Hill.

From the witness table, Hill described what she said were Thomas’ unwanted sexual advances toward her.

Both Thomas and Hill withstood withering and painfully detailed questions from members of the all-male Judiciary Committee. He described the hearings as a “high-tech lynching.” She later said senators should apologize for “their malicious indictment of me.”

Raise your hand

When Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North, his chest brimming with medals, stood and raised his right hand to be sworn in at a 1987 Senate hearing, it became the enduring image from the Iran-Contra scandal, a covert arms-for-hostages overture to Iran.

In six days of testimony before a Senate panel, North commanded the spotlight as he insisted his superiors had authorized all of his actions. “I came here to tell the truth, the good, the bad and the ugly,” he said.

“I am here to tell it all.”  

A jury later found North guilty of three felonies, but an appeals court reversed his convictions, finding the case relied too much on testimony he gave to Congress under an immunity deal.

Watergate’s cancer

Americans were glued to their TVs in the summer of 1973, when North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin presided over the Watergate hearings.

It was here that Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the White House taping system that contained the evidence that ended Nixon’s presidency. And here that former White House counsel John Dean said he’d told Nixon there was “a cancer growing on the presidency” and revealed that Nixon had approved plans to cover up the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters.

This is war

In 1966, Sen. William Fulbright launched “educational” hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee aimed at heading off a buildup of U.S. forces in Vietnam.

Retired generals and respected foreign policy analysts were among the witnesses who testified in the same caucus room where the Titanic and Army-McCarthy hearings had been held in earlier decades.

The hearings helped produce a shift in public opinion by “making it respectable to question the war,” according to a Senate historical account.

‘Have you no sense of decency?’

Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist campaign led to the Army-McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954 that included an outburst from Boston lawyer Joseph Welch when McCarthy got particularly aggressive. “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator,” Welch declared in the televised hearing. “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” With that, McCarthy’s reign of fear collapsed.

Big gamble

The 1950 assassination of a gambling kingpin in Kansas City led to a special Senate investigation into organized crime chaired by Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver.

The committee visited 14 major cities in 15 months, “like a theater company doing previews on the road” before heading for Broadway, according to a Senate historical account.

When gambler Frank Costello refused to testify on camera in New York, the committee agreed not to show his face, and cameras instead showed his “nervously agitated hands, unexpectedly making riveting viewing,” the Senate post recounted.

The Associated Press wrote at the time: “Something big, unbelievably big and emphatic, smashed into the homes of millions of Americans last week when television cameras, cold-eyed and relentless, were trained on the Kefauver Crime hearings.”

Teapot tempest

This one looked to be a snoozer. The Senate in 1922 set out to investigate a secret deal involving the interior secretary and a lease for the U.S. naval petroleum reserve at Wyoming’s Teapot Dome.

The inquiry looked to be so tedious that a junior member of the minority, Montana Democrat Thomas Walsh, was named chairman. But the hearings uncovered shady dealings that made Albert Fall the first former cabinet officer to go to prison and turned Walsh into a national hero, according to an account posted on the Senate’s website.

Truly Titanic

In April 1912, a special Senate subcommittee investigating the sinking of the Titanic met first at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, then in the new caucus room of the Russell Senate Office Building. In all, 82 witnesses testified about ice warnings ignored, life boat shortages and other failings. The hearings ended with Sen. William Smith of Maine heading back to New York to interview crew on the Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic. The hearing transcripts stretched to 1,100 pages, and were reprinted in 1988 after the movie “Titanic” piqued public interest.
…

The Trump administration supports making permanent a law that allows for the collection of digital communications of foreigners believed to be living overseas and which pass through U.S. phone or internet providers, a senior White House official said.

The law, which is due to expire on December 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it, has been criticized by privacy advocates who argue it allows for the incidental collection of data belonging to millions of Americans without a warrant.

“We cannot allow adversaries abroad to cloak themselves in the legal protections we extend to Americans,” White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Wednesday.

The article, in which Bossert spoke on behalf of the White House, sets the stage for what is likely to be a contentious debate between a bipartisan group of lawmakers seeking to reform a part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act known as Section 702 and a conservative bloc that wants to make it permanent.

The statute, which allows the National Security Agency a wide berth in the collection of foreigners’ digital communications, normally comes with a “sunset” clause roughly every five years to allow lawmakers to reconsider its impact on privacy and civil liberties.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats defended Section 702 during his testimony on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and also called for its permanent renewal, saying it was necessary to keep the United States and its allies safe from national security threats.

Fourteen Republican senators, including every Republican member of the intelligence panel, are backing a bill introduced on Tuesday that would make Section 702 permanent.

Reuters reported in March that the Trump administration supported renewal of Section 702 without any changes, citing an unnamed White House official, but it was not clear whether it wanted the law made permanent.
…

Mexico’s foreign minister says the country is “inevitably” set to review rules of origin when renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, giving a boost to President Donald Trump’s manufacturing push.

Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray said Tuesday at an event in Miami that NAFTA has allowed Mexican industry to enter the U.S. market with lax rules of origin. The rules dictate how much U.S. content a product assembled in Mexico must have in order to escape tariffs when being imported into the United States. Currently set at 62.5 percent for the auto industry, that number could increase.

“One part that must inevitably be reviewed is the chapter on rules of origin,” Videgaray said at the University of Miami. “Over time, the free trade agreement has sometimes been used — not always, of course, but sometimes — as a way to access the U.S. market perhaps with laxity in some ways of rules of origin.”

The Trump administration told Congress this month there would be 90 days of consultations on the renegotiation of the 23-year-old pact before beginning talks with Canada and Mexico. Annual trade of goods between Mexico and the U.S. was worth $525 billion in 2016, with the U.S. running a trade deficit of more than $63 billion.

The foreign minister said Mexico won’t entertain any talks on building a wall along the border. Videgaray maintained it is seen as an unfriendly sign and questioned its efficiency. Trump’s budget seeks $2.6 billion for border security technology, including money to design and build a wall along the southern border. Trump repeatedly promised voters during the campaign that Mexico would pay for a wall.
…

As the U.S.-led coalition ratchets up operations in Syria, there are concerns that it will result in a rerun of what happened in Iraq, where $1 billion in weapons supplied to local fighters is unaccounted for.

Weapons, training and airstrikes by the coalition have aided ground forces in both Iraq and Syria, allowing Iraq’s military, Iraqi Kurdish fighters and Syrian Kurdish fighters to retake some 55,000 square kilometers (21,235 square miles) of territory from the Islamic State extremists in the nearly three-year fight.

However, many in both countries are concerned about how the forces bolstered by the coalition will leverage their influence and arms once the militants are vanquished. Numerous Iraqi groups that benefited from the training and arms have been accused of human rights violations.

The Trump administration’s decision to provide Syria’s Kurds with more advanced weapons has raised concerns among the various players in Syria’s complicated battlefield. U.S. officials have said new weapons to be supplied would include heavy machine guns, ammunition, mortars and possibly TOW anti-tank missiles.

Coalition spokesman Col. John Dorrian said the weapons will not be reclaimed after the specific missions are completed but the U.S. will “carefully monitor” where and how they are used.

“Every single one” of the weapons will be accounted for and the U.S. will “assure they are pointed at” IS, he said.

But opposition fighters battling Syrian forces in the country’s six-year civil war — some of them backed by Turkey — say there is simply no guarantee the weapons won’t be directed against them or others.

U.S.-backed Kurdish groups have often clashed with Turkey-backed groups in northern Syria, where many factions are jostling to hold various zones of influence.

The coalition already has demonstrated an inability to track weapons in Iraq, a much less complex and unstable battlefield than Syria.

Amnesty International released a report this month detailing a 2016 U.S. Defense Department audit stating that $1 billion in weapons provided to Iraqi forces for use in the IS fight are now unaccounted for.

The coalition could have worked closer with the Iraqi government to ensure the weapons were accounted for, said Patrick Wilcken, a researcher with Amnesty and an author of the report. But in Syria, he said, it will be “almost impossible to avoid leakage and diversion of arms” provided by the coalition to fighters there.

“The coalition takes all reasonable efforts to maintain accountability of equipment divested to the government of Iraq to fight” IS, coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told The Associated Press. Since the 2016 audit referenced in the Amnesty report, he said, “all deficiencies identified in that report have been corrected.”

Iraqi commanders must sign for all equipment they receive and the coalition then continues to monitor them “for future vetting purposes” and on the battlefield, Dillon added.

Allegations of torture, rape

This month, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine detailed allegations of torture, rape and killings of IS suspects at the hands of Iraq’s Emergency Response Division, an Interior Ministry unit that has played a leading role in the coalition-aided operation to retake Mosul.

Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish forces and local policemen have all been accused of carrying out mass extrajudicial detentions of men and boys fleeing military operations against IS, according to reports by Human Rights Watch and the AP. Syrian Kurdish forces backed by the coalition have also been accused of abuses against Sunni Arabs, according to human rights organizations and Syrian opposition activists.

Other armed groups — notably Iraq’s mostly Shiite paramilitary forces who do not receive direct U.S. assistance of any kind — have been accused of much more widespread human rights abuses than the forces backed by the coalition.

The U.S. human rights law known as the Leahy amendment prohibits the Defense Department from providing military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights. In March 2015, the Iraqi Emergency Response Division was disqualified from receiving U.S. equipment and training, coalition spokesman Dillon said.

But he said the law does not prevent the U.S. from working with the ERD to help ensure a coordinated effort among different elements of the Iraqi security forces. The coalition has shared intelligence with the unit and conducted airstrikes to facilitate their military operations.

Iraq’s Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga — who have received some of the most extensive support from the coalition, including training, arms and air support — have been accused of destroying Arab property and forcing Arab residents out of dozens of villages retaken from IS.

The AP visited one village outside Kirkuk where Arab residents said Kurdish forces labeled their homes as “confiscated,” seized identification documents and reduced buildings to rubble. Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government denied the claims, saying IS fighters destroyed the houses as they retreated.

Syrian Kurdish forces

In northern Syria, rebels are concerned that Syrian Kurdish forces will mirror the actions of the peshmerga and use the fight against IS to expand the land they control, ultimately creating a separate state by pushing out ethnic Arabs. Amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war, the Kurds have already created an autonomous Kurdish zone in northern Syria.

An Amnesty International fact-finding mission to northern Syria in 2015 uncovered forced displacement of Arab residents carried out by Kurdish forces that the group said amounted to war crimes. The report detailed the deliberate demolishing of civilian homes as well as razing and burning whole villages previously captured by IS. The Kurds have rejected the claims.

Col. Abdul-Razzak Ahmad Freiji, a Syrian army defector who is now with Turkey-backed rebels in northern Syria, said news of U.S. arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters exacerbates his concerns.

After the fight with the Islamic State group is over, Freiji said, “these weapons [will be directed] against us.”
…

Nikki Haley crouched low in the trailer of an 18-wheeler, taping up a box of lentils and wheat for besieged Syrians, her hands-on diplomacy a world apart from the gleaming new NATO headquarters where President Donald Trump was debuting his “America First” doctrine overseas.

Haley, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, had started the day in Turkey’s capital, opened a refugee school in the south of the country, then traveled hours in an armored vehicle to the Syrian border. Her afternoon stop had to be short. She had a packed schedule, and at a nearby refugee camp she was soon kicking soccer balls with stranded Syrians and noshing on shawarma.

As she hopped a flight to Istanbul, Trump was arriving in Brussels to scold European allies for relying too much on U.S. defense spending. Haley’s mission represented another side of Trump’s “America First,” assuring nations on the border of the world’s worst crisis that the U.S. wasn’t forgetting them.

“I think ‘America First’ is human rights and ‘America First’ is humanitarian issues,” Haley said. “It’s what we’ve always been known for.”

Haley’s trip last week to Jordan and Turkey showcased the outspoken former South Carolina governor-turned-Trump diplomat’s emergence as Trump’s foreign policy alter ego: still bold, still brash-talking, but with greater attention to America’s traditional global roles and the personable side of diplomacy.

Human rights, democracy

Whereas Trump has emphasized U.S. security and prosperity and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has distinguished between America’s interests and its values, Haley is the national security voice insisting the U.S. still seeks to promote human rights, democracy and the well-being of others. Yet Haley brushes off any suggestion of divergent interests, arguing instead that the members of Trump’s Cabinet simply “see the world through a different scope.”

“We take basically what we work with every day and try to make America first through that lens,” she said at Altinozu Refugee Camp in southern Turkey, in explaining her sharply contrasting style. “For me to make America first, I have to fight for the political solution, have to fight for human rights and I have to fight for humanitarian issues, because I’m surrounded by it every day.”

So far, the White House has cautiously embraced Haley’s higher profile, perhaps as an antidote to Democratic and Republican critiques that Trump doesn’t care about human rights. Her prominent role as a face of Trump’s foreign policy has fueled talk in Washington about her political future, including potentially as a future secretary of state.

And while Haley has sometimes contributed to mixed messages, on everything from Syria to the delicate issue of Jerusalem’s status, the White House has continued sending her out frequently to represent the administration in public and on television. On Tuesday, Haley’s office announced she’ll travel next week to Switzerland to give a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council and then to Israel, where she’ll meet Israelis and Palestinians and observe local U.N. operations.

Haley’s role as boundary-pusher may have roots in her political upbringing in South Carolina, where the daughter of Indian immigrants became the first female governor in a state notorious for its “good ol’ boy” Republican network.

When a self-avowed white supremacist gunned down nine black worshippers in a Charleston church, Haley sat front and center for weeks at every one of the funerals. She grieved publicly throughout her second term after the “1,000-year flood,” Hurricane Matthew and other tragedies in the state.

Confederate flag

Yet it was her role in the roiling controversy over removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds that largely defined her ascent as a national political figure. For many in the state, it was a cherished symbol of Civil War sacrifices. But the rebel flag had been brandished by the Charleston church gunman in a display of hate, and Haley said South Carolinians needed to move forward and “put themselves in other people’s shoes.”

“She’s definitely someone who seemed to rise to the occasion when faced with these controversies,” said Gibbs Knotts, who teaches political science at the College of Charleston. “She hadn’t necessarily had a legislative success, but her ability to handle crises and connect with people and represent the state was when she was at her strongest as governor.”

After being picked by Trump in January for the U.N. ambassadorship, Haley said that “everything I’ve done leading up to this point has always been about diplomacy.”

“It’s been about trying to lift up everyone, getting them to work together for the greater good, and that’s what I’m going to attempt to do going forward,” she said.

As a member of Trump’s administration, though, it’s been more complicated.

While Haley conducted her reassurance tour for Syria’s neighbors last week, Trump unveiled a budget proposing sweeping cuts to U.S. foreign aid. Many of the same U.N. agencies whose programs Haley visited faced sharply reduced U.S. contributions, creating uncertainty about whether she could deliver on her declarations of support.
…