It has been a year since Britain voted to leave the European Union by a narrow margin of 52 percent. After 12 months of political turmoil, analysts say British society is beginning to resemble that of the United States – with values dictating political divisions in society, rather than traditional party politics. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Month: June 2017
Trump Renews Attacks on News Media After CNN Retracts Story
President Donald Trump has renewed his attacks on the credibility of several major U.S. news organizations after the resignations of three CNN journalists who were involved in a retracted story related to Russia.
Trump posted a series of tweets Tuesday criticizing the media outlets after CNN retracted a story connecting Trump associate Anthony Scaramucci and the head of an investment fund managed by a bank controlled by the Russian government.
The CNN story was published on the company’s website Thursday only to be removed Friday night.
The story’s author, Thomas Frank, investigative unit editor Eric Lichtblau, and unit supervisor Lex Haris all resigned on Monday.
An internal CNN investigation found that routine editing procedures were not followed before the story was published.
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10 More Mass Graves Uncovered in Restive Central Congo
Authorities say 10 more mass graves have been uncovered in the restive region of central Congo where the Catholic church has estimated more than 3,300 people have died.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Ponde told journalists that armed forces were alerted to the graves by Red Cross officials and villagers in the area.
He said seven of the 10 new mass graves were located in Diboko. A U.N. team is due to arrive on the scene Wednesday.
Human rights officials say 42 mass graves already had been documented in the Kasai provinces, where violence erupted last August after a traditional chief was killed in a military operation.
Among the victims were two foreign U.N. experts – American Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan, a Swedish-Chilean national.
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Calls Mount for ‘Best’ Treatment for Imprisoned Dissident Liu Xiaobo
Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident imprisoned since 2009, has been released from confinement on medical parole, but his supporters are pressing for him to be allowed to seek treatment abroad for liver cancer.
Liu, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in absentia in 2010, was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer on May 23, and is being treated at a hospital in the northeastern city of Shenyang, according to his lawyers and Chinese prison officials. Chinese law forbids any prisoner released on medical parole from traveling abroad, said Liu’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping.
“He cannot go and receive medical treatment in a hospital abroad that is not within the prison administration system,” Mo told VOA.
From Oslo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was delighted to learn the 61-year-old dissident has been released from prison, but that the news from China came “with a mixture of relief and deep worry.” The committee called for Liu’s release “without conditions” and said he should be allowed to go abroad for treatment if he wishes.
U.S. appeals for mercy
Senior officials at the U.S. State Department in Washington said they were working to gather more information about Liu’s medical and legal status, but called on authorities in Beijing to allow Liu and his wife to seek medical treatment wherever they wish.
“We call on the Chinese authorities to not only to release Mr. Liu, but also to allow his wife, Ms. Liu Xia, out of house arrest, and provide them the protections and freedoms, such as freedom of movement and access to medical care of his choosing, to which they’re entitled under China’s constitution and legal system and international commitments,” said Anna Richey-Allen, a spokeswoman for the State Department’s East Asia and Pacific Bureau.
Liu’s attorney Mo said there are multiple petition campaigns on the internet calling on the Chinese government to allow Liu to go abroad for treatment, even if that requires making an exception to customary legal procedures.
Another lawyer on Liu’s team, Shang Baojun, told VOA that Liu’s family has visited him at China Medical University Affiliated Hospital No. 1 in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, but it remains unclear whether his wife, Liu Xia, was allowed to see him. The dissident’s legal team said she has not been heard from for some time.
The Liaoning Prison Administrative Bureau reported Liu was on medical parole and was being treated by eight cancer specialists, but gave no further details.
Supporters blame Chinese authorities
News of Liu’s deteriorating health drew immediate and passionate reactions from his supporters and human-rights groups worldwide.
“The Chinese government’s culpability for wrongfully imprisoning Liu Xiaobo is deepened by the fact that they released him only when he became gravely ill,” Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement emailed to reporters.
“Liu Xiaobo has fought a relentless struggle in favor of democracy and human rights in China and has already paid a heavy price for his involvement,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. “He was, essentially, convicted for exercising his freedom of speech and should never have been sentenced to jail in the first place.
“Chinese authorities carry a heavy responsibility,” the Nobel committee said, “if Liu … has been denied necessary medical treatment.”
Chinese human-rights activist Hu Jia, a winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, told VOA that the long prison term handed down to Liu was a psychological and physical punishment akin to a politically motivated murder.
‘A kind of murder’
Hu, with Liu, was a cosigner of Charter 08, which called for reforming China’s government.
The government “claimed Liu’s condition was good … but suddenly states that he has terminal liver cancer,” Hu noted. “What can I say? This is a kind of murder. A cold-blooded government regime is trying to escape its responsibility, so it declares medical parole.”
He appealed to the government to allow Liu treatment at the best hospitals in Beijing.
“Nazi Germany didn’t let a single Nobel Prize winner die in any Nazi prison,” tweeted Gao Yu, a dissident journalist who was released from prison on medical parole in 2015 after being convicted of leaking state secrets.
“It’s favoring Chinese communists to compare them with the Nazis,” an anonymous netizen responded to Gao. “Because in front of Chinese communists, Nazis would be like angels.”
Liu, imprisoned in 2009 for an 11-year term for advocating democracy, was unable to collect his Nobel Prize in Oslo in 2010, nor was his family allowed to collect it for him. He was represented at the ceremony by an empty chair.
Nobel tribute
The Nobel committee’s citation paid tribute to “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” The Chinese government responded at the time that he was a criminal.
Liu has been involved in pro-democracy movements since the June Fourth Incident, as China calls the bloody Tiananmen Square student protests of 1989, for which an official death toll has never been released. Liu urged protesting students to leave rather than face the army.
He was arrested in 1991 for Tiananmen-related activity but released without charges. Five years later, he was sentenced to three years of “re-education through labor” for advocating for the release of those imprisoned after Tiananmen Square.
In 2008 Liu participated in drafting Charter 08, which was released to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The authors called for reforms, including a new constitution, to protect human rights, freedom of speech, an independent judiciary and constitutional rule. Most famously, Charter 08 declared that while China has many laws, it lacks the rule of law.
Liu was put on trial for subversion, and the international community has been calling for his release since his sentencing.
Cara Song contributed to this report, which was first published by VOA Mandarin.
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Narrowed Travel Ban Could Sow Confusion in US and Abroad, Experts Say
The Supreme Court’s criteria for who can be barred from entering the United States under President Donald Trump’s travel ban may confuse the U.S. officials overseas charged with implementing it and trigger a new round of lawsuits, experts said.
People with a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity” in the United States are spared from the temporary ban affecting people from six Muslim-majority countries and all refugees that the justices on Monday allowed to go partially into effect.
“There’s no precedent for something like this that I’m aware of,” said Jeffrey Gorsky, a former legal adviser to the State Department’s Visa Office, referring to the new “bona fide” standard.
Gorsky said the standard is likely to sow confusion among U.S. consular officials who have to make visa decisions and could require another court decision to determine what constitutes a connection to the United States sufficient to allow entry.
The Supreme Court agreed to decide the legality of Trump order in its next term, which begins in October. Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the court should have granted Trump’s request to implement the travel ban in full while the legal fight continues.
“Today’s compromise will burden executive officials with the task of deciding — on peril of contempt — whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country,” Thomas wrote, joined by two fellow conservative justices.
In Monday’s ruling, the high court gave a few examples of connections that qualify. For individuals, a close family relationship is required.
Bona fide connections to entities, it said, must be “formal” and “documented.” That would include students who have been admitted to a U.S. school and workers who have accepted an offer of employment from an American company, the court said. It noted that Trump’s executive order already allowed for case-by-case waivers for people with connections to the country.
On the other hand, the justices said, relationships created for the purposes of evading the travel ban will not be considered valid. For instance, an immigration agency cannot add foreigners to client lists “and then secure their entry by claiming injury from their exclusion.”
The March 6 order called for a 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees to enable the government to implement stronger vetting procedures. Trump cited national security concerns as the reason for the order.
Litigation predicted
Stephen Legomsky, chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under former President Barack Obama, said lawsuits could claim that a bona fide relationship was ignored.
While Legomsky said he believes the vast majority of cases will be clear cut, courts will have to determine whether visiting a close friend or taking part in a wedding could also qualify.
“In theory, you could say if somebody is coming for tourism and has made a reservation for a hotel, there’s now a U.S. interest in bringing them to the United States. The hotel is a U.S. entity,” Gorsky said.
Some lawyers also said the vagueness of the “bona fide” standard was license for the Trump administration to interpret it broadly.
“It’s just like a green light to the government to do what it wants to do,” said Kiyanoush Razaghi, a Maryland-based immigration attorney who deals with primarily Iranian clients.
“Who is going to tell us what is the definition of ‘bona fide relationship?’”
The difficult job of judging foreigners’ claimed connections could land back in the lower courts in Maryland and Hawaii that had originally blocked Trump’s travel ban, said Stephen Vladeck, a professor University of Texas School of Law.
“We could have dozens of these cases between now and September,” Vladeck said, adding that the Supreme Court would not be likely to weigh in on them on a case-by-case basis.
David Martin, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security official and now a professor at the University of Virginia, said the ruling was “carefully tailored” and should be manageable for officials to enact.
Part of the reason, Martin said, is the case-by-case waiver process that was already envisioned in the executive order.
“I think there will be some litigation over the extent of the reach of this bona fide relationship but I don’t think it will be as burdensome as the dissenters suggest,” Martin said.
your ad hereTrial of Chinese Billionaire in UN Bribery Case Opens
Jury selection began Monday in the trial of a Chinese billionaire accused of bribing United Nations diplomats to gain their approval of a U.N. conference center he wanted to build.
Ng Lap Seng has pleaded not guilty. He has posted $50 million bail, but is restricted to a luxury New York City apartment that he owns, where he is under guard around the clock. He is allowed to leave his apartment only to visit his doctors or his lawyers.
Ng, who is 69, is accused of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes for the center he planned to build in Macau.
Prosecutors say some of the money reached former General Assembly president John Ashe and a former diplomat from the Dominican Republic, Francis Lorenzo.
Ashe died last year in a freak accident while lifting weights at his home.
Lorenzo pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors in the case against Ng.
Ng’s lawyers contend the charges are politically motivated, aimed at trying to curb China’s influence over developing countries that might have used the Macau conference center.
If prosecutors and defense lawyers can agree on selection of a jury without delay, the judge in the case estimated the trial would last a month or perhaps longer.
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New US Ambassador to China says North Korea a Top Priority
The new U.S. ambassador to China has said that stopping the threat posed by North Korea will be a top priority, along with resolving the U.S.-China trade imbalance, according to a video message to the Chinese people released on Monday.
Terry Branstad, a former Iowa governor, has been described by Beijing as an “old friend” of China. Branstad was confirmed on May 22 as President Donald Trump’s new ambassador to China but his arrival date has yet to be announced.
“Resolving the bilateral trade imbalance, stopping the North Korea threat, and expanding people-to-people ties will be my top priorities,” Branstad said in the video message, which was released on a popular Chinese video-streaming platform.
Trump has placed high hopes on China and its president, Xi Jinping, exerting greater influence on North Korea, although he said last week Chinese efforts to rein in the reclusive North’s nuclear and missile programs had failed.
China’s foreign ministry regularly says that Beijing is doing all that it can with regard to North Korea by implementing United Nations Security Council sanctions, while also pushing for greater dialogue to reduce tensions.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he had pressed China to ramp up economic and political pressure on North Korea during his meeting with top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Washington last week.
“We face many of the same challenges. A strong U.S.-China relationship can contribute to solutions,” Branstad said in the video, without giving details about how he hoped to work with China.
Branstad also recounted his three decades of engagement with China, from his first visit there in 1984 to hosting Xi, then a county-level Communist Party leader, in Iowa in 1985, and then again in 2012 when Xi was vice president.
Trump pledged during his campaign to take a tough stance on Chinese trade practices deemed unfair to the United States, but his rhetoric softened after a friendlier-than-expected meeting with Xi in Florida in April.
Shortly after their meeting, Trump said he had told Xi that China would get a better trade deal if it worked to rein in the North. China is neighboring North Korea’s lone major ally.
The United States ran a trade deficit of $347 billion with China last year, U.S. Treasury figures show.
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Thirteen EU Nations Back Plan for Talks With Russia Over Pipeline
Thirteen EU nations voiced support on Monday for a proposal to empower the bloc’s executive to negotiate with Russia over objections to a new Russian gas pipeline to Germany, despite opposition from Berlin.
At an informal debate among EU energy ministers, Germany’s partners in the 28-nation bloc spoke out against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline plan to pump more gas directly from Russia’s Baltic coast to Germany.
EU nations are expected to vote in the autumn on the European Commission’s request for a mandate to negotiate with Russia on behalf of the bloc as a whole.
Germany, the main beneficiary of the pipeline, sees it as a purely commercial project, with Chancellor Angela Merkel last week saying she saw no role for the Commission.
The plan taps into divisions among the bloc over doing business with Russia, which covers a third of the EU’s gas needs, despite sanctions against Moscow over its military intervention in Ukraine.
In private, EU officials say they hope direct talks with Russia would delay the project past 2019, depriving Russian state gas exporter Gazprom of leverage in talks over transit fees for Ukraine, the current route for most gas supplies to Europe.
Germany, Austria and France – which have firms partnering with Gazprom on the project – declined to take the floor on Monday, EU diplomats said.
“We had 13 delegations intervening, with all of them being supportive of the Commission’s approach,” Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic told Reuters by telephone after presenting the EU executive’s case to member states. “I am definitely optimistic about getting the mandate, but I know this is just the beginning of the debate.”
The Commission found support from Italy as well as Nordic, Eastern European and Baltic states, EU sources told Reuters.
“Germany has commercial interests, but it needs to explain itself,” one senior EU official said.
With the pipeline expected to reroute Russian gas supplies around Ukraine to the north, Italy voiced concerns it would increase gas prices for customers further down the line.
Eastern European and Baltic states fear it will increase their dependence on Gazprom and undercut Ukraine.
Nordic nations, meanwhile, have security concerns over the pipeline being laid near their shores under the Baltic Sea, where Russia has bolstered its military presence.
However, many EU nations have yet to take a stand.
“It is quite toxic. Many member states are quite wary of advertising their position,” one diplomat told Reuters.
There are also differences among EU member states over what aims to pursue in potential talks with Russia.
Speaking in Paris on Monday, Ukraine’s foreign minister said the draft EU proposal did not go far enough to secure guarantees from Russia, warning Nord Stream 2 would have “dangerous consequences” for the bloc.
Adding to tensions is the threat of new U.S. sanctions on Russia that would penalize Western firms involved in Nord Stream 2: Uniper, Wintershall, Shell, OMV and Engie.
Several EU diplomats said the measures proposed by the U.S. Senate have already backfired against their stated aim of bolstering European energy security.
“It’s a divisive measure,” one senior official said. “It’s easy for the U.S. to go after Russian gas of course, they don’t use it. … We are trying to make the best of a bad thing by balancing the interest of different member states.”
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Utah Wildfire Grows to Largest Active Fire in US
The nation’s largest wildfire has forced more than 1,500 people from their homes and cabins in a southern Utah mountain area home to a ski town and popular fishing lake.
Firefighters battled high winds Monday as they fought a fire that has grown to 67 square miles (174 square kilometers) and burned 13 homes — larger than any other fire in the country now, state emergency managers said.
The estimated firefighting costs now top $7 million for a fire started June 17 near the Brian Head Resort by someone using a torch tool to burn weeds, they said. Investigators know who the culprit is, but have not yet released the person’s identity or what charges will be leveled.
Crews in California, meanwhile, got a handle on a brush fire that closed a freeway. Arizona firefighters had to ground aircraft due to unauthorized drones over a fire near Flagstaff.
The Utah fire began near the ski resort town of Brian Head, generally known for weekend getaway homes for Las Vegas residents, and has spread several miles east to an area around Panguitch Lake, a popular spot for fishing.
Authorities ordered more evacuations Monday in a sparsely populated area as stronger winds and lower humidity develop that could push fire growth north after calmer weather kept its growth in check over the weekend. The fire is about 10 percent contained.
About 175 people have been briefly allowed back to their homes near Panguitch Lake since Sunday under escort, said Denise Dastrup with the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office.
Randi Powell said her grandfather is hoping to get up to see his cabin on Tuesday. Powell said it’s been an “emotional roller coaster” for her and her grandparents, who live part of the year at a cabin near the fire. Powell said she and her sister helped grab family heirlooms, pictures and important documents last Thursday when her grandparents had to evacuate on short notice.
Powell is relying on social media updates from friends and others who live or have homes in the area. So far, it appears her grandparents’ 5-bedroom cabin, built some 60 years ago, is still intact, she said. But that hasn’t stopped them from worrying.
“There will be uncertainty until you get up there and walk through it,” said Powell, 32, who lives about one hour away in Cedar City. “Until it’s totally out, you won’t know if you’ll be o.k.”
At Brian Head Resort, they are hoping that hot spots near where the blaze started will calm down enough to allow officials to lift the evacuations in time for 4th of July festivities that usually bring some 15,000 people to listen to music and watch fireworks, said resort spokesman Mark Wilder.
He said if the events can happen they will likely be scaled back with fewer visitors — and with no fireworks. Wilder said they’re hopeful but realistic.
“Things change day-to-day,” Wilder said. “This thing has been a beast.”
Crews in California, meanwhile, allowed people north of Los Angeles back to about 100 canyon homes threatened by a fast-moving brush fire caused by a freeway car crash.
The blaze Sunday consumed nearly 1.4 square miles (3.6 square kilometers) of brush and closed State Route 14 before crews working amid triple-digit temperatures halted its advance. One structure was destroyed but no injuries were reported.
KABC-TV aired video of several Santa Clarita residents trying to douse the encroaching flames with a garden hose and water from swimming pools.
In New Mexico, Gov. Susana Martinez ordered flags to fly at half-staff in honor of a volunteer firefighter who died from injuries suffered while battling a brush fire in eastern New Mexico last week. Nara Visa Fire Chief Gary Girard tells The Eastern New Mexico News that John Cammack was severely burned after falling from a fire engine when the winds shifted and the flames changed direction.
In Arizona, firefighters had to ground aircraft after they spotted drones being flown near the fire, said Bureau of Land Management spokesman Dennis Godfrey. The Arizona Republic reports another unauthorized drone was spotted Sunday, temporarily halting aerial efforts to put out a fire northwest of Flagstaff that is 88 percent contained.
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Congo Finds 10 More Mass Graves in Insurgency-hit Kasai Region
Congolese authorities have identified 10 more mass graves in a region where the military and militia fighters accuse each other of summary executions and burials.
The 10 new graves announced by the military on Monday bring to 52 the total number of such sites found in the Kasai region since the start of an insurrection last August by the Kamuina Nsapu militia, which wants the withdrawal of military forces from the area.
Army prosecutor General Joseph Ponde told reporters in the capital Kinshasa that Kamuina Nsapu fighters were suspected of dumping bodies in the graves in Kasai province. The government also blamed the militia for mass graves discovered in neighboring Kasai-Central province.
But witnesses in Kasai-Central interviewed in March by Reuters said they had seen army trucks dumping bodies.
Bodies have not been exhumed from the newly found graves — discovered by Red Cross workers — and there are no estimates of the number of people buried in them.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in fighting between government forces and Kamuina Nsapu, according to the local Catholic church.
Another 1.3 million have fled their homes in an insurgency which poses the most serious threat to the rule of President Joseph Kabila, who refused to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate in December.
The United Nations’ human rights chief last week accused a militia with links to the government of murdering and mutilating civilians in Kasai.
Congolese authorities deny those charges.
Last week, the U.N. Human Rights Council approved an international investigation into the violence, though Congolese authorities insist U.N. investigators will only be providing technical assistance.
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EU Ready to Assist Macedonia Implement Reforms to Unlock Membership
The European Union’s commissioner in charge of enlargement said on Monday the bloc will help Macedonia make key reforms such as ensuring judicial and media independence to unlock the country’s path towards EU and NATO membership.
Johannes Hahn arrived in Skopje on Monday to attend a cabinet meeting scheduled to debate a reform agenda.
“Tomorrow the first experts from the European Union will be in town to assist you in all these reforms,” Hahn told reporters after he met the cabinet.
Last month’s election of Zoran Zaev’s cabinet ended a two-year long political crisis, the biggest since Western diplomacy helped drag the former Yugoslav republic back from the brink of civil war in 2001 during an ethnic Albanian insurgency.
Committed to reforms
After meeting Hahn, Zaev said his government would be committed to reforms and would work hard to get a green light to open accession talks by the end of this year.
“As the Commission we have, I have every interest to arrive to a point where we can give a positive recommendation,” Hahn said. “But this is to a very high extent, linked to concrete progress on the area of urgent reform priorities.”
A stand-off between Zaev’s Socialists and nationalist VMRO-DPMNE triggered by a wiretapping scandal in 2015 prompted the EU to broker an agreement in which parties signed up to an early election and a set of reforms to ensure freedom of media and independence of judiciary.
Upper Macedonia?
After the December election, Zaev engineered a coalition with two parties representing ethnic Albanians, who comprise a third of the 2.1 million population. The new cabinet pledged to put reforms from the EU-brokered agreement high on its agenda.
Macedonia’s accession into the EU and NATO has been blocked over a name dispute with Greece, which has a northern province called Macedonia and regards Skopje’s use of the name as a territorial grab.
Earlier this month Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said Athens would back Macedonia’s European integration “in every way, once the name issue has been resolved”. Athens has previously insisted Skopje use a compound name such as “New” or “Upper” Macedonia.
your ad hereTanzania Threatens Crackdown on LGBT Advocates
Tanzania has threatened to arrest and expel activists, as well as de-register all non-governmental organizations that campaign for gay rights.
Homosexuality is a criminal offense in the East African nation, where the law states that suspects convicted of having “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” could face up to 30 years in jail.
At a rally late on Sunday, Tanzania’s Home Affairs Minister Mwigulu Nchemba said both domestic and foreign campaigners for gay rights would now face punitive measures in the country.
“Those who want to campaign for gay rights should find another country that allows those things,” Nchemba said in the capital Dodoma. “If we establish that any organization registered in our country is campaigning for gay rights … I will deregister that organization. If a Tanzanian national is doing that campaign, we will arrest him and take him to court … and if it is a foreigner, we will immediately order him to leave the country.”
The planned crackdown comes amid repeated warnings against “immoral behaviors” by President John Magufuli, who is nicknamed “the Bulldozer” for pushing through his policies.
Last week, he rejected calls to lift the decades-long ban on pregnant students from attending state schools, drawing criticism from rights groups.
Nchemba said Magufuli’s decisions were final and non-negotiable.
Since his ascent to power in 2015, Magufuli has been praised by some Western donors for his bid to stamp out corruption and cut wasteful government spending.
Opponents, however, accuse him of becoming increasingly authoritarian by curbing political activity and cracking down on dissent.
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Britain Will Allow European Nationals to Remain After Brexit
British Prime Minister Theresa May has tried to reassure millions of Europeans living in Britain that their lives and those of their families will not be disrupted when London leaves the European Union in 2019.
May’s post-Brexit residency proposals offer EU nationals “settled status” in Britain with broadly the same rights as native-born English, Scots and Welsh, and the same access to health care, education, welfare and pensions. EU “settlers” would be subject to British law without recourse to the European Court of Justice.
“We want you to stay,” May said in a message to the estimated 3.2 million European nationals living in Britain. Her aim, she said, was to “completely reassure” anyone now living legally in Britain that they would not be asked to leave when the country breaks all ties to the EU.
Five years of residence in Britain is required for Europeans who wish to apply to stay on in the country in the future, according to the government proposal. Those already living in Britain but for a shorter period can remain until they are eligible to apply for “settled status.” European nationals living permanently in Britain would lose that status, in most cases, if they stay outside the country for more than two years.
May delivered essentially the same proposal last week in Brussels to EU leaders, who said it did not meet all necessary criteria. The European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said Monday that “a number of limitations remain worrisome and will have to be carefully assessed.”
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Trump Says Russia Collusion Probe Has Turned Up Nothing
U.S. President Donald Trump Monday said a four-month probe into allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia has turned up nothing, and he deserves an apology.
In a barrage of Twitter messages on Monday, Trump also accused former President Barack Obama of failing to act in response to intelligence reports that Russia was meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections because he thought Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the presidency despite the Kremlin’s clan destine efforts.
Following up on the Twitter posts, spokesman Sean Spicer told White House reporters the president believes Russia was “probably” involved in election interference, and may not have been the only country doing so. Neither Spicer nor Trump indicated what action they thought Obama should have taken to counter Russia’s election interference.
Spicer said Trump has been consistent in his position since January: “He believes that Russia probably was involved, potentially.”
“Some other countries as well could have equally been involved – or could have been involved, not equally,” the spokesman said, adding that Trump “stands by the statement that he made in January.”
Asked specifically whether Trump believes intelligence assessments that Russian meddling was intended to help him win, Spicer said, “I’ve never asked him that specific question.”
Last August, three months before the American vote, the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had directly ordered a cyber campaign to discredit the presidential election and to defeat or at least damage Clinton, thereby helping Trump win.
Obama pondered for weeks how to respond after being briefed on the CIA finding, The Washington Post reported last week. Ultimately, he made no direct response until after Trump’s election victory, when he expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed two Russian facilities that the U.S. believed Moscow was using for intelligence gathering.
The Post article quoted a former senior Obama administration official involved in the White House deliberations on Russia as saying, “It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend. … We sort of choked.”
In a two-part Twitter post Monday, Trump seemed to be replying to the Obama official quoted in The Post article. “The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win and did not want to ‘rock the boat.’ He didn’t ‘choke,’ he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good.”
In a second two-part tweet, Trump wrote, “The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia under a magnifying glass, they have zero ‘tapes’ of T [Trump] people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!”
Spokesman Spicer suggested to reporters Monday that Obama administration officials should be made to answer “some serious questions about what they did or did not do in terms of acting” on the intelligence they received months before the election.
“I think it’s pretty clear that they knew all along that there was no collusion,” Spicer said, “and that’s very helpful for the president.”
Spicer said Trump is taking action to prevent any further election interference: “He signed an executive order on cyber security to strengthen our ability to combat anybody from interfering, not just in our election but in a lot of our key cyber infrastructure.”
For months Trump has reacted dismissively to claims that Russian interference influenced the election, even though in January, before he took office, he acknowledged that Russia had hacked into computers at Democratic national headquarters in Washington and that Putin directed the cyberattack.
The file-sharing group WikiLeaks disclosed thousands of emails in the weeks leading up to the election that showed embarrassing behind-the-scenes efforts by Democratic operatives to help Clinton win the party’s presidential nomination in mid-2016. Clinton has said the steady drumbeat of information about the emails was one reason she eventually lost the election, although national surveys had indicated she would win.
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Witnesses in Somalia Report Sinking Ship After Explosion
Officials and residents in Somalia’s Puntland region say they saw a large ship off the country’s coast explode and gradually begin to sink Monday.
Witnesses in the coastal town of Muranyo describe the ship as looking like a warship, although it was not possible to immediately identify the vessel. They say two other ships in the area came to the aid of the sinking ship and rescued its crew.
The region is frequently patrolled by the European Union Naval Force Somalia to disrupt piracy and protect vulnerable shipping, including World Food Program vessels.
“The ship sank around sunset on Monday. Then, two warships came. Locals saw them evacuating the crew. No one has contacted us and we had no ability to extend a rescue at nighttime,” said Ali Shire Osman, the chairman of the northern Somali port town of Alula.
One witness described the scene to VOA’s Somali service: “A huge explosion happened, which sent plumes of smoke mixed with waves of water into the air. It was a deafening blast and then the ship started to gradually sink,” said Mohamed Ahmed. “Then two white warships came to the scene and are still there.”
Local fishermen said they returned to shore after the explosion, fearing the impact of the blast. “We are worried that what has happened might affect us and our fishing environment,” said Abdirahamn Omar, a fisherman in the town.
The town near where the incident happened is 44 kilometers east of Alula, which has been one of the pirate hubs in Somalia.
In April, observers warned that piracy could be making a comeback along the coast of Somalia, after gunmen hijacked two ships in 48 hours.
At the peak of the piracy crisis in the early 2010s, Somali pirate gangs were responsible for hundreds of attacks on commercial ships traveling in the Gulf of Aden, the western Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.
According to annual reports compiled by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), Somali pirates hijacked 49 ships in 2010 and took more than 1,000 crew members hostage. The pirates and their backers sometimes split windfalls of more than $5 million for the release of a ship and its crew.
But Somali piracy virtually disappeared just three years later, after international navies began regular patrols of shipping lanes and ships took new security measures, in some cases carrying armed guards on board.
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Romania Names New Prime Minister to Defuse Crisis
Romania’s president named outgoing economy minister Mihai Tudose as prime minister on Monday, clearing the way for a new leftist-led government to be formed by the end of this week and end a political crisis threatening to sour investor confidence.
The Social Democrats (PSD) picked 50-year-old Tudose to replace Sorin Grindeanu whom they ousted last week in an internal party rift over anti-corruption policy.
PSD lawmakers voted out their own cabinet in a no-confidence motion on June 21, accusing Grindeanu of failing to implement an ambitious governing programme that helped them win a December election.
Analysts said many party members were unhappy with Grindeanu’s failure to relax anti-corruption rules. His government had to withdraw a decree that decriminalized some graft offenses after massive street protests in February.
PSD leader Liviu Dragnea said Tudose was one of six potential prime ministers the party considered. The other five had declined the position.
“Taking into consideration the current crisis, the urgency to end it … as it harms the economy [and] Romania’s external image abroad, I have decided to name Mihai Tudose as prime minister-designate,” President Klaus Iohannis told reporters.
Tudose is expected to unveil his cabinet lineup on Tuesday and analysts said several of the outgoing ministers were likely to retain their posts.
Dragnea said a new government would be approved in parliament on Thursday in a vote of confidence supported by the ruling coalition which has about 10 seats above the required majority.
Protest risk
The rift has kept investors wary about Romania in recent weeks despite the eastern European Union state posting annual growth exceeding 5 percent in the first quarter.
Under a PSD premier, government policies would likely continue to bend towards the public sector wage hikes and tax cuts that have raised concerns of fiscal slippages with the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, analysts said.
“We see no major shifts in government policies, except for the possibility of a bigger push for less stringent anti-corruption laws,” Nordea analysts said in a note.
However, any further attempts by the ruling coalition to weaken anti-corruption legislation could reignite street protests.
Catalin Tenita, an IT entrepreneur who co-founded Geeks for Democracy, an online platform seeking projects to improve governance, protested throughout February. He said on Monday that he would take to the streets again if needed.
“It is difficult to predict what the ruling coalition will do, but the past has shown us they have consistently tried to weaken the fight against corruption,” he told Reuters.
“Ideally, the new government, regardless of which party, would focus on citizens’ real problems. I think the potential for protests is much higher than in February — more people are informed now and better organized.”
Romania is the European Union’s fastest growing economy but one of its poorest and most corrupt states, with massive investment needs in its underdeveloped transport, healthcare and education sectors.
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