Month: October 2018

Cathay Pacific Flags Data Breach Affecting 9.4 Million Passengers

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Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd said on Wednesday that data of about 9.4 million passengers of Cathay and its unit Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Limited had been accessed without authorization.

Cathay said 860,000 passport numbers, about 245,000 Hong Kong identity card numbers, 403 expired credit card numbers and 27 credit card numbers with no card verification value (CVV) were accessed in the breach.

“We are very sorry for any concern this data security event may cause our passengers,” Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Rupert Hogg said in a statement.

“We acted immediately to contain the event, commence a thorough investigation with the assistance of a leading cybersecurity firm, and to further strengthen our IT security measures.”

Hogg said no passwords were compromised in the breach and the company was contacting affected passengers to give them information on how to protect themselves.

Cathay Pacific was not immediately available for additional comment outside normal business hours.

The company said it initially discovered suspicious activity on its network in March 2018 and investigations in early May confirmed that certain personal data had been accessed.

News of Cathay’s passenger data breach comes weeks after British Airways revealed that credit card details of hundreds of thousands of its customers were stolen over a two-week period. Cathay in a statement said accessed data includes names of passengers, their nationalities, dates of birth, telephone numbers, email and physical addresses, passport numbers, identity card numbers and historical travel information.

It added that the Hong Kong Police had been notified about the breach and that there is no evidence that any personal information has been misused.

 
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Indonesian Village Bans 3 HIV+ Orphans From School

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Authorities in a North Sumatra village have banned three HIV+ orphans from elementary school, and threatened the children, who are from outside the area, with expulsion from Nainggolan due to community fears of transmission.

The children, a boy and two girls, aged 7 to 11 years, were infected by transmission from their mothers, Berlina Sibagariang, executive secretary of the Batak Protestant Christian Huria AIDS Committee (HKBP), told VOA Indonesia. The orphaned children attended preschool and the Nainggolan State Primary School in North Sumatra for one day before they were expelled, in response to outcry from students and parents who learned of their HIV status, according to Sibagariang.

“We want those three children to enjoy their rights to go to school and get an education,” Sibagariang said, adding “the community hopes that the children will no longer attend local schools. They are afraid that their children will be infected with HIV.”

The children were removed from classes on October 22, and Sibagariang said the local community set an October 25 deadline for the children to leave the village.

While an estimated five million people are infected with HIV in Asia, the rate of new infections has slowed in the last decade. But not in Indonesia, which now has an estimated 660,000 people living with HIV, according to the UNAIDS. According to the U.N. agency, Indonesia had 48,000 new HIV infections and 38,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2016, an increase in AIDS-related deaths of 68 percent from 2010. As of 2016, an estimated 3,200 Indonesian children were infected with HIV due to mother-to-child transmission.

There is, Indonesians activists note, ignorance of HIV and its transmission.

“Many people in our rural area still don’t really know what HIV/AIDS is, or the regulations covering it,” Puta Elvina, commissioner of Indonesia’s National Commission to Protect Children (KPAI) told VOA. In Nainggolan, “the school should educate the [Parent Teachers Association (PTA)] about HIV/AIDS so they know they don’t have to worry about it. [The PTA} should communicate to them how people become infected, how HIV is transmitted, etc. And the school has an obligation to those HIV-kids, to protect and support them. Actually not only the school, but also the local people (to support the kids) and the local government.”

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can only be transmitted from an infected person to another through direct contact of bodily fluids such as blood (including menstrual blood), semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk, according to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, a leading U.S. source of information on HIV and AIDS. “Blood contains the highest concentration of the virus, followed by semen, followed by vaginal fluids, followed by breast milk. … It is possible for an HIV-infected mother to transmit HIV before or during birth or through breast milk. Breast milk contains HIV, and while small amounts of breast milk do not pose significant threat of infection to adults, it is a risk for infants.”

The shunning behavior in Nainggolan is not unique. “HIV stigma is effectively universal, but its form varies from one country to another, and the specific groups targeted for AIDS stigma vary considerably,” says the University of California, Davis. “Whatever its form, HIV stigma inflicts suffering on people and interferes with attempts to fight the AIDS epidemic.”

Tiqoh, who has only one name, is an activist at Yayasan Pelita Ilmu (YPI), a non-governmental organization with a long track record on HIV/AIDS education in Indonesia, understands the difficulty of talking about HIV “with the local people, but perhaps the school could also involve doctors from the local clinic. Those parents and local people who refuse to take care these kids, or don’t want them to study in the same class as their children, they’re taking these actions because they don’t know much about HIV/AIDS. They’re just worry that their kids might be infected.”

HKBP is continuing talks with local government officials and the community as the Thursday deadline approaches in an attempt to stop expulsion of the children from Nainggolan.

“They said that we should remove those children because the local government hasn’t issued a permit to send children to those schools or even stay in that village,” said Sibagariang. “In fact, the home in that village – where we sent the children – is our home, an HKBP home. They have right to stay there.  It’s our home!”

Local leader, Samosir Regent Rapidin Simbolon, told VOA that the HKBP hospital in Nainggolan once “accommodated the elderly, but now they accommodate children who are exposed to HIV.”

So far, the talks have resulted in a suggestion to homeschool the children but the HKBP AIDS Committee rejected this option, saying it would isolate the children and paper over what they see as the real issue: misunderstanding of HIV-AIDS.

 

The committee criticized another local leader, Samosir Deputy Regent, Juang Sinaga, who called for the children to be expelled from the village, and sent to the jungle.

Rapidin told VOA “I am responsible,” he said. “I will not allow the public to directly shun them. … We will protect (the children) so no one will take advantage of the situation. Be assured we are protecting them, we will even involve the police, if necessary. I guarantee that the children are being monitored.”

But the regent said that there were different opinions about the orphans–parents don’t want their children in classes with the HIV+ orphans, “while HKBP who said that [separating these children] is discriminating against HIV-people.”

“The HKBP does not want to understand us,” Rapidin said. “The three children who are positive are not from our region. They come from outside. We are actually very tolerant, it’s OK here. But they (HKBP) are insistent. The HKBP cannot insist like that. Nainggolan residents also have rights.”

Anugerah Andriansyah reported from North Sumatra, Indonesia and Eva Mazrieva reported from Washington, D.C.

 
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Child Death Toll Hits 7 in Viral Outbreak at NJ Rehab Center

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Another child has died following a severe viral outbreak at a New Jersey rehabilitation center for “medically fragile children,” bringing the death toll to seven, the facility said Wednesday.

There have been 18 cases overall of adenovirus at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Haskell, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of New York, the state Health Department said. The 227-bed, for-profit facility cares for children and elderly residents.

The agency had said Tuesday six children had died this month. But the center said it learned Tuesday night that another child had died.

The strain afflicting the children is usually associated with acute respiratory illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which on its website instructs health workers to report unusual clusters to state or local health departments.

The Health Department hasn’t released the names or the ages of the victims.

The CDC is providing technical assistance to the state. In the past 10 years, cases of severe illness and death from the type of infection found at the facility have been reported in the United States, though it’s unclear how many deaths there have been.

The center’s website says it helps educate “medically fragile children.” The facility was instructed not to admit new patients until the outbreak ends, and the Health Department said the number of new cases appears to be decreasing.
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Former Malaysian PM, Officials, Face New Graft Charges

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Malaysian’s anti-graft agency said Wednesday that ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak, along with two former high-ranking officials, will face new charges of criminal breach of trust.

The agency said Najib and former treasury chief Mohamad Irwan Serigar Abdullah will be charged together Thursday in “several cases of criminal breach of trust involving the use of Malaysian government funds.” It didn’t give details but media reports said the charges are linked to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1MDB state investment fund.

Separately, it said in a statement that Hasanah Abdul Hami, the former chief of the foreign intelligence agency that is now defunct, will also face similar charges in a separate case.

Malaysia’s new government has stepped up prosecution of Najib and other former officials over the 1MDB scandal and other alleged graft cases since its stunning electoral victory in May that led to the country’s first change of power since independence from Britain in 1957.

The new charges against Najib will be in addition to 32 earlier counts of corruption, breach of trust and money laundering linked to the 1MDB scandal that led to his coalition’s ouster. His wife, Rosmah Mansor, was also separately charged with multiple counts of money laundering and tax evasion linked to 1MDB. They both pleaded not guilty and Najib’s trial is to start next year.

The 1MDB fund, set up by Najib, is being investigated in the U.S. and several other countries. U.S. investigators say Najib’s associates stole and laundered $4.5 billion from the fund from 2009 to 2014, some of which landed in Najib’s bank account.

 

Najib’s former deputy, Abdul Zahid Hamidi, who is now the opposition leader, has also been charged with multiple counts of corruption in a separate graft investigation involving millions of dollars.

Najib has accused the government of seeking political vengeance against his family, but Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad brushed off the accusations, saying anyone found guilty of misconduct will have to face the law.
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Trump Effort to End Missile Treaty Draws Mixed Reaction 

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A prominent nuclear weapons expert says White House threats to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty are diplomatically shortsighted, potentially dangerous and politically risky for President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections.

Calling the landmark 1987 missile treaty a key part of European and international security for over 30 years, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said while there have been concerns about Russia’s compliance with the agreement, U.S. withdrawal would shift blame for the collapse of the treaty from Moscow, “where it belongs,” to Washington.

His comments came shortly after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Kremlin officials in Moscow.

“The other reason why this is problematic is that the United States and Russia have not exhausted the diplomatic options to resolve this conflict,” Kimball said, pointing out that Bolton’s Moscow visit is only the third U.S.-Russia meeting under the current administration.

“One of the available options that should be tried is mutual transparency visits by Russian experts to U.S. missile interceptor sites in Romania, and U.S. technical expert inspections of the 9M729 missiles that the U.S. is concerned about in Russia,” Kimball said.

U.S. officials, including Trump, accuse Russia of ground-launching an 9M729 cruise missile in violation of the treaty in 2014, a charge long denied by Russia, which says U.S. missile defense systems in Europe violate the agreement.

“Both sides are going to have to try harder to work out a diplomatic solution,” Kimball added. “I think if the two sides have the necessary political will, it’s possible, and the INF treaties can be preserved.”

Bolton, who said he was in Moscow as part of Trump’s commitment to improve security cooperation with Russia, had earlier hinted the arms control pact with Russia is outdated. 

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF accord in 1987, which bans the United States and Russia from building, testing and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range from 500 to 5,000 kilometers (310-3,100 miles).

“Because intermediate-range missiles have a very short flight time to their targets, they’re especially destabilizing,” Kimball told VOA’s Russian Service. “Because there’s very little warning time, it can lead to instability in a crisis, which is why Reagan and Gorbachev eliminated them in the 1980s.”

Addressing reporters in Moscow, Bolton said he believes Cold War-era bilateral treaties are no longer relevant because now other countries are also building missiles. 

At recent political campaign rally in Nevada, Trump said the United States would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China, which is not part of the INF treaty, do. He then proposed having China join the treaty, an idea that Kimball calls highly unlikely.

The U.S. and Russia, said Kimball, “would love to have China in this INF agreement.”

“Why? Because about two-thirds of China’s nuclear arsenal is deployed on short, medium, or intermediate-range missiles,” Kimball said. “That’s because of geography, because of the way China deploys its relatively small nuclear arsenal. So, that would be a win for the U.S. and Russia, and a loss for China.”

Asked if he expects the administration to withdraw formally, Kimball was skeptical.

“The past few weeks, the United States government has been discussing what to do with respect to the treaty. I think that Bolton, if he’s smart, he would have gone to Moscow to say, ‘Look, we’re not going to let this problem linger for too much longer. We may withdraw from this treaty if you, Russia, don’t take the following steps,'” Kimball said. “But I think Donald Trump — with his penchant for tough rhetoric — may have jumped the gun a little bit when he said on Saturday that we will terminate the INF treaty.”

In Russia, state media such as RIA Novosti cited anonymous sources offering similar interpretations of Trump’s rhetoric, which they dismissed as midterm election rally grandstanding, where politicians can score political points for appearing tough on Russia.

Although European leaders have supported U.S. efforts to bring Russia into compliance with the treaty and called on the Russian government for greater technical transparency with its arsenal, they have largely resisted U.S. withdrawal.

“The INF contributed to the end of the Cold War and constitutes a pillar of European security architecture since it entered into force 30 years ago,” said a spokesperson for the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in a prepared statement issued Monday.

“Thanks to the INF treaty, almost 3,000 missiles with nuclear and conventional warheads have been removed and verifiably destroyed,” the statement said. “The world doesn’t need a new arms race that would benefit no one and on the contrary would bring even more instability.”

French President Emmanuel Macron raised the issue with Trump by phone the morning after the Nevada rally to “underline the importance of this treaty, especially with regards to European security,” according to a statement by the French ministry that called “on all the parties to avoid any hasty unilateral decisions, which would be regrettable.”

Matthew Kroenig, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, hailed Trump’s proposed withdrawal as “the right move.”

“Russia has been cheating on this treaty for years, and there was no hope of getting Moscow to return to compliance,” he said in an Atlantic Council blog post. “It doesn’t make sense for the United States to be unilaterally constrained by limits that don’t affect any other country.”

A Putin spokesman said a U.S. pullout from the INF treaty would make the world a more dangerous place, and that Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.”

Addressing reporters in Moscow, Bolton said he discussed Russian meddling in U.S. elections with Putin, calling it counterproductive for Russia. He also said Trump looked forward to meeting Putin in Paris on Nov. 11.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. 
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US Still Determined to Pull Out of Key Arms Treaty With Russia

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The Trump administration appears determined to pull out of a key 1987 arms control agreement with Russia, in the wake of talks Tuesday between national security adviser John Bolton and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by deploying missiles in Europe.

Bolton called Russian violations “long and deep.”

“The threat is is not America’s INF withdrawal from the treaty. The threat is Russian missiles already deployed,” Bolton said. “The American position is that Russia is in violation. Russia’s position is that they are not in violation. So, one has to ask how to ask the Russians to come back into compliance with something that don’t think they are violating.”

Bolton told reporters after the talks that formal notice of a withdrawal would be filed “in due course.”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF Treaty in 1987. It bans the United States and Russia from building, testing and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

U.S. officials going back to the Obama administration have accused Russia of deliberately deploying a land-based cruise missile to pose a threat to NATO.

Trump said the United States would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China — which is not part of the INF Treaty — did.

Bilateral treaties outdated?

Bolton hinted the INF deal with Russia might have run its course and that bilateral Cold War treaties might not apply to the current global security environment when other nations, including China, Iran and North Korea, have also developed missiles.

Russia denies violating the INF pact and says it is U.S. missile defense systems in Europe and other unprovoked steps that are in violation.

“On the coat of arms of the United States, there’s an eagle holding 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other,” Putin reminded Bolton. “My question is whether your eagle has gobbled up all the olives, leaving only the arrows.”

Bolton replied by saying he did not bring any more olives.

In more serious remarks, a Kremlin spokesman said a U.S. pullout from the INF Treaty would make the world a more dangerous place, and Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.”

But both sides said Tuesday there was a need for dialogue and work on areas of mutual concern.

Bolton also said Tuesday that plans were being made for Trump and Putin to meet in Paris next month. Both leaders will be in France to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

Previous summit

The last meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki in July turned out to be a bit of a domestic disaster for Trump. At a post-summit joint news conference, he appeared to accept Putin’s denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, contrary to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Bolton said he also talked about Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He said such efforts do not affect the outcome of the vote and only create distrust between the U.S. and Russia. 

Bolton also laid three separate bouquets of flowers during his visit to Moscow — the traditional wreath at the World War II Memorial by the Kremlin wall; flowers to remember the victims of last week’s massacre of college students at the Black Sea port of Kerch; and flowers at the site near the Kremlin where Russian opposition leader and Putin critic Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in 2015. 
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Arrests of Migrant Families at US-Mexico Border Increase, Data Show

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U.S. agents arrested nearly 17,000 members of family units attempting to cross the U.S. border with Mexico in September, a 31 percent increase over the previous month, according to official statistics released Tuesday.

In a news briefing with reporters Tuesday, Trump administration officials pointed to the increase in migrant families as evidence of a “border crisis” because those groups are more difficult for immigration enforcement officials to detain and deport because of protections granted by U.S. law to migrant children.

President Donald Trump’s administration has expressed alarm at the change in the makeup of migrants attempting to cross into the United States from mostly single adults to children and families traveling together.

About 40 percent of those apprehended in fiscal 2017 and 2018 were unaccompanied children or families with children, compared with 10 percent in 2012, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

According to numbers released Tuesday, U.S. border officials arrested nearly 397,000 people in total at the southern border in the 2018 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a significant increase over the 304,000 apprehended in 2017 but largely in line with arrest trends of migrants at the U.S. southern border over the past decade.

Border arrests dropped in the months after Trump took office in January 2017 but have rebounded over the past year.

Experts believe that Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric dissuaded potential migrants from crossing in the first months of his presidency.

Trump has vowed to begin cutting millions of dollars in aid to Central America over a caravan of thousands of mostly Honduran migrants fleeing violence and poverty at home.

He has called the caravan, which is currently in southern Mexico, a national emergency as he seeks to boost his Republican Party’s chances of maintaining control of Congress in the Nov. 6 elections.

Earlier this year, Trump’s administration tried to deter families from traveling to the border by instituting a “zero tolerance” policy, separating thousands of children as their parents were prosecuted.

About 2,500 children and parents were separated before Trump abandoned the policy in June after a public outcry. A federal judge ordered the families reunited, a process that is still incomplete.

‘Not sustainable’

In Texas’ Rio Grande Valley (RGV), where more migrants are arrested crossing illegally than in any other section of the 2,000-mile-long (3,200-km) border with Mexico, apprehensions continued to rise in October, said the Border Patrol sector’s Chief Patrol Agent Manuel Padilla.

RGV made over 12,700 arrests in the first three weeks of October, marking a 112 percent increase over the same period of 2017, Padilla said in a phone interview.

Sixty-four percent of those detentions were of family members or unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico, up from a rate of 51 percent in all of fiscal year 2018, Padilla said. Over 5,400 family units were detained in the first half of October, up 300 percent from the same period of 2017.

“Right now we’re at maximum capacity when it comes to detention, and so is ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Our detention capacity is just breaking at the seams,” said Padilla, predicting border-wide family apprehensions would rise again in October. “This is not sustainable.”
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Plugged In With Greta Van Susteren: Tibor Nagy

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VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren engages Tibor Nagy, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, in a wide-ranging conversation about the opportunities and challenges facing the African continent. Nagy outlines the emerging U.S. strategy in Africa as one of partnerships, shared goals and jobs.
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Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Seeks Dialogue on Economic Crisis

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Zimbabwe’s opposition leader on Tuesday called for the creation of a “national transitional authority” to deal with a worsening economic crisis amid shortages of basic items such as drugs and fuel.

Nelson Chamisa, who narrowly lost July’s election, accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government of excessive borrowing and lacking ideas to solve Zimbabwe’s biggest crisis in a decade.

Chamisa also plans to go ahead with a rally on Saturday that party officials have indicated could include a mock “inauguration” in protest of the disputed vote.

A ruling ZANU-PF party official, Paul Mangwana, said dialogue with the opposition can only commence if Chamisa accepts Mnangagwa’s victory. 

A fragile national unity government in 2009 helped pull the country out of economic crisis when hyperinflation reached 500 billion percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.

When asked what a “national transitional authority” would entail, Chamisa said it should be a “bottom-up” approach to involve citizens, churches and other stakeholders and that discussions would determine the nature of the government. 

He said the ruling party and opposition had discussed the arrangement after former leader Robert Mugabe was forced out in November but “they reneged on that promise and chose the path of elections instead of a transitional authority.”

After Mugabe’s departure many in Zimbabwe had hoped the country would emerge from turmoil and return to prosperity. But that has turned into despair as public hospitals run out of drugs and private pharmacies, like many other businesses, close down while supermarkets ration items such as bottled water and beer.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube on Tuesday said the government has suspended import controls on items ranging from cooking oil to bottled water to baked beans and shoe polish. Previously, only those with special licenses were allowed to import the items. 

The government in recent days has cracked down on street currency dealers, while some senior officials from the reserve bank were suspended Monday after a ruling party activist accused them of corruption.

The activist, appointed last week to head a special communications task force for the ministry, was fired on Tuesday after he promised more disclosures. 

The president in a weekly column in a state-run newspaper accused “an intricate network of currency speculators mostly in high places and in places of trust” of manipulating black-market foreign currency rates, resulting in a spike in prices of goods that are still available.

With industry in near collapse, Zimbabwe imports most items.
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UN Expert on Human Rights Welcomes Thaw on Korean Peninsula

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The United Nations independent expert on human rights for North Korea has welcomed political talks and denuclearization efforts, but urged that the human rights situation not be forgotten.

 

“The human rights situation at the moment has not changed on the ground in North Korea, despite this important progress on security, peace and prosperity,” Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana told reporters Tuesday ahead of his briefing to the U.N. General Assembly committee that deals with human rights issues.

 

Ojea said the “reality” is that the nuclear issue is “extremely serious” and that human rights had been put on a back burner, but at some point, Pyongyang must signal that it will discuss human rights.

 

“It is the time for North Korea to show commitment to the human rights agenda,” he said. “We have seen nothing from North Korea in this respect.”

 

Ojea also called for access to the country, which rejects his mandate and has not allowed him to visit.

 

In 2014, a U.N. panel wrote an exhaustive report on North Korea’s human rights situation. It found systematic, widespread and grave violations of rights rising to potential crimes against humanity.

 

“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” the Commission of Inquiry said at the time. The panel said such crimes against humanity were the result of “policies established at the highest level of State.”

 

Abuses included murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions, sexual violence, enforced disappearance of persons, and the act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.

 

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have decreased dramatically in the past year. Starting with North Korea’s participation in last February’s winter Olympics in South Korea, which led to three separate summits between the leaders of those two countries. In June, President Donald Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Trump has said he plans to hold a second summit with Kim soon.

 

Speaking of the U.S.-DPRK summit, Ojea said there were some “confusing statements” on whether human rights had been addressed. He said the issues of the repatriation of the remains of U.S. soldiers and the release of U.S. prisoners in Pyongyang are human rights issues, but that there must be a discussion about the situation of ordinary North Korean citizens.
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Low-tech Tools Can Fight Land Corruption, Experts Say

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Technological solutions to prevent land corruption require resources, but they do not have to be expensive, land rights experts said Tuesday.

Satellite imagery, cloud computing and blockchain are among technologies with the potential to help many of the world’s more than 1 billion people estimated to lack secure property rights. But they can be expensive and require experts to be trained.

That’s where low-tech solutions such as Cadastre Registry Inventory Without Paper (CRISP) can be useful, said Ketakandriana Rafitoson, executive director of global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) in

Madagascar.

CRISP helps local activists in Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries, document land ownership using tablets with fingerprint readers and built-in cameras, which cost $20 a day to rent.

Users can take pictures of ID cards, location agreements, photos of landowners, their neighbors and any witnesses who were present during land demarcation, Rafitoson told the International Anti-Corruption Conference.

Lack of trust

One challenge in Madagascar is a lack of trust in politicians, Rafitoson said, meaning it is better if local charities are involved, too.

“If we just leave the land authorities with the community, it doesn’t work because they don’t trust each other,” she said.

Corruption in land management ranges from local officials demanding bribes for basic administrative duties to high-level political decisions being unduly influenced, according to TI.

The Dashboard, a tool developed by the International Land Coalition (ILC), is also putting local people at the center of monitoring land deals, said Eva Hershaw, a data specialist at the ILC, a global alliance of nonprofit organizations working on improving land governance.

The Dashboard is being tested in Colombia, Nepal and Senegal, where it allows ILC’s local partners to collect data based on 30 core indicators, including monitoring legal frameworks and how laws are implemented.

Next week, TI Zambia will launch a new phone-based platform, which can advise Zambians on various aspects of land acquisition and guide them through processes around it.

Rueben Lifuka, president of TI Zambia, said users can also report corruption through the platform, including requests for bribes. 

Those affected by corruption can decide whether a copy will be sent to the local authorities, and TI can then track the response.

An improvement in internet coverage in Zambia means it is becoming easier to develop technologies such as the platform, which cost about $34,000 to develop, Lifuka said.
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Japan: Man Believed to Be Missing Journalist in Syria Freed

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Japan’s government said Tuesday that a man believed to be a Japanese freelance journalist who went missing three years ago while in Syria has been released and is now in Turkey.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a hastily arranged news conference late Tuesday that Japan was informed by Qatar that the man, believed to be journalist Jumpei Yasuda, has been released.

Yasuda was last heard from in Syria in 2015.

Suga said Qatar’s government told Japanese officials that the man is being protected by the Turkish authorities and is being identified, and that he is most likely Yasuda.

Suga said he has notified Yasuda’s family of the news.

Yasuda started reporting on the Middle East in early 2000s. He was taken hostage in Iraq in 2004 with three other Japanese, but was freed after Islamic clerics negotiated his release.

His most recent trip to Syria was in 2015 to report on his journalist friend Kenji Goto, who was taken hostage and killed by the Islamic State group.

Contact was lost with Yasuda after he sent a message to another Japanese freelancer on June 23, 2015. In his last tweet two days earlier, Yasuda said his reporting was often obstructed and that he would stop tweeting his whereabouts and activities.

Several videos showing a man believed to be Yasuda have been released in the past year.

In one video released in July, the bearded man believed to be Yasuda said he was in a harsh environment and needed to be rescued immediately.

Syria has been one of the most dangerous places for journalists since the conflict there began in March 2011, with dozens killed or kidnapped.

Several journalists are still missing in Syria and their fate is unknown.

Those missing include Austin Tice of Houston, Texas, who disappeared in August 2012 while covering the conflict, which has killed some 400,000 people. A video released a month later showed him blindfolded and held by armed men, saying “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since.

Tice is a former Marine who has reported for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers, CBS and other outlets, and disappeared shortly after his 31st birthday.

Another is British photojournalist John Cantlie, who appeared in Islamic State group propaganda videos. Cantlie has worked for several publications, including The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sunday Telegraph. He was kidnapped with American journalist James Foley in November 2012. The IS beheaded Foley in August 2014.

Lebanese journalist Samir Kassab, who worked for Sky News, was kidnapped on Oct. 14, 2013, along with a colleague from Mauritania Ishak Moctar and a Syrian driver while on a trip in northern Syria.

In March 2014, two Spanish journalists — correspondent Javier Espinosa and photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova — were released six months after being kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked group.
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As Trade War Persists, Japan’s Abe Heads for First Visit to China

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The U.S.-China trade war is helping push Beijing and Tokyo closer.  How close will become clearer later this week, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe makes his first visit to China since taking office in 2012.

Analysts say the three-day trip is unlikely to resolve historic territorial disputes between the two sides, but it will provide Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping a rare opportunity to warm ties and try to advance key policy agendas.

Abe arrives Thursday in Beijing accompanied by an entourage of more than 500 business leaders who, with their Chinese counterparts, will attend an investment forum focusing on collaboration in third countries.

As relations between Beijing and Washington worsen, China is looking to build closer ties with Abe, a leader who has visited the United States frequently and has sought to build a friendly relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

“For Abe, this is an opportunity that Trump has created for him that suits Japan’s foreign diplomacy interests,” said Ho Szu-shen, Japanese language and culture professor at Taiwan’s Fu-Jen Catholic University.  “If Japanese companies can find a way to cooperate on belt and road projects that could help diminish international criticisms and concerns of countries along the belt about debt trap diplomacy.”

In recent weeks, a handful of countries have canceled or scaled back billions of dollars in belt and road projects over concerns about debt.  China denies it is trying to create debt traps and take advantage of developing countries.

Japan’s participation in projects with China could help ease those fears.  During Abe’s visit, dozens of investment announcements are expected and some are looking to see whether the two will collaborate in places such as Thailand.

“There is a stiff competition between China and Japan vying for deals in third countries and competition adds to both countries costs,” said Jiang Yuechun, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies.  “If both countries can find a way to cooperate or complement each other’s strengths that could create a win-win situation for both countries and further benefits for third countries as well.”

Japan has made clear it supports the idea of building infrastructure to help boost economies around the globe, but it also has stressed that investments it participates in be transparent, economically viable and fiscally sustainable for the host country.

A Japanese government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while there will be announcements during the visit by private companies, it is “not going to be a big deal like when Mr. Trump came to Beijing.”

When Trump visited China last November, the two announced $250 billion in trade deals.

Trump is entangled in trade disputes with both Japan and China and criticized the two countries trade practices and deficits with the United States.  Jiang said the two leaders are likely to use the meeting to voice their similar concerns about trade and tariffs.

“But I don’t think China will ally with Japan to stand against the U.S.  That is unlikely given the U.S. and Japan have a strategic alliance,” he said.

As far as trade disputes go, Japan is in a better position than Beijing.  Late last month, Tokyo and Washington agreed to shelve auto tariffs and begin negotiations on a free trade agreement.  China and the United States remain deeply divided.

At the same time, however, China has been working hard to push a free trade agreement of its own for the region, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and is likely to use the meeting to buoy support for that agreement and the goal to finish the deal by the end of this year.

A Japanese government source said that reaching an agreement is desirable, “but at the same time we can’t compromise too much on standards.”  He also added that there are differing views among participants of RCEP as well, which includes six Asian countries and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.  

China is Japan’s biggest trading partner and more than 30,000 Japanese companies have operations in the country.  Last year, Japanese investments grew for the first time since 2012 when a territorial dispute over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea and frictions sent relations into a nosedive.  Ties were so tense there were concerns the two countries might enter into a military conflict, which contributed to an exodus of Japanese businesses.

That dispute remains unresolved, but Japanese investment is picking up again, growing by 5.1 percent last year.  Abe’s visit comes as the two countries mark the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty, and with that, both are looking to open a new page in relations.

Joyce Huang contributed to this report.

 
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Turkish Leader Due to Give ‘Naked Truth’ About Death of Saudi Journalist

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to go before his parliament Tuesday and reveal what he said would be the “naked truth” about the death of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Ankara.

Since he went missing after entering the consulate on October 2, Turkish officials have accused Saudi Arabia of sending a team to kill Khashoggi.

The Saudis at first said Khashoggi had left the consulate and that they did not know his whereabouts. Later, they said he died in a fistfight after an argument inside the consulate. Most recently, the Saudis said Khashoggi died in a chokehold to prevent him from leaving the consulate to call for help. 

The various explanations have been met with skepticism from the international community and allegations Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the country’s de facto ruler — ordered Khashoggi be killed.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that he is “not satisfied” with what he has heard, but that he expects to find out a lot more in the next few days.

“I have a great group people in Turkey right now and a great group of people in Saudi Arabia. We will know very soon,” Trump said.

Trump has said there would be consequences if Saudi Arabia was found to be responsible for Khashoggi’s death, but also made it clear he has no intention of doing anything that would affect lucrative arms deals.

“I don’t want to lose all of that investment that’s being made in our country,” he said Monday.

U.S. media reports said CIA Director Gina Haspel left the United States on Monday to go to Turkey to meet with officials there who are investigating Khashoggi’s death. The Trump administration did not publicly say anything about her trip.

In another development Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met the Saudi crown prince in Riyadh. The Saudi Foreign Ministry posted a photograph of the meeting on its Twitter account. Mnuchin canceled his plans to attend a three-day investment conference hosted by Saudi Arabia beginning on Tuesday, but said he would meet the crown prince to discuss counterterrorism efforts. 

New surveillance video released Monday from Istanbul appears to show a Saudi agent wearing Khashoggi’s clothing and leaving Riyadh’s consulate on October 2 in an apparent attempt to cover up his killing by showing he had left the diplomatic outpost alive.

The video was taken by Turkish law enforcement and shown Monday on CNN. 

The 59-year-old Khashoggi had been living in the United States in self-imposed exile while he wrote columns for The Washington Post that were critical of the Saudi crown prince and Riyadh’s involvement in the conflict in Yemen.

It is not known what happened to his remains, although Turkish officials say he was tortured, decapitated and then dismembered. One Saudi official told ABC News that Khashoggi’s body was given to a “local cooperator” in Istanbul for disposal, but Saudi officials have said they do not know what happened to his remains.

In Washington, White House adviser Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, told CNN the United States is still in a “fact-finding” phase in trying to determine exactly what happened to Khashoggi. 

“We’re getting facts in from multiple places,” Kushner said. He said that Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will then decide how to respond to Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally.
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To Some the Migrant Caravan is a Political Gift

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To supporters of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, news of a caravan of Central American migrants heading to the U.S., just weeks before the U.S. mid-term elections, is a political gift.

“Politically speaking it’s probably going to be an election game changer, because nothing is more powerful, more potent than the idea of uncontrolled masses of people surging into your country,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates for stricter enforcement policies to curb illegal immigration.

By Monday, the number of the migrants in the caravan had swelled to more than 7,000. Most are Hondurans. Many are hoping to seek asylum in the United States from the violence and poverty in their country. 

Over the weekend, thousands of migrants crossed Guatemala’s border into Mexico by breaking through fences, pushing by Mexican police in riot gear and refusing offers of aid and possible asylum in Mexico.

President Trump called the migrant caravan a “national emergency” in a tweet on Monday.

In other tweets he has threatened to cut off aid to the region, and to use the U.S. military to completely shut down the border with Mexico if the caravan is not stopped. And he implied that failing to prevent what he called an “assault on our country” could undermine his support for the recently renegotiated free trade agreement with Mexico. 

Election issue

Much of this rhetoric is political. The president is trying to make the migrant caravan a prominent election issue to underscore his tough immigration policies and his demand for building a wall along the U.S. Mexico border.

“The Democrats want caravans. They like the caravans,” said Trump at a political campaign rally in Nevada on Friday.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted over the weekend that the president is just trying to change the subject away from issues he sees as losing for Republicans.

Meanwhile, immigrant rights advocates are expressing concern for the safety and security of the migrant group, which includes women and children.

“I think the caravan becomes an excuse for the president to ratchet up his rhetoric that is quite hostile and demonizing of immigrants, and gets to take away their humanity,” said Royce Bernstein Murray, with the American Immigration Council.

Despite the rhetoric surrounding the migrant caravan, the American Immigration Council says illegal immigration levels into the U.S. are not increasing. It is just that now migrant groups are made up more of families fleeing violence in countries like Honduras, which has one of the world’s highest murder rate. And they tend to travel together for safety. During a caravan in April, the numbers of migrants decreased significantly as they got closer to the U.S. border.

​Unfortunate timing

There has also been speculation that caravan organizers may also be trying to gather large numbers of migrants to garner media coverage of the increasingly dangerous and impoverished situation in Central America, as well as for protection. 

Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke of the “apparent political motivation of some (caravan) organizers” without giving specifics.

By portraying the caravan as a looming illegal immigration onslaught, anti-immigrant activists hope to energize Republican voters who support tougher border security policies, and mitigate widespread criticism of Trump’s past policy of separating migrant families at the border.

“Trump is very successful at shifting blame, quite correctly, that the opposition to family detention to detaining minors, which created a short term public relations problem, in fact was the solution because of the deterrent value,” said Stein.

Immigrant advocates admit it is unfortunate the caravan may shift public focus away from the need to more fairly and humanely reform the immigration system and to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of poverty and violence. 

“The timing is tricky no doubt, and it does play into the rhetoric of “us versus them” scenario. My hope is that it also becomes an opportunity for us to focus on this issue,” said Bernstein Murray.
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