Month: August 2019

It was music to the ears of Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson. 

The British will be able to strike a “fantastic deal” with the United States once Britain has thrown off the “anchor” of the European Union, U.S. President Donald Trump told Johnson during a convivial bilateral meeting at the G-7 summit in the French resort of Biarritz, where they breakfasted Sunday on scrambled eggs and veal sausages.

“We’re going to do a very big trade deal, bigger than we’ve ever had with the U.K., and now at some point they won’t have the obstacle, they won’t have the anchor around their ankle, because that’s what they have,” Trump said. 

Later, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said the special relationship had “never been stronger.” 

“Enjoyed accompanying Donald Trump at his working breakfast with Boris Johnson where we collaborated on ways to further deepen our security and economic relationship with the UK,” Bolton tweeted. 

 The U.S. embrace was welcome news for Johnson, who has invested politically in a close relationship with Trump and presented a fast-tracked Anglo-American trade deal as a major ingredient in the “global Britain” future he and other Brexiters have advertised. 

Johnson has been buoyed by Trump’s praise of him since he succeeded Theresa May as prime minister. The U.S. leader has described him as “Britain Trump” and talked enthusiastically about the trans-Atlantic partnership the pair will forge.

Widening rifts

For a Britain struggling to work out its place in the world after it relinquishes its membership in the European Union, set for Oct. 31, the future challenge will be to balance relations between the U.S. and Europe, analysts say.

Johnson can’t afford to fall out with Britain’s European neighbors, especially if he wants to find a way out of the Brexit impasse and leave on good terms with the EU and a future trade deal.

Maintaining the balance won’t be easy amid widening rifts between Washington and Brussels on a host of key issues, including climate change, relations with Russia, rising nationalism, the role of multilateralism, and raging economic warfare between the U.S. and China. 

Analysts say it will be made trickier by having to deal with a U.S. president who sees diplomacy as a zero-sum game, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who appears eager to define dividing lines between Europe and the U.S.

On Sunday, Macron surprised fellow G-7 leaders by announcing that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would fly to Biarritz for unexpected talks on the summit’s sidelines — a bid to revive the 2015 nuclear accord from which the U.S. withdrew last year.

Britain has long had to navigate between the U.S. and Europe, and since World War II has positioned itself as the diplomatic interface between Washington and the Europeans. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair used to talk about Britain being a trans-Atlantic bridge.  

That go-between role will likely be more difficult to pull off in the coming years, especially if Britain crashes out of the EU acrimoniously and without an exit deal, which analysts say could poison Britain’s relations with Europe.

‘Agonizing choices’ ahead

Brexit has coincided with an apparent inflection point in trans-Atlantic relations, with the U.S. and western Europe drifting further apart with unpredictable policy shifts.

“Agonizing choices face the United Kingdom this year, some of them immediate and obvious,” according to former Conservative lawmaker and columnist Matthew Parris. “But the biggest is less apparent, yet will shape our nation’s future in a way that no wrangles about EU deals ever can. Does Britain’s destiny lie with the States? As two global blocs, Europe and America, diverge, we shall be making that decision whether we know it or not.” 

Britain is as divided on that — whether its future lies with Europe or America  — as it is on the immediate issue of Brexit itself. Do its economic fortunes lie to the West or East? Is it more culturally and philosophically tied with the U.S. or Europe? The dilemma is further complicated by the likelihood that even after Brexit, Europe will remain its single largest trading partner. But Britain will need to compensate for the likely loss of post-Brexit trade with Europe and is eager for a trade deal with the U.S.

At his first G-7 summit as prime minister, Johnson trod a careful line — announcing Britain may be leaving the EU but maintaining that it isn’t leaving Europe. He maintained unity with the Europeans on Iran, climate change, international trade and Russia, pushing back, along with other EU leaders, on Trump’s idea for Russia to be readmitted to the G-7, from which it was ejected after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.

Despite that, Johnson appeared not to disrupt his relationship with Trump. Even British detractors of the new prime minister acknowledged Monday he managed to maintain poise on the geopolitical high wire he has to tread. 

Johnson may have been aided inadvertently by Macron’s decision as summit host not to issue a final communique, avoiding the kind of highly public dust-ups that derailed last year’s event in Canada. 

…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday “there’s a really good chance” he would meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the coming weeks to try to negotiate a new deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear weapons program to replace the 2015 international deal that Trump withdrew from last year.

Trump, speaking at the end of the G-7 summit of top world leaders in France, said, “I think Iran is going to want to meet.”

The U.S. leader said the economic sanctions he reimposed on Iran a year ago “are absolutely hurting them” as Trump has sought to sharply limit Iran’s international oil exports.

But Trump predicated any meeting with Rouhani on the condition that Iran not create more overseas tensions with military advances and attacks. He said a new deal would have to ban Iranian nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing and cover a longer period than the 10-year time frame dictated by the 2015 accord.

Trump Says US Not Interested in Iran Regime Change

The US president was not ready to meet with Iran’s foreign minister in France, but says Iran has ‘chance to be a very special nation’

Trump added, “I have good feelings about Iran…incredible people.” But he said it was too soon to meet over the weekend with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was a surprise visitor at the G-7 summit in the Atlantic coastal town of Biarritz, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

The French leader has been trying to broker U.S.-Iran peace talks. Macron told a joint news conference with Trump that he has had conversations with Rouhani and that the Iranian leader is willing to meet with Trump.

Macron said he had reached the “very cautious” conclusion that Washington and Tehran could reach an agreement if Trump and Rouhani meet.

Macron said France “will play a role” in the U.S.-Iran talks if they occur, along with the other signatories to the 2015 accord Trump pulled out of — Britain, Germany, the European Union, China and Russia.

Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif in Beijing for Talks

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing following a surprise visit to the Group of Seven summit in France

Trump said Zarif’s visit to Biarritz was not a surprise to him.

Trump said he was in contact with Macron and that, “I knew everything he was doing and approved whatever he was doing.”

Macron had met with Zarif on Friday in Paris before the G-7 summit opened, but Macron invited him back to the site of the summit after tense exchanges among the world leaders about Iran at their Saturday night dinner.

Iran and the United States have been in a state of heightened strained relations since Trump withdrew last year from the international agreement that restrained Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump then added more sanctions, particularly targeting Iran’s key oil sector, that have hobbled the country’s economy.

Trump said Monday he is not seeking “regime change” in Iran, but wants the country to “stop terrorism.”

“I think they’re going to change.  I really do.  I believe they have a chance to be a very special nation,” Trump said.

Macron had lunch with Trump Saturday, and, according to French sources, outlined his plan to ease the West’s tensions with Iran. The French leader is calling for allowing Iran to export its oil for a short time, fully implement the 2015 agreement, reduce conflict in the Gulf region and open new talks.

Macron on Monday said Iran would need new funding to help stabilize its economy. Trump said that would not include outright cash grants but rather letters of credit that “would be paid back very quickly.”

…

The Justice Department is moving forward to expand the number of marijuana growers for federally-authorized cannabis research.
 
Uttam Dhillon, the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, says Monday’s move would give researchers a wider variety of cannabis to study. He says the DEA supports additional marijuana research.
 
The DEA says the number of people registered to conduct research with marijuana and extracts has jumped more than 40 percent in the last two years. The agency is also planning to propose new regulations to govern the marijuana growers’ program.
 
Researchers at federally-funded entities have faced legal barriers in recent years because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, even as a growing number of states have legalized medical and so-called recreational marijuana.

…

At a meeting of leaders of the most advanced democracies in Biarritz, France, deep divisions are coming out into the open between U.S. President Donald Trump and his counterparts on issues including the trade war with China, how to handle Iran and bringing Russia back into the group. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara is there covering the G-7 summit and brings this report

…

A former Republican Congressman says he’ll launch a primary challenge to US President Donald Trump in 2020. Joe Walsh is now the second candidate to unveil a challenge to President Trump from within his own party, as VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff tells us in this report

…

Astronaut Anne McClain has denied reports that she may have committed the first crime in space.

McClain’s estranged wife, Summer Worden, accused the astronaut of accessing her bank account while on a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station, The New York Times first reported.

“There’s unequivocally no truth to these claims,” McClain wrote on Twitter. “We’ve been going through a painful, personal separation that’s now unfortunately in the media.”

McClain’s lawyer told investigators that the astronaut had accessed the bank records while aboard the ISS in order to monitor the couple’s combined finances — something she had done over the course of their relationship, the Times reported.

Worden has not accused McClain of moving or using the money in the account she accessed, the Times reported.

Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing McClain of identity theft for improperly viewing the account. Soon after, her family filed a second complaint with NASA’s Office of Inspector General.

NASA has touted McClain’s accomplishments saying, “”Lt Col. Anne McClain has an accomplished military career, flew combat missions in Iraq and is one of NASA’s top astronauts.”

…

President Donald Trump is threatening to use the emergency authority granted by a powerful but obscure federal law to make good on his tweeted “order” to U.S. businesses to cut ties in China amid a spiraling trade war between the two nations.

China’s announcement Friday that it was raising tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. imports sent Trump into a rage and White House aides scrambling for a response.

Trump fired off on Twitter, declaring American companies “are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China.” He later clarified that he was threatening to make use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in the trade war, raising questions about the wisdom and propriety of making the 1977 act used to target rogue regimes, terrorists and drug traffickers the newest weapon in the clash between the world’s largest economies.

It would mark the latest grasp of authority by Trump, who has claimed widespread powers not sought by his predecessors despite his own past criticism of their use of executive powers.

“For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977,” Trump tweeted late Friday. “Case closed!”

For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2019

The act gives presidents wide berth in regulating international commerce during times of declared national emergencies. Trump threatened to use those powers earlier this year to place tariffs on imports from Mexico in a bid to force the U.S. neighbor to do more to address illegal crossings at their shared border.

It was not immediately clear how Trump could use the act to force American businesses to move their manufacturing out of China and to the U.S, and Trump’s threat appeared premature — as he has not declared an emergency with respect to China.

Even without the emergency threat, Trump’s retaliatory action Friday — further raising tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. — had already sparked widespread outrage from the business community.

“It’s impossible for businesses to plan for the future in this type of environment,” David French, senior vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation, said in a statement.

The Consumer Technology Association called the escalating tariffs “the worst economic mistake since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 — a decision that catapulted our country into the Great Depression.”

And trade association CompTIA stressed the logistical strain that would follow if companies were forced to shift operations out of China, saying it would take months for most companies.

“Any forced immediate action would result in chaos,” CEO Todd Thibodeaux said in emailed comments.

The frequent tariff fluctuations are making it hard to plan and are casting uncertainty on some investments, said Peter Bragdon, executive vice president and chief administration officer of Columbia Sportswear.

“There’s no way for anyone to plan around chaos and incoherence,” he said.

Columbia manufactures in more than 20 countries, including China. This diversification helps shield the company from some fluctuations, but China is an important base for serving Chinese customers as well as those in other countries, Bragdon said. The company plans to continue doing business there.

“We follow the rule of law, not the rule of Twitter,” he said.

Presidents have often used the act to impose economic sanctions to further U.S. foreign policy and national security goals. Initially, the targets were foreign states or their governments, but over the years the act has been increasingly used to punish individuals, groups and non-state actors, such as terrorists.

Some of the sanctions have affected U.S. businesses by prohibiting Americans from doing business with those targeted. The act also was used to block new investment in Burma in 1997.

Congress has never attempted to end a national emergency invoking the law, which would require a joint resolution. Congressional lawmakers did vote earlier this year to disapprove of Trump’s declared emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border, only to see Trump veto the resolution.

China’s Commerce Ministry issued a statement Saturday condemning Trump’s threat, saying, “This kind of unilateral, bullying trade protectionism and maximum pressure go against the consensus reached by the two countries’ heads of state, violate the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, and seriously damage the multilateral trading system and normal international trade order.”

…

U.S. President Donald Trump is in Biarritz, France, for the G-7 summit, where he will be meeting world leaders who oppose his stances on many issues, including tariffs, Brexit, climate protection, China, Iran and Russia. 

But in this meeting of the leaders of the world’s major industrialized countries, there could be areas of cooperation where Trump is willing to offer support, or at least not resist: women’s empowerment and Africa. 

French President Emmanuel Macron, as the G-7 2019 president and summit host, has chosen combating inequality as the theme, with gender equality and partnership with Africa as key issues. He will be pushing several initiatives, including the Biarritz Partnership for Gender Equality and Partnership for the African Sahel. Macron also will be calling for renewed support for Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa. 

Despite Trump’s skepticism of foreign aid and his rejection of globalism, including his famous statement in front of the 2018 U.N. General Assembly that the U.S. “will not tell you how to live or work or worship,” his administration has indicated it may support at least some of these initiatives, noting that the White House has launched similar efforts. 

On Sunday Trump will participate in a G-7 working lunch on inequality and a session on the partnership with Africa later in the afternoon. 

Biarritz partnership for gender equality 

Earlier this year, Macron formed a G-7 Gender Equality Advisory Council whose members include Executive Director of U.N. Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and gender equality activist and actor Emma Watson. The council is tasked with identifying legislative measures worldwide to combat gender violence and discrimination, as well as to improve girls’ access to education and support women’s economic empowerment. 

Macron is pushing countries to join the partnership and adopt the laws and public policies identified by the council. 

He also will call for renewed support for African women’s credit financing through the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa initiative, a pan-African mechanism to reduce the cost of accessing credit and bridge the $42 billion financing gap being faced by women on the continent. 

The White House has not announced whether it will sign on to any of the G-7 initiatives on gender equality. But a senior administration official told reporters that global women’s empowerment is a “huge priority for this administration” and a message “we really want to drive home this weekend in France,” citing the launch of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) initiative and commitment as a founding member to We-Fi, a partnership hosted by the World Bank Group to finance women entrepreneurs. 

W-GDP was launched by the White House in February 2019, and it is billed as “the first whole-of-government effort to advance global women’s economic empowerment.” 

The president’s daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump, is leading the administration’s efforts on global women’s empowerment.

Renewed focus on Africa 

Africa is Europe’s immediate neighbor, and instability on the southern side of the Mediterranean has an impact on the northern side, with the migrant crisis being the most visible example. 

With that in mind, Germany and France are proposing a new partnership with Africa, including an initiative to enhance international commitment for the Sahel, a region facing multiple challenges ranging from the impact of climate change to the threat of terrorism. 

The G-5 Sahel countries are Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. 

Macron also has invited Senegal, Egypt, Burkina Faso, South Africa and Rwanda to join the G-7 countries in discussions about issues important to the continent. 

The formal invitation of African partners to the G-7 “opens an opportunity to drive forward key items on the African agenda, where priorities should be placed, how they should be financed, what the necessary coalitions for success are,” Yvonne Mburu told VOA. Mburu is founder and CEO of Nexakli, a global network of African health professionals and member of Macron’s Presidential Council of Africa. 

Mburu said the litmus test would be whether there will be measurable outcomes from the G-7 deliberations, and whether there is an accompanying mobilization of financial resources. 

Sahel Alliance 

At the summit, G-7 leaders will be encouraged to join the Sahel Alliance, which seeks to economically develop the region and strengthen support for members’ national security. 

The U.S. government has already expressed doubts about financing a new U.N.-backed mission in the Sahel, but it might be open to the new format of cooperation that the French team wants to discuss, said Karoline Postel-Vinay, a research professor at the Paris-based institute Sciences Po. “However, as we now know, American foreign strategy seems predictably unpredictable,” she added. 

Despite not outwardly obstructing the G-7 agenda on Africa, it’s unclear how much substantive support the administration would provide. 

A White House statement ahead of the summit applauded the efforts of partners and the international community to promote peace and stability in Africa but did not mention whether the U.S. would provide additional economic or security assistance in the Sahel as called for by Macron. 

The White House instead pointed to its Prosper Africa private-financing initiative and the BUILD Act as proof of the administration’s commitment. The law was passed in 2018 and aims to facilitate private capital in developing low-income economies. 

Analysts say the administration’s policy on Africa is focused more on investment, in particular in the context of countering China. 

While it hasn’t abandoned any of the pillars of focus that previous administrations have had on the continent, the Trump administration is “doing less with less,” said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“The administration is running the traps on some of the security stuff,” said Devermont, “but without the same robustness of previous administrations and certainly not anywhere near where we were in democracy and governance.” 

He added that Trump does not have the personal connection that President Barack Obama had with the continent, nor the interest in development that President George W. Bush had. 

On Thursday, Trump scrapped a proposal to freeze more than $4 billion in foreign aid after objections from lawmakers of both parties and his own Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Divisions elsewhere 

While there may be some consensus on gender equality and Africa, there clearly are deep divisions between members. 

For the first time in its history, this summit will not produce a joint communique amid deepening divisions between leaders over myriad issues. 

…

Six people were injured Saturday when lightning struck a 60-foot pine at the Tour Championship where they were taking cover from rain and showered them with debris, Atlanta police said. 

The third round of the season-ending PGA Tour event at East Lake Golf Club had been suspended for about 30 minutes because of storms in the area, and fans were instructed to seek shelter. The strike hit the top of the tree just off the 16th tee and shattered the bark all the way to the bottom. 

Ambulances streamed into the private club about 6 miles east of downtown Atlanta. The players already had been taken into the clubhouse before the lightning hit. 

Brad Uhl of Atlanta was among those crammed under a hospital tent to the right of the 16th hole that was open to the public. 

“There was just a big explosion and then an aftershock so strong you could feel the wind from it,” Uhl said after the last of the ambulances pulled out of the golf course. “It was just a flash out of the corner of the eye.” 

Atlanta police spokesman James H. White III said five men and one female juvenile were injured in the lightning strike. He said they were taken to hospitals for further treatment, all of them alert, conscious and breathing. 

The PGA Tour canceled the rest of golf Saturday, with the round to resume at 8 a.m. Sunday, followed by the final round. 

Last week at the BMW Championship in the Chicago suburbs, Phil Mickelson was delayed getting to the golf course when lightning struck the top of his hotel, causing a precautionary evacuation. 

…

This is the second story in a series on how the U.S. government’s Migrant Protection Protocols are being carried out in Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Read the first story here.

VOA News Center Immigration Reporter Ramon Taylor, and VOA Spanish Service reporters Jorge Agobian and Celia Mendoza contributed to this report.

Like border cities everywhere, Nuevo Laredo is a portal. People and merchandise cross the five road and rail bridges between the U.S. and Mexico every day, in both directions, for work, school, business meetings, shopping, family visits, doctor appointments – the quotidian building blocks of life along the Rio Grande.

Pay 25 cents and you can walk right across Puente #1, as it’s known colloquially, in a few minutes if you’re in a rush and there’s no line at the immigration agent desks.

Formally the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge, it links Laredo’s historic city center neighborhood of San Agustin, to the commercial strip of shops, pharmacies and low-key lunchtime restaurants on Nuevo Laredo’s Avenida Guerrero.

It’s at the end of this bridge, when entering Mexico from the U.S., in the parking lot built for buses and trucks at the Mexican immigration agency’s customs office, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have dropped off migrants and asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico under the Trump administration’s Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) policy to wait for their immigration court dates.

“In Nuevo Laredo, we’re used to seeing a lot of migrants (traveling through), historically,” said Raul Cárdenas Thomae, secretary of the Nuevo Laredo city council. “But in the last few months, the number of people crossing into the U.S. has definitely increased.”

Register in Mexico

At first, asylum-seekers would register with Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, which in turn would share lists of the asylum-seekers with the U.S. government, Cárdenas Thomae said. The list would allow the asylum-seekers to schedule an initial hearing with a U.S. immigration judge.

Beginning on July 9, however, Nuevo Laredo began receiving people from the other direction under the Trump administration’s new policy. Since then, more than 3,000 asylum-seekers who had crossed into the U.S. and are awaiting immigration court dates have been returned to Mexico under the MPP policy.

Moreover, migrants aren’t the only — or even the main — issue for local government for this city of about 400,000.

Nuevo Laredo maintains a prickly balance among massive amounts of transnational business, politics, migration and organized crime, and it’s long been a base for the Los Zetas cartel, whose activities are deeply entrenched in the city’s fabric.

Nuevo Laredo Mayor Enrique Rivas Cuéllar said every city has its dangers, its risks. But the city is not the one that is pushing migrants to leave, he insists.

“We obviously can’t force anyone not to be in the city of Nuevo Laredo, but what we can be strict about is that the laws are followed; that there is an order that doesn’t disrupt the rights of others,” he told VOA.

Officials didn’t know how many people to expect. At one point, local officials understood they might receive as many as 15,000 returnees, Cardenas Thomae said. Moreover, they don’t know how long people will stay — or even if they will stay.

Buses to Monterrey

The Mexican government at first provided buses from Nuevo Laredo to Monterrey, a 270-kilometer (168-mile)  journey that takes about three hours to drive. The buses were an option for migrants; no one was forced on board.

Beginning earlier this month, though, the buses that showed up at the bridge drop-off site were bound for Chiapas, the Mexican state bordering Guatemala, which in turn, borders Honduras and El Salvador.

The Homeland Security Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to multiple VOA requests for comment on Mexico’s busing plan and concerns over how people would be able to return for their U.S. court dates.

Calling the busing plan “voluntary,” said Maureen Meyer, director of Mexico programs at the Washington Office on Latin America, a Washington-based human rights organization, “seems hard to justify when the people aren’t even very clear on what they’re going into.”

Meyer traveled to Chiapas this month to see the buses from Nuevo Laredo arrive, after a more than 30-hour trip. Mexican immigration agents at the border with Guatemala seemed confused about what they should advise the busloads of people, she told VOA.

The arrival also raised issues for the migrants themselves, each theoretically with a U.S. court date in the coming months. Being closer to home could mean a place to shower and regroup, or pick up more paperwork for their cases. However, they often don’t understand that even a brief return home could weaken their asylum cases, Meyer said.

Behind the scenes, CBP officials, journalists, shelter directors, politicians, and immigration lawyers are asking questions about how MPP functions. Unlike CBP and DHS officials, though, Nuevo Laredo municipality officials were willing to not only talk, but sit down for interviews on camera and address MPP.

The migrants themselves don’t have access to these discussions, though, or to people whom they could ask questions. They have some paperwork that in some cases they don’t understand, or don’t trust, such as a list of free or low-cost lawyers from CBP. The migrants have often thrown away their cellphones before crossing the river and haven’t seen the news in weeks or months.

Immigration attorneys acknowledge that even if the migrants could get cellphone service in Mexico, and can pay for phone credit, there’s a good chance they couldn’t get a lawyer. Border attorneys are stretched thin, and the length of some asylum cases — which can take years — makes it difficult for outside lawyers to connect with potential clients.

US Border Patrol

The long wait may push people to reattempt a stealth border crossing, possibly in a more dangerously remote area.

“I envision a time where everybody… (is) going to try and traverse and evade apprehension and become part of this smuggling effort that happens on this side of the border, as opposed to just on the Mexican side of the border,” Del Rio Sector U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said.

Meanwhile, the migrants and asylum-seekers are still arriving to Nuevo Laredo, and still deciding how and where to wait out the months until their first hearing.

Lilian, a Honduran woman traveling with her 9-year-old son, said the group dropped off at Puente #1 on August 8 was told if they didn’t get on the buses to Chiapas, they would be put out on the street.

She and her son, along with a woman and her children in the CBP facility, did not get on the bus, but headed to another Mexican city.

“What I don’t want is to go back to Honduras. … If we go to Chiapas, how much is it going to cost me to come back? I don’t have that kind of money,” said Lilian, who was given a November court date.

…

Kim Dong-hyun and Han Sang-mi contributed to this report, which originated with VOA’s Korean Service.

WASHINGTON — Seoul’s decision to end a military intelligence pact with Tokyo could have far-reaching consequences that could put its own security at risk, reducing its ability to defend against potential North Korean aggression, experts say.

Seoul announced Thursday it would terminate an intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo, attributing the move to Japan’s decision to remove South Korea from its “white list” of favored trading partners earlier this month. 

Japan’s decision “brought about fundamental changes to the environment for security cooperation between the two countries,” Kim You-geun, deputy director of South Korean National Security Council, said Thursday.

Trade feud, historical animosity

Seoul and Tokyo have been escalating a trade feud since early July. The disagreement is rooted in historical animosity stemming from Japanese companies’ use of South Korean forced labor during its colonial rule on the peninsula and during World War II.

The termination announcement came a day before a deadline Saturday of a 90-day notice period for one side to tell the other if it intends to cancel the arrangement. The deal automatically renews annually if no notice is given.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn, in an email sent to VOA Thursday, urged the two U.S. allies to work together, emphasizing, “Intel sharing is key to developing our common defense policy and strategy.”

What is GSOMIA?

Under the bilateral accord, known as the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), signed in 2016, South Korea and Japan agreed to exchange sensitive military information to respond more efficiently to potential threats posed by North Korea, China and Russia. Washington has separate intelligence-sharing deals with both countries. 

David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel and current fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said South Korea would suffer “the worst” from its decision to terminate the agreement that would impede the trilateral cooperation in the region.

The end of the agreement, according to Maxwell, means the three countries will be hampered in their ability to have open three-way talks on detecting early warning signs of North Korea’s missile launches, countering its weapons proliferation, and conducting operations against its sanctions evasion.

Although information can be shared using the U.S. as an intermediary, the flow will be slow or severed if South Korea or Japan asks the U.S. not to share its information with the other, Maxwell added.

“This plays into Kim Jong Un’s (and Chinese and Russian) hands to disrupt U.S. alliance,” he said.

While testing missiles this month, North Korea called on South Korea to abandon its intelligence pact, signed with Japan under the conservative government of Park Geun-hye, who preceded current South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

“It is rather abnormal that the agreement of betraying the country signed by Park Geun-hye … still exists without being abrogated,” said North Korea’s propaganda outlet, Uriminzokkiri. 

Dangerous consequences

Terminating the pact could have dangerous consequences if a crisis erupted on the Korean Peninsula, said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp. An example would be if American troops would need to be brought from the U.S. and routed through Japanese air force bases, requiring three-way communications through a confidential network.

“That’s all going to be coordinated very closely,” Bennett said. “It’s not going to be coordinated by open radio calls … that would tell North Korea what to hit next. So we need to have the GSOMIA to be able to coordinate in a classified manner in terms of the deployment of U.S. forces. And that’s what the South Korean government is risking by saying it won’t renew the GSOMIA.”

Bennett, citing a South Korean military white paper, said the U.S. would need to bring about 690,000 troops to South Korea during a conflict with North Korea. The estimated number is more than the 28,000 American soldiers stationed in South Korea.

South Korea has about 17 airfield bases that can be used to bring in troops from the U.S. during wartime, Bennett said, but they are “not an adequate [number of] airfield structures to deploy forces rapidly.”

South Korea has 20 airfields, but among them, Gimpo and Incheon are within North Korean artillery range and thus cannot be used to land U.S. forces, Bennett said, adding that another airfield on Jeju Island would not be suitable either if the troops needed to fight on the peninsula.

“Are we going to have arrangements with Japan to help us use Japan’s bases and infrastructure to bring those forces to Korea?” Bennett asked. “Because if we don’t, that’s going to significantly slow the ability of U.S. forces to get to Korea and could put Korea at a disadvantage for a period of time.”

Seoul decided to scrap the intelligence-sharing agreement despite these risks, Bennett said, because it believes it will “be able to peacefully coexist with North Korea.” He added South Korea “doesn’t have other places where it’s got a lot of leverage on the Japanese” as a way to retaliate against Tokyo in their trade dispute.

…

For years, dozens of scammers from Nigeria and other countries swindled millions of dollars from U.S. businesses and individuals, funneling the stolen money through accounts provided by two fellow Nigerian “brokers” based in Los Angeles.

In the burgeoning underworld of online fraud, Nigerian nationals Velentine Iro and Chukwudi Christogunus Igbokwe were well-known operators who went by a raft of pseudonyms, including “Iro Enterprises” and “Chris Kudon.”

Between 2014 and 2018, Iro and Igbokwe, working with nearly 80 other international swindlers, facilitated a series of schemes that resulted in the theft of at least $6 million and the attempted theft of $40 million more from victims in more than 10 countries, according to a 252-count federal indictment unsealed Thursday.

The scammers victimized individuals and small and large businesses. In targeting businesses, they used a tactic called “business email compromise,” also known as CEO fraud. Under that scheme, a fraudster gains access to a company’s computer system and then, posing as a company executive, tricks an employee into making an unauthorized wire transfer into a bank account the fraudster controls.

The victims

The indictment documents several corporate victims.

In 2014, a San Diego clothing distributor wired nearly $46,000 into a bank account controlled by one of the scammers, believing it was paying a Chinese vendor for an order of men’s shirts.

In 2016, an unidentified Texas company was tricked into wiring $187,000 into a fraudulent account. The company thought it was making a payment for an oil extraction equipment order.

The conspiracy also targeted the elderly and victims of so-called romance scams.

For example, in 2016 a Japanese woman, identified in court documents as F.K., lost more than $200,000 during a 10-month romance scam with a fraudster who impersonated a U.S. Army captain stationed in Syria.

In 2017, an 86-year-old man with dementia and Alzheimer’s wired nearly $12,000 to a bank account controlled by one of the fraudsters.

The Justice Department unsealed the indictment after the arrest of 14 people, including Iro and Igbokwe, early Thursday. Three others were already in custody. Six defendants remain at large in the United States, while authorities are working with partners in nine other countries to arrest 57 others, most of whom are believed to be in Nigeria.

Nigerian statement

In a statement, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Nigerian in Diaspora Commission Chief, urged “those accused in Nigeria to voluntarily turn themselves in to American authorities to clear their names.” She added that Nigeria should extradite the defendants “if relevant international treaties between the two governments are invoked.”

Citing a Justice Department policy, a department spokeswoman declined to say whether the U.S. has made an extradition request. Since 2014, Nigeria has extradited three people wanted in the United States.

While the sheer number of defendants named in the indictment is extraordinary in an online fraud case, the investigation also shed light on the evolving tactics and growing sophistication of scammers. Once targeting mostly individuals, they are increasingly victimizing businesses.

“They were very inclusive as to the fraud they were perpetrating and laundering money for,” said Alma Angotti, a managing director at the consulting firm Navigant in London who advises government and corporate clients on anti-money laundering strategy.

Pervasive

Online fraud has become increasingly pervasive in recent years. In its annual Internet Crime Report in April, the FBI said online theft, fraud and exploitation were responsible for $2.7 billion in financial losses in 2018, up from $1.4 billion in 2017. Meanwhile, romance scams cost Americans $143 million last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

The Nigerian fraudsters targeted victims around the world, some of whom lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. At least 16 companies were among the victims.

Iro and Igbokwe, the men at the heart of the scam, hail from the Nigerian city of Owerri, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

Many fraudsters knew them from Owerri. Others were directed to them through middlemen.

“I am known all over the world,” Iro once bragged to a fellow Nigerian con artist, according to the complaint. “Even people I never meet before call me and give me better business.”

For swindlers seeking a temporary haven for stolen funds, Iro and his partner allegedly provided a valuable service.

“They would collect bank account information … field requests for bank account information from co-conspirators all over the world, and then send out bank account information to multiple coconspirators,” according to the complaint.

Using a network of “money exchangers,” they then helped the fraudsters funnel the money out of the country.

The men took a cut of 20% to 50% of each transaction. It was a lucrative business.

In 2017, according to the indictment, Iro and Igbokwe sent at least $5 million to the Nigerian accounts of the fraudsters, family members and themselves, according to the complaint.

Evidence seized by the FBI indicates the two men were using the stolen funds to build large houses in Nigeria.

…