Author: Ohart

Surrounded by the millions of monarch butterflies that Mexican environmental activist Homero Gomez Gonzalez fought to protect until his mysterious death, relatives and friends paid tribute to him Thursday.

Gomez Gonzalez’s sudden disappearance two weeks ago had sparked an outcry in Mexico, an increasingly violent country where activists are routinely threatened, harmed or killed as a result of their work.

Gomez Gonzalez, who worked passionately to protect a Mexican forest where monarch butterflies spend the winter, suffered head trauma as well as drowning, authorities announced Thursday night, potentially adding weight to the fears that he was murdered.

Even before the announcement, relatives of Gomez Gonzalez speculated his death wasn’t accidental.

“Something strange is happening, because they’re finishing off all the activists, the people who are doing something for society,” the dead man’s brother, Amado Gomez, said Thursday at the funeral.

Gomez Gonzalez’s body was discovered Wednesday in a holding pond near the mountain forest reserve that he had long protected. Michoacan state prosecutors said that an initial review indicated a drowning and found no signs of trauma, but their latest statement said more detailed autopsy results produced evidence of a head injury.

Authorities gave no other information on the injury and did not say how it might have been inflicted. They said an investigation continued.

Grinding poverty and gang violence fuel twin threats to the butterfly reserve — illegal logging and encroaching plantations of avocados. The latter is the only legal crop that provides a decent income in this region.

Gomez Gonzalez had spent a decade working as an activist, though he became best known for posting mesmerizing videos of the black and orange insects on social media, urging Mexicans to treasure the El Rosario reserve, a world heritage site.

His brother said Gomez Gonzalez, an engineer, was so compelled to do something after the number of butterflies dropped dramatically that he eventually gave up his job to work on projects aimed at protecting them.

“This was his passion,” his brother said. “He loved promoting the butterflies, filming them, researching them.”

He also worked to persuade about 260 fellow communal land owners that they should replant trees on land cleared for corn plots. By local accounts, he managed to reforest about 150 hectares (370 acres) of previously cleared land.

Like other places in the world, increasingly scarce water also plays a role in the conflict. Gomez Gonzalez and other communal land owners had asked the nearby town of Angangueo for payments in return for water they receive from clear mountain streams that survive only because the forests are protected.

“A lot of the communal landowners fear that with his death, the forests are finished,” Amado Gomez said.

“I would like to ask the authorities to do their job and do more to protect activists like my brother, because lately in Mexico a lot of activists have died,” he said. “With his death, not only my family lost a loved one; but the whole world, and the monarch butterfly and the forests lost, too.”

London-based Global Witness counted 15 killings of environmental activists in Mexico in 2017 and 14 in 2018. In an October 2019 report, Amnesty International said that 12 had been killed in the first nine months of that year.

Millions of monarchs come to the forests of Michoacan and other nearby areas after making the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometer) migration from the United States and Canada. 
They need healthy tree cover to protect them from rain and cold weather.

Reuters contributed to this report.
 

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The U.S. senators weighing the removal of President Donald Trump from office completed a final day of questioning Thursday. The Senate impeachment trial now enters an uncertain phase as Republicans appear to have enough votes to block Democrats’ request to hear testimony from key administration officials. As VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, the final vote in the impeachment trial could quickly follow.
 

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Friday will be a crucial day in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

The trial in the Republican-majority U.S. Senate could end Friday with Trump’s expected acquittal on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Or four Republicans could join 47 Democrats and independents in voting to allow witnesses to testify, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, extending the trial for at least another week and maybe longer.

WATCH: Witness Vote Looms Over Trump Impeachment Trial

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But if the vote to hear witnesses ends in a 50-50 tie, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, the presiding judge, could cast a deciding vote. But that would be unprecedented in an impeachment trial, so no one is sure what will happen.

The lead House impeachment manager, Democrat Adam Schiff, proposed hearing witnesses behind closed doors for no more than a week, saying that would let senators return to regular business.

Republicans have indicated they do not want any witnesses subpoenaed, believing that would drag out the trial and that more evidence could hurt their case.

Will Senate call witnesses?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded earlier this week that he may not have the votes to prevent witnesses from being called. Several moderate Republicans have said they may be interested in hearing what Bolton has to say.

One of them, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said Thursday evening she would vote to allow witnesses. But Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, in a statement released shortly after Collins’ announcement, that there was “no need for more evidence.” 

In a yet-to-be-published book, Bolton said Trump told him he was withholding $391 million in military aid to Ukraine until President Volodymyr Zelenskiy publicly announced an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential political rival of Trump’s in the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats said reaching out to a foreign power to interfere in an election is an impeachable offense.

Trump’s defense

Trump’s lawyers say the president had the right to hold up the aid over concern for corruption in Ukraine and a demand that Europe do more to help Ukraine fight Russian-backed separatists.

Trump’s defense team and the impeachment managers Thursday spent their second day answering questions from the senators, which were read by Roberts.

Roberts refused to ask a question handed in by Kentucky Republican Rand Paul because it reportedly would have identified the whistleblower, whose concern about Trump’s July phone call in which he asked Zelenskiy for a favor led to the president’s impeachment. Paul denied the question would have outed the whistleblower.

Trump’s attorneys continued to argue that nothing the president did concerning Ukraine is impeachable.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone said Democrats are trying to get rid of a president they don’t like, saying it is up to voters to decide whom they want.

When Patrick Philbin, a Trump attorney, said the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was only “a source of information” and not carrying out foreign policy in Ukraine, Schiff called that statement “breathtaking.”

Schiff said the attorneys blew up their whole case by seeming to admit that Giuliani was in Ukraine on a personal political errand for Trump.

Witnesses during the impeachment hearing testified that Giuliani was in Ukraine to pressure officials to investigate Biden for corruption even when no evidence against the former vice president ever surfaced.

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Tokyo prosecutors issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Nissan’s former chairman Carlos Ghosn, who skipped bail while awaiting trial in Japan and is now in Lebanon.

Japan has no extradition treaty with Lebanon, so he’s unlikely to be arrested. Lebanon has indicated it will not hand over Ghosn.

Tokyo prosecutors also issued arrest warrants for three Americans they said helped and planned his escape, Michael Taylor, George-Antoine Zayek and Peter Taylor.

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Takahiro Saito declined to say where the three men were thought to be staying. He said Michael Taylor and George Zayek are suspected of helping Ghosn flee by hiding him in cargo at a Japanese airport and getting him into a private jet to leave the country.

Saito would not say if Japan has asked U.S. authorities for help, though he said all options were being explored. Japan and the U.S. have an extradition treaty.

Michael Taylor is a former Green Beret and private security specialist. Peter Taylor appears to be his son. Security footage released earlier showed Zayek and Taylor transiting Istanbul Airport at the same time Ghosn allegedly passed through Turkey on his way to Beirut.

Prosecutors suspect Peter Taylor met several times with Ghosn in Tokyo, starting in July last year, to plot his escape. Saito said Ghosn was given a key to a hotel room in Osaka near the Kansai Airport that Ghosn left from.

Prosecutors say Ghosn broke the law by violating bail conditions that required him to stay in Japan, mostly at his Tokyo home.

“We want to stress that the act of fleeing was clearly wrong,” Saito told reporters. “We need to erase the misunderstanding.”

Separately, Saito said prosecutors on Wednesday forced open a lock to search the Tokyo office of Ghosn’s former defense lawyer Junichiro Hironaka for records of people Ghosn met with while out on bail, and other materials. Prosecutors are asking a judge for help in accessing contents of a computer Ghosn used at Hironaka’s office that the lawyer has refused to hand over, citing attorney-client privilege.

Ghosn has said he is innocent of allegations he under-reported his future income and committed a breach of trust by diverting Nissan money for his personal gain. He says the compensation was never decided on or received, and the Nissan payments were for legitimate business purposes.

Ghosn has lashed out at the Japanese judicial system, saying he fled because he could not expect a fair trial, was subjected to unfair conditions in detention and was barred from meeting his wife under his bail conditions.

He contends others at Nissan Motor Co., which he led for two decades, drove him out to prevent a fuller merger with its French alliance partner Renault.

Ghosn’s dramatic escape, while under the watch of surveillance cameras inside and outside his home is an embarrassment for Japanese authorities.

He is believed to have traveled by train to Osaka and then left via Kansai Airport, reportedly by hiding in a box for audio or musical equipment. Ghosn has not shared specifics of his escape.

The maximum penalty under Japanese law for illegally leaving the country is one year in prison or 300,000 yen ($2,750) in fines, or both. The maximum penalty for hiding a criminal or helping a criminal escape is three years in prison or 300,000 yen ($2,750) in fines.  

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in London on the cusp of Britain’s departure from the European Union for talks focused on a post-Brexit free trade deal and the U.K.’s decision to allow the Chinese tech company Huawei to play a role in the country’s high-speed wireless network.

As President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial nears a close in Washington, Pompeo was to meet British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday to re-register American concerns about Huawei and the possibility that its entry into the market could affect U.S.-Britain intelligence cooperation. Pompeo and Johnson are also expected to discuss Iran, Trump’s Middle East peace plan, Libya and Venezuela.

U.S. officials said they believed the British decision on Huawei wouldn’t greatly affect negotiations on a trade deal, but could hurt other aspects of the relationship upon which Britain is counting after its divorce from the EU that takes effect on Friday.

“We were urging them to make a decision that was different than the one that they made, and now we’ll have a conversation about how to proceed,” Pompeo told reporters traveling with him on the trip to Europe and Central Asia that will also take him to Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

“Our view of Huawei has been that putting it in your system creates real risk,” Pompeo said. “This is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party with a legal requirement to hand over information to the Chinese Communist Party.”

“We’ll evaluate what the United Kingdom did,” he said. “It’s a little unclear precisely what they’re going to permit and not permit, so we need to take a little bit of time to evaluate that. But our view is that we should have Western systems with Western rules, and American information only should pass through trusted networks, and we’ll make sure we do that.”

The U.S. has been lobbying European allies to ban Huawei over concerns it could be compelled to help with electronic eavesdropping after Beijing enacted a 2017 national intelligence law. U.S. officials also worry that 5G networks would rely heavily on software, leaving them open to vulnerabilities, and have repeatedly warned they would have to reconsider intelligence sharing with allies that use Huawei. The company has denied the allegations.

On Tuesday, Britain decided to let Huawei have a limited role supplying new high-speed network equipment to wireless carriers, ignoring Washington’s warnings that it would sever intelligence sharing if the company wasn’t banned.

Britain’s decision was the first by a major U.S. ally in Europe, and follows intense lobbying from the Trump administration as the U.S. vies with China for technological dominance.

“There’s big, broad national security issues,” Pompeo said. “Our militaries operate together. There are enormous trade issues. There’s big commercial issues. And there are obviously issues that relate to telecoms and their security.”

Trump has pledged that the U.S. and Britain will negotiate a major free-trade deal as soon as Brexit is complete and officials have already begun discussions on the plan.

Britain will leave the EU on Friday after 47 years of membership, becoming the first country to leave the bloc.

The London stop is the first on a five-nation tour of Europe and Central Asia that Pompeo is making.

The centerpiece of the trip will be a two-day stop in Ukraine that begins later Thursday when Pompeo will become the most senior U.S. official to visit Kyiv and meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since the impeachment process began last year.

Ukraine is at the center of the impeachment charges against Trump who is accused of obstructing Congress and abuse of office for withholding critical military aid to the country in exchange for an investigation into alleged corruption by the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival. Those allegations got a boost earlier this week when a manuscript of former national security adviser John Bolton’s upcoming book was revealed to echo the claim.

The Senate is expected to vote on hearing impeachment witnesses, including possibly Bolton, on Friday. Bolton maintains that Trump was in fact withholding the aid in exchange for a public pledge of a probe into Biden as witnesses testified before the House impeachment inquiry.

Ukraine has been delicate subject for Pompeo, who over the weekend lashed out at a National Public Radio reporter for asking questions about why he has not publicly defended the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post early after unsubstantiated allegations were made against her by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani.

Pompeo has twice postponed earlier planned trips to Ukraine, most recently in early January when developments with Iran forced him to cancel. In Kyiv, Pompeo said he plans to discuss the issue of corruption but demurred when asked if he would specifically raise the Bidens or the energy company Burisma for which Hunter Biden worked.

“I don’t want to talk about particular individuals. It’s not worth it,” he said. “It’s a long list in Ukraine of corrupt individuals and a long history there. And President Zelenskiy has told us he’s committed to it. The actions he’s taken so far demonstrate that, and I look forward to having a conversation about that with him as well.”

 

 

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For the third time in one week, a World Health Organization Emergency Committee will meet to decide whether the new coronavirus poses a global health threat.  The latest number of confirmed cases has risen to 7,700, including 170 deaths. 

The two previous emergency meetings ended inconclusively.  WHO experts were split on whether the spread of the coronavirus was large enough to constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.  But this quickly evolving disease may change some of the doubters’ minds.

WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praises the strong response taken by the Chinese government to try to stop the epidemic.  This includes the lockdown of Wuhan city, the epicenter of the disease and other cities in the country where the virus has been identified.

But he acknowledges that events on the ground in China and abroad are moving too quickly to be ignored.  He says the emergence of any new pathogen with the potential to cause severe illness and death is of grave concern and must be taken with utmost seriousness.

“The continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China, are, of course, both deeply concerning.  Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak,” he said. 

So far, at least 70 cases of coronavirus have been found in more than a dozen countries, including the United States.  All of these cases are being imported by travelers from China.  An increasing number of countries are screening arriving passengers for infections and isolating them for the two-week incubation period.

Executive director of WHO health emergencies program, Michael Ryan, says the situation is very fluid and changing by the hour.  He says the whole world needs to be on the alert now and take whatever action is needed to stop transmission of this deadly virus.

“We are at an important juncture in this event,” he said.  “We, as WHO believe that these chains of transmission can still be interrupted.  This disease is spreading from person-to-person through personal contact between individuals.”  

Ryan says the epidemic can be stemmed through proper hygiene, proper identification of cases, isolation and social distancing.  He says the Emergency Committee will consider the merits of declaring a global public health emergency.

He says the WHO experts are likely to recommend a series of temporary actions for countries to undertake in a coordinated, measured fashion.  He says efforts to end an epidemic are always more effective when countries work together.  

 

 

 

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The United States on Wednesday issued a fresh round of sanctions related to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea, targeting eight individuals and one entity, according to a notice on the U.S. Department of
Treasury’s website.

Such sanctions block assets under United States control and prohibit U.S. individuals and businesses from conducting any transactions with those targeted.

This is a developing story, we will update with more information as soon as it becomes available

 

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The White House has informed former national security adviser John Bolton that his book manuscript appeared to contain “significant amounts of classified information” and could not be published in its current form.

The letter from the White House National Security Council to Bolton’s attorney, Charles Cooper, and seen by Reuters, said the manuscript contained some material that was considered “TOP SECRET.”

“Under federal law and the nondisclosure agreements your client signed as a condition for gaining access to classified information, the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information,” the letter said.

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American officials have recovered the bodies of two U.S. pilots from the site of Monday’s military plane crash in Ghazni province, Afghanistan. It is still unclear why the plane went down in the Taliban-controlled district, but U.S. officials maintain it was not shot down, contrary to Taliban claims. VOA’s Asef Hussaini in Ghazni spoke with the province’s chief of police as well as local officials and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
 

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As Azerbaijan readies for snap parliamentary elections on Feb. 9, journalists are warning that a nearly decade-old crackdown on press freedom is only becoming more acute.

“There is not a single television station or radio channel representing independent or alternative thought in the country,” says Khadija Ismayilova, a Baku-based investigative journalist.

Like other independent reporters in the Southern Caucasus nation, Ismayilova, who served two years in prison for investigative reports about corruption among state officials, is increasingly concerned about the ruling elite’s control of most local media outlets.

Without non-partisan publications to report on upcoming elections, she said, individuals instead seek information and engage civil discourse on social media, where they risk severe consequences for expressing views that aren’t aligned with the government narrative.

“It is media’s duty to create conditions for the voters so that they can make informed choices, study the candidates, their platforms, and have the ability to compare those candidate,” Ismayilova says. “It has been a while since we witnessed an election debate in Azerbaijan.”

In 2009, President Ilham Aliyev’s government banned Western broadcasters such as RFE/RL, BBC and Voice of America from local frequencies, significantly diminishing the reach of these outlets to the Azerbaijani audience.

At the time, U.S. State Department called the move a “a serious setback to freedom of speech,” a concern reiterated by subsequent White House administrations.

Since then, Aliyev has cemented his hold on power by scrapping a two-term presidential term limit and by extending the presidential term from five years to seven.

These steps have been accompanied by a crackdown on opposition activists and journalists like Ismayilova, who remains under a travel ban for publishing reports in international outlets about alleged embezzlement, secret mining interests, and illegal business ownership by the president’s family.

‘Independent and critical media’ missing

Journalists Seymur Hazi, who served five years in prison on “hooliganism” charges, largely echoes Ismayilova’s assessment of the dismal state of Azerbaijani media.

“There are no critical newspaper publications, no television opportunities,” Hazi says. “With the exception of a few YouTube projects, as a whole, there is no longer an independent and critical media in Azerbaijan.”

After a recent visit to Baku, a delegation of election observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) noted “a lot of room for improvement,” pointing out systematic harassment and criminal prosecution of individuals for expressing views critical of the government.

A November 2019 country visit report by the Council’s Commissioner for Human Rights said “no progress has been made with regard to protecting freedom of expression in Azerbaijan.”“

Prohibitions must be lifted,” independent journalist Sevinj Vagifgizi tells VOA. “If the government is confident in the righteousness of its actions, it should not be fearful. Everything has to be open, and if they are truly just and transparent, then the media should have an oversight.”

Azerbaijan ‘not free’

Azerbaijani officials routinely maintain that all political freedoms, including those of the press, are respected. They furthermore reject charges by international human rights groups that individuals are persecuted for political beliefs or actions, and adamantly deny the existence of political prisoners.

Washington-based Freedom House categorized Azerbaijan “not free” in its 2019 Freedom in the World report, giving the country a score of 0 out of 4 on in terms of free and independent media.

“Constitutional guarantees for press freedom are routinely and systematically violated,” Freedom House concluded in its report. “… the government works to maintain a tight grip on the information landscape.”

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders ranked Azerbaijan 166 out of 180 countries in its 2019 annual World Press Freedom Index.

This story originated in VOA’s Azeri Service. Azeri service chief Asgar Asgarov contributed reporting from Washington.

 

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South African officials say they’re ready for the possible spread of coronavirus to African shores.  

The pneumonia-like virus, which has sickened more than 4,500 people in China since it was identified in the city of Wuhan on Dec. 31, has African governments on alert.

Professor Cheryl Cohen of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases says the nation is taking precautions at the continent’s busiest airport, in Johannesburg.

“We have noted the four cases of novel coronavirus that have recently been confirmed in Australia,” she said. “These were anticipated due to the proximity of Australia to Asia. We would like to assure South Africans that South Africa is prepared for any eventuality of an outbreak. We have put in place systems to rapidly identify, detect and respond to any imported cases that may reach our borders.”

Some 21 million travelers came through Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport in 2018. It is the only airport in South Africa with direct flights to and from China.

The airport has previously implemented temperature testing and health screening during previous outbreaks of Ebola, Zika and other viruses.

While no cases of the virus have been reported in Africa, China is South Africa’s biggest trading partner, and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange slumped as news of the outbreak spread. That is normal, says economist Lara Hodes of Investec Bank, pointing to one study showing that the 2002 SARS epidemic cost global markets as much as $40 billion.

“So it’s definitely had an effect, a mild effect,” she said. “The JSE has been down. It will generally affect financial markets and, in turn, impact commodity prices and the exchange rate. But it’s very early days and there’s a lot of hype around it because of … SARS a few years ago, they’re worried about the extent it will spread.”

Hodes called the situation a “wait and see,” both in terms of the economy and the virus.
 

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Last year was the deadliest in recent history for extremist violence in the Sahel region of Africa. The trend appears to be continuing in 2020 and experts warn more must be done to avoid a crisis in the region.

Last week, suspected Islamic extremists carried out attacks on two villages in Burkina Faso, killing at least 32 civilians.

In neighboring Niger, terror attacks claimed by extremist fighters killed 89 people this month and 71 soldiers in December.

In both countries and elsewhere in the Sahel region, insurgent and Islamist groups with links to al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS) terror groups in recent months have increased their attacks against civilian and military targets.

Rise in casualties

U.N. officials say the number of casualties in the region has increased five times since 2016 with more than 4,000 victims in 2019.“

The region has experienced a devastating surge in terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets,” Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the U.N. Special Representative and Head of the U.N. Office for West Africa and the Sahel, told the U.N. Security Council earlier this month.

“Most significantly, the geographic focus of terrorist attacks has shifted eastwards from Mali to Burkina Faso and is increasingly threatening West African coastal states,” he added.

The Sahel is a semi-arid region that stretches from Sudan in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. It includes countries such as Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. These nations are known as the G5 Sahel countries.

Economic grievances

Experts say porous borders, poor governance and unstable economies in these countries have allowed Islamist militants to thrive in the impoverished region.“

It is generally presumed that militant groups in the Sahel region benefit from the black market and trafficking economies that rely on illicit trade transiting the Sahara,” said Alice Hunt Friend, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

“But given the weakness of regional states and their security services, militant coffers are not as important to the balance of power as their boldness and organization,” she told VOA.

Increased cooperation with France

The surge of violence carried out by terror groups in the Sahel region has forced West African nations to reconsider their strategy and build new security partnerships.

Last week, leaders of the G5 Sahel countries convened in France, where they agreed to put aside their differences with France in order to combat terrorism more effectively in the region.

France, a former colonial power in the Sahel region, has agreed to deploy an additional 220 troops to the Sahel in an attempt to prevent the rise in terrorist violence in the region.

France already has about 4,500 troops stationed in Sahel, who have been instrumental in fighting an Islamist insurgency in Mali since 2013.

But with recent terror threats throughout the region, France says its forces would extend military assistance to other countries in the region.“

French troops are in the Sahel to enable West African leaders to fully assume their sovereignty,” French President Emmanuel Macron told G5 Sahel leaders during last week’s summit.

“The priority is Islamic State in the Greater Sahara,” Macron added.

The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, an IS affiliate, is active in the Sahel region. Other extremist groups including Ansar al-Islam in Burkina Faso and the Macina Liberation Front in Mali and other IS and al-Qaida-linked groups also have carried out terrorist attacks in the region in recent years.

Niagale Bagayoko, African Security Sector Network Chair, said although the focus may be on one group, the range of threats in the region is extremely complex.“

“It is becoming evident that the issue at stake is much more complicated. Because you have a very complex mix of different actors. You have rebel groups that mainly want to have autonomy or if not independence. You have also criminal groups. You have also local self-defense militias. And also, of course, you have jihadist groups. But even all those jihadist groups are very different,” she told VOA.

US involvement

Last month, The New York Times reported that the United States was considering a reduction or even a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from West Africa.

The U.S. has between 6,000 and 7,000 troops in Africa, mainly stationed in West Africa.

The possible reduction of U.S. troops in Africa is reportedly part of a worldwide review by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who is looking for ways to tighten the focus on China and Russia.

While some experts fear that any such withdrawal would end U.S. support for French military efforts in African countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in their war against jihadist fighters, others believe ongoing efforts have not been enough to tackle the issue of extremism in the Sahel.

“The U.S. presence likely limits terrorist activity in the Sahel but has not eliminated it, and neither France nor other Europeans nor governments in the region will standstill in the face of U.S. withdrawal,” analyst Friend of CSIS said.

“The question of whether the French can sustain operations without U.S. support is an open one, although France likely could choose to do so but that would require more resources and domestic political capital,” she added.

On Monday, French Defense Minister Florence Parly visited the Pentagon and met with her U.S. counterpart Defense Secretary Mark Esper. She urged the U.S. to continue supporting the security efforts in the region.

But U.S. officials have expressed concerns about the deteriorating situation in the Sahel region.

“I think [the Sahel] is the most difficult and challenging situation we have now in the continent,” Tibor Nagy, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, said in November  during a press briefing.

“The threat of terrorism and violent extremism is expanding. It’s not anymore in north Mali only. It is going down to Burkina Faso and countries like Ghana, Togo, Benin are all on alert,” he said.

 

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The pilot of the helicopter that crashed and killed basketball superstar Kobe Bryant apparently climbed to avoid a cloud layer just before slamming into a hillside, federal investigators say.

Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday the copter was about 700 meters off the ground before it plunged more than 300 meters into the hills north of Los Angeles.

Air traffic say the pilot’s message that he had to climb to avoid the clouds was the last thing they heard from the copter.

Homendy says the debris field is “extensive.”

“A piece of the tail is down the hill, the fuselage is on the other side of that hill and the main rotor is about 91 meters beyond that,” she said, adding that everything is looked at during the investigation — the pilot, the aircraft, and the environment.

Federal rules do not require helicopters to carry black boxes.

Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine killed in Sunday’s crash that stunned the sports world and left fans and his fellow athletes speechless.

The pilot also died along with Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli. The helicopter was heading to a youth basketball tournament in which Gianna Bryant was scheduled to play.

Kobe Bryant was 41 years-old and will be remembered as one of the greatest professional basketball players ever to step onto the court. He played 20 years in the NBA, nearly all of it with the Los Angeles Lakers — wining five NBA championships and the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 2008. He is the fourth all-time leading scorer. LeBron James passed him for number three on the list just one day before the crash.

Some of Bryant’s accomplishments include becoming the NBA’s youngest all-star in 1998, when he was only 19 years old; an 81-point game in 2006 – the second-highest of all time; and Olympic Gold medals in 2008 and 2012.

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The European Union will “never, never, never” compromise on the integrity of its single market, its chief Brexit negotiator warned Britain on Monday, saying London must now face reality after underestimating the costs of leaving.

Some British politicians have suggested Brussels might be flexible on its rules in order to protect trade flows in talks due to begin in the coming weeks after Britain’s formal exit from the bloc on Friday.

But Michel Barnier, speaking in the British region of Northern Ireland widely seen as most at risk from Brexit, warned negative consequences were unavoidable.

“There will be no compromise on the single market. Never, never, never,” Barnier told an audience at Queen’s University Belfast, describing the single market as the foundation of EU’s international influence.

“Leaving the single market, leaving the customs union will have consequences. And what I saw … in the last year, is that many of these consequences have been underestimated in the UK,” he said. “Now we have to face the reality.”

Hard choices

Barnier said that while Brussels was willing to be flexible and pragmatic in trade talks, Britain’s choices have made frictionless trade with the EU impossible.

If no trade agreement is reached, Britain still faces the risk of a cliff-edge Brexit in 2021 when an 11-month status quote transition ends, he added.

“If we have no agreement, it will not be business as usual and the status quo, we have to face the risk of a cliff edge, in particular for trade,” Barnier said.

The EU has repeatedly said the level of access UK products can continue to enjoy will be proportionate to the commitments London makes on EU rules, particularly in relation to state aid.

“It is not clear to me whether, when the UK leaves the EU and the Single Market, it will also choose to leave Europe’s societal and regulatory model. That is the key question, and we are waiting for an answer,” Barnier said.

Northern Ireland

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar earlier Tuesday said there would have to be some checks on goods going from Britain into Northern Ireland, despite British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s repeated insistence that these will not be needed.

Johnson’s willingness to allow some EU regulations to apply in Northern Ireland to prevent the need for a border on the island was the crucial concession he offered last year to obtain a withdrawal deal with the bloc.

Barnier was asked repeatedly by journalists in Belfast whether trade talks could avoid the need to have checks, but he would only say the text of the withdrawal agreement that governs it was binding and could not be revisited.

“The Withdrawal Agreement must be applied with rigor and discipline by all sides. It cannot be re-opened under the guise of implementation,” Barnier said. Implementation will be crucial in building trust for the trade talks, he added.

Varadkar earlier on Monday told Britain’s BBC that the European Union would have the upper hand in trade talks, having the “stronger team” due to its larger population and market. Johnson’s aim of getting a deal by the end of 2020 “will be difficult,” Varadkar added.
 

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A passenger plane crashed in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province Monday afternoon in a Taliban-controlled area, making collection of casualty details and rescue efforts difficult. So far, it was not clear how many passengers were on board the plane and whether anyone survived the crash.  

The provincial police chief Mohammad Khalid Wardak confirmed the crash in Dehak district but could offer no further details. Initial reports suggested the plane belonged to Ariana airline, but the airline issued a statement rejecting such reports.  

A member of Ghazni’s provincial council, Abdul Jami Jami, said the plane crashed near Sadu and Ibrahimzai villages but that the Taliban were not at the crash site yet.  

Afghanistan’s Tolo news reported the government was planning to send special forces to the crash site which is inaccessible to regular Afghan security forces.  

 

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Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp gathered Monday for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, using the testimony of survivors to warn about the signs of rising anti-Semitism and hatred in the world today.
    
In all, some 200 survivors of the camp are expected, many of them elderly Jews who have traveled far from homes in Israel, the United States, Australia, Peru, Russia, Slovenia and elsewhere. Many lost parents and grandparents in Auschwitz or other Nazi death camps, but today were being joined in their journey back by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.
    
Most of the 1.1 million people murdered by the Nazi German forces at the camp were Jewish, but among those imprisoned there were also Poles and Russians, and they will also be among those at a commemoration Monday led by Polish President Andrzej Duda and the head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder.
    
Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945.
    
World leaders gathered in Jerusalem last week to mark the anniversary in what many saw as a competing observance. Among them were Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, French President Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Prince Charles.
    
Politics intruded on that event, with Duda boycotting it in protest after Putin claimed that Poland played a role in triggering World War II. Duda had wanted a chance to speak before or after Putin to defend his nation’s record in face of those false accusations, but he was not giving a speaking slot in Jerusalem.
    
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected at the event at Auschwitz, which is located in southern Poland, a region under German occupation during the war.
    
London Mayor Sadiq Khan was guided through the camp by museum director Piotr Cywinski and viewed a plaque that now includes the name of his city after it recently pledged a contribution of 300,000 pounds for the site’s preservation.
    
Organizers of the event in Poland, the Auschwitz-Birkenau state memorial museum and the World Jewish Congress, have sought to keep the spotlight on survivors.
    
“This is about survivors. It’s not about politics,” Lauder said Sunday as he went to the death camp with several survivors.
    
Lauder warned that leaders must do more to fight anti-Semitism, including by passing new laws to fight it.
    
On the eve of the commemorations, survivors, many leaning on their children and grandchildren for support, walked through the place where they had been brought in on cattle cars and suffered hunger, illness and near death. They said they were there to remember, to share their histories with others, and to make a gesture of defiance toward those who had sought their destruction.
    
For some, it is also the burial ground for their parents and grandparents, and they will be saying kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.
    
“I have no graves to go to and I know my parents were murdered here and burned. So this is how I pay homage to them,” said Yvonne Engelman, a 92-year-old who came from Australia, joined by three more generations now scattered around the globe.
    
She recalled being brought in from a ghetto in Czechoslovakia by cattle car, being stripped of her clothes, shaved and put in a gas chamber. By some miracle, the gas chamber that day did not work, and she went on to survive slave labor and a death march.
    
A 96-year-old survivor, Jeanette Spiegel, was 20 when she was brought to Auschwitz, where she spent nine months. Today she lives in New York City and is fearful of rising anti-Semitic violence in the United States.
    
“I think they pick on the Jews because we are such a small minority and it is easy to pick on us,” she said, fighting back tears. “Young people should understand that nothing is for sure, that some terrible things can happen and they have to be very careful. And that, God forbid, what happened to the Jewish people then should never be repeated.”
    
In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron paid his respects at the city’s Shoah Memorial and warned about rising hate crimes in France, which increased 27% last year.
    
“That anti-Semitism is coming back is not the Jewish people’s problem: It’s all our problem,  it’s the nation’s problem,” Macron said.
    

 

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Turkey’s disaster relief agency said Monday the death toll following last week’s powerful earthquake has risen to 39.

Nearly 4,000 people, helped by mechanical diggers, have worked in freezing temperatures to comb through the debris in Elazig in the eastern part of the country after the devastating 6.8-magnitude quake that struck Friday evening.

Officials say 76 buildings in Elazig were destroyed and hundreds more were damaged.

The Associated Press reports that emergency workers have erected more than 9,500 tents to feed and house the displaced.

Authorities say that so far they have pulled 45 people from the rubble.

Turkish television showed one mother, Ayse Yildiz, 35, and her 2-year-old daughter Yusra being rescued from the remains of a collapsed apartment building in Elazig. They had been trapped for 28 hours.
 
Syrian university student Mahmud al Osman told the state news agency Anadolu that he used only his bare hands to rescue a man and woman from underneath rubble.

The government’s disaster and emergency management agency said more than 1,600 people were injured in the quake, with 13 of them in intensive care.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to house displaced survivors as soon as possible.

“Turkey has begun to heal the wounds of this great disaster in unity, togetherness and coming together,” he said.

Since Friday’s quake, more than 900 aftershocks have been felt, according to a report in Hurriyat, a Turkish newspaper.  

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Private American citizens living and working in Wuhan are being warned there will not be room for many of them on an evacuation flight being prepared for U.S. consular staff in the epicenter of the Coronavirus epidemic.

“The Department of State is making arrangements to relocate its personnel stationed at the U.S. Consulate General in Wuhan to the United States,” the U.S. Embassy in Beijing wrote on Sunday, adding that the flight will travel directly from Wuhan to San Francisco.

“This capacity is extremely limited and if there is insufficient ability to transport everyone who expresses interest, priority will be given to individuals at greater risk from coronavirus,” a statement said.

An American citizen teaching at a university in Wuhan, who asked that her name not be used for fear of Chinese retribution, told VOA that neither the consulate nor the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has yet contacted most American citizens in the city.

“Maybe they have reached out to a few privileged individuals, but on the whole, they are not reaching out to average American citizens. We have received almost no support and no help,” the woman told VOA’s Mandarin Service.

An announcement on the U.S. Embassy’s website directs citizens to apply for a seat on the plane by contacting American Citizen Services with their passport information.

“There are thousands of us Americans in Wuhan,” the American citizen said. “A 747 seats like 250 people, they’re not going to take everyone out. Even if every single person wanted to leave, they would not take all of us,” she said, referring to the Boeing 747 jet that will likely be chartered for the flight.

The announcement comes amid travel restrictions around the wider region, but especially in the city of Wuhan. The streets have been largely quiet amid ambiguous regulations on which vehicles can and cannot be on the road, even in urban areas.

Some Wuhan residents have reported that early in the outbreak, individuals were arrested and accused of spreading “rumors” about the disease on social media. The American teacher said that in addition to the restrictions on her travel, the disinformation and fear of authority in Wuhan have added to the stress produced by the outbreak.

“This is the craziest experience I’ve ever lived through in my entire life. I wish it weren’t happening. It’s it’s a nightmare,” she said.

The disease, which has killed 56 people and sickened almost 2,000 around the world, has spread to about 15 countries, including France, Canada and the United States, where a third confirmed case was reported in southern California late Saturday.

The World Health Organization said Thursday the potentially deadly virus has not yet developed into a worldwide health emergency.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he hopes to “make history” during his upcoming trip to the White House for the expected unveiling of President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan.

Addressing his Cabinet shortly before departing for Washington, Netanyahu described the current environment, characterized by close ties with Trump, as a once in a lifetime opportunity for Israel that “we must not miss.”

Trump’s plan is expected to be extremely favorable to Israel.

 “We are in the midst of very dramatic political events, but the peak is still ahead,” he said.

“For three years I have discussed with President Trump and his team our security and national needs — dozens of discussions and hundreds of hours. In all of these talks, I found a receptive ear in the White House for the essential needs of the state of Israel,” he said. “I am going to Washington with a great sense of purposes, great responsibility and great chance, and I am hopeful we can make history.”

The plan’s release has been repeatedly delayed, and it seems to have little chance of success. The Palestinians have already rejected it, accusing Trump of being unfairly biased toward Israel.

In a statement Sunday, the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry called for “a clear international declaration rejecting the deal of the century” that it said would endanger regional stability.

But the plan could give Netanyahu, who is in the middle of his third re-election campaign in under a year, a lift as he tries to remain in office while fighting criminal charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes.

Netanyahu has tried to divert attention away from his legal troubles and focus his campaign on his close ties with Trump. His opponent, Benny Gantz, has focused his campaign on Netanyahu’s criminal charges and expected trial.

Gantz announced on Saturday that he would also be going to Washington for a private meeting with Trump. He turned down a joint appearance with Netanyahu at the White House, fearing the prime minister would use it to upstage him.

Instead, Gantz will quickly return to Israel to proceed with his plans in parliament to block a request by Netanyahu to receive immunity from prosecution.

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Armed men attacked an army camp in Mali near the border with Mauritania, killing 19 soldiers Sunday, the armed forces said.

The camp in Sokolo in the Segou region remains under control by Malian Armed Forces, and the provisional toll includes five injured, the armed forces said in a statement on Twitter.

Souleymane Maiga, a resident of Sokolo, said the attackers temporarily had taken control of the camp.

“The army camp was attacked this morning by gunmen,” he said. “The attackers temporarily took control of the camp and destroyed everything before leaving. Many of the soldiers who were in the camp took refuge in the village.”

The attack wasn’t claimed but bears the hallmarks of jihadi groups linked to al-Qaida that are based in the Wagadu forest, located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the attacked village.

 

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The U.S. Border Patrol, reacting to a breach it discovered in a steel-pole border wall believed to be used by smugglers, gave activists no warning this month when it bulldozed the U.S. side of a cross-border garden on an iconic bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 

On Saturday, after a public apology for “the unintentional destruction,” the agency allowed the activists into a highly restricted area to plant sticky monkey-flowers, seaside daisies and other native species in Friendship Park, which was inaugurated by first lady Pat Nixon in 1971 as a symbol of bilateral bonds. The half-acre plaza separating San Diego and Tijuana has hosted cross-border yoga classes, festivals and religious services. 

The garden’s rebirth is the latest twist in a sometimes adversarial, sometimes conciliatory relationship between security-minded border agents and activists who consider the park a special place to exercise rights to free expression. 

“It’s hard to reconcile because we have two different agendas, but we’re both in the same place, so we’re trying our best,” said Daniel Watman, a Spanish teacher who spearheads the garden for the volunteer group, Friends of Friendship Park. 

During an art festival in 2005, David Smith Jr., known as “The Human Cannonball,” flashed his passport, lowered himself into a barrel and was shot over the wall on the nearby beach, landing on a net with U.S. Border Patrol agents nearby. In 2017, professional swimmers crossed the border from the U.S. in the Pacific Ocean and landed on the same beach, where a Mexican official greeted them with stamped passports and schoolchildren cheered. 

Some events rejected

The Border Patrol has been less receptive to events that carry an overtly political message or that, in its view, take things too far. In 2017, it rejected the Dresdner Symphony Orchestra’s plans for a cross-border concert named “Tear Down This Wall.” It also nixed a “Let Them Hug” signature campaign to allow “touch time” across the border on weekends. 

Agents briefly opened a heavy steel gate several times a year but ended the practice after an American man and Mexican woman wed in a cross-border ceremony in 2017. They were furious to learn later that the groom was a convicted drug smuggler whose criminal record prohibited him from entering Mexico. 

Friends of Friendship Park, which advocates for “unrestricted access to this historic meeting place,” said the garden was created in 2007, shortly before a second barrier created a buffer enforcement zone that the Border Patrol opens to the public on weekends only. People can barely touch fingertips through a steel mesh screen during those weekend encounters. 

The Border Patrol said in a statement after the garden was bulldozed that it was being used “as cover to hide smuggling activities.” It released photos that showed a padlock on the Mexican side, which smugglers apparently used to keep the roughly 18-inch (46-centimeter) opening to themselves. 

Walls are often breached. Manny Bayon, president of the National Border Patrol Council union local that represents San Diego-area agents, said some have cut through President Donald Trump’s new wall of high, concrete-filled steel bollards. Smugglers use cordless grinders that cost about $100. 

Friends of Friendship Park met January 15 with Douglas Harrison, the Border Patrol’s interim San Diego chief, and settled on a plan to resurrect the garden. Harrison said the intent was to trim it, not destroy it. 

“We take full responsibility, are investigating the event, & look forward to working with [Friends of Friendship Park] on the path forward,” Harrison said on Twitter. 

Compromise

A compromise called for the garden to be set back 4 feet (1.2 meters) from the wall to give agents better visibility, with minimal planting on the next 4 feet to better facilitate temporary removal when construction crews replace the existing barrier with Trump’s wall. 

There was a last-minute misunderstanding Saturday when Watman said the group’s willingness to set the garden back came with permission to plant over a larger space, which the agents on duty wouldn’t allow. Watman agreed to shrink his blueprint and take it up later. 

“Things are always up in the air somewhat,” he said. “There’s a little bit of playing it by ear.” 

The Border Patrol released a statement Saturday that said it values “the friendships we have built over the years with the community.” 

“We are confident that this relationship will continue as we move into a new era of the bi-national garden,” it said. 

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Hundreds of former prisoners will return Monday to the Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz, Poland, alongside several world leaders, to mark the 75th anniversary of its liberation by Soviet troops.  

At least 1.1 million people – mostly Jews – were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi death camps, between 1940 and 1945. 

Stanislaw Zalewski, 94, is among the former prisoners who will return for the anniversary. He says he keeps his memories locked away – “occasionally letting them out to share the horrors of the past.” 

Zalewski was 18 when he was arrested for painting Polish resistance symbols on walls in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. After a brutal interrogation, he was imprisoned in Waraw’s Pawiak prison. 

“About 37,000 of these prisoners were killed and about 60,000 were taken from Pawiak prison to concentration camps,” Zalewski told VOA in a recent interview. “I was among these 60,000. I was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau on October 6, 1943.” 

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“The arrival procedure was as follows: registration in Auschwitz 1 camp, which involved taking personal information; taking off all our civilian clothes, cutting off hair, shaving, tattooing, putting on prison-striped uniforms — we got only a cap, a shirt, a jacket, underwear, pants and wooden clogs.” 

Saved by his strength

Zalewski was tattooed with the number 156569. Guards referred to prisoners only by number. Many new arrivals were taken directly to the gas chambers. Stronger men and women were used as forced labor, which helped Zalewski survive his time at Auschwitz. 

“If one of the prisoners did not look fit enough for further work, the SS [Nazi paramilitaries] pointed him out with a stick to the camp ‘writer,’ who would write down the prisoner’s number. Afterwards, these prisoners were called out and taken on foot to the crematorium. 

“One day, lorries arrived at the barracks, and women were led out, ordered to strip naked, and they were loaded as though they were some commodity. These trucks were followed by a soldier on a motorbike as they moved toward the crematorium. I still remember today the screams of these women. The transportation lasted several hours until they emptied the barracks.” 

Zalewski was imprisoned for his political activities. Most prisoners were Jews sent to Auschwitz to their deaths – the Nazis’ so-called “Final Solution” to wipe out the Jews. Zalewski recalls Jewish prisoners arriving on trains, wearing bands bearing the Star of David. 

“One SS soldier ordered them in one long line, with him standing at the front of the line and leading them forward. They followed this one soldier with no signs of worry or anxiety. They were heading toward the crematorium. But only we were aware of this, not them.” 

As Soviet soldiers began to approach from the east, the Nazis transferred hundreds of thousands of prisoners to other camps on so-called “death marches” or in railroad cattle trucks. Tens of thousands died on the journey. Zalewski was taken to the Mauthausen-Guzen camp in Austria. In May 1945, rumors spread of the Allied advance — and German guards fled. 

“On May 5, American military vehicles arrived,” Zalewski says, tears welling in his eyes. “Two American soldiers got off. One of them knew some Polish and shouted, ‘You are free!’ It took me 78 days to get from Nuremberg to Warsaw. I arrived in Warsaw on July 22, 1945, wearing USA Army fatigues.” 

Zalewski is now president of the Polish Union of Former Political Prisoners of Nazi Prisons and Concentration Camps. Seventy-five years on, he still struggles to reconcile what happened. 

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“When I say the Lord’s Prayer, there is a phrase: ‘Give us our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.’ I face a dilemma at this point. Can I forgive those who had an inscription that read, ‘God is with us,’ on their belt buckles, who killed people with cold premeditation?” 

“I put my memories of Auschwitz into a box, I tied it with a string, and threw it into the water,” Zalewski says. “I worked, I started a family, I have a son and grandchildren. When I visit the camp or when we are talking like we are today, I pull out this box, I present its contents to you, and afterwards, I throw it back into the water. There are moments, however, when these memories break into my psyche, causing reflections and questions with no answers. 

‘World has not learned’

“I am sad because of what is happening in other parts of the world, where people for their own purposes commit armed, violent acts that take the lives of thousands of innocent people. The world has not learned the lesson of what had happened. The world has come full circle, so to speak. This history, this circularity, is powered by people who do not respect the dignity of another human being.”     

Zalewski and about 200 fellow survivors will return to the so-called “gates of hell” for the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, still determined to teach the world the lessons of Auschwitz. 

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President Donald Trump inquired how long Ukraine would be able to resist Russian aggression without U.S. assistance during a 2018 meeting with donors that included the indicted associates of his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. 

“How long would they last in a fight with Russia?” Trump is heard asking in the audio portion of a video recording, moments before he calls for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. She was removed a year later after a campaign to discredit her by Giuliani and others, an action that is part of Democrats’ case arguing for the removal of the president in his Senate impeachment trial. 

A video recording of the entire 80-minute dinner at the Trump Hotel in Washington was obtained Saturday by The Associated Press. Excerpts were first published Friday by ABC News. People can be seen in only some portions of the recording. 

The recording contradicts the president’s statements that he did not know the Giuliani associates Lev Parnas or Igor Fruman, key figures in the investigation who were indicted last year on campaign finance charges. The recording came to light as Democrats continued to press for witnesses and other evidence to be considered during the impeachment trial. 

On the recording, a voice that appears to be Parnas’ can be heard saying, “The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we got to get rid of the ambassador.” He later can be heard telling Trump: “She’s basically walking around telling everybody, ‘Wait, he’s gonna get impeached. Just wait.’ ” 

Trump responds: “Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.” 

Ukraine came up during the dinner in the context of a discussion of energy markets, with the voice appearing to be Parnas’ describing his involvement in the purchase of a Ukrainian energy company. 

The group then praises Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to which the president says: “Pompeo’s going to be good. He’s doing a good job. Already he’s doing a good job.” 

At the beginning of the video, Trump is seen posing for photos before entering the blue-walled dining room. A voice that appears to be Fruman’s is heard saying that “it’s a great room” before a chuckle. “I couldn’t believe myself.” 

Also visible in the video are the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and former counselor to the president Johnny DeStefano. Jack Nicklaus III, the grandson of the golf icon, and New York real estate developer Stanley Gale also attended the event for a pro-Trump group. 

President’s complaints

Just a few minutes into the conversation, Trump can be heard railing against former President George W. Bush, China, the World Trade Organization and the European Union. “Bush, he gets us into the war, he gets us into the Middle East, that was a beauty,” Trump says. “We’re in the Middle East right now for $7 trillion.” He later says: “China rips us off for years and we owe them $2 trillion.” The president blames the WTO because it “allowed China to do what they’re doing.” 

“The WTO is worse” than China, he declares. “China didn’t become great until the WTO.” 

Trump also seemed to question the U.S. involvement in the Korean War: “How we ever got involved in South Korea in the first place, tell me about it. How we ended up in a Korean War.” 

Trump provided the guests with an update ahead of his first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, revealing that he’d settled on a date and location. One of the people in attendance sought to pitch a different location: Songdo, South Korea, which is 70% owned by Gale International and features a Nicklaus-designed golf course. 

“You know that Kim Jong Un is a great golfer,” Trump is heard telling the guests, who roar with laughter. 

Trump also discussed the border crisis and plans for a border wall with Mexico, insisting that he wants to build a concrete wall but had heard from law enforcement officials that it wasn’t viable. “You do have to be able to see through the wall, I think,” Trump says. He says drug dealers would throw heavy bundles of drugs over the wall, which could kill Border Patrol agents. 

“They have a catapult and they throw it over the wall, and it lands on the other side of the wall and it can hit people. Can you imagine you get hit with 100 pounds?” the president says. “The whole thing is preposterous. I would’ve loved to have seen to see a concrete wall, but you just can’t do that.” 

Election, media

Toward the end of the dinner, the discussion turns to the upcoming election and media. 

“Magazines are dead,” Trump says. 

“I think cable TV is OK. If we ever lost an election, cable TV is dead,” he says, the partygoers laughing. “Can you imagine if they had a normal candidate? It’s all they talk about. If they had Hillary, crooked Hillary, their ratings would be one-fifth.” 

Trump says that he believes he would have had a harder time in 2016 if Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic nominee. 

Near the end of the dinner Parnas can be heard presenting what he says is a gift to Trump from “the head rabbi in Ukraine” and rabbis in Israel drawing a parallel between Trump and the messiah. “It’s like messiah is the person that’s come to save the whole world. So it’s like you’re the savior of the Ukraine.” 

“All Jew people of Ukraine, they are praying for you,” Fruman says, as Parnas tells Trump to show the gift to Jared Kushner, the president’s Jewish son-in-law and senior adviser, to explain its meaning. In the video, it appears Fruman is seated across the narrow part of the rectangular table and one seat over from the president. 

Trump also tells the assembled guests that it is “ridiculous” and “wrong” that he can’t hold political fundraisers inside the White House, saying it would save the government money compared to driving him the four blocks to his hotel. 

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ELAZIG, TURKEY — A powerful earthquake has killed at least 20 people and injured more than 1,000 in eastern Turkey, as rescue teams searched through the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors Saturday.

At least 30 people were missing following the magnitude 6.8 quake Friday night, which had its epicenter in the small lakeside town of Sivrice in the eastern province of Elazig.

“It was very scary, furniture fell on top of us. We rushed outside,” 47-year-old Melahat Can, who lives in the provincial capital of Elazig, told AFP.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said all steps were being taken to aid people affected by the quake, which caused widespread fear.

“We stand by our people,” Erdogan said on Twitter.

The Turkish government’s disaster and emergency management agency (AFAD) said the quake hit Sivrice around 8:55 p.m. (1755 GMT). Turkey lies on major fault lines and is prone to frequent earthquakes.

Turkish television showed images of people rushing outside in panic, as well as a fire on the roof of a building.

Interior, environment and health ministers, who were in the quake zone, said the casualties were in Elazig province and in the neighboring province of Malatya to the southwest.

At least 20 people died and 1,015 others were wounded, according to AFAD.

“There is nobody trapped under the rubble in Malatya, but in Elazig search and rescue efforts are currently under way to find 30 citizens,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Friday.

Rescue teams were searching for survivors trapped in a five-story collapsed building in a village about 30 kilometers from Elazig, according to AFP journalists at the scene. One person was pulled alive from the rubble.

Emergency staff and people waiting at the scene lit fires in the streets to stay warm in freezing temperatures.

Sports centers, schools and guest houses had been opened to accommodate quake victims in Malatya.

Sivrice, a town with a population of about 4,000 people, is situated south of Elazig city on the shores of Hazar lake, one of the most popular tourist spots in the region and the source of the Tigris River.

The lake is home to a sunken city with archaeological traces dating back 4,000 years in its waters.

The tremor was felt in several parts of eastern Turkey near the Iraqi and Syrian borders, the Turkish broadcaster NTV reported, adding that neighboring cities had mobilized rescue teams for the quake area.

“Everybody is in the street, it was very powerful, very scary,” said Zekeriya Gunes, 68, from Elazig city, after the quakes caused a building to collapse on her street.

“It lasted quite long, maybe 30 seconds,” added Ferda, 39. “I panicked and was undecided whether to go out in this cold or remain inside.”

Greece offers aid

The U.S. Geological Survey assessed the magnitude as 6.7, slightly lower than AFAD, adding that it struck near the East Anatolian Fault in an area that has suffered no documented large ruptures since an earthquake in 1875.

“My wholehearted sympathy to President @RTErdogan and the Turkish people following the devastating earthquake that has hit Turkey. Our search and rescue teams stand ready to assist,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote on Twitter.

In Athens, the Greek premier’s office said later that Mitsotakis had spoken by phone to Erdogan.

“The Turkish president … said Turkish teams had the situation under control for now and that it would be re-evaluated in the morning,” his office added.

Quake-prone Turkey

In 1999, a devastating 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Izmit in western Turkey, leaving more than 17,000 people dead including about 1,000 in the country’s largest city Istanbul.

Last September, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake shook Istanbul, causing residents to flee buildings.

Experts have long warned a large quake could devastate the city of 15 million people, which has allowed widespread building without safety precautions.

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A Zimbabwean judge on Friday described as “frightening” the use of soldiers by the country’s vice president in a divorce-related dispute, and ruled that his wife should regain custody of their children and be allowed to access the family’s luxury home.

The ruling is the latest twist in a case that has gripped the southern African nation with allegations of black magic, attempted murder and drug addiction. The case has provided a glimpse of the luxurious lives of Zimbabwe’s ruling elite as the rest of the country grapples with economic collapse, hyperinflation and hunger.

The wife of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, Marry, had approached the court seeking custody of the children and access to the house, a farm and vehicles. She said they were taken from her by Chiwenga when she was detained for more than three weeks on accusations of trying to kill him and money laundering.

After his wife was released from prison on bail earlier this month, Chiwenga refused to give her custody of the children and vehicles, and used soldiers to block her from entering their house in a wealthy suburb of the capital, Harare.

“It is unacceptable and anathema to the constitutional values of this jurisdiction that the military may be used to settle a matrimonial dispute,” said Judge Christopher Dube-Banda.

“This is frightening. What happened to the applicant (Marry) must be a cause of fear and concern to all law-abiding citizens,” he said. He ordered Chiwenga to return the children as well as three Mercedes-Benz vehicles and a Lexus to his estranged wife “forthwith.” He also said soldiers should not block Marry from accessing their home and farm.

Chiwenga, who as army commander led a coup against former president Robert Mugabe in 2017, separated from his wife, a former model, after he returned from four months of medical treatment in China in December.

He claimed his wife tried to kill him while he was on a hospital bed in neighboring South Africa before he was airlifted to China. He described her in court papers as “violent” and a drug addict who used black magic.

On her part, Marry accused her husband of being a “dangerous” man who “can summon the army when it suits him … to deal with perceived opponents” and suffering from “acute paranoia brought about by his poor health” and “his being under heavy doses of drugs, including un-prescribed opiates.’’

The divorce case has not started, but even in its preliminary stages the bitter wrangle has “gone a long way to expose the depth of moral decay that has pervaded our national leaders,” the privately owned The Standard newspaper said.

“The divorce case presents our national leaders as completely out of touch with the reality that the citizens of this country are among the poorest in the region and the continent,” the weekly newspaper said in an editorial this week.

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U.S. President Donald Trump became the first president ever to attend the annual March for Life rally, which is for the opponents of abortion. The event is held annually on or near the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion. The president’s appearance before a friendly conservative crowd was especially notable because of what was taking place at the same time at the U.S. Capitol – his impeachment trial. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti explains.

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