Author: Worldnews

All eyes were on Michael Bloomberg Wednesday night, as six Democratic Party hopefuls took the debate stage in Las Vegas.  Mike O’Sullivan reports the billionaire newcomer to the presidential race quickly became a target, as did frontrunner Bernie Sanders.

…

China announced Thursday that it would cut interest rates in a bid to boost the economy, as it battles the economic fallout of the new coronavirus outbreak.

The reduction in the loan prime rate (LPR), one of the preferential rates commercial banks impose on their best customers and which serves as a reference for other lending rates, is the latest measure to help companies struggling through the epidemic.

The one-year LPR was lowered to 4.05 percent from 4.15 percent, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said in a statement.

The five-year LPR, on which many lenders base their mortgage rates, was also lowered to 4.75 percent from 4.8 percent.

The LPR, released on the 20th day of every month, is based on rates of the central bank’s open market operations, especially medium-term lending facility rates.

Coronavirus effect

The rate reduction comes as Beijing battles to control a virus epidemic that has infected more than 74,500 people in the country.

The outbreak is threatening to put a dent in the global economy, with China paralyzed by vast quarantine measures and major firms such as iPhone maker Apple and mining giant BHP warning it could damage bottom lines.

The central bank said earlier this month it would offer a 300 billion yuan ($43 billion) boost to help businesses involved in fighting the epidemic.

More stimulus expected

Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said the rate cut would “help companies weather the damage from the coronavirus at the margins.”

But he said the ability of firms to postpone loan repayments and access loans on preferential terms would be more important in the short term.

“We expect the People’s Bank to continue loosening monetary conditions in the coming weeks, especially given signs that the coronavirus disruptions have started to weigh on employment,” he said.

“But rate cuts alone will provide limited relief to the millions of small private firms that are suffering the most from the epidemic and are poorly served by the formal banking (sector).”

…

The U.N. human rights office is calling for an independent, impartial and thorough investigation into the massacre of 23 people in a village in Cameroon’s Northwest Anglophone region on February 14.

More information has emerged since this shocking attack occurred.  U.N. human rights monitors on the ground report 15 children, nine under the age of five were killed.  They say two pregnant women also were among the victims.  One has since died of her injuries in hospital.

U.N. human rights spokesman, Rupert Colville, says the facts are still sketchy.  But he tells VOA witnesses say 40 armed men and members of the security and defense forces attacked the village.

“The authorities claim there was gunfire coming out of the village towards them — towards the defense forces and gendarmes,” he said. “Our understanding is that two houses in particular were targeted.  But the upshot of that — the number of children killed, and pregnant women is really horrifying.”  

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and clashes between security and defense forces and armed separatist groups have escalated since 2016.  That was when a separatist insurgency erupted in the minority English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon against the dominant French-speaking government.

In the aftermath of the massacre, the Cameroonian government has announced it would mount an investigation into the killings and would make the findings public.  The U.N. human rights office urges the authorities to ensure the independence and impartiality of the investigation and to hold those responsible to account.  

In the meantime, the United Nations reports 2.3 million people in Cameroon urgently need food, shelter, non-food items, and protection because of the crisis in the Northwest and Southwest.  It adds the majority of those in need remain within these two regions.  

U.N. aid agencies are urgently appealing for $317 million so they can carry out their life-saving mission this year.

…

Plagued by the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, China’s inflationary pressure will continue to pick up this month after January’s consumer price index (CPI) expanded at its fastest pace in more than eight years, analysts say.

That, they add, will weigh on the livelihood of the country’s hundreds of millions of migrant workers and the jobless rate as the outbreak continues to show no signs of easing.

Latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that China’s CPI spiked to 5.4% in January, up from a 4.5% gain in December and its highest level since October 2011.  

Within the index, pork prices jumped 116% while overall food prices increased 4.4% month-on-month, according to the bureau.

Rising inflation

The rise of CPI last month was mainly due to pork prices (which have risen continuously the past six months as a result of the swine flu), increased demand for the Lunar Near Year and the coronavirus outbreak, according to the bureau.

Analysts say the CPI spike isn’t a short-term phenomenon.

Looking ahead, extended city lockdowns and transport restrictions due to the virus outbreak have depressed domestic demand especially in the service sector, which will likely drive prices down, said Liao Qun, chief economist at China CITIC Bank International Ltd.

But overall, surging pork prices, panic buying and delayed resumption of business operations to weaken supply will continue to push prices up if the outbreak isn’t effectively contained soon, he added.

“The [coronavirus] outbreak will be a major factor in February to drive prices and the CPI up. The gain may be mild since the Lunar New Year buying has stopped this month. However, [the CPI] will remain at a high gear, at around the 5% level,” the economist said.  

Migrant workers affected

Consumer price hikes will seriously hurt more than 200 million migrant workers in China, many of whom remain holed up at home while factories stay closed during the coronavirus outbreak, Liao said.  

Zou Zhanhai, a migrant worker on an oil rig in Hebei province, further north of Beijing, said that he now lives on his savings and will cut back buying although prices of food he usually buys still remain stable.

“I still stay at home. There’s no work to do. We can only restart work once the lockdown ban is lifted. I will get paid if I work. But no work, no pay. I, too, worry about getting sick if I return to work too early. Food prices remains stable since the government bans on price hikes,” Zou told VOA.   

Zou said he hopes the outbreak can be contained as soon as possible to ensure steady incomes for him.

The possibility that businesses may consider automation to cut back the workforce during times like this worries many migrant workers, especially those who live on daily pay.

Worsening jobless rate

China CITIC Bank’s Liao express concerns that if the outbreak protracts for a long-than expected period of time, the survival of many businesses in China may be threatened.

That will further worsen the nation’s jobless rate, he said.

Wang Zhangcheng, head of the labor economics institute at the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, agreed, saying that small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are particularly vulnerable.

The longer SMEs remain shut, the bigger chance that they may be forced to close down permanently, which means permanent job losses, the professor said. 

“The SME sector has absorbed the most workforce [in China]. They have a relatively lower technical [skill] structure and limited resource to install automatic equipment to replace manpower. They may be forced to go bankrupt [if the outbreak persists]. So, the jobless rate is expected to go up,” Wang said.   

Amid a slowing economy, China’s official urban unemployment rate slightly rose to 5.2% in December.

Stimulus policies

During a State Council executive meeting, chaired by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday, China vowed to make efforts to keep employment and agricultural production stable.  

A series of policies will be rolled out, including temporary cuts on employees’ social insurance payments and deferred payments to their housing provident fund, the state-run China Daily reported. 

“In advancing both epidemic control and economic and social development, one pressing task is to stabilize employment. It is important to promptly introduce policies to bolster businesses, especially SMEs. Sound development of such businesses is vital to stable employment,” Li was quoted as saying.

In provinces and municipalities other than Hubei, most SMEs would be eligible for the waiver before June while bigger companies will see them halved before April, the report added. 

…

Former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been questioned for his role in financing international Islamist groups, according to the country’s attorney general.

“We have organizations like Hamas in our country and it has its offices,” said Abdullahi Ibrahim, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri. Ibrahim participated in the country’s 1960s revolution and ran for president against al-Bashir in 2010. However, he added that there are some groups in Sudan who see Hamas as a legitimate political movement. 

“This is the reason why I say we are getting ready to get into semantics,” he said. “I don’t want my people to get into this semantic quagmire. But if Bashir’s regime [was] money laundering through them [Hamas], that stands out as a crime and worthy of looking into.”

Sudan is still designated as a state sponsor of terrorism due to the past administration’s support of terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas is a militant group that has sought to destroy Israel.

What Are Sudan’s Prospects for Removal From US Terrorism List?

Sudan was added to the US list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1993 over charges by Washington that then-President Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist government was supporting terrorism

Hamas Official Threatens More Explosive Balloons Into Israel

The resumption of flammable balloons and other explosive devices flown across the border broke a month of calm that has largely prevailed since Hamas suspended its weekly protests along the Israeli-Gaza frontier

In December, al-Bashir was sentenced to two years in a correctional facility for corruption and money laundering charges.

Last week, Sudanese officials announced the ousted leader will be transferred to the International Criminal Court to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in the Darfur region. 

“We have a very clear-cut accusation against this man. He is wanted by the ICC,” Ibrahim said.

The move by the Supreme Council, Sudan’s ruling body, which is currently controlled by the military, was hailed by international observers as an important decision. Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, told VOA’s English-to-Africa TV show “Africa 54” that the civilian government took a bold step that wouldn’t be possible without consulting with the military.

The fact that the military changed its position to make a compromise, Hudson said, “catapults Sudan from the country that was leading the international coalition against the court to serve up to the court its biggest and most important case to date in one fell swoop. It really is a complete 180 on the part of the Sudanese government. I think a shot in the arm, as they say, for international justice.”

Ibrahim agrees that the military has reversed its position on the issue. “The military was the one that was rather opposed in clear-cut terms earlier. But now I don’t know whether it is about [Head of the Supreme Council] Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s movement to soothe,” he said. “I think they are more inclined to come to terms with the civilian leaders. Now they don’t have any qualms about this.”

Civilian or military rule?

In April, pro-democracy demonstrators toppled al-Bashir and demanded civilian rule. But Ibrahim said what happened last year was a compromise because recent diplomatic announcements, including the meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were spearheaded by al-Burhan. The meeting faced a backlash from pro-Bashir groups.

Meeting of Sudanese Leader, Netanyahu Sparks Criticism in Khartoum

For religious leaders and some officials in Sudan, Israel remains a sensitive issue; hundreds of protesters rallied in Khartoum Tuesday, condemning the meeting and the idea of normalization of ties

“The structure that we have now is a product of a compromise. That tug of war and it is not a compromise between revolutionaries of different persuasions. It is a situation in which the revolution gave birth to counterrevolution simultaneously,” he said. “Some people consider difficulties like taking this kind of arbitrary decision as a sign of weakness. No, it is a sign of struggle. We will be free if we come to grips with the reality that on that day in April, we had a revolution and a counterrevolution.”  

‘Comprehensive peace’

It is not yet clear when the 76-year-old former president will be sent to the International Criminal Court , and Hudson said that the Sudanese are “a few steps away” from seeing him at the Hague. He added that handing al-Bashir over to the ICC paves the way for the peace talks between the government and the armed movements and signals willingness to cooperate with the court.

Hudson said that it is “part of a larger peace deal that the government is trying to secure with the remaining armed movements in the country. So it’s really dependent upon that kind of comprehensive peace.” 

‘New Sudan’

Nevertheless, the transitional government’s steps to mend international relationships, including outreach to the United States, the United Nations and Israel, are a historic break from past policies, Hudson added. 

“It is a completely new Sudan. It’s a Sudan that takes justice and accountability and the rule of law seriously for the first time in more than a generation. Obviously, we want to see justice delivered for the many, victims of atrocity crimes in Darfur. More than 2 million people continue to be displaced inside and outside the country. More than 300,000 people were murdered during that conflict in Darfur.”

Still, the progress isn’t without resistance, as al-Bashir loyalists protested against handing him over to the ICC.  

That, Hudson said, is “the last gasp of a fading regime.”

This story originated in the Africa division with reporting contributions from English to Africa’sEsther Githui Ewart.

…

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will waive federal contracting laws to speed construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Department of Homeland Security said waiving procurement regulations will allow 177 miles (283 kilometers) of wall to be built more quickly in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The 10 waived laws include requirements for having open competition, justifying selections and receiving all bonding from a contractor before any work can begin.

The acting Homeland Security secretary, Chad Wolf, is exercising authority under a 2005 law that gives him sweeping powers to waive laws for building border barriers.

“We hope that will accelerate some of the construction that’s going along the Southwest border,” Wolf told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday.

Trump to Transfer $3.8B From Military to Fund Border Wall

The Trump administration is transferring $3.8 billion in recently passed military funding to finance construction of the president’s long-sought US-Mexico border wall

Secretaries under President Donald Trump have issued 16 waivers, and President George W. Bush issued five, but Tuesday’s announcement marks the first time that waivers have applied to federal procurement rules. Previously they were used to waive environmental impact reviews.
Full Coverage: Immigration

The Trump administration said it expects the waivers will allow 94 miles (150 kilometers) of wall to be built this year, bringing the Republican president closer to his pledge of about 450 miles (720 kilometers) since taking office and making it one of his top domestic priorities. It said the other 83 miles (133 kilometers) covered by the waivers may get built this year.

“Under the president’s leadership, we are building more wall, faster than ever before,” the department said in a statement.

The move is expected to spark criticism that the Trump administration is overstepping its authority, but legal challenges have failed. In 2018, a federal judge in San Diego rejected arguments by California and environmental advocacy groups that the secretary’s broad powers should have an expiration date. An appeals court upheld the ruling last year.

Congress gave the secretary power to waive laws in areas of high illegal crossings in 2005 in a package of emergency spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and minimum standards for state-issued identification cards. The Senate approved it unanimously, with support from Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The House passed it with strong bipartisan support; then-Rep. Bernie Sanders voted against it.

Winds Topple US Border Wall Being Built; It Falls in Mexico

Authorities say a portion of border wall being built in California toppled in strong winds and fell on a busy street on the Mexican side

The waivers, to be published in the Federal Register, apply to projects that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will award in six of nine Border Patrol sectors on the Mexican border: San Diego and El Centro in California; Yuma and Tucson in Arizona; El Paso, which spans New Mexico and west Texas, and Del Rio, Texas.

The administration said the waivers will apply to contractors that have already been vetted. In May, the Army Corps named 12 companies to compete for Pentagon-funded contracts.

The Army Corps is tasked with awarding $6.1 billion that the Department of Defense transferred for wall construction last year after Congress gave Trump only a fraction of the money. The administration has been able to spend that money during legal challenges.

…

The worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in 70 years has reached South Sudan, a country where roughly half the population already faces hunger after years of civil war, officials announced Tuesday.

Around 2,000 locusts were spotted inside the country, Agriculture Minister Onyoti Adigo told reporters. Authorities will try to control the outbreak, he added.

The locusts have been seen in Eastern Equatoria state near the borders with Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. All have been affected by the outbreak that has been influenced by the changing climate in the region.

The situation in those three countries “remains extremely alarming,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in its latest Locust Watch update Monday. Locusts also have reached Sudan, Eritrea, Tanzania and more recently Uganda.

The soil in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria has a sandy nature that allows the locusts to lay eggs easily, said Meshack Malo, country representative with the FAO.

At this stage “if we are not able to deal with them … it will be a problem,” he said.

South Sudan is even less prepared than other countries in the region for a locust outbreak, and its people are arguably more vulnerable. More than 5 million people are severely food insecure, the U.N. humanitarian office says in its latest assessment, and some 860,000 children are malnourished.

Five years of civil war shattered South Sudan’s economy, and lingering insecurity since a 2018 peace deal continues to endanger humanitarians trying to distribute aid. Another local aid worker was shot and killed last week, the U.N. said Tuesday.

The locusts have traveled across the region in swarms the size of major cities. Experts say their only effective control is aerial spraying with pesticides, but U.N. and local authorities have said more aircraft and pesticides are required. A handful of planes have been active in Kenya and Ethiopia.

The U.N. has said $76 million is needed immediately. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Ethiopia said the U.S. would donate another $8 million to the effort. That follows an earlier $800,000.

The number of overall locusts could grow up to 500 times by June, when drier weather begins, experts have said. Until then, the fear is that more rains in the coming weeks will bring fresh vegetation to feed a new generation of the voracious insects.

South Sudanese ministers called for a collective regional response to the outbreak that threatens to devastate crops and pasturage.

…

…

Kellye Nakahara Wallett, a film and television actress best known for playing Lt. Nurse Kellye Yamato on “M-A-S-H,” has died at age 72.

Son William Wallett told The Associated Press that Wallett died Sunday after a brief battle with cancer. She was at her home in Pasadena, California, surrounded by family and friends.

A native of O’ahu, Hawaii, who was listed as Kellye Nakahara while in “M-A-S-H,” Wallett also appeared in the film “Clue” and in John Hughes’ “She’s Having a Baby.” More recently, she worked as a watercolor artist and was involved in the local arts community. She is survived by her husband, David Wallett; two children and four grandchildren.

“M-A-S-H,” the acclaimed sitcom set during the Korean War, ran from 1972-83. Nurse Kellye carries a secret crush on the show’s major character, the womanizing surgeon Hawkeye Pierce, played by Alan Alda. In a memorable scene, Kellye reveals her feelings, scolding Hawkeye for having his “eyes … on every nurse” except her.

“For your information,” she tells him, “I happen to have a fantastic sense of humor, a bubbly personality and I am warm and sensitive like you wouldn’t believe. I also sing and play the guitar and I’m learning to tap dance. And on top of all that, I happen to be cute as hell.”
 

…

Former U.S. labor leader Owen Bieber, one of the country’s most outspoken anti-apartheid activists who also backed Poland’s Solidarity labor movement, has died at 90.

A longtime union member, Bieber took over as the head of the United Auto Workers Union in 1983, securing good wages, job security and other benefits for blue-collar auto workers at a time of recession and rising global competition.

He rallied the UAW behind the Solidarity movement in Poland and was a fierce critic of apartheid in South Africa. He traveled to the country, speaking out against racism and imprisonment of labor activists, smuggling photographs of tortured prisoners out of the country back to the U.S.

Bieber was arrested demonstrating outside the South African Embassy in Washington. He hosted Nelson Mandela in Detroit, Michigan, after the South African political leader’s release from prison in 1990.
 

…

Novelist Charles Portis, a favorite among critics and writers for such shaggy dog stories as “Norwood” and “Gringos” and a bounty for Hollywood whose droll, bloody Western “True Grit” was a best-seller twice adapted into Oscar nominated films, died Monday at age 86.

Portis, a former newspaper reporter who apparently learned enough to swear off talking to the media, had been suffering from Alzheimer’s in recent years. His brother, Jonathan Portis, told The Associated Press that he died in a hospice in Little Rock, Arkansas, his longtime residence.

Charles Portis was among the most admired authors to nearly vanish from public consciousness in his own lifetime. His fans included Tom Wolfe, Roy Blount Jr. and Larry McMurtry, and he was often compared to Mark Twain for his plainspoken humor and wry perspective. 

Unpredictable detours

Portis saw the world from the ground up, from bars and shacks and trailer homes, and few spun wilder and funnier stories. In a Portis novel, usually set in the South and south of the border, characters embarked on journeys that took the most unpredictable detours.

In “Norwood,” an ex-Marine from Texas heads East in a suspicious car to collect a suspicious debt, but winds up on a bus with a circus dwarf, a chicken and a girl he just met.

“The Dog of the South” finds one Ray Midge driving from Arkansas to Honduras in search of his wife, his credit cards and his Ford Torino.

In “Gringos,” an expatriate in Mexico with a taste for order finds himself amid hippies, end-of-the-world cultists and disappearing friends.

Saturday Evening Post

The public knew Portis best for “True Grit,” the quest of Arkansas teen Mattie Ross to avenge her father’s murder. The novel was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1968 and was soon adapted (and softened) as a film showcase for John Wayne, who starred as Rooster Cogburn, the drunken, one-eyed marshal Mattie enlists to find the killer. The role brought Wayne his first Academy Award and was revived by the actor, much less successfully, in the sequel “Rooster Cogburn”

Rooster was so strong a character that a new generation of filmgoers and Oscar voters welcomed him back. In 2010, the Coen brothers worked up a less glossy, more faithful “True Grit,” featuring Jeff Bridges as Rooster and newcomer Hallie Seinfeld as Mattie. The film received 10 nominations, including best actor for Bridges, and brought new attention to Portis and his novel, which topped the trade paperback list of The New York Times.

“No living Southern writer captures the spoken idioms of the South as artfully as Portis does,” Mississippi native Donna Tartt wrote in an afterword for a 2005 reissue of the novel.

Born in Arkansas

Portis was born in 1933 in El Dorado, Arkansas, one of four children of a school superintendent and a housewife whom Portis thought could have been a writer herself.

As a kid, he loved comic books and movies and the stories he learned from his family. In a brief memoir written for The Atlantic Monthly, he recalled growing up in a community where the ratio was about “two Baptist churches or one Methodist church per gin. It usually took about three gins to support a Presbyterian church, and a community with, say, four before you found enough tepid idolators to form an Episcopal congregation.”

He was a natural raconteur who credited his stint in the Marines with giving him time to read. After leaving the service, he graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1958 with a degree in journalism and for the next few years was a newspaper man, starting as a night police reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and finishing as London bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune.

Worked with Tom Wolfe

Fellow Tribune staffers included Wolfe, who regarded Portis as “the original laconic cutup” and a fellow rebel against the boundaries of journalism, and Nora Ephron, who would remember her colleague as a sociable man with a reluctance to use a telephone.

His interview subjects included Malcolm X and J.D. Salinger, whom Portis encountered on an airplane. He was also a first-hand observer of the civil rights movement. 

In 1963, he covered a riot and the police beating of black people in Birmingham, Alabama. Around the same time, he reported on a Ku Klux Klan meeting, a dullish occasion after which “the grand dragon of Mississippi disappeared grandly into the Southern night, his car engine hitting on about three cylinders.”

Anxious to write novels, Portis left the paper in 1964 and from Arkansas completed “Norwood,” published two years later and adapted for a 1970 movie of the same name starring Glen Campbell and Joe Namath.

Portis placed his stories in familiar territory. He knew his way around Texas and Mexico and worked enough with women stringers from the Ozarks in Arkansas to draw upon them for Mattie’s narrative voice in “True Grit.” He eventually settled in Little Rock, where he reportedly spent years working on a novel that was never released. “Gringos,” his fifth and last novel, came out in 1991.

Living in open seclusion

Portis published short fiction in The Atlantic during the 1990s, but was mostly forgotten before admiring essays in Esquire and the New York Observer by Ron Rosenbaum were noticed by publishing director Tracy Carns of the Overlook Press, which reissued all of Portis’ novels.

Some of his journalism, short stories and travel writings were published in the 2012 anthology “Escape Velocity.”

In recent years, the author lived in open seclusion, a regular around Little Rock who drove a pickup truck, enjoyed an occasional beer and stepped away from reporters. He did turn up to collect The Oxford American’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in Southern Literature and was known to answer the occasional letter from a reader. But otherwise Portis seemed to honor Mattie’s code in “True Grit” for how to deal with journalists.

“I do not fool around with newspapers,” Mattie says. ”The paper editors are great ones for reaping where they have not sown. Another game they have is to send reporters out to talk to you and get your stories free. I know the young reporters are not paid well and I would not mind helping those boys out with their ‘scoops’ if they could ever get anything right.”

…

Elton John intends to play his remaining shows in New Zealand and Australia,  his tour promoters said Monday, a day after illness caused the singer to lose his voice and cut short a performance.

Video clips posted online by fans at Sunday night’s performance showed John breaking down in tears as he told the cheering crowd he couldn’t go on any longer. The 72-year-old singer said he had walking pneumonia and was assisted off stage.

Tour promoters Chugg Entertainment said John was resting and doctors were confident he would recover. They said a concert planned for Tuesday in Auckland would be delayed until Wednesday on the advice of doctors.

“Elton John was disappointed and deeply upset at having to end his Auckland concert early last night,” the promoters said in their statement.

The concert was part of John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. As well as the delayed performance on Wednesday, John is scheduled to play again in Auckland on Thursday and then seven performances in Australia before traveling to the U.S. and Canada.

He thanked the concert attendees via an Instagram post  and apologized for ending the show early.

“I want to thank everyone who attended tonight’s gig in Auckland. I was diagnosed with walking pneumonia earlier today, but I was determined to give you the best show humanly possible,” John wrote. “I played and sang my heart out, until my voice could sing no more. I’m disappointed, deeply upset and sorry. I gave it all I had.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she watched the show and got to meet John for about five minutes before he started playing.

“You could tell that he wasn’t feeling well and he said he wasn’t feeling well,” Ardern said. “So I think you could see that on the stage last night, which I think is just a credit to his commitment to his fans.’’

Ardern said the pair discussed politics and how her toddler daughter Neve loves to dance to his music. John has previously expressed his admiration for the New Zealand leader.

The New Zealand Herald  reported that John told the crowd he was ill but that he didn’t want to miss the show. He slumped on a stool and required medical attention after performing “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” but recovered and continued to play, the newspaper reported. Later, as he he attempted to sing “Daniel,” he realized he had no voice left and was escorted off stage.

John had just returned to New Zealand after performing at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles. He won an Oscar for best original song for his theme song for the movie “Rocketman.’’

According to the Mayo Clinic, walking pneumonia is an informal term for a milder form of pneumonia that isn’t severe enough to require hospitalization or bed rest. It affects the respiratory tract and is most often caused by bacteria.

…

It has become one of the NBA’s most revered traditions: On the morning of the NBA All-Star Game, the league pays tribute to retired players with what is called the Legends Brunch. It brings together about 3,000 guests, and every year a recent retiree with ties to the game’s host city is honored.

When the game was in Los Angeles two years ago, the NBA wanted to honor Kobe Bryant.

He declined. He couldn’t attend. His reason: his daughter Gianna Bryant had a game that morning.

“That said, to us, everything about his priorities,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Sunday as he recalled that conversation with Bryant.

This All-Star weekend was Michael Jordan’s longtime home of Chicago, highlighted by a game where LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo served as captains – but it was, predictably and understandably, overshadowed by the mourning of Bryant.

Jennifer Hudson, wearing the Lakers’ deep purple, performed a pregame tribute to Bryant and sang “For All We Know.” Players on James’ team wore Gianna’s No. 2 on their jerseys and players on Antetokounmpo’s team wore Kobe’s No. 24 on theirs. And all players wore a patch with nine stars, one for each victim of the crash.

Common, in his pregame tribute to Chicago, also paid homage to Bryant, saying that “even in the darkest times, you’ll feel Kobe’s light.”

Everyone at the All-Star Game on Sunday got a 24-page tribute published by Sports Illustrated devoted to Bryant’s career. On the last page of text, just before the back cover, was a quote from Jordan: “I loved Kobe – he was like a little brother to me,” it began. Next to that quote was a photo, Bryant guarding Jordan in 1997, sticking his tongue out much in the same way that the Bulls’ guard often did.

And when the night was over, Kawhi Leonard was the first recipient of the Kobe Bryant MVP Award, given to the player voted as the biggest star of the All-Star Game – a trophy that Bryant hoisted four times.

It’s been three weeks now since Bryant, 13-year-old Gianna and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash in Southern California.

And the mourning period is still very active, very real, very necessary.

It’s a doubly somber time for the NBA, since the league is also coming to grips with the Jan. 1 death of Commissioner Emeritus David Stern – the person credited for taking a fledgling league and turning it into one of the planet’s most powerful sports brands, a multi-billion-dollar entity with a reach that touches nearly every outpost on earth. Stern was remembered as well at the Legends Brunch, and Silver drew a parallel between Bryant and his former boss.

“Just as a reminder: Who more embodies the spirit of All-Star than Kobe? … He always played hard. He didn’t care if it was an All-Star game,” Silver said. “And I think that’s what he and David had in common. They always competed. They believed in the power of sports. They believed in winning and they believed it was necessary to always give their all. And I think that’s why their losses have resonated with so many people around the world.’’

Magic Johnson – like Bryant, a Los Angeles Lakers legend – had been hired two years ago to introduce Bryant at the Legends Brunch, the one that Bryant couldn’t attend because his daughter had a game that morning.

On Sunday, Johnson finally got his chance to speak at the event and pay tribute to Bryant. He told the story about how, before Bryant was drafted in 1996, Jerry West called him to say that he had seen the greatest draft workout that he could recall.

He was speaking of Bryant’s workout.

“And I said, `Really,”’ said Johnson, who also paid tribute to Stern and Bryant at United Center before Sunday’s game by addressing fans. “He said, `Yes, this guy named Kobe Bryant. Just was incredible in his workout and we’re going to do everything we can to draft him.’’

The rest is history. Bryant came to the Lakers in a draft-night trade and played there for 20 years, winning five titles. Johnson said he was quickly impressed with Bryant’s work ethic, how he would work for two hours before practice and then go through another two-hour session with the team.

“That’s who Kobe Bryant was,” Johnson said. “He was always thinking about `How can I get better? How can I lead my team to victory?’ And when you think about him scoring 81 points in a game, only second to Wilt Chamberlain, and then five NBA championships, and then to score 60 points in his last game – that was probably the greatest thing I’ve ever seen from any athlete. He said, `Hey, I’m going to go out Mamba-style.’”

The brunch paid tribute this year to four individuals: USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo received the Lifetime Achievement award, newly retired three-time NBA champion and Chicago native Dwyane Wade received the Community Ambassador award, retired WNBA player and another Chicago native Cappie Pondexter was the Hometown Hero recipient, and longtime Chicago Bulls star and six-time NBA champion Scottie Pippen was the Legend of the Year.

Pippen was at his Los Angeles home when he got the news on Jan. 26 about Bryant.

“It was a weird morning,” Pippen said. “And I’m still today regretting that I didn’t get a chance to tell Kobe Bryant how great he really was.”

…

 The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China surpassed 70,000 Monday while two planeloads of quarantined Americans took off from Tokyo for home.

Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, reported 100 more deaths, bringing the death toll in China to nearly 1,800. Five deaths outside the mainland have also been confirmed in France, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

The number of new cases in Hubei is only slightly higher than the number reported Sunday but down from those reported Friday and Saturday. Chinese officials say this is a sign that China has the outbreak under control.

China Reports Fewer New Cases of Coronavirus

Health commission confirmed 1,843 new cases, representing a drop from higher numbers of new cases in recent days

But World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted Sunday that “it is impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take.”

While China has recently been complimented for the way it has handled the outbreak and its efforts to contain it, the WHO is still asking for more information on how China is making its diagnoses.

Chinese state media Saturday published a speech President Xi Jinping made Feb. 3 that shows Chinese authorities knew more about the seriousness of the coronavirus at least two weeks before it made the dangers known to the public. It wasn’t until late January that officials said the virus could spread between humans.

In his Jan. 7 speech, Xi ordered the shutdown of the cities most affected by the virus. Those lockdowns began Jan. 23.  

Meanwhile, two U.S. State Department chartered fights took off from Tokyo early Monday, carrying Americans who had been quarantined for two weeks aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess.

More than 355 infected people were diagnosed with coronavirus on board the cruise ship and all of the evacuated passengers will be quarantined for another 14 days in the U.S.

Questions Complicate Efforts to Contain New Virus From China

Changes in how China counts how many people are sick with a new respiratory virus is confusing experts who can’t tell if the epidemic is getting worse or not

Also Sunday, the State Department said it is looking into the case of a U.S. citizen who was diagnosed with the coronavirus after departing the cruise ship Westerdam, whose passengers tested negative for the virus before disembarking in Cambodia.

Malaysian medical authorities said the passenger, and 83-year-old woman, twice tested positive for the virus upon arriving in Malaysia after showing signs of a viral infection, a State Department spokesperson said Sunday. She is the first person from the Westerdam to test positive. Her husband tested negative.

The spokesperson said U.S. authorities to not have “sufficient evidence to determine when the passenger may have been exposed and where.”  

The spokesperson said no more information could be shared because of privacy considerations, but said the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lampur is in close contact with local authorities and the patient.

…

Foreign ministers and other top officials from about a dozen countries gathered Sunday in Germany to keep up the push for peace in Libya after countries with interests in its long-running civil war agreed to respect a much-violated arms embargo and back a full cease-fire.

With this meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Germany and the U.N. were seeking to keep up a drive to cut off outside military support for the warring parties. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the Jan. 19 agreement by leaders in Berlin has been repeatedly violated by continuing arms deliveries and escalating fighting.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when a civil war toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed.

A weak U.N.-recognized administration that now holds the capital of Tripoli and parts of the country’s west is backed by Turkey, which recently sent thousands of soldiers to Libya, and to a lesser degree Qatar and Italy as well as local militias.

On the other side is a rival government in the east that supports self-styled Gen. Khalifa Hifter, whose forces launched an offensive to capture the Libyan capital of Tripoli last April.

They are backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France and Russia.

Since the Berlin summit, the rival Libyan military factions have met in Geneva in a U.N.-led effort to forge a lasting truce. A first round faltered when officials concluded negotiations without signing an agreement, though another round of talks is expected next week.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council endorsed a 55-point road map for ending the war in Libya and condemned the recent increase in violence in the oil-rich North African country.

The European Union, whose foreign ministers are set to discuss Libya on Monday, is considering whether and how to have naval ships enforce the U.N. arms embargo against Libya.

…

Gunmen shot dead nine homeless drug users in the Afghan capital, officials said on Sunday, shining a light on chronic drug abuse in the world’s biggest producer of opium but a rare incident of apparently coordinated violence against addicts.

The motive for the Saturday night attack by the unidentified gunmen in Kabul was not known and police said they were investigating. The men had been sleeping in an open area and a forensic examination had shown they were drug users.

“The shooting took place at the side of the Qrough mountain,” a spokesman for Kabul police, Ferdaus Faramarz, told Reuters.

There are an estimated 2.5 million drug users in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Public Health says, with most thought to addicted to heroin made from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan.

Some 20,000 drug users are homeless, with half that number in Kabul, at times straining relations with residents of some communities.

“It’s a social crisis,” said Dr Shokoor Haidari, deputy of the ministry’s counter drugs department.

The ministry can only treat 40,000 people a year but far more seek help, said Haidari.

Lack of social services, unemployment and easy access to drugs have fueled drug abuse in Afghanistan, Haidari said.

Harsh winter weather killed at least 50 homeless drug users in the past two months, the Ministry of Public Health said.

Afghanistan has been the world’s biggest producer of opium for years despite some $8.9 billion spent since 2002 by the U.S. government to stop production and trafficking in narcotics.

With compelling economic incentives and politically protected networks – from cultivators to producers and distributors – deeply entrenched, officials say there is little they can do to stop it.

The Interior Ministry this month announced the arrest of five top police officials, including the head of Kabul’s counter-narcotics force, for suspected involvement in drug trafficking.

…

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres Sunday began a three-day visit to Pakistan by urging the international community to support countries that continue to host millions of refugees from war-shattered Afghanistan.

Guterres is in Islamabad for meetings with Pakistani leaders and to deliver a keynote address to an international conference Monday marking 40 years of hosting of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran, one of the world’s largest and longest-standing refugee populations.

The U.N. chief’s visit comes amid renewed hopes a United States-led peace initiative could help bring an end to the deadly Afghan war, which continues to cause more displacements and civilian sufferings.

“My fist meeting in Pakistan: generations of Afghan refugees shared their deeply moving stories, hopes & dreams,” Guterres tweeted after his interaction with representatives of the displaced population in the Pakistani capital. “For 40 years, Pakistan has sheltered Afghan refugees. I urge the world to support host countries and show similar leadership in standing with refugees,” he added.

The U.N. estimates that some 4.6 million Afghans, including 2.7 million registered refugees, still live outside of Afghanistan. Around 90 per cent of them are being hosted by Pakistan (1.4 million) and Iran (1 million).

Officials say Monday’s ministerial conference, convened jointly with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will highlight the “generosity, hospitality and compassion” of Pakistan, Iran and other countries in hosting the refugee population impacted by more than four decades of unrest in Afghanistan.

The meeting, organizers say, is also meant to remind the global community about the fate of millions of Afghans living as refugees, “many of whom feel the rest of the world may have already abandoned them.” It will seek to “galvanise greater support” to establish conditions for voluntary repatriation and sustainable reintegration of refugees in Afghanistan, according to a UNHCR statement.

UNHCR says funding levels have dropped for its already under-resourced operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran over the years — making it hard to invest in Afghan lives and continue support to affected local host communities.

…

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has said that China tops the list of the Pentagon’s potential adversaries. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Esper said Beijing posed the greatest threat to the West, followed by Russia, what he called “rogue states,” like North Korea and Iran, and extremist groups.

“In fact, under President Xi’s rule, the Chinese Communist Party is heading even faster and further in the wrong direction. More internal repression, more predatory economic practices, more heavy-handedness, and most concerning for me, a more aggressive military posture,” Esper told the audience of world leaders and military chiefs Saturday.

US Defense Secretary Calls on Global Security Leaders to ‘Wake Up’ to China’s Efforts to Impact World Affairs

China’s foreign minister said US does not want China to rejuvenate

His warnings were echoed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who took aim at Chinese telecom firm Huawei.

“Huawei and other Chinese backed tech companies are Trojan horses for Chinese intelligence,” Pompeo said. “We can’t let information go across networks that we don’t have confidence won’t be hijacked by the Chinese Communist Party. It’s just unacceptable.”

Key ally Britain announced recently that it will allow Huawei to build sections of its 5G mobile network, to Washington’s dismay. Officials in Munich said the U.S. is pushing to develop its own 5G technology.

Pompeo dismissed European concerns over the health of the Western alliance.

“I am happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly over exaggerated,” Pompeo said. “The West is winning. We are collectively winning. We are doing it together.”

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, also attending the Munich conference, said the U.S. accusations about Huawei were lies.   

“The root cause of all these problems and issues is that the U.S. does not want to see the rapid development and rejuvenation of China, and less would they want to accept the success of a socialist country,” Wang said.

Details of a sideline meeting between Secretary Pompeo and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov were not released.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, also spoke to the Munich audience Saturday and was questioned about Tehran’s response to the U.S. targeted killing in January of its top general, Qassem Soleimani. Zarif said his country was ready for talks.

“It’s not about opening talks with the United States, it’s about bringing the United States back to a negotiating table that’s already there,” he said. “We met every three months around that negotiating table until April 2018.”

The Munich conference is packed with military top brass. Analysts warn that Western defense capabilities must adapt to modern threats.

In its annual Military Balance survey, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) notes that cyber defense, artificial intelligence and hybrid warfare would characterize conflict in the years to come.

“The deployment of traditional military power is not in every case an effective counter to the astute deployment of informal force by adversaries willing to operate below the threshold of war,” Director-General of the IISS John Chipman told the conference. “Examples include Russia’s strategy in Ukraine, its use of chemical agents in the U.K., and its election meddling. Iran’s ability to conduct warfare through third parties gave Tehran a strategic advantage over adversaries reliant on conventional capabilities.”

Conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and Afghanistan were high on the agenda in Munich — but it is China that has found itself at the center of attention, forced to defend its handling of the coronavirus outbreak and faced with intense efforts by Washington to paint Beijing as the greatest global threat.

The annual Munich Security Conference traditionally has focused on grand strategy and the relative military strength of global powers. This year, there appears to be a greater recognition that the battles of the future not only will be fought on land, air and sea, but in the realms of cyberspace and information warfare, where technology outguns military hardware.

The strong words from the U.S. delegation in Munich are just the latest salvo in the long battle ahead for cyber supremacy.  

…

Syria says that Israel attacked five separate targets near Damascus overnight with missiles from the Golan Heights. Israel did not accept responsibility for the attacks but news reports said the targets were Iranian weapons. Iran has threatened a harsh response to any Israeli attacks.

Missile explosions sounded in the skies above Damascus just before midnight Thursday.

Syria said the missiles were fired from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and that Syrian forces shot down several of them. At least seven fighters, both Iranian and Syrian, were reported killed.

Syria Says It Responded to Attack Over Damascus 

Israeli military spokesman says warplanes struck several targets southeast of capital; objective was to abort planned ‘terrorist attack’

Israel did not comment on this attack, but in the past has acknowledged hundreds of attacks on Iranian weapons on Syria. Israeli press reports said the Iranian weapons had arrived in Damascus Wednesday and were destined for the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.  

The attack came a week after a similar strike, also allegedly by Israel.

Israeli security analyst Amir Oren told I24 News that Israel did not take responsibility for the attack because it does not want a war with Iran or Syria.

“It is not going to gladly suffer any transfer of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah or the pro-Iranian militias in Syria, and incidentally the fact that this attack was carried out according to the reports by ground to ground missiles launched from the Golan Heights rather than from the air shows the operational value of the Golan Heights for Israel,” Oren said.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and later annexed the territory, a move that President Trump recognized last year.

The alleged Israeli attacks have raised tensions between Israel and Iran. Before this latest attack, Iran had repeatedly threatened Israel, and it’s ally the U.S. In Iran, crowds chanted calls for revenge.

Israel’s situation is complicated by the fact that Russia is operating in Syria. Last week, during the previous alleged Israeli attack, Syria fired anti-aircraft missiles, one of which narrowly missed a Russian passenger plane with 172 people aboard. Russia warned Israel against unilateral action in Syria. But Israeli officials say they will not let Hezbollah, which already has more than 100,000 rockets that can hit all of Israel, get more sophisticated weapons.

…

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper urged world security leaders Saturday to “wake up” to China’s efforts to influence world affairs, maintaining the world’s most populous country plans to achieve its goals by any means necessary.

“It is essential that we as an international community wake up to the challenges presented by Chinese manipulation of the long-standing international rules-based order,” Esper declared at an international security conference in Munich.

Esper emphasized the U.S. does not seek conflict with China but voiced concern over what he said were China’s goals to modernize its military by 2035 and dominate Asia militarily by 2049.

‘The West is Winning,’ Pompeo Tells China, Russia

The US secretary of state responded to criticism of US policies 

He accused China of increasingly involving itself in affairs in Europe and elsewhere outside its borders with the intent of “seeking advantage by any means and at any cost.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said later that Esper and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who accused China of using a “nefarious strategy” to win support for its next-generation wireless network equipment maker Huawei Technologies, of telling “lies.”

Pompeo said, “We can’t let information go across networks that we don’t have confidence won’t be hijacked by the Chinese Communist Party. It’s just unacceptable.”
Wang said “The U.S. does not want to see the rapid development and rejuvenation of China” and would especially dislike “the success of a socialist country.” He also said it is “most important” for the two superpowers to begin talks to “find a way for two major countries with different social systems to live in harmony and interact in peace.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the Munich Security Conference that China presents both challenges and opportunities for the West. He said the U.S. and Europe must agree on a unified approach to address China’s increasing global influence.

Esper sought to garner European support for competitors to Huawei after Britain decided weeks ago to use Huawai’s 5G equipment. Britain’s decision dealt a blow to U.S. efforts to persuade allies to ban Huawei from their networks, claiming China could use the equipment for spying, an accusation Huawei and Chinese officials have denied.“

We are encouraging allied and U.S. tech companies to develop alternative 5G solutions and we are working alongside them to test these technologies at our military bases as we speak.”

Esper also discussed the war in Afghanistan, saying a U.S. deal with the Taliban that could result in the withdrawal of U.S. troops is not without risk but “looks very promising.”

Esper’s remarks came one day after a senior U.S. official said a seven-day “reduction in violence” agreement had been reached with the Taliban and that it would be formally announced soon.

…

US House Democrats’ attempt to remove President Donald Trump from office for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress failed in the U.S. Senate this month, and some polls show the president is now more popular than ever before. But that hasn’t stopped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from criticizing Trump for what she says is a “manifesto of untruths.” VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on what happens next in the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill.

…

Ochheu Teal Beach, long, sandy and narrow, is Cambodia’s nicest beach closest to the port city of Sihanoukville. On Friday afternoon, beachgoers included passengers who disembarked hours earlier from the Westerdam, the cruise ship welcomed by Cambodia after other countries rejected it because of coronavirus fears.

The passengers left the ship after passing health checks that determined they were free of COVID-19, the deadly, fast-spreading coronavirus first reported in Wuhan, China.  

The government of Cambodia, which has strong ties to Beijing, had allowed the stranded cruise liner to anchor off its coast  Thursday morning prior to docking. The vessel, with 1,455 passengers and 802 crew on board, had been turned away by Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand and the U.S. territory of Guam. The ship, which is owned by U.S.-based Holland America Lines, left Hong Kong on February 1.  

‘See the beach’

Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has downplayed the risk of COVID-19, greeted the passengers by handing out roses.  

“They can go out and see the beach,” he told reporters. He added that it may take as long as a week for all the passengers to disembark.

On Friday, Nguyen Anne, 60, a Vietnamese-Canadian, told VOA Khmer that she was on a two-month cruise that began in mid-January in Singapore. A retired high school teacher, she said her health was fine.

“Everybody in the ship is healthy,” said Anne, who was cruising with her husband, Paul Le, 72, a retired doctor. “There is no disease, no coronavirus. I don’t know why they refused to welcome us.”  

At the beach, Anne spread a towel that proclaimed “Holland America Line” on a chair, then began taking photos of the beach, the sea and the mountains as her husband sat nearby.

“I read a lot of news and it said that everybody in the ship is very unhappy and very worried. It is not true at all,” she said. “Holland America takes care of us. Everything is excellent on the ship. We were not worried at all.”

Holland America Lines provided the passengers with homeward travel, a 100% refund of their cruise fare, plus an additional 100% future cruise credit, according to a release from the company. Passengers and crew also received complimentary onboard internet and phone access.

At the port, more than 400 passengers had boarded buses with “Welcome to Cambodia” signs, then headed to Sihanoukville International Airport for flights to Phnom Penh. Some told VOA Khmer they planned to stay in Phnom Penh on Friday and then fly to their respective countries on Saturday, or as soon as flights could be arranged.

“I will stay one day in Phnom Penh. I have my health check card with me,” Ann-Maree Melling, 66, who was on the cruise with her husband, told VOA Khmer. “I think the people outside were more concerned than us because we were well looked after and health checked. … So we were lucky on the Westerdam. 

“The ship is amazing. Coming to Cambodia is amazing as well.”

Caution is understandable

When asked about the countries that had refused to let the ship dock, Melling said: “We were a little bit sad, but understood very well. [It’s] very important to be cautious.”

On Saturday morning, Melling planned to fly from Phnom Penh to Australia via Singapore.

Another passenger, Wann Phithin, 64, a Cambodian Canadian, said she purchased her ticket three months ago. She flew from Cambodia’s Siem Reap province to Hong Kong to board the cruise, which had scheduled visits including Manila, three in Taiwan, four in Japan and one in South Korea before the final docking in Shanghai.

“The situation on the ship [was] normal. We didn’t even wear masks. I don’t know what information has been spread outside,” said Wann Phithin, who was cruising with her husband, sister-in-law and two sisters.

“The information has been distorted,” she added. “There was a news [report] that there are 1,000 Chinese in the ship. But there are less than 100 [passengers] from Asia. Only three Chinese from Hong Kong. … There are no Chinese from China.”

…

Americans want bigger, beefier vehicles if the Chicago Auto Show is any indication. Billed as the nation’s largest, the Chicago Auto Show became America’s first-of-the-year showcase for the automotive industry when the Detroit Auto Show moved to June.  As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, this year’s Chicago event brought new offerings geared to the changing tastes of American motorists.

…

U.S. Attorney General William Barr says U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets about the Justice Department, its people, and its cases “make it impossible for me to do my job.”  VOA’s  Michael Brown reports, the comments come as the Justice Department is embroiled in controversy over a sentencing recommendation for a convicted Trump ally.

…

Parkland, Florida, is commemorating the second anniversary of the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead and became etched in the national consciousness as a searing example of how a gunman can destroy so many young lives.

Fourteen students and three staff members were killed on Valentine’s Day 2018 and another 17 people were wounded. The alleged shooter, a former student of the high school, is awaiting trial and is possibly facing the death penalty.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, many hoped it would mark the beginning of the end of such massacres, especially at schools. However, since that attack, there have been many more high profile mass shootings in the United States, including an attack three months later at Santa Fe High School in the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area that left 10 people dead, including eight students.

Thirteen mass shootings have taken place in the two years since Parkland, including massacres at the Capitol Gazette newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland, the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a nightclub in Thousand Oaks, California, and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

Activism

Since the shooting in Parkland, survivors of that attack have ushered in a wave of student activism, organizing a series of rallies, school walkouts and voter registration drives, calling for stricter gun laws in the United States.

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence reported in its 2019 year-end review of local gun laws that 137 gun safety bills have been signed into law in 32 states and the District of Columbia since the Parkland shootings.

At the national level, however, there remains wide disagreement among politicians over how best to stop gun violence. Many on the political left argue for stricter gun laws, while politicians on the right call for increased security measures as well as mental health treatment to stop potential shooters before they carry out their crimes. 

The majority-Democratic House of Representatives passed bills in February 2019 requiring universal background checks on all firearm sales and giving the FBI more time to do background checks on gun purchases. But the legislation has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.

A History of Mass Shooters

VOA Documentary: After Parkland

The Violence Project

In an attempt to provide politicians, academics and the public with more information on mass shootings, The Violence Project, a nonpartisan think tank, built a groundbreaking database on mass shooters. The database, which VOA turned into an interactive  infographic, closely examines the background and motivation of mass shooters themselves in an effort to understand why these crimes are being committed.

Researcher James Densley, Ph.D., who built the database along with Jillian Peterson, Ph.D., told VOA they started the project because they were becoming increasingly frustrated by the same either-or theories that mass shootings were caused by guns or mental illness.

“We just felt like there is got to be a better way to have these conversations and to be more informed by the evidence,” Densley said.

The database covers every mass shooting that has taken place in the United States between 1966 and 2019.

Since 1966, there have been 167 mass shootings in the country, defined by the Congressional Research Service as “a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms — not including the offender(s) — within one event, and at least some of the murders occurred in a public location.” Murders that involve any other underlying criminal activity, including gang violence or armed robbery, or are solely categorized as domestic violence, are not included.

According to The Violence Project, nearly all mass shooters have four things in common: early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age; an identifiable grievance or crisis point; validation for their beliefs, in part by studying past shootings to find inspiration; and the means to carry out an attack.

In compiling the data, the Violence Project found that while there is no single profile of a mass shooter, it is easier to see patterns in shooters when looked at them from the point of view of where they carry out their crime.

For example, in workplace shootings, the gunman tends to be a male in his 40s, can be of any race, and is an employee of a blue-color business where he is having trouble at work. He tends to use handguns and assault rifles that he legally owns. By contrast, mass shooters who kill in a K-12 school tend to be a suicidal white male student of the school with a history of trauma. He leaks his premeditated plan before the shooting, and uses multiple guns stolen from a family member.

Prevention

Densley said understanding the different shooter profiles can help policymakers prevent such violence by targeting their approaches for different locations. For example, he said to prevent shootings at schools, it does not make sense to simply focus on increasing building security because most school shooters are students or former students who know the building’s layout and lockdown drills.

“In some cases, the things we are doing might be doing more harm than good,” he said.

Because most school shooters are suicidal, Densley said policies that could help stop mass shootings in schools could include suicide prevention strategies as well as stopping mentally ill individuals from obtaining guns through the passage of Extreme Risk Protection Orders, also known as red flag laws. Such laws allow for police and family members to petition courts to temporarily remove weapons from people who may present a danger to themselves and others.

Densley said the highly charged emotion surrounding mass shootings is understandable, but “sometimes the emotion isn’t getting us anywhere when it comes to solutions and preventing future crimes.”

The Violence Project is calling for more evidenced-based decisions about how to address mass shootings based on the data of previous shooters.

“Just by understanding them and understanding their lives a little bit more you get a little bit closer to thinking about what were those warning signs and could there have been some prevention in place,” Densley said.

He said society must change the story going forward and for the next generation, “because unfortunately these attacks don’t seem to be going anywhere and there is going to be more people that perpetrate them.”

…

U.S. President Donald Trump is shifting his priorities away from North Korea in his run up to the presidential election this year, experts said, after fruitless efforts at denuclearization talks that remain deadlocked.

“I suspect the administration sees little opportunity for renewed nuclear diplomacy before the 2020 election,” said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Trump has been reassigning U.S. officials involved in negotiations with North Korea to other posts, a move that experts think signals that his administration is putting less emphasis on denuclearization talks that failed to make a breakthrough last year.

The White House announced Tuesday that Trump has nominated Alex Wong, the deputy special representative for North Korea at the State Department, to a post at the U.N. Wong will be the alternative U.S. representative for special political affairs at the U.N. with a rank of ambassador, the White House said.

In December, Steve Biegun, who served as the State Department’s special representative for North Korea since his appointment in August 2018, was confirmed as the Deputy Secretary of State. In January, Mark Lambert, who was the special envoy for North Korea, took up a role at the U.N. to contain Chinese influence at the international body.  He began working at the State Department as director for Korea policy in 2015.  

“The reassignments of officials who have worked on North Korea, combined with Trump’s silence on the subject during his State of the Union address, suggest that no further engagement with Pyongyang is planned for the rest of this presidential term,” said Joshua Pollack, a North Korean expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.

In 2018, Trump spoke at length about North Korea. He highlighted the regime’s violation of human rights records, with Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean defector, and the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died shortly after his release from being detained in North Korea, at the event.

In 2019, Trump praised his first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, described his relationship with him as “a good one,” and announced that his administration was working on a second summit. 

Trump met with Kim for the first time at the Singapore summit in June 2018. Their second summit was in February 2019 in Hanoi. It ended quickly because Washington’s call for full denuclearization and Pyongyang’s demand for sanctions relief did not mesh.

An attempt to bridge that difference at working-level talks in Stockholm in October broke down, and the talks remain stalled since then.

Manning said Trump is turning away from North Korea because the lack of progress made on denuclearization does little to benefit him during an election year.

“Trump has made North Korea a signature issue of his foreign policy, so the failure to achieve any serious steps toward denuclearization, while North Korea continues to improve its missile and nuclear capabilities is a stain on his record on a key issue in which he is heavily invested,” Manning said.

According to a confidential U.N. report to be released next month and seen by Reuters, North Korea has been continuing to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs while it was engaged with the U.S. last year.

On Monday, CNN reported that Trump told his top foreign policy advisers he does not want to meet with Kim before the presidential election in November, quoting sources familiar with the matter.

Speaking at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, on Tuesday, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said the president would meet with Kim if there is a prospect of making a deal.

“If there is an opportunity to move the ball forward for the American people, he’s always willing to do that,” O’Brien said. “We will have to see as to whether another summit between the leaders is appropriate.”

Douglas Paal, vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that attempting a summit with Kim could be risky for Trump, who is running for re-election. But O’Brien’s remarks suggest that the Trump administration is leaving a door open for diplomacy.

“Doing deals with dictators in election years tends to benefit the opposition,” Paal said. “Trump sees no need for a summit now, but his national security adviser is covering for the possible downside.”

Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korea policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said neither Trump nor Kim has much to gain if there is no progress made through another summit.

“It stands to reason that Trump would seek political benefit from another meeting [with] Kim, but would not be interested in another meeting if it will not benefit him politically or advance the U.S. national security interest,” Snyder said.

“It is in the interest of both Trump and Kim Jong Un to ensure that any future meetings are accompanied by meaningful achievements,” he added.

Experts think there is little chance that another summit will take place between Washington and Pyongyang this year in the current stalemate.

“There is little reason to think that the two leaders will meet this year or that any new agreements will be reached,” Pollack said. “The sides simply aren’t talking to each other.”

Manning thinks “for now, denuclearization diplomacy is dead.”

However, North Korea could become a priority if it changes its position or tests more missiles, according to experts.

“It’s pretty [clear] North Korea is not a priority in an election year, unless North Korea decides to make it a priority through its actions,” Paal said.

Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, thinks North Korea could either escalate threats by testing its weapons again in an attempt to gain the U.S. attention or stay conservative, hoping that Trump will win the election.

“That comes down to North Korean calculus,” Gause said. “What does Kim think? Does Kim think that it’s better to be conservative, not cause a lot of problems and hopes that Trump wins? Or does he think, ‘Hey I need to force this issue before the election?’ And, we’ll find out in the next few months.” 

Lee Joen and Ahn So-young contributed to this report, which originated on VOA Korean.

…