Donald Trump’s first speech to the UN General Assembly excoriated Iran and North Korea for threatening world peace. The American president promised to “totally destroy” the regime of Kim Jong Un, whom he called “Rocket Man”, if it attacked America or one of its allies. The North launched a missile on September 15th that travelled 3,700km, flying over Japan before falling into the sea. Mr Trump also emphasised the right of countries to protect their national sovereignty, which went down well with China and Russia. See article.
Republicans in the Senate geared up for another attempt to disassemble Obamacare. This time they want to pass a measure as part of the budget process, thus avoiding a filibuster. The legislation would revoke Obamacare’s mandate that people must have health insurance. It would also cut spending on Medicaid, the health-care programme for the hard-up. See article.
Hamas said it was ready to dissolve a so-called shadow government that it had set up in the Gaza Strip. It is keen to hold the first elections in Palestine since 2006. Fatah, the party that runs the West Bank, welcomed the announcement. But more talks are needed to end the decade-old dispute between the two groups.
In a detailed opinion, Kenya’s supreme court, which had previously nullified the result of the presidential election held on August 8th, criticised the country’s election commission for announcing the result—a victory for the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta, over the main challenger, Raila Odinga—before the votes had been properly counted. But the court did not say there had been widespread rigging or that the president was culpable. See article.
An Egyptian court sentenced 43 people to life in prison after a mass trial. Hundreds more were sentenced to between five and 15 years. Nearly 500 people were charged over violence that erupted after the military coup that toppled President Muhammad Morsi in 2013. Only 52 were acquitted. Amnesty International called the trial a “sham”.
Badly shaken
An earthquake of magnitude 7.1 shook central Mexico, destroying buildings and killing at least 230 people, on the anniversary of a devastating earthquake in 1985. The rising death toll included dozens buried beneath a school in Mexico City. See article.
Hurricane Maria struck the Caribbean, the second category-five storm in the region within a month. Around 90% of the buildings in Dominica were damaged; the Virgin Islands were badly hit by flooding. The power was knocked out across the entire island of Puerto Rico.
Guatemala’s congress back-pedaled on its attempt to change the law to make punishment for corruption more lenient by replacing jail sentences with fines. President Jimmy Morales promised to return payments of $7,000 a month he has received from the army for his role as commander-in-chief. Previous presidents did not receive such payments. Thousands marched in Guatemala City calling for Mr Morales to resign and congress to clean house.
The army’s new front
Facing brickbats for not speaking out against the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingyas by Myanmar’s army, Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader, said that human-rights violations would be punished, but suggested that the situation was not so bad since many Rohingyas had decided not to flee. Amnesty accused the Nobel peace laureate of “burying her head in the sand”.
In Pakistan, the wife of Nawaz Sharif won a by-election for the parliamentary seat that he was forced to vacate when he stood down as prime minister. Mr Sharif was disqualified from office by the supreme court over allegations of impropriety, which he denies. See article.
An election in Macau returned the pro-Beijing government to power, despite voter anger in the Chinese territory at the poor response to the strongest typhoon to hit the city in 50 years.
Pouring oil on fire
The Spanish police arrested 14 regional officials in Catalonia, part of the national government’s effort to gather evidence against a planned referendum for independence. The ballot is due to take place on October 1st, though Madrid has declared it illegal. Thousands protested in Barcelona against the arrests. Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s president, accused the government of suspending the region’s autonomy and of declaring a de facto state of emergency. See article.
The government of Iceland collapsed after the prime minister was accused of trying to cover up a letter written by his father supporting the civil rights of a notorious paedophile. That prompted the Bright Future party to leave the coalition government.
In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, who was ousted as prime minister in 2011, made a formal return to the political stage. At a meeting of his party, Forza Italia, he presented himself as a pro-European moderate who could lead the centre-right back to power in an election, expected next March.
A Russian helicopter taking part in the Zapad 2017 war games close to the border with Estonia reportedly fired a missile by mistake near a group of spectators. The Russian government bars foreign observers from such exercises. See article.
Police in London arrested several men in their investigation into a homemade bomb that partially exploded on an Underground train heading into the centre of the city. There were no fatalities, but 30 people were injured. The threat from international terrorism was briefly elevated to “critical”, the highest level, for the second time this year.
Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, was criticised for repeating the bogus figure of £350m ($475m) that the Leave campaign in last year’s referendum had claimed Britain could save by departing the EU. Defending his position after a cabinet colleague said he was “back-seat driving” on Brexit, Mr Johnson gave a bumbling interview amid speculation he could resign. Ahead of her big set-piece speech on Brexit, Theresa May, the prime minister, slapped Mr Johnson down, saying that her government was “driven from the front”. See article.
BERLIN, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere disagreed with his CDU colleague and Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery Peter Altmaier, and called on all German citizens to go vote in the upcoming federal election on Sunday.
"No, everyone should make use of their suffrage and go to the polls," de Maiziere said Wednesday, when asked whether it would be better not to go to the polls instead of voting for the right wing populist AfD.
"I hope that the AfD won't receive many votes. In any case, one has to go and vote," the Interior Minister said in a video interview with German newspaper Bild.
"If you cannot make a decision at all, you should cast an invalid vote." He added that there was "in fact no excuse not to go to the election."
Altmaier advised dissatisfied citizens to rather not to cast one's ballot at the federal election than to vote for the AfD.
When asked in an interview with the Bild newspaper on Tuesday, whether a non-voter was preferable to voting for the AfD, he replied, "but of course. The AfD is dividing our country. It exploits the concerns and the fears of the population, which is why I believe that a vote for the AfD cannot be justified -- at least for me."
The AfD accused Altmaier of antidemocratic behavior.
"How can a government member make such a statement? This marks an absolute low point," Andre Poggenburg, member of the AfD's federal executive committee remarked.
Head of the SPD parliamentary fraction Thomas Oppermann also expressed his criticism of Altmaier's recommendation to rather not vote than support the right wing AfD, calling the move "wrong
KABUL, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Up to 61 Taliban militants including their eight local commanders have been killed and 52 others wounded during the series of operations conducted by Afghan forces across the country within the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
"National security and defense forces launched 14 clean up operations and ten special operations in 14 provinces, killing 61 insurgents including eight Taliban commanders, 12 members of Haqqani network and nine Islamic State (IS) group fighters," the ministry said in a statement, adding 52 more militants were injured and two others arrested during the operations.
Afghan forces also seized good quantity of arms and ammunitions including 100 kg explosive materials.
MOSCOW, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Russia test-fired a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday toward a range on the country's Kamchatka Peninsula, local news agencies reported.
The solid-fuel mobile missile, equipped with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwest Russia's Arkhangelsk region, a Russian Defense Ministry statement was quoted as saying.
The experimental warheads hit the target and the purpose of the launch was to test the reliability of the Yars missile system, according to the statement.
Deployed since 2010, the Yars missile has a potential range of 11,000 km, and can carry as many as 10 independently targetable warheads.
In May, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the Russian Strategic Missile Forces have been receiving modern Yars missiles, which have increased Russia's capability to penetrate missile shields.
A total of 17 regiments will be re-armed with the Yars missiles by 2021, he said.
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 2017 (IPS) - French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a sombre speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 19, denouncing Myanmar’s “ethnic cleansing,” and calling for better protection of refugees around the world.
Emmanuel Macron. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak
While U.S. President Donald Trump’s own debut speech earlier that morning focused on national sovereignty and threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, Macron took a more multilateral approach. He vowed to fight climate change with all other member countries and said that he would try to persuade Trump to reconsider his decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
Macron, a centrist who ran his recent presidential campaign on open borders, kept in line with his advocacy for protecting refugees as a “moral duty.” He addressed human trafficking along the Mediterranean route, and said that greater checks and a “humanitarian infrastructure” should be put in place to stem blatant flouting of “fundamental human rights” by traffickers.
He added that migration and terrorism are political challenges, and “short-term” responses were not good enough to address critical issues of national security. He committed to contribute to developmental aid, and said that the process, for him, began with investing in education.
“We must give the opportunity to young boys and girl to obtain an education to choose their own future, not the future that is imposed on them by need but the future that they should choose for themselves,” he said.
He also put emphasis on freedom of expression, and called for a UN Special Representative for the protection of journalists across the world.
The U.S. president, on the other hand, touted topics that invoked a mainstream media frenzy, touching on nevertheless important national security issues. He reiterated his critical views of the 2015 deal lifting sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbing its nuclear programme, calling it an “embarrassment.”
Although Trump urged every country to put themselves first, he ultimately praised the UN body and its potential to bring deliberations at the world stage.
Farmer Russ Higgins' ancestors settled a wide expanse of land south of Morris, Illinois, in 1858. Through the U.S. Civil War and every major event since then, there has been someone from the Higgins family planting and harvesting on the land.
Since the first plow churned up the fertile soil here nearly 160 years ago, one crop that always had a place among the fields was wheat.
“The next crop is going to go in as soon as we take this year’s soybean crop out, hopefully within the next two and half to three weeks,” Higgins told VOA, before hopping on his all-terrain vehicle to head out into his fields.
As he makes his way beyond large rolls of hay and towering corn stalks that are just about ready to harvest, the one thing that is noticeably absent is the wheat. Higgins says the reason for this is because he already has harvested the crop from his fields. It’s now out of season for the harvest and just ahead of the time to plant the new crop for the winter.
But the reason you don’t see it beyond a narrow patch on Higgins property has nothing to do with the time of year.
“When you think about what a farmer actually grows, it’s driven by demand, and that demand also is by the prices that they can receive,” said Higgins, who says that demand is not for wheat.
“I’ve watched Illinois over the last 20 years really concentrate on corn and soybean,” he noted.
What is true for Illinois is also true for Higgins, who now dedicates only a small part of his farm for wheat, which this year provided a modest return on his investment.
“We averaged about 83 bushels this year,” he said. “Truth be told, it’s probably going to be better than corn or soybeans.”
Better or not, Higgins says the climate in northern Illinois is not ideal for large scale growth of wheat, and since there’s less farmers producing it, it’s a cost prohibitive cash crop.
“There’s not a readily available market year round. We have a chance to market wheat within a three-week window once we harvest the crop. If we decide to hang on to the crop beyond that, when it comes time to deliver, we’re going to have the deliver to those terminals that are still accepting wheat, and in cases, the trucking and the mileage to those locations make it not a viable option.”
FILE - Farmer John Weinand surveys a wheat field near Beulah, North Dakota, that should be twice as tall as it is, July 13, 2017.
American farmers are on track to plant the fewest acres of wheat since the U.S. Agriculture Department began keeping records in 1919. Executive Director of the Illinois Wheat Association, Jim Fraley, says a major factor for wheat’s demise in the U.S. is global competition.
“It’s grown in countries that are really underdeveloped but still growing good wheat crops to help feed themselves,” Fraley told VOA from the 2017 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois. “So the U.S. has entered into the field of play with many different countries. Countries like France, Russia, Germany… countries that can’t grow corn very well, but they have the climate to be able to grow wheat. Even Canada is a great country to produce oat, wheat.”
Fraley also points to another factor — the eating habits and dieting fads of consumers.
“There’s a big gluten-free craze, and that’s probably hurt wheat consumption a little bit,” he explained. “The thing is, we have to pretty much use our wheat domestically. We want to use it locally, and anything else we are trying to sell to other countries. That’s where were running into this world market that’s very competitive and that’s why prices are feeling some pressure right now.”
Here in the U.S., Fraley says past experience with growing wheat also is influencing a farmer’s future decisions about what to plant.
“A lot of them still remember the wheat of 10 and 20 years ago, where test weight was poor, quality was poor, and it just never paid,” Fraley explained. “But the varieties today, and the management techniques we can use in regard to fungicide application and disease management have really improved in the last few years, and it’s making wheat viable and profitable to grow here in Illinois again.”
Profitable or not, farmer Russ Higgins says it isn’t as simple as changing the seeds a farmer plants in the ground.
“For those who have not grown wheat for a number of years, there’s a little bit of a risk with wheat,” said Higgins. “Corn and soybean yields tend to be more consistent, so I think there’s an upside to that.”
If low prices for corn and soybean continue to sink a farmer’s overall profits, however, Higgins says the upside could be a return to wheat. “If the time comes for the prices increase, you might see a return of some of the wheat acres, or if you see more livestock come back in the area.”
But that’s a big “if,” and if there’s one thing a farmer likes less than low prices for the crops he’s growing, it’s uncertainty about the weather and environment, and how they will affect the yield a farmer can depend on when it comes time to harvest.
Amid international accusations that Myanmar’s military is engaging in “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslim minority, Facebook designated a Rohingyainsurgent group a “dangerous organization” and ordered moderators to delete any content “by or praising” it.
The decision, which the company said was made after an internal assessment of the group, came shortly before activists began complaining that the company was censoring posts about the brutal military campaign against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa) was placed on Facebook’s “dangerous organization” list in recent weeks, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed. The company’s community standards ban posts by or in support of such organizations, which it defines as groups engaged in terrorism, organized violence or crime, mass murder, or organized hate.
Q&A
Who are the Rohingya?
Facebook refused to comment on whether any of the other groups involved in the conflict that has seen more than 400,000 Rohingya flee the country have been designated as dangerous, or had accounts or posts deleted.
Myanmar’s military, which the top United Nations human rights official has accused of engaging in a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, has a verified Facebook page with 2.6m followers. The government has numerous other official pages as well, and human rights observers have raised concerns that posts by Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader and a Nobel peace prize recipient, are stoking anti-Rohingya fervor.
Myanmar’s government declared Arsa a terrorist organization on 25 August, after the group coordinated attacks on police posts in the western state of Rakhine, killing 12 members of the security forces. Facebook said it did not make its decision at the request of the government, and that the decision was based solely on the group’s alleged violent activity, not its political aims.
But the social media company’s decision was welcomed by Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman, Zaw Htay, who shared a message from Facebook regarding the designation on his own Facebook page on 26 August. Htay’s post urging his followers to report pro-Arsa content to Facebook was shared nearly 7,000 times.
Arsa emerged last October and calls itself a freedom fighter organization on behalf of the approximately 1.1m Rohingya living in Rakhine. Rohingya Muslims are despised by Myanmar’s Buddhist majority and treated as stateless, undocumented immigrants by the government. They are widely described as the most persecuted people on earth.
Arsa claimed on Twitter that the attacks were a “legitimate step” to defend the rights of Rohingya against repression by the Myanmar military. But the attacks triggered “clearance operations” by the Burmese army that have resulted in a refugee crisis. The top UN human rights official denounced the military’s actions as “clearly disproportionate” to the Arsa attack. Rohingya arriving in Bangladeshi refugee camps have described a savage military campaign against Rohingya villages, with arson attacks, rapes, shootings, and landmines.
Facebook’s acknowledgment that it banned Arsa comes amid criticism from Rohingya refugees, journalists, and observers that the company is censoring reports of human rights violations against the minority group.
“I believe [Facebook] is trying to suppress freedom [of] expression and dissent by colluding with the genocidaires in Myanmar regime,” the activist and journalist Mohammad Anwar told the Guardian. Anwar, whose allegations of censorship were first reported by the Daily Beast, shared screenshots of numerous posts that had been removed by Facebook for violating community standards. Several of the posts comprised only text, he said, and described military operations against Rohingya villages in Rakhine.
The Kuala Lumpur-based journalist, who works for the site RohingyaBlogger.com, said that his reports come from a network of 45 correspondents and citizen journalists in Rakhine.
Facebook said some of Anwar’s posts had been deleted in error but that the mistakes were not the result of moderators confusing support for the Rohingya with support for Arsa.
“In response to the situation in Myanmar, we are only removing graphic content when it is shared to celebrate the violence, versus raising awareness and condemning the action,” a Facebook spokeswoman, Ruchika Budhraja, said in a statement. “We are carefully reviewing content against our Community Standards and, when alerted to errors, quickly resolving them and working to prevent them from happening again.”
While Facebook has long banned certain content for containing graphic violence or nudity, the company amended its standards in October 2016 following an international outcry when it censored a well-known image of a naked child fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam war. Faced with intense criticism of its role as a censor, Facebook decided to allow graphic content that is “newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest”.
But several Rohingya Facebook users complained to the Guardian that the censorship continued.
Mohammed Rafique, a Rohingya activist based in Ireland, told the Guardian that he was temporarily banned from Facebook on 28 August for posting “photos and videos of torture and killings in the Rohingya villages” on his Facebook page.
“Although I am still receiving new photos and videos of the ongoing anti-Rohingya violence, I am not posting them on my Facebook any more, fearing Facebook action like suspension of my account,” he said.
Jafar Arakane, a Rohingya refugee based in Saudi Arabia, runs Arakan Times, a Rohingya community YouTube channel with an associated Facebook page. Arakan is an alternative name for Rakhine.
“As soon as the violence broke out in Arakan last month, from day one, we began broadcasting our news on YouTube and remained active with posts on our channel’s Facebook page. We reported how the Rakhines youths actively supported the violence helping the military in arson and murder of the Rohingyas. Through our Facebook page we reached tens of thousands of our viewers,” Arakane said.
His Facebook page was suspended on 27 August, he said.
Ko Ko Linn, a Rohingya community leader living in Bangladesh, said his work to inform the world about human rights abuses against the Rohingya had been “badly hampered” by Facebook suspending his account on 12 September. Linn, who heads the Bangladesh chapter of the London-based Arakan Rohingya National Organisation, said he had been posting “videos and photos which showed the brutal massacre of Rohingya civilians in Arakan”.
Phil Robertson, deputy director of Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, said the Rohingya were forced to get the word out about their cause on Facebook and Twitter because the few media outlets in Myanmar that exercise independence in reporting on the situation in Rakhine face threats of boycotts and retaliation. Not many media outlets in the country, he said, were willing to take the risk of alienating their readers, advertisers, and in some cases, their staff, by calling out the Burmese government for the campaign of ethnic cleansing they are involved in. “Of course, the problem with social media is that their policing mechanisms can be used for harassment by those willing to mount a concerted campaign of filing complaints against specific Facebook pages or Twitter feeds,” Robertson added. “We’ve seen an explosion of Rakhine and Burman nationalists using Twitter, retweeting hateful messages and gory images, so it would not surprise me at all if some of those nationalists, using bot accounts and pages apparently set up en masse, are now going on the attack against Rohingya on Facebook.”
The late-night host unloaded on the Louisiana Republican, who said earlier this year that any health-care bill would have to pass the “Jimmy Kimmel test.”
