President Trump at the UN: a Reaction

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UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 2017 (IPS) - On September 18 and 19, US President Donald Trump addressed world leaders at the opening of the 72nd Session of the General Assembly in New York.

Jessica Stern

Time and time again, President Trump has threatened to curtail the United States’ obligations to the international human rights system and to the United Nations itself. In his remarks, the word he said most often – “sovereignty” – underscored that his political agenda promotes political isolationism and undermines the global cooperation that protects vulnerable people from natural disasters, corrupt governments, and civil war.

As an organization that serves as a watchdog on the UN, we know that sovereignty is a term loaded with negative meaning. Sovereignty is often an excuse for States to ignore their obligation to protect the human rights of individuals, especially those that are most marginalized and vulnerable.

Reform in President Trump’s words is code for stripping the human rights system of much-needed resources. We believe the only reform that is truly needed puts LGBTIQ people and all vulnerable groups at the center of UN governance, human rights, and programs. The reform and resources we need would elevate the rights of the world’s most marginalized, open space for meaningful civil society participation, and invest in climate justice.

OutRight addressed the kinds of reform that would advance human rights and strengthen the UN today.

Reallocation of resources

The world’s most vulnerable and marginalized people shoulder the burden of poverty and discrimination, yet the UN currently fails to adequately address the needs of these populations. For example, UN Women, the lead agency addressing gender-based violence and gender justice, has one of the smallest budgets of all UN agencies. The UNDP proposed LGBTI Inclusion Index would aggregate global data about LGBTI people aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, but it remains woefully underfunded.

Increased investment in UN programs that work with marginalized and vulnerable populations is essential if the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women, girls and LGBTI people are to be protected. Adequate funding is required to protect and promote the human rights of all women and girls, people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics, indigenous, migrant, rural, and elderly people, as well as people with disabilities, and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Access for civil society

Civil society access across the UN system is shrinking. In the last year alone, arbitrary and onerous restrictions on human rights defenders and organizations trying to utilize the UN have increased exponentially. Under these circumstances, civil society is unable to raise vital issues and act as a watchdog on States and UN officials, and the result is that transparency and accountability have been undermined. The very voices and people the United National claims to protect and serve are increasingly excluded from participating.

The reform needed would enable civil society to participate meaningfully in decision-making and for human rights defenders working at the international level to be protected from reprisals.

Greater investment in human rights and climate justice

Investment in security alone is not sufficient to protect human lives. Peace and security are achieved through the protection and promotion of human rights and climate justice. Every day, people’s fundamental rights are egregiously and persistently violated in ways that shock the conscience. Often the only recourse and access to justice for individuals’ whose rights are being undermined and disregarded at the country level are international rights structures. Global migration and food scarcity will only be exacerbated if the world does not put issues of climate change front and center in policymaking.

We call on UN Member States to increase commitment to the Office of Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, treaty bodies and special mechanisms. We call on Member States to fully ratify the Paris Agreement, uphold the “Call to Action” of the Oceans Conference, and support the Kyoto Protocols.

Bangladesh Needs to Shore up Its Flood Defence

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The premises of a school inundated by floodwater. Shibaloy in Manikganj district, Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/ IPS

DHAKA, Sep 20 2017 (IPS) - Bangladesh is a disaster-prone country with floods hitting almost every year, leaving a trail of destruction despite having early warning systems. Now experts say it is time for the delta nation to think more seriously about how to deal with the recurring onslaughts of floods more effectively by strengthening its flood defence.

The recent severe floods in the country have killed over 140 people and displaced nearly 8 million and damaged some 100,000 houses. It also caused colossal damages to crops, forcing the government to go for the import of huge rice. Many flood-affected families in temporary shelters in the country’s northwest are still hesitating to return to their homes as hunger looms large.

On August 28 last, the Food Minister Quamrul Islam informed the country’s cabinet that 2 million tonnes of rice and wheat need to be imported to keep the market stable until January next year as the same amount of rice has been damaged by the floods in haor areas, creating an ‘unusual situation’ in the rice market.

The government has already started importing rice. Over 600,000 metric tonnes (mts) of rice have been imported from India under private arrangement, 250,000 mts from Vietnam. Besides, a process is underway to import 250,000 mts from Cambodia.

More than 5.7 million people in 27 districts have been affected while crops on 468,000 hectares damaged in the floods, according to government data.

The United Nations has said long-term food supplies are at risk in Bangladesh with so much farmland now ruined by floods.

Now experts say Bangladesh must take the flood issue more seriously as it is affected by climate change.

While talking to IPS, AKM Saiful Islam, a professor of the Institute of Water and Flood Management (IWFM) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), said, “As a flood vulnerable country, Bangladesh should take this issue much more seriously than the past. Due to global warming and climate change, flood peak magnitude will be much higher in the future (at the end of the century) with respect the historic peak floods.”

These humble homes, located on a ‘char’ in northern Bangladesh, were half-submerged by severe floods in August that left many river island-dwellers homeless. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

He says human interventions in natural river systems, and the changes in the land-use pattern of their catchments make the hill slope steeper, and Bangladesh rivers are now carrying large amounts of sediments than ever before, causing frequent and destructive floods. “Urbanisation generates more runoff while encroachment of wetlands and embankment confine flood water inside the river channel which raises the flood peak. Moreover, excess sediments raise the bed level and further exacerbate the flood conditions,” Saiful added.

Citing a recent study of Buet conducted under a collaborative research project entitled ‘High-End Climate Impact and Extremes (HELIX)’ funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013, he says the floods in the Brahmaputra river basin of having 100-year return periods will carry more than 10%, 17%, and 24% more discharge during the 2020s (2011-2040), 2050s (2041-2070) and 2080s (2071-2100) than the pre-industrial periods (1851-1880).

“We’ve already observed that the 2017 floods broke the historic record crossing the danger levels in several stations of many tributaries of the Brahmaputra-Jamuna river systems such as Bahdurabad in Jamuna, Mohadevepur in Atrai, Badarganj in Jamuneswari, Kurigram in Dharala and Dalia in the Teesta. Due to sea level rise, the flood conditions might be prolonged in the future. As the water holding capacity of the atmosphere will be increasing with the rise of temperature, it is expected that more intense rainfall and flooding will be observed in the South Asia in the future under the changing climate,” he said.

Bangladesh has its own flood forecasting system. At present, Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (FFWC) of Bangladesh Water Development Board providing five days’ deterministic flood forecast and early warnings. Early warning messages were delivered by FFWC through email, SMS, website, fax to the concerned Ministries and government organizations like the Department of Disaster Management (DDM), Deputy Commissioners offices and Department of Agricultural Extensions. DDM has a role to disseminate flood warnings to the district, upazila (sub-district) and union levels through the heads of respective disaster management committees.

The current forecasting system is helpful in some ways, said Prof Saiful. He, however, stated that there is scope to improve this system and make the early warning user-friendly to the flood vulnerable communities.

The flood forecasting and early warning, he said, can be improved in a number of ways:
Establishing a High Computing National Centers like National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in the USA composed of both meteorologist and hydrologist as an Independent Entity of the government; the signing of hydro-met data sharing protocol during flood season with neighboring countries; developing basin-wise flood forecast modeling including China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan; and developing a community-based early warning system in which warnings will be provided in a language which local people can understand.

Echoing Prof Islam, Mohammad Harun Ar Rashid, Deputy Secretary, Management and Information Monitoring (MIM) said, “Bangladesh has to think seriously about the long-term strategy regarding floods. Its flood control programme has been so far dominated by the embankment approach. According to this approach, it’s necessary to cordon off areas in order to protect them from flooding. Therefore, under this approach, the goal of flood control gets transmitted into that of flood-prevention.”

A classic example of this approach, he said, the Dhaka, Narayanganj, and Demra project, popularly known as DND project. Under this project, a tract of flood plain with Dhaka, Narayanganj, and Demra has been cordoned off from the adjoining Buriganga and Shitalkhya rivers by constructing embankments.

Aiming to deal with the worsening situation, the government in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has chalked out a six-year Climate Resilient Community Development (CRCD) project in the country’s northwest region with a greater focus on building flood defences for rural communities.

The potential range of interventions of the project include early warning about floods; strengthening community preparedness about floods and climate change by providing information; temporary floods shelter for people and livestock during severe floods, improving productivity and diversity of crops within the limits of quality of soil.

The project also looks for the construction of pre-fabricated modular houses so that they can easily be disassembled and transported; other public structure such as schools and markets can be built in similar fashion, construction of climate resilient rural roads both all-weather and submersible depending on specific locations; developing planned markets, providing irrigation services; promoting public-private investment when issues of natural disasters and connectivity issues are resolved.

With 230 rivers flowing over the country into the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is a delta of about 144,000 sq. km. of area and most part of which is low-lying plain land made up of alluvial soil with hills in the southeastern and northeastern parts. Its main rivers are the Padma, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna.

As a world leader in adapting to living with floods, it is time for Bangladesh also explore some newer technologies developed in other parts of the world to shore up their flood defences. “There is a need to think about a long-term solution to it for building a more resilient Bangladesh,” says Prof Saiful.

Mexico’s Disaster Response System Severely Stretched by Quake

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The Sept. 19, 2017 earthquake toppled nearly 50 buildings in Mexico City, and left many uninhabitable. Fire fighters carry out an inspection the day after in an apartment building that is still standing but will have to be demolished, in a neighbourhood in the centre of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

MEXICO CITY, Sep 20 2017 (IPS) - Central Mexico faced Wednesday the challenge of putting itself back together after the powerful 7.1-magnitude quake that devastated the capital and the neighbouring states of Mexico, Morelos and Puebla the day before.

In Mexico City the air smells of dust, destruction, death, panic and hope, brought by the quake, whose epicenter was in Morelos, 120 km to the south of the capital. So far the official death toll is 230, with hundreds of people injured and 44 collapsed buildings in Mexico City.

“Everything is cracked, everything’s about to fall down. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Verónica, who lived in a new building on the verge of collapse on the south side of the capital, told IPS with tears in her eyes.

The mother of three, who preferred not to give her last name, was living alone for the last two years. She managed to salvage a few important things, like documents, jewelry and a TV set. She is now staying with one of her daughters in another part of greater Mexico City, which has a population of nearly 22 million people.

In Mexico City, the municipalities of Benito Juárez and Cuauhtémoc – two of the 16 “delegations” into which the city is divided and which together are home to nearly one million people – were hit hardest, along with parts of the states of Morelos and Puebla.
The capital is built on a dried-up ancient lakebed, which makes it more susceptible to earthquake damage.

On Tuesday, the interior ministry declared a state of disaster in the capital and 150 municipalities in Guerrero, Morelos and Puebla that were affected by the quake, to free up funds from the National Fund for Natural Disasters (FONDEN).

Berenice Rivera works as a seamstress, and she and her co-workers were evacuated from the building as soon as the first tremors were felt. “I ran to pick my kids up at school and went home to check if everything was ok,” the mother of two told IPS.

Given the structural damage to a tall nearby building, Rivera does not believe she can continue to live in the housing complex where she lives along with some 80 neighbours. “We’re going to pull things out and see where we can move to, what else can we do?” she sighed.

Construction workers were among the first to get involved in the effort to rescue survivors, leaving the buildings where they were working and using their hands to remove rubble to find people who might be trapped underneath. It was the start of a wave of citizen solidarity and support that continues to grow along the streets and avenues of the city.

A rescue worker attempts to secure the perimeter of a building toppled by the Sept. 19, 2017 earthquake, to keep former residents from trying to get inside – something that has happened in many buildings knocked down or badly damaged by the quake in Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Gody/IPS

Just like after the 8.0-magnitude quake that left 25,000 people dead in Mexico City – according to unofficial figures – on Sept. 19, 1985, people mobilised en masse to remove rubble in the search for survivors, in a brave and often disorganised show of solidarity.

Although basic public services have been restored, economic, commercial and educational activities have come to a halt. The work is focused on finding survivors under the rubble, assessing the damage to buildings, and depending on the result, demolishing them and relocating the residents while planning the reconstruction effort.

But more buildings are at risk of collapse because of the damage suffered. In addition, the quake – which happened on the 32nd anniversary of the worst quake in the history of Mexico, during a drill on how to deal with a disaster of this kind – will have environmental and health effects.

“The situation is very difficult,” Mexican-American Juan Cota, who has been living in the capital since 2011 and works in the financial sector, told IPS. “There are damaged buildings that could collapse.”

Cota was in a café on the south-central side of the city when the quake began. His apartment survived, but some of his neighbours were not so lucky.

The Mexico City government has opened at least 41 shelters for survivors throughout the capital.

Mexico’s foreign minister, Luis Videgaray, tweeted that the United Nations would head the rescue and aid efforts.

According to its model for estimating earthquake damage, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) predicted up to 1,000 fatalities and economic losses between 100 million and one billion dollars.

The USGS stated that “Extensive damage is probable and the disaster is likely widespread. Estimated economic losses are less than 1% of GDP of Mexico. Past events with this alert level have required a national or international level response.”

The quake has further stretched the country’s disaster response system, already overwhelmed by the 8.1-magnitude quake that hit on Sept. 7, with an epicenter off the coast of the southern state of Chiapas, and which also affected the state of Oaxaca and Mexico City.

Over two million people were affected by that quake, including some 90 people who were killed, according to government statistics.

In August, the World Bank Group issued its largest ever catastrophe bond to Mexico.

The bonds are divided into three categories of insurance: Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, Pacific Ocean hurricanes and earthquakes, providing Mexico with financial protection of up to 360 million dollars against losses.

Similar bonds were issued in 2006, 2009 and 2012.

Each year, this Latin American country dedicates some 1.5 billion dollars to the reconstruction of public infrastructure and social housing affected by natural disasters. Between 2014 and 2015, FONDEN disbursed 137 million dollars to address the damage caused by hurricanes, heavy rains and flooding.

The earthquake has fanned the flames of the debate about the construction standards in force in Mexico City, which were upgraded after the 1985 tragedy. “They say they’re stricter, but look at that building. It’s new and it’s about to come down,” said Verónica.

Cota believes the standards are not always enforced, mainly because of corruption. “They ignore them…they have to be revised and enforced, because the earth will continue to shake and there will be more damage,” he said.

Tuesday’s earthquake occurred near the area where the Cocos Plate, off Mexico’s Pacific coast, is pushing underneath the North American Plate – a phenomenon that points to further quakes.

In Myanmar, Conspiracy Theories Hound Rohingya Crisis Coverage

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YANGON, MYANMAR — 

Conspiracy theories have hounded media coverage of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, which many view as biased against the largely Buddhist country.

These include allegations that Muslims have undue influence at the BBC and that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is paying foreign journalists to produce the stories they want.

The complaints stem from a genuine concern that the media has focused a disproportionate amount of attention on the more than 400,000 Rohingya who have fled violence in Myanmar and the allegations of extrajudicial killings and massacres that they have brought with them.

Their plight has reached the highest levels of global power, with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday referring to the developments as a "great tragedy unfolding."

By contrast, many here argue, journalists - and then the leaders who read the stories - ignore or fail to mention the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacks that sparked the military crackdown, the tens of thousands of non-Muslim civilians who have fled their homes, and the deaths of Buddhists, Hindus and members of ethnic minorities caught up in the conflict.

WATCH: Reporting Difficult in Troubled Rakhine State

Reporting Difficult in Myanmar’s Troubled Rakhine State

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Aung San Suu Kyi speech

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi reinforced this sentiment in a little-cited part of her first speech on the crisis on Tuesday, saying, “those who have had to flee their homes are many. Not just Muslims and [Buddhist] Rakhines but also small minority groups such as Daing-net, Mro, Thet, Mramagyi and Hindus, of whose presence most of the world is totally unaware.”

A week before her speech, an op-ed writer in state media observed, “the reports written by a handful of respected journalists and scholars from the international community who reported on the actual events, nearly disappeared under the overwhelming and powerful influence of foreign media."

But how does a perhaps expected feeling of international bias sprout into more far-fetched theories?

Richard Horsey, an independent Myanmar analyst, said in an email that while the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army has received funding from outside the country, both from the diaspora and non-Rohingya donors, the outside media support contentions which may date back to deeper, historical grievances.

FILE - Flames engulf a house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, Sept. 7, 2017. In a video, widely circulated in Myanmar, a respected Buddhist monk blamed arson incidents in Rakhine state on Muslim extremists.

“The question of the funding of the ‘Muslim media’ probably relates to old views within Myanmar of Muslim wealth, which is a common refrain and linked historically to the fact that under colonial rule much of the business class in the country ended up being Muslims from South Asia,” he said, adding that it probably has less to do with media organizations with perceived biases, such as Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, but that such outlets “may provide contemporary validation of their views.”

This kind of thinking is not limited to the fringes of society.

Buddhist video

In a September 8 video circulating online in Myanmar, a prominent and respected Buddhist monk seemed to legitimize the view.

“Thirty-two villages were destroyed. Muslim extremists did it. Fifty-one villages were burned. But international media do not write about it. Instead they write and highlight what the Muslims are feeling because of military attacks," the monk said. "The media are biased and corrupt. Even the U.N. seems to be have been bought off by Muslims. It's like we are going to follow what the Muslims are doing. Muslims have bought off the BBC already.”

FILE - Rohingya Muslims, who crossed over recently from Myanmar into Bangladesh, wait to receive food being distributed near Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Sept. 19, 2017. In a speech Tuesday, Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, claimed that "the world is totally unaware" that not just Muslims but also Buddhists and members of various minority sects have had to flee the violence in Rakhine state.

The video has been viewed 1.2 million times on Facebook.

Pressure from the international community and critical coverage of Myanmar is, of course, nothing new. The pro-democracy struggle, the Saffron Revolution in 2007, Cyclone Nargis in 2008. All led to coverage that the then-junta despised.

But Myanmar’s political and economic reforms, launched in 2011 and culminating with the election of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party in 2015, changed the landscape.

Aye Chan Naing, the Yangon-bureau chief of the Democratic Voice of Burma, said the accusations of funding by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have been “floating around” since inter-communal violence erupted in Rakhine state in 2012, and are easily distributed with wider Internet access.

Limited media familiarity with Rakhine state

One of the problems is limited media access to northern Rakhine state where the conflict is centered. Most of the media visits have been via guided press trips. The vacuum creates fertile ground for rumors.

“Even though the media were brought in – I mean selected media, not even every media – selected media were brought in, they were not allowed to go [around] freely. So that’s the whole problem,” he said. If you let the media in, “all the rumors or everything will disappear.”

Accusations of bias also feed into other aspects of the crisis, such as aid from international NGOs, which local Rakhine have long accused of favoring the Rohingya.

On Wednesday, security forces in the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe had to break up a mob that gathered in an attempt to disrupt a shipment of aid.

Angola opposition parties to take seats in parliament

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LUANDA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Four Angola opposition parties decided on Thursday to take their seats in the National Assembly to play the democratic game.

It was announced in a joint statement by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the Broad Convergence for the Salvation of Angola - Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE), Social Renewal Party (PRS) and National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA).

Angola's opposition had previously challenged results of the August 23 elections, in which the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) won 61 percent of the votes.

According to the FNLA president, Lucas Ngonda, who read the joint statement regarding the outcome of the electoral process, the parties recognized the good performance of the voters and called for confidence and certainty in the future of the country.

The four parties considered, in the statement, that there are reasons for them to remain in the democratic struggle with renewed methods, inside and outside the institutions.

In the framework of this year's general elections, the elected MPs will be inaugurated and take the oath at the National Assembly on September 28.

The legislature will count on 150 MPs from MPLA, 51 from UNITA, 16 from the CASA-CE coalition, two from the PRS and one from the FNLA, for a total of 220 parliamentarians.

Joao Lourenco was elected President of Angola and will be inaugurated on September 26

Oil settles flat as unease builds ahead of OPEC meeting

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices settled nearly flat on Thursday, the eve of a meeting of major oil-producing countries in Vienna to discuss whether they will extend production limits that have helped reduce the global crude glut.

Ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other producers meet on Friday. They will discuss a possible extension of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of supply cuts to support prices and will consider monitoring exports to assess compliance.

While many analysts expect extension of the deal beyond next March, many also said prices have risen high enough to tempt countries to boost production beyond agreed levels.

“Compliance looks to be a bit of an issue” if prices rise much from current levels, said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

U.S. crude futures dipped 14 cents, or 0.3 percent, to settle at $50.55 a barrel. Brent crude futures rose 14 cents, or 0.3 percent, to end at $56.43 a barrel.

Kilduff noted that oil prices have surged more than 15 percent over the last three months as the production cuts, along with strong growth in energy demand, have tightened the global crude market.

“I don’t think it’s a sure thing they extend the deal at this meeting anyway,” Kilduff said.

The Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery owned by The Carlyle Group is seen at sunset in Philadelphia March 26, 2014. Picture taken March 26, 2014. REUTERS/David M. Parrott/File Photo

“Russia took a very long time to get to the compliance levels they were supposed to get to” in the output cut agreement, said Tariq Zahir, a trader with Tyche Capital Advisors in New York. “It wouldn’t surprise me to see them cheat a little bit as we get to the fourth quarter.”

He said OPEC’s output cuts have boosted prices enough to encourage higher production elsewhere. U.S. shale production, especially, has been growing to record highs.

Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico have pushed up crude inventories as some U.S. refineries have been shut by flooding.

U.S. crude production reached 9.51 million bpd last week, up from 8.78 million bpd after Hurricane Harvey hit the U.S. Gulf late August. C-OUT-T-EIA

Rising U.S. production is “a reminder to the market that OPEC has a significant problem on its hands from the continued rise in shale output,” Again Capital’s Kilduff said.

Front-month Brent futures have risen sharply in recent months, much more than forward prices. This has pushed the price curve for oil futures from contango, signifying an oversupplied market, to backwardation, where the back months are cheaper than the front month contract, indicating a tighter market.<0#LCO:>

Brent’s backwardation, initially confined to the contracts nearest expiry, now extends throughout the whole of next year.

Ukraine president says Trump shares vision on 'new level' of defense cooperation

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KIEV/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko met U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday and said afterwards that they had a shared vision on a “new level” of defense cooperation, but not whether this included the U.S. provision of defensive weapons to Ukraine.

The United States is reviewing whether to send weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself, an option that previous U.S. president Barack Obama vetoed and which is opposed by Russia.

After meeting Trump in New York, President Poroshenko told a televised briefing: “It’s very important that there is a shared vision on a new level of cooperation in the defense sphere.”

“We discussed all areas of this cooperation, including cooperation with the defense ministry and other institutions,” he added, without saying whether there had been any progress on the defensive weapons initiative.

The two leaders skirted around the topic of Russia when they spoke to reporters at the beginning of their private meeting.

Instead, they chose to emphasize economic cooperation when they appeared before reporters at their meeting on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly.

Relations between Kiev and Moscow are at their lowest ebb since Russia annexed Crimea more than three years ago and Russian-backed separatist fighters took up arms against Ukrainian government forces in the east of the country.

Before holding private talks, Trump praised Poroshenko, telling him that “I wouldn’t say it’s (Ukraine) the easiest place to live” but “it’s getting better and better on a daily basis.”

Speaking in English, Poroshenko said he believed that the two countries had improved security and economic cooperation with many U.S. companies doing business in Ukraine.

“That’s a story that’s pretty untold,” said Trump. “Companies are going very strongly right now into the Ukraine, they see a tremendous potential there.”

It was not immediately clear if they spoke privately about relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who did not attend the U.N. General Assembly.

The war in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces has killed more than 10,000 people in three years. Kiev accuses Moscow of sending troops and heavy weapons to the region, which Russia denies.

Poroshenko said Trump had supported Ukraine’s proposal to deploy U.N peacekeepers “including on the uncontrolled part of the Ukraine-Russia border, which would prevent the possibility of penetration by Russian troops or Russian weapons”.

Putin this month also suggested U.N. peacekeepers be deployed to eastern Ukraine.

But Russia has balked at Ukraine’s proposal that would ban any Russian nationals from taking part in the peacekeeping mission which Kiev wants deployed along the part of its border with Russia it does not control.

Poroshenko said the meeting with Trump lasted an hour and was also attended by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other senior U.S. officials.

Mexico rescuers in race to find trapped survivors 48 hours after quake

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Rescuers labored against the odds on Thursday to extract survivors including school children and five Taiwanese factory workers trapped beneath collapsed buildings in central Mexico following the country’s deadliest earthquake in 32 years.

More than 50 survivors have been plucked from disaster sites in Mexico City since Tuesday afternoon’s 7.1-magnitude quake, and first responders, volunteers and spectators joined in chants of “Yes we can!”

The death toll was at least 233, revised down from 237 earlier on Thursday, according to Mexico’s head of civil protection Luis Felipe Puente. In Mexico City 1,900 were injured.

As the chance of survival diminished with each passing hour, officials vowed to press on, heartened by a few success stories.

Late on Wednesday night, an 8-year-old girl was rescued from a collapsed building in the Tlalpan neighborhood, nearly 36 hours after the quake, the Coyoacan neighborhood government said on Twitter.

But the fight to save a 12-year-old girl at a collapsed school in the south of the capital faced difficulty. Navy-led rescuers have communicated with her but were still unable to dig her free.

Just as it seemed workers were going to save the girl, they had to suspend their work early on Thursday morning due to a debris collapse, local media reported.

Eleven other children were rescued from the same Enrique Rebsamen School, where students are aged roughly 6 to 15. Twenty-one children and four adults there were killed.

“There’s a girl alive in there. We’re pretty sure of that, but we still don’t know how to get to her,” Admiral Jose Luis Vergara told Televisa, whose cameras had special access to the scene to provide non-stop live coverage.

“The hours that have passed complicate the chances of finding alive or in good health the person who might be trapped,” he said.

The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed five nationals were trapped in a collapsed clothing factory in the Obrera neighborhood. The victims included Taiwanese businessman Chen Po-wen, according to Carlos Liao, Taiwan’s top envoy to Mexico.

Volunteers cutting through debris at the factory, which had been combed by rescue dogs, heard signs of life.

A Venezuelan national, Daniela Cardenas, sits on a mattress in her gym she turned into a shelter for people who have lost their homes after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Ginnette Riquelme

“First we heard blows, and then we established visual contact. There was a person trapped in a car,” said rescue worker Amaury Perez. “We shouted: If you are inside the vehicle, please knock three times. He knocked three times.”

Rescue workers were joined by crews from Panama, El Salvador, the United States and Israel with others from Latin American countries on the way.

Throughout the capital, crews were joined by volunteers and bystanders who used dogs, cameras, motion detectors and heat-seeking equipment to detect victims who may still be alive. Mechanical diggers moved large slabs of concrete.

OUTPOURING OF AID

Slideshow (15 Images)

Armed soldiers guarded abandoned buildings feared to be at the point of collapse. Some 52 buildings collapsed in Mexico City alone and more in the surrounding states.

Thousands of people have donated food, water, medicine, blankets and other basic items to help relief efforts. Companies provided free services, and restaurants delivered food to shelters where thousands of people have sought refuge after their homes were damaged.

President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has declared three days of national mourning, said, “If anything distinguishes Mexicans, it is our generosity and fraternity.”

The extensive damage to many buildings, some of them relatively new, has raised questions over construction standards which were supposed to have improved after a devastating 1985 quake.

Tuesday’s quake killed 102 people in Mexico City and the remainder in five surrounding states, officials said. The state of Puebla was hit hard. Governor Jose Antonio Gali said on local television that 86 churches had been damaged and more than 1,600 homes would have to be demolished.

The temblor came on the anniversary of the 1985 earthquake that killed thousands and still resonates in Mexico. Annual Sept. 19 earthquake drills were being held a few hours before the nation got rocked once again.

Mexico was still recovering from another powerful quake less than two weeks ago that killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country.

Parts of Mexico City, home to some 20 million people, are built on an ancient lake bed that trembles easily in a quake.

Some residents and volunteers voiced anger that emergency services and military were slow to arrive to poorer southern neighborhoods of the city, and that wealthier districts appeared prioritized.