The fashion and textile industry could generate nearly half a million jobs in sub-Saharan Africa over the next decade. That’s according to the African Development Bank, which launched its “Fashionomics” initiative in 2015 to revitalize the industry. However, designers in the region still struggle to grow their businesses. Lenny Ruvaga reports for VOA from Nairobi.
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The remains of a blazing meteorite that lit up the dark skies of the Arctic last week are believed scattered near a lake in northern Finland, amateur Finnish astronomers said Wednesday.
The Ursa astronomical association says their calculations show the parts would have crashed in a remote area near the Norwegian and Russian borders.
The meteorite – which Norwegian scientists said gave “the glow of 100 full moons” – was seen in northern Norway and Russia’s Kola peninsula on Thursday for about five seconds.
Marko Pekkola, a scientist with Ursa, said it likely landed in the wilderness almost 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Helsinki. He believed it weighted between 100 kilograms and 300 kilograms (220 pounds and 660 pounds) before it entered the atmosphere, and flew at a speed of 30 kilometers per second (18.6 miles per second) – “in the low end for meteorites.”
Pekkola said the meteorite likely broke into pieces when it entered the atmosphere, producing a blast wave that felt like an explosion. The parts are believed to be spread over an area of about 60 square kilometers (24 sq. miles).
“We don’t know many pieces are out there, it is [exceptional] to find something,” Pekkola said. “I can say that finding one or two pieces is possible.”
The group says it wants to start searching for the remains, though it hasn’t set a date yet.
In 2013, a meteorite streaked across the Russian sky and exploded over the Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people. Many were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows, curious about what had produced such a blinding flash of light.
The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteorite was estimated to be about 10 tons when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph). It shattered into pieces about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above the ground but some meteorite chunks were found in a Russian lake.
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Iraq and General Electric have signed a deal to develop Iraq’s power infrastructure, which would help bring much-needed electricity to areas facing significant shortages across the country.
GE says in a statement released Wednesday that the more than $400 million contract will help building 14 electric substations and supply critical equipment such as transformers, circuit breakers and other outdoor equipment to revamp existing substations.
GE says the substations will hook up power plants in the provinces of Ninevah, Salahuddin, Anbar, Baghdad, Karbala, Qadissiyah and Basra to the national grid.
It says GE will also help Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity secure funding through various financial institutions.
Despite billions of dollars spent since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, many Iraqi cities and towns are still experiencing severe power cuts and rolling blackouts.
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The United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal ruled Wednesday former Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladic is guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
The court convicted Mladic on 10 of the 11 charges he faced, including persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians. He was sentenced to life in prison.
“The crimes committed rank among the most heinous to humankind, and include genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity,” judge Alphons Orie said in reading the verdict.
Genocide
The court said Mladic intended to destroy the Bosnian Muslim population in Srebrenica, and in Sarajevo personally directed a campaign of shelling and sniping meant to spread terror and perpetrate murder among civilians.
It also cited as a window into his motivations his expressions of a commitment to seek an ethnically homogenous Bosnian Serb republic.
Mladic appeared in the courtroom, but was not present as Orie read the verdict. He requested a bathroom break partway through Wednesday’s session, which was granted for five minutes but stretched on for 45 minutes.
When the proceedings resumed, his lawyer said Mladic’s blood pressure was dangerously high and requested the judge either stop reading the verdict or skip ahead to the court’s judgment.
Orie said the proceedings would go on as planned, at which point Mladic started yelling until he was ordered removed from the courtroom.
‘Butcher of Bosnia’
After the verdict, U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein praised the court’s decision as a “momentous victory for justice” and the “epitome of what international justice is all about.”
“Today’s verdict is a warning to the perpetrators of such crimes that they will not escape justice, no matter how powerful they may be nor how long it may take,” Zeid said in a statement.
A State Department official said Wednesday the United States supports the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and respects its ruling.
“We will continue to commemorate the victims of the horrific crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia,” the official said. “We urge the countries and peoples of the region to refrain from divisive rhetoric and work together to build a better future for the entire region.”
WATCH: ICTY Hands Down Mladic Verdict
Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” is the last former military leader to face war crimes charges in the court, which was set up to deal with the aftermath of the Bosnian war that raged from 1992 through 1995.
He was charged with 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in leading sniper campaigns in Sarajevo and the 1995 killings of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica — the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Prosecutors asked the International Criminal Tribunal to sentence Mladic to life in prison. Last year, attorney Alan Tieger said anything less than a life sentence would be “an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice.”
Mladic’s defense lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, accused prosecutors of seeking to make the former general a “symbolic sacrificial lamb for the perceived guilt” of all Serbs during the war. He called for Mladic, 75, to be acquitted on all charges.
At the end of the war in 1995, Mladic went into hiding and lived in obscurity in Serbia, protected by family and elements of the security forces.
Mladic was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity but evaded justice for 16 years. He was eventually tracked down and arrested at a cousin’s house in rural northern Serbia in 2011.
The Bosnian Serbs’ political leader, Radovan Karadzic, was found guilty of war crimes in March 2016 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
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Venezuelan authorities arrested the acting president of Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), along with five other senior executives Tuesday for alleged corruption.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab told a press conference that interim president Jose Pereira and other managers allegedly arranged contracts that put Citgo at a disadvantage. The company operates refineries in Illinois, Texas and Louisiana with a capacity of 749,000 barrels per day.
“They did it with total discretion, without even coordinating with the competent authorities,” Saab said. “This is corruption, corruption of the most rotten kind.”
The six were accused of misappropriation of public funds, association to commit crimes and legitimation of capital, among other crimes.
The other five detainees were identified as Tomeu Vadell, vice president of Refining Operations; Alirio Zambrano, vice president and general manager of the Corpus Christi Refinery; Jorge Toledo, Vice President of Supply and Marketing; Gustavo Cardenas, Vice President of Strategic Relations with Shareholders and Government, and Jose Luis Zambrano; Vice President of Shared Services.
Last month, a senior executive of PDVSA and a dozen officials were arrested for alleged embezzlement.
But members of the Venezuelan opposition argue that recent investigations do not demonstrate a genuine intention of the government to eradicate corruption, but only reflect internal struggles of PDVSA.
VOA Latin America contributed to this report.
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United Nations judges in The Hague will decide within hours on a verdict in the trial of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who is accused of war crimes stemming from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” is the last former military leader to face war crimes charges in the court, which was set up to deal with the aftermath of the Bosnian war that raged from 1992 through 1995.
Mladic, who has been on trial since 2012, has been charged with 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in leading sniper campaigns in Sarajevo and the 1995 killings of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica — the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Prosecutors have asked the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to sentence Mladic to life in prison. Last year, attorney Alan Tieger said anything less than a life sentence would be “an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice.”
Mladic’s defense lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, has accused prosecutors of seeking to make the former general a “symbolic sacrificial lamb for the perceived guilt” of all Serbs during the war. He called for Mladic, 75, to be acquitted on all charges.
At the end of the war in 1995, Mladic went into hiding and lived in obscurity in Serbia, protected by family and elements of the security forces.
Mladic was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity but evaded justice for 16 years. He was eventually tracked down and arrested at a cousin’s house in rural northern Serbia in 2011.
The Bosnian Serbs’ political leader, Radovan Karadzic, was found guilty of war crimes in March 2016 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The U.N. tribunal is scheduled to initiate proceedings to deliver the verdict Wednesday.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Tuesday to support the U.N. effort to “peacefully resolve” the nearly seven-year-long Syrian civil war.
The White House said the two leaders talked for more than an hour and stressed the importance of ending the humanitarian crisis in which millions of Syrians have been displaced from their homes. Trump and Putin said the displaced Syrians should be allowed to return and “the stability of a unified Syria free of malign intervention and terrorist safe havens” should be ensured.
Trump talked by phone with Putin a day after the Russian leader held discussions in Russia with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad about a political resolution to the civil war, which has killed 400,000 people.
The White House said Trump and Putin “affirmed the importance of fighting terrorism together throughout the Middle East and Central Asia and agreed to explore ways to further cooperate in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaida, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.”
In addition, they discussed ways “to implement a lasting peace in Ukraine,” where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting troops loyal to Kyiv, and how to keep international pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear weapon and missile development programs.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that it had called Assad to the Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Putin about Russia’s peace proposals for Syria, ahead of Putin’s summit Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Russia has bolstered Assad’s rule with airstrikes since late 2015 against groups trying to overthrow his regime, with Iranian fighters also supporting Damascus, and Turkey backing the Syrian opposition.
His power ensured, Asssad said he expressed his gratitude to Putin “for all of the efforts that Russia made to save our country.”
Putin, according to the Kremlin, told Assad that Russia’s “military operation is coming to an end. Thanks to the Russian army, Syria has been saved as a state. Much has been done to stabilize the situation in Syria.”
He praised Assad, predicting terrorism would suffer an “inevitable” defeat in Syria.
The Kremlin quoted Assad as saying, “It is in our interest to advance the political process. … We don’t want to look back. And we are ready for dialogue with all those who want to come up with a political settlement.”
U.N.-led peace talks about Syria are scheduled for November 28 in Geneva.
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On November 5, more than 50,000 runners and two million spectators turned out for the New York Marathon. The event took place just a few days after a lone attacker drove a van into cyclists and pedestrians beside a busy Manhattan highway, killing eight people.
Security was beefed up for the marathon: sand-filled sanitation trucks were deployed at key intersections to block vehicles, while hundreds of extra police backed by sniffer dogs and snipers were positioned along the 21-kilometer route.
The precautions underline the changing nature of the terror threat, 16 years after the 9/11 al-Qaida attacks on the same city.
“They are moving towards the lower technology attacks, using knives, using vehicles, and using weapons that they can perhaps purchase on the black market but not have to make themselves,” said leading counter-terror analyst Brooke Rogers of Kings College, London.
He said, beyond short-term, enhanced security, an urban environment can adapt.
“For example, by having blast-proof glass installed in these grand glass structures. Or having different security measures, physical security measures – some of that could be scanning technology, some of it could be CCTV (closed circuit television) based, but also human measures, in terms of the staff not only walking around the perimeter, walking around inside with highly visible uniforms, but also staff who are less visible,” said Rogers.
In France, thousands of extra security personnel including soldiers have been deployed since the 2015 Paris attacks. But Rogers notes they have themselves become targets for terrorists.
London has installed physical barriers to separate vehicles and pedestrians in the wake of this year’s vehicle attacks in Westminster and on London Bridge. Permanent protection has been built around government buildings, with some of it adapted into street furniture like benches. But sectioning off every walkway is simply not practical.
“The amount of engineering that goes into those can cost millions of dollars. But we have to be careful because everything that we secure means that we are then turning the attention of these terrorist groups to softer targets,” said Rogers.
As a result, more attention is being given to educating the public. Since 2010 the U.S. Department for Homeland Security has been running an awareness campaign titled, “If you see something, say something”. In London, the mantra is similar: “See It, Say It, Sorted.”
British authorities have also issued a campaign on what to do if you’re caught in a terror attack – summarized as “Run, Hide, Tell.”
Rogers says such campaigns aren’t pushed hard enough by authorities. “They’re very anxious that if they start making people think about that type of attack in the public places, that they’re going to frighten them and maybe scare them away. We have a lot of evidence that suggests that that is not the case. It doesn’t have a significant impact in terms of the perceived threat at all and in fact it builds higher levels of trust.”
Increasingly, security services see public awareness as a key line of defense against the changing terror threat.
The European Union’s top court Monday ordered Poland to stop logging in the ancient Bialowieza Forest, or pay an $118,000 daily fine.
“Poland must immediately cease its active forest management operations in the Bialowieza Forest, except in exceptional cases where they are strictly necessary to ensure public safety,” the European Court of Justice wrote.
The forest is home to rare plants, birds and mammals and is one of Europe’s last remaining primeval habitats. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The court first warned Poland against logging in July.
Poland says the trees are weak and damaged by a beetle outbreak. It says cutting them down is necessary to prevent people foraging for mushrooms from getting hurt if the trees fall.
The logging argument is another in a series of a war of words between the European Union and the right-wing Polish government, which accuses the EU of infringing on its sovereignty.
The EU has said it is worried about the decline of democratic values in Poland.
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The U.S. Justice Department is suing to stop AT&T’s multi-billion dollar bid to take over another communications giant, Time Warner, calling it illegal and likening it to extortion.
“The $108 billion acquisition would substantially lessen competition, resulting in higher prices and less innovation for millions of Americans,” a Justice Department statement said Monday.
“The combined company would use its control over Time Warner’s valuable and highly popular networks to hinder its rivals by forcing them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for the right to distribute those networks.”
CNN, HBO top Time Warner products
Time Warner’s products include CNN, HBO, TNT, The Cartoon Network, and Cinemax — these networks broadcast highly popular newscasts, movies, comedy and drama series, and sports.
AT&T and its subsidiary DirectTV distribute these programs, as well as others, thorough cable and satellite.
The Justice Department decries the possibility of AT&T not just controlling television productions, but also the means of bringing them into people’s homes.
In its lawsuit, it threw AT&T’s words right back at the communications giant, noting that AT&T recognizes that distributors with control over the shows “have the incentive and ability to use … that control as a weapon to hinder competition.”
It also cited a DirectTV statement saying distributors can withhold programs from their rivals and “use such threats to demand higher prices and more favorable terms.”
Assured transaction would be approved
AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson told reporters the Justice Department’s lawsuit “stretches the reach of anti-trust law to the breaking point.”
He said the “best legal minds in the country” assured AT&T that the transaction would be approved and said the government is discarding decades of legal precedent.
AT&T and Time Warner are not direct competitors, and AT&T says government regulators have routinely approved such mergers.
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his contempt for one of Time Warner’s crown jewels — CNN, the Cable News Network — because of his perception of CNN being a liberal biased provider of “fake news,” including direct attacks against his administration.
Trump vowed during last year’s presidential campaign to block the merger.
Stephenson called the matter “the elephant in the room,” saying he said he “frankly does not know” if the White House disdain for CNN is at the heart of the Justice Department lawsuit.
But he said a proposal that Time Warner sell-off CNN as part of a settlement with the Trump Justice Department would be a “non-starter.”
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U.S. stocks are higher Monday as technology and industrial companies, banks and retailers all make modest gains. Drugmakers and other health care companies are trading lower. Companies that make opioid pain medications are down sharply after the government released a much higher estimate of the costs of the ongoing addiction crisis.
Keeping score
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index picked up 5 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,584 as of 2:15 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 94 points, or 0.4 percent, to 23,452. The Nasdaq composite advanced 7 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,789. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks edged up 6 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,499.
Tech tie-up
Chipmaker Marvell Technology Group said it will buy competitor Cavium for $6 billion in the latest deal in the semiconductor industry. Cavium climbed $7.48, or 9.9 percent, to $83.31 and it is up 22 percent over the last two weeks on reports Marvell would make a bid. Marvell rose $1.02, or 5 percent, to $21.31.
Other technology companies climbed as well. IBM added $2.01, or 1.3 percent, to $150.98 and Applied Materials picked up $1.12, or 2 percent, to $57.61. Cisco Systems gained 55 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $36.45.
Retail rising again
Retailers continued to move higher. They climbed last week following solid quarterly reports from Wal-Mart, Gap and Ross Stores. That’s given investors hope that shoppers are ready to spend more money. Home improvement retailer Home Depot rose $2.68, or 1.6 percent, to $170.42 and clothing company PVH rose $2.90, or 2.2 percent, to $136.02. Sporting goods retailer Hibbett Sports, after a 15-percent surge Friday, added $1.85, or 10.8 percent, to $18.95.
General electric slide
Industrial companies rose, as 3M gained $2.56, or 1.1 percent, to $231.92 and Boeing added $2.39 to $264.65.
General Electric missed out on those gains as investors continued to wonder about the company’s direction. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal said that directors with energy and financial backgrounds, as well as GE’s two longest-tenured directors, are likely to leave the board as it shifts its focus away from those industries. The company said earlier this month that it will reduce the number of directors to 12 from the current 18.
GE lost 24 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $17.97.
Drugmaker downturn
A White House group said the opioid drug epidemic cost the U.S. $504 billion in 2016, far larger than other recent estimates, and companies that make those pain medications traded sharply lower.
Last year a separate estimate said the crisis cost the country $78.5 billion in 2013, including lost productivity and health care and criminal justice spending. The Council of Economic Advisers said the new figure reflects the worsening crisis and that earlier figures didn’t calculate deaths or include the use of illegal drugs.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries fell 77 cents, or 5.6 percent, to $13.07 and Allergan gave up $3.78, or 2.2 percent, to $171.10. Endo International lost 26 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $7.28. Insys Therapeutics shed 20 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $6.18. Executives including Insys’ founder and its former CEO have been charged with offering kickbacks to doctors to get them to prescribe its fentanyl spray Subsys. Its stock traded above $40 in mid-2015.
Merck-y future?
Merck stumbled after Genentech, a unit of Swiss drugmaker Roche, reported positive results from a study of its drug Tecentriq as a primary treatment for lung cancer. Genentech said patients who were given Tecentriq as part of their treatment regimen were less likely to die or see their cancer get worse.
The results could affect sales of Merck’s drug Keytruda and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo. Merck fell $1.10, or 2 percent, to $54.10 and Bristol-Myers Squibb lost 66 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $60.63.
Energy
Benchmark U.S. crude fell 50 cents to $56.05 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, dropped 67 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $62.05 a barrel in London.
Currencies
The dollar rose to 112.64 yen from 112.13 yen late Friday. The euro slipped to $1.1737 from $1.1796 after a group of German political parties couldn’t agree to form a government, which might mean new elections are on the way. A weaker euro is good for companies that export a lot of products, and the German DAX was up 0.7 percent while France’s CAC 40 rose 0.5 percent. The FTSE 100 in Britain added 0.2 percent. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index lost 0.6 percent and South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.3 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.2 percent.
Bonds
Bond prices edged lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.37 percent from 2.35 percent.
Metals
Gold slumped $21.20, or 1.6 percent, to $1,275.30 an ounce. Silver sank 53 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $16.84 an ounce. Copper gained 3 cents to $3.09 a pound.
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Fed Chair Janet Yellen says she will leave the U.S. central bank’s board when her successor is sworn in early next year.
Jerome Powell was chosen by President Donald Trump to head the Federal Reserve when Yellen’s term expires. Powell must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate before he can take office, but analysts say his approach to managing interest rates is similar to Yellen’s. She is credited with managing the economy in ways that boosted recovery from the 2007 recession and cut unemployment in half.
In her resignation letter to Trump, Yellen said she is “gratified that the financial system is much stronger than a decade ago.” She also noted “substantial improvement in the economy since the crisis.”
Yellen is the first woman to lead the Fed, and was a member of its board of governors before taking the leadership role. Her term on the board does not officially expire until 2024, and she could have stayed on if she wished to do so.
Candidate Trump criticized Yellen during his campaign, but praised her work after he became president.
Yellen has served as vice chair of the Fed, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and head of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. She has researched and taught economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
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The European Union went back to its roots Monday by picking cities from two of its founding nations — France and the Netherlands — to host key agencies that will have move once Britain leaves the bloc in 2019.
During voting so tight they were both decided by a lucky draw, EU members except Britain chose Amsterdam over Italy’s Milan as the new home of the European Medicines Agency and Paris over Dublin to host the European Banking Authority. Both currently are located in London.
“We needed to draw lots in both cases,” Estonian EU Affairs Minister Matti Maasikas, who chaired the meeting and in both cases made the decisive selection from a big transparent bowl.
Frankfurt, home of the European Central Bank, surprisingly failed to become one of the two finalists competing for the banking agency.
The relocations made necessary by the referendum to take Britain out of the EU are expected to cost the country over 1,000 jobs directly and more in secondary employment.
The outcomes of the votes also left newer EU member states in eastern and southern Europe with some bitterness. Several had hoped to be tapped for a lucrative prize that would be a sign the bloc was truly committed to outreach.
Some 890 top jobs will leave Britain for Amsterdam with the European Medicines Agency, giving the Dutch a welcome economic boost and more prestige. The EMA is responsible for the evaluation, supervision and monitoring of medicines. The Paris-bound European Banking Authority, which has around 180 staff members, monitors the regulation and supervision of Europe’s banking sector.
After a heated battle for the medicines agency, Amsterdam and Milan both had 13 votes Monday. That left Estonia, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, to break the tie with a draw from the bowl. Copenhagen finished third, ahead of Slovakian capital Bratislava in the vote involving EU nations excluding Britain. One country abstained in the vote.
“A solid bid that was defeated only by a draw. What a mockery,” Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter.
Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra was elated.
“It is a fantastic result,” he said. “It shows that we can deal with the impact of Brexit”
The European Medicines Agency has less than 17 months to complete the move, but Amsterdam was considered ideally suited because of its location, the building it had on offer and other facilities.
Even though rules were set up to make it a fair decision, the process turned into a deeply political contest.
Zijlstra said that “in the end, it is a very strategic game of chess.”
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Germany has been plunged into political crisis after coalition talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and two smaller parties broke down. Analysts say the indecisive election result in September has revealed a splintering of German society and politics, posing a serious challenge to Chancellor Merkel. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the political chaos could have a much wider impact on issues like climate talks and European Union reform.
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Germany — the most stable European Union country — was plunged into a political crisis Monday. Weeks-long exploratory talks over forming Germany’s next coalition government collapsed with all four parties involved at loggerheads over migration and energy policies as well as on further European Union integration.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was due Monday to meet the country’s president, but it remained unclear whether she will try to run a minority government, forestalling a snap parliamentary election, or recommend heading to the polls early next year.
The news of the collapse of the talks sent the euro sliding in overnight Asian markets both against the dollar and the Japanese yen. Merkel’s difficulties come at a crucial time for the EU, which is locked in increasingly vitriolic negotiations with Britain over Brexit.
The German Chancellor had been trying to forge a complicated coalition between her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Green party following federal elections at the end of September. Those elections left her ruling CDU the largest party but with a reduced share of the vote and fewer seats — thanks partly to a surge by Germany’s far-right populists.
CDU officials acknowledge that migration — the issue the populists of the Alternative for Germany built their election appeal on — was the main obstacle in the talks dividing potential partners in a so-called Jamaica coalition, nicknamed because the parties’ traditional colors are similar to the Jamaican flag.
Asylum-seekers
The question of how many of the 1.2 million migrants and asylum-seekers from the Middle East and Africa who found their way to Germany in 2015 and 2016 should be allowed to be reunited with their families couldn’t be resolved in the coalition negotiations. On Sunday, the Green party offered a compromise whereby they would agree to limit Germany’s annual intake of migrants to 200,000 – as long as the other parties didn’t rule out that relatives of migrants already in Germany would be allowed to join them.
With migration such a contentious issue — and with the possibility of snap elections — the CDU, the CSU and the Free Democrats have appeared determined to outdo each in proposing tougher migration controls.
Merkel, Europe’s longest-serving leader, is facing renewed internal criticism of her handling of the coalition talks. As the negotiations dragged she cut a rather passive figure, according to party critics. On Sunday the embattled Chancellor said she regretted the collapse of the talks, but added she had “thought we were on the path where we could have reached agreement” when the Free Democrats decided to withdraw.
“It is at least a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany,” Merkel said. “But I will do everything possible to ensure that this country will be well led through these difficult weeks.”
Falling apart
Announcing the pull-out form the talks, the FDP leader Christian Lindner, argued, “it is better not to govern than to govern wrongly.” He suggested the huddles between officials had become acrimonious, complaining, “there was no process but rather there were setbacks because targeted compromises were questioned.”
The Free Democrats and Greens also clashed repeatedly over climate-change issues and the use of coal-fired energy generation.
Social Democrat leader, Martin Schulz, whose party had been a junior coalition partner to Merkel for the last four years, Sunday once again ruled out the possibility of another so-called grand coalition between the CDU and his party, the second largest in the Bundestag. “The voter has rejected the grand coalition”, Schulz said at a party conference in Nuremberg.
With the Social Democrats refusing to enter another coalition with Merkel following their disastrous showing in the September election, the Chancellor now faces a bleak choice. She can either try to form a minority government with the Free Democrats that would be at risk of being out-voted regularly, or concede that a re-run of September’s election is necessary. Most opinion polls suggest a re-run election would produce a very similar result to September’s.
But calling a snap election risks ending Merkel’s career and preventing her from serving a fourth-term as chancellor. In recent opinion polls, most Germans surveyed say it would mark the end of her career. And before the talks collapsed overnight Sunday Bild, Germany’s largest-circulation newspaper warned: “If she fails, the turbulence arising from a failure would quickly engulf her personally.”
But Merkel has made a habit of defying expectations over the last 12 years of her leadership.
With Germany distracted, and Merkel acting as a caretaker Chancellor, crucial EU decisions over Brexit, renewing sanctions on Russia and French President Emmanuel Macron’s push for reform of the economic bloc will likely be delayed, say analysts.
For Britain, the weakening of Merkel makes it more likely that it will crash out of the EU with no deal over trade with its largest trading partner. “The collapse of coalition talks in Germany makes a ‘no deal’ Brexit a little more likely,” tweeted Fraser Nelson, editor of Britain’s Spectator magazine.
And the political editor of the Sun, Britain’s biggest selling newspaper, Tom Newton Dunn tweeted: “Germany’s mess is bad news for Brexit. No10, perhaps inexplicably, is still holding out for Merkel’s help – but she’ll be weak and indecisive for many months now.”
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she will consult Monday with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier after weeks of talks to form a coalition government fell apart with one potential partner withdrawing from the process.
“It is at least a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany,” Merkel told reporters. “But I will do everything possible to ensure that this country will be well led through these difficult weeks.”
She spoke after the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) decided to exit a possible coalition with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, along with the left-leaning Greens.
FDP leader Christian Lindner said his party opted to withdraw rather than compromise its principles and agree to policies it does not completely support.
“It is better not to govern than to govern falsely,” Lindner said.
The parties have clashed on several issues, including immigration and the environment.
With the failure of the coalition talks, Germany could be headed to new elections. Merkel could still try to form a minority government, or try to convince the Social Democratic Party to change its mind and continue as a junior coalition partner in a new government.
But the Social Democrats have said since a disappointing result in the September election that they would be heading to the opposition.
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Opioid drug abuse, which has ravaged parts of the United States in recent years, cost the economy as much as $504 billion in 2015, White House economists said in a report made public on Sunday.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) said the toll from the opioid crisis represented 2.8 percent of gross domestic product that year.
President Donald Trump last month declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. While Republican lawmakers said that was an important step in fighting opioid abuse, some critics, including Democrats, said the move was meaningless without additional funding.
The report could be used by the Trump White House to urge Republicans in Congress – who historically have opposed increasing government spending – to provide more funding for fighting the opioid crisis by arguing that the economic losses far outweigh the cost of additional government funding.
Using a combination of statistical models, the CEA said the lost economic output stemming from 33,000 opioid-related deaths in 2015 could be between $221 billion and $431 billion, depending on the methodology used.
In addition, the report looked at the cost of non-fatal opioid usage, estimating a total of $72 billion for 2.4 million people with opioid addictions in 2015. Those costs included medical treatment, criminal justice system expenses and the decreased economic productivity of addicts.
The CEA said its estimate was larger than those of some prior studies because it took a broad look at the value of lives lost to overdoses. The CEA also said its methodology incorporated an adjustment to reflect the fact that opioids were underreported on death certificates.
“The crisis has worsened, especially in terms of overdose deaths which have doubled in the past ten years,” the CEA said.
“While previous studies have focused exclusively on prescription opioids, we consider illicit opioids including heroin as well.”
Opioids, primarily prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, are fueling the drug overdoses. More than 100 Americans die daily from related overdoses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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One-third of the newest crop of Rhodes Scholars from the United States are African-Americans, the most ever elected in a U.S. Rhodes class.
Of the 100 Rhodes Scholars chosen worldwide for advanced study at Oxford in Britain each year, 32 come from the United States, and this time, 10 of those are African Americans. One of them is Simone Askew, the first black female student to head the Corps of Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy.
Other American scholars include a transgender man and students from U.S. colleges that had never had a student win a spot in the Rhodes program.
The Rhodes Scholar program is the most prestigious available to American students, but it had been criticized for excluding women and blacks until the 1970s.
The scholarship program was set up in 1902 by Cecil Rhodes, a wealthy British philanthropist for whom the nation of Rhodesia was named. After a civil war removed Rhodesia’s white-minority government, that nation was renamed Zimbabwe.
Talks to update the North American Free Trade Agreement appeared to be in danger of grinding toward a stalemate amid complaints of U.S. negotiators’ inflexibility, people familiar with the process said on Sunday.
The United States, Canada and Mexico are holding the fifth of seven planned rounds of talks to modernize NAFTA, which U.S. President Donald Trump blames for job losses and big trade deficits for his country.
Time is running short to reach a deal before the March 2018 start of Mexico’s presidential elections, and lack of progress in the current round could put the schedule at risk.
“The talks are really not going anywhere,” Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, the largest Canadian private-sector union, told reporters after meeting with Canada’s chief negotiator on Sunday. “As long as the United States is taking the position they are, this is a colossal waste of time,” said Dias, who is advising the government and regularly meets the Canadian team.
Hanging over the negotiations is the very real threat that Trump could make good on a threat to scrap NAFTA.
Canada and Mexico object to a number of demands the U.S. side unveiled during the fourth round last month, including for a five-year sunset clause that would force frequent renegotiation of the trade pact, far more stringent automotive content rules and radical changes to dispute settlement mechanisms.
Calls for greater US flexibility
“Our internal view as of this morning is that if any progress is to be made, the United States needs to show some flexibility and a willingness to do a deal,” said a Canadian source with knowledge of the talks.
“We are seeing no signs of flexibility now,” added the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. However, a NAFTA country official familiar with the talks said Canada had not yet submitted any counterproposals to the U.S. demands.
Dias said the United States was showing some signs of flexibility over its sunset clause proposal after Mexican officials floated a plan for a “rigorous evaluation” of the trade pact, but without an automatic expiration.
U.S. negotiating objectives that were updated on Friday appeared to accommodate the Mexican proposal, saying the revised NAFTA should “provide a mechanism for ensuring that the Parties assess the benefits of the Agreement on a periodic basis.”
Canada and Mexico are also unhappy about U.S. demands that half the content of North American-built autos come from the United States, coupled with a much higher 85 percent North American content threshold. Officials are due to discuss the issue from Sunday through the end of the fifth round on Tuesday, Flavio Volpe, president of the Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said there was little chance of making substantial progress on autos in Mexico City, as the U.S. demands were still not fully understood.
“I don’t expect a heavy negotiation here,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the talks.
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The U.S. ambassador to Russia on Sunday attacked Moscow’s move toward forcing nine United States government-funded news operations to register as “foreign agents” as “a reach beyond” what the U.S. government did in requiring the Kremlin-funded RT television network to register as such in the United States.
Ambassador Jon Huntsman said the Russian reaction is not “reciprocal at all” and Moscow’s move toward regulation of the news agencies, if it is implemented, would make “it virtually impossible for them to operate” in Russia.
WATCH: Ambassador Jon Huntsman
He said the eight-decade-old Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) under which RT has registered as a foreign agent is aimed at promoting transparency, but does not restrict the television network’s operation in the United States.
Russia’s lower house of parliament approved amendments Wednesday to expand a 2012 law that targets non-governmental organizations, including foreign media. A declaration as a foreign agent would require foreign media to regularly disclose their objectives, full details of finances, funding sources and staffing.
Media outlets also may be required to disclose on their social platforms and internet sites visible in Russia that they are “foreign agents.” The amendments also would allow the extrajudicial blocking of websites the Kremlin considers undesirable.
The Russian Justice Ministry said Thursday it had notified the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and seven separate regional outlets active in Russia they could be affected.
“It isn’t at all similar to what we’re doing under FARA — it’s a reach beyond,” Huntsman said. “And, we just think the principles of free media, in any free society and democracy, are absolutely critical to our strength, health, and well-being. Freedom of speech is part of that. So, that’s why I care about the issue. That’s why we in the embassy care about the issue. And, it’s why we’re going to follow the work that is going on in the Duma and the legislation that is being drafted, very very carefully, because we’re concerned about it.”
The Justice Ministry said the new requirements in Russia were likely to become law “in the near future.”
VOA Director Amanda Bennett said last week that if Russia imposes the new restrictions, “We can’t say at this time what effect this will have on our news-gathering operations within Russia. All we can say is that Voice of America is, by law, an independent, unbiased, fact-based news organization, and we remain committed to those principles.”
RFE/RL President Tom Kent said until the legislation becomes law, “we do not know how the Ministry of Justice will use this law in the context of our work.”
Kent said unlike Sputnik and other Russian media operating in the United States, U.S. media outlets operating in Russia do not have access to cable television and radio frequencies.
“Russian media in the U.S. are distributing their programs on American cable television. Sputnik has its own radio frequency in Washington. This means that even at the moment there is no equality,” he said.
Serious blow to freedom
The speaker of Russia’s lower house, the Duma, said last week that foreign-funded media outlets that refused to register as foreign agents under the proposed legislation would be prohibited from operating in the country.
However, since the law’s language is so broad, it potentially could be used to target any foreign media group, especially if it is in conflict with the Kremlin. “We are watching carefully… to see whether it is passed and how it is implemented,” said Maria Olson, a spokeswoman at the U.S. embassy in Moscow.
The Russian amendments, which Amnesty International said would inflict a “serious blow” to media freedom in Russia if they become law, were approved in response to a U.S. accusation that RT executed a Russian-mandated influence campaign on U.S. citizens during the 2016 presidential election, a charge the media channel denies.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded in early 2017 that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed a campaign to undermine American democracy and help real estate mogul Donald Trump win the presidency. A criminal investigation of the interference is underway in the United States, as are numerous congressional probes.
The foreign registration amendments must next be approved by the Russian Senate and then signed into law by Putin.
RT, which is funded by the Kremlin to provide Russia’s perspective on global issues, confirmed last week it met the U.S. Justice Department’s deadline by registering as a foreign agent in the United States.
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Turkey’s Foreign Minister Melvin Cavusolgu is hosting his Russian and Iranian counterparts at the Mediterranean Sea resort of Antalya to prepare the ground for Wednesday’s summit in Russia to discuss Syria.
Despite Ankara backing opposing sides to Tehran and Moscow in the Syrian civil war, they have been increasingly cooperating to resolve the conflict. The three countries armed forces are deployed in creating a “de-escalation zone” in the Syrian enclave of Idlib, one of last strongholds of rebels fighting the Damascus regime.
Despite growing cooperation, the countries competing agendas are increasingly coming to the fore with the imminent defeat of Islamic State and rebel forces in the Syrian civil war. The meeting Sunday in Antalya is seeking to ease, if not resolve, those differences before the summit.
The hastily arranged summit came out of disputes over Moscow’s plan to hold a Syrian conference. Reportedly Tehran is unhappy at Moscow hosting the event, while Ankara was enraged over an invitation being extended to the Syrian Kurdish militia the PYD. Ankara accuses the militia of being linked to a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey.
But shared opposition to Washington’s policy in the region is providing a powerful impetus to ongoing cooperation between the three countries. “The ‘zeitgeist’ or spirit of times, forces the countries not to go into confrontation but cooperation,” said international relations professor Huseyin Balci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. The United States arming of PYD forces in their fight against the Islamic State continues to deeply strain relations with its NATO ally Turkey.
PYD controversy
U.S.-Turkish differences over the PYD, are increasingly dictating Turkish foreign policy. “At the moment all of Ankara’s priorities have been put in the Kurdish basket,” notes political columnist Semih Idiz of Al Monitor website, ”and that seems to be the guiding motive, whether its relations with Russia and also its relations with Iran.”
Cavusoglu is expected to press his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during talks in Antalya to agree to allow Turkey to launch a military operation against the PYD forces in the Syrian Afrin enclave. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, addressing party supporters Sunday, promised a military operation would be launched to “liberate” Afrin.
In the past few days, Turkey has been reinforcing its forces in the Syrian enclave of Idlib that borders Afrin. But with Russian soldiers deployed in Afrin, Moscow’s agreement to any attack is seen as crucial by Ankara.
Moscow is competing with Washington for influence over the Syrian Kurdish forces. “Russia has its own contacts to Kurdish politicians in the region,” observes Zaur Gasimov an Istanbul-based Russia-Turkey analyst for the Max Weber Foundation, “but [Moscow] is very concerned on pro-American mood among most Kurdish politicians.” Analysts suggest Russia may view the threat of Turkish military action as important leverage to persuade Syrian Kurds to realize Moscow, rather than Washington, is the most useful ally.
NATO relations
But Ankara’s courting of Moscow and Tehran is raising questions among its NATO partners. Turkish NATO relations received another blow, Friday, when Turkey withdrew its forces participating in a military drill in retaliation for slights made to Erdogan and the founder of the Turkish State Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, by other soldiers participating in the exercise.
The incident continues to reverberate in Turkey. Erdogan Sunday dismissed an apology by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg describing its as “halfhearted.”
Reportedly Stoltenberg said those soldiers responsible for the slight had been dismissed. Anger against NATO is being whipped up in the Turkish media and has created a rare consensus in Turkey’s deeply polarized world.
Kemal Kilicdarolgu, leader of the main opposition CHP, joined in the condemnation of NATO. While Turkey’s Culture Minister Numan Kurtulmus described the incident as an example “anti-Islamic and anti-Turkey phobia.”
NATO and in particular the United States are viewed with deep suspicion among many Turks, and analysts point out such verbal attacks offer politicians an easy opportunity to score points with the electorate. With Turkey due to hold general and presidential elections by 2019, polls that are predicted to be close, the growing anti-Western nationalist rhetoric and policies are seen likely to continue. “Foreign policy in Turkey under the ruling AKP Party, it really has become an extension of domestic policy,” observes political columnist Idiz.
In such a political climate the NATO controversy could have far reaching effects, ”Turkey currently has more than one serious problem with the U.S., the locomotive force of NATO,” warned Murat Yetkin editor of Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News, “these problems are causing a rift between the two countries, prompting both Americans and Turks to question the long-running alliance between their countries.”
The Turkish capital Ankara has banned the public showing of films and exhibitions related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues, the governor’s office said on Sunday, citing risks to public safety.
The move is likely to deepen concern among rights activists and Turkey’s Western allies about its record on civil liberties under President Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party.
“Starting from Nov. 18, 2017, concerning our community’s public sensitivity, any events such as LGBT… cinema, theatre, panels, interviews, exhibitions are banned until further notice in our province to provide peace and security,” the governor’s office said in a statement.
It said that such exhibitions could cause different groups in society to “publicly harbour hatred and hostility” toward each other and therefore pose a risk to public safety.
Authorities in Ankara had already banned a German gay film festival on Wednesday, the day before it was due to start, citing public safety and terrorism risks.
In addition, gay pride parades have been banned in Istanbul for the last two years running. Unlike in many Muslim countries, homosexuality is not a crime in Turkey, but there is widespread hostility to it.
Civil liberties in Turkey have become a particular concern for the West following the attempted military coup in July 2016.
Since then, more than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial on suspicion of links to the coup. Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs.
Human rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies fear Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to quash his opponents. Ankara says the measures are necessary, given the extent of the security threat it faces.
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Britain will submit its proposals on how to settle its financial obligations to the European Union before an EU Council meeting next month, finance minister Philip Hammond said on Sunday.
British Prime Minister Theresa May was told on Friday that there was more work to be done to unlock Brexit talks, as the European Union repeated an early December deadline for her to move on the divorce bill.
“We will make our proposals to the European Union in time for the council,” Hammond told the BBC.
Last week, May met fellow leaders on the sidelines of an EU summit in Gothenburg, Sweden, to try to break the deadlock over how much Britain will pay on leaving the bloc in 16 months.
She signaled again that she would increase an initial offer that is estimated at some 20 billion euros ($24 billion), about a third of what Brussels wants.
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Brexit is still well over year away but two European cities on Monday will already be celebrating Britain’s departure from the European Union.
Two major EU agencies now in London — the European Medicines Agency and the European Banking Authority — must move to a new EU city because Britain is leaving the bloc. The two prizes are being hotly fought over by most of the EU’s other 27 nations.
Despite all the rigid rules and conditions the bloc imposed to try to make it a fair, objective decision, the process has turned into a deeply political beauty contest — part Olympic host city bidding, part Eurovision Song Contest.
It will culminate in a secret vote Monday at EU headquarters in Brussels that some say could be tainted by vote trading.
The move involves tens of millions in annual funding, about 1,000 top jobs with many more indirectly linked, prestige around the world and plenty of bragging rights for whichever leader can bring home the agencies.
“I will throw my full weight behind this,” French President Emmanuel Macron said when he visited Lille, which is seeking to host the EMA once Britain leaves in the EU in March 2019. “Now is the final rush.”
At an EU summit Friday in Goteborg, Sweden, leaders were lobbying each other to get support for their bids.
The EMA is responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in the EU. It has around 890 staff and hosts more than 500 scientific meetings every year, attracting about 36,000 experts.
The EBA, which has around 180 staff, monitors the regulation and supervision of Europe’s banking sector.
With bids coming in from everywhere — from the newest member states to the EU’s founding nations — who gets what agency will also give an indication of EU’s future outlook.
The EU was created as club of six founding nations some 60 years ago, so it’s logical that a great many key EU institutions are still in nations like Germany, France and Belgium. But as the bloc kept expanded east and south into the 21st century, these new member states see a prime opportunity now to claim one of these cherished EU headquarters, which cover everything from food safety to judicial cooperation to fisheries policy.
Romania and Bulgaria were the last to join the EU in 2007 and have no headquarters. Both now want the EMA — as does the tiny island nation of Malta.
“We deserve this. Because as we all know, Romania is an EU member with rights and obligations equal with all the rest of the member states,” said Rodica Nassar of Romania’s Healthcare Ministry.
But personnel at the EMA and EBA are highly skilled professionals, and many could be reluctant to move their careers and families from London to less prestigious locations.
“You have to imagine, for example, for the banking authority, which relies on basically 200 very high-level experts in banking regulatory matters to move to another place,” said Karel Lannoo of the CEPS think tank. “First of all, to motivate these people to move elsewhere. And then if you don’t manage to motivate these people, to find competent experts in another city.”
As the vote nears, Milan and Bratislava are the favorites to win the EMA, with Frankfurt, and perhaps Dublin, leading the way for the EBA.
When it comes to cars, generally there are three options, there is gas, a gas-battery hybrid, or a full electric car. But for a fourth option, some car companies are banking on hydrogen as the fuel of the future. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Gerry Adams, the divisive politician known around the world as the face of the Irish republican movement as it shifted from violence to peace, announced Saturday that he was stepping down as leader of Sinn Fein next year after heading the party for over 30 years.
The 69-year-old veteran politician — who has been president of Northern Ireland’s second-largest party since 1983 — told the party’s annual conference in Dublin he would not run in the next Irish parliamentary elections.
“Leadership means knowing when it is time for change and that time is now,” he said, adding the move was part of an ongoing process of leadership transition within the party.
A divisive figure, some have denounced Adams as a terrorist while others hail him as a peacemaker.
He was a key figure in Ireland’s republican movement, which seeks to take Northern Ireland out of the U.K. and unite it with the Republic of Ireland.
The dominant faction of the movement’s armed wing, the Provisional IRA, killed nearly 1,800 people during a failed 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the U.K. It renounced violence and surrendered its weapons in 2005.
Although many identify Adams as a member of the IRA since 1966 and a commander for decades, Adams has long insisted he was never a member.
Adams was key in the peace process that saw the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the formation of the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland.
Many believe Sinn Fein’s popularity among voters is hampered by the presence of leaders from Ireland’s era of Troubles.
The party is expected to elect a successor next year. Current deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald was seen as a favorite to succeed Adams.
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Fotis Kafatos, a Greek molecular biologist who had a distinguished academic career in both the United States and Europe and became the founding president of the European Research Council, has died. He was 77.
His family announced his death in Heraklion, Crete, on Saturday “after a long illness.”
Born in Crete in 1940, Kafatos was known for his research on malaria and for sequencing the genome of the mosquito that transmits the disease.
He was a professor at Harvard University from 1969 to 1994, where he also served as chairman of the Cellular and Developmental Biology Department, and at Imperial College in London since 2005. He had been an adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health since 2007.
Kafatos was also a part-time professor at the University of Crete in his hometown since 1982. He also was the third director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, a life sciences research organization funded by multiple countries, from 1993 to 2005.
Kafatos considered the 2007 founding of the European Research Council under the auspices of the European Commission as his crowning achievement. The council funds and promotes projects driven by researchers. He stepped down as president in 2010.
He came to be disillusioned by the heavily bureaucratic rules that, in his mind, hampered research.
“We continuously had to spend energy, time and effort on busting bureaucracy roadblocks that kept appearing in our way,” Kafatos told scientific journal Nature soon after he left the post. But, he added, “We delivered to Europe what we promised.”
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Turkish prosecutors launched an investigation Saturday of two U.S. prosecutors involved in putting a Turkish-Iranian businessman on trial for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, according to Turkey’s official news agency.
The Istanbul prosecutor’s office said it was investigating Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Bharara’s successor, acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim.
A statement from the Istanbul prosecutor’s office said the sources of the documents and wiretaps being used as evidence in the U.S. case against gold trader Reza Zarrab were unknown and violated international and domestic laws.
Turkey’s official Anadolu Agency published the statement Saturday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Zarrab, 34, has been charged in the U.S. with allegedly evading sanctions on Iran. An executive of Turkey’s state-owned bank, Halkbank, also faces charges and is due to appear in court in New York on November 27.
Former Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan is also among the nine defendants indicted in the case.
Bharara denies Gulen link
Turkish officials allege the case is politically motivated. They have accused Bharara, the former U.S. attorney, of links to a Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government blames for a failed July 2016 military coup.
Bharara has vehemently rejected the allegation. Gulen denies involvement in the coup attempt.
The U.S. case was built on work initially performed by Turkish investigators who targeted Zarrab in 2013 in a sweeping corruption scandal that allegedly led to Turkish government officials.
Turkish prosecutors and police involved in the investigation were removed from duty, and charges that resulted from their probe were later dropped.
Since the July 2016 coup attempt, Turkey has arrested more than 50,000 people and fired over 100,000 state workers for alleged links to Gulen’s network.
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When the heaviest rain of tropical storm Harvey had passed, Kathryn Clark’s west Houston neighborhood had escaped the worst. Then the dams were opened — a decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prevent upstream flooding and potential dam failures by releasing water into Buffalo Bayou, just a few hundred feet from the end of Clark’s street.
When she and her husband returned to survey the damage later that week, they entered their two-story home by kayak in roughly three feet of water. In the kitchen, a snake slithered past.
Nothing like that had happened in the nearly 11 years the Clarks have lived there; it got Kathryn thinking about their long-term plans, including whether to rebuild.
“What if they decide to open the dams again?” she asked. “But if you don’t rebuild, you just walk away, and that is a big loss.”
The Clarks ultimately opted to reconstruct, a process that will take another half-year before they can move back in. Elsewhere in the city, the waiting will be longer.
A sprawling concrete jungle
In early November, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters that Texas will need more than $61 billion in federal aid, to help fund a reconstruction plan that he said would curtail damage from future coastal storms. However, he added, there will be more requests: “This is not a closed book.”
Hurricane Harvey, the costliest storm in U.S. history, will affect Houston for months, and years. Apart from tens of thousands of ongoing home rebuilding projects, civil construction is in the evaluation phase.
“With Katrina, it actually took them 12 years before FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] made their final payment to the city of New Orleans,” said Jeff Nielsen, executive vice president of the Houston Contractors Association. “That’s how long it takes to really test and figure out where all the repairs and where all the damage occurred.”
Houston covers a landmass of 1,600 square kilometers, compared to New Orleans’ 900, and is much more densely populated. The impermeable concrete jungle experienced major runoff during the storm, and that translates to high civil construction costs in roads, bridges, water, sewage and utility lines that are difficult to determine.
WATCH: Post-Harvey Houston: Years Until Recovery, Unknown Costs
Nielsen explains to VOA the immensity of the task.
“You may be driving down the road one day and, all of a sudden — boom — there is a 10-foot sinkhole underneath the road because there is a water line or a sewer line or a storm sewer line that runs underneath that road.
“There is no way to tell that that’s happening without going through and testing each and every line,” Nielsen said.
Waiting, waiting
Rob Hellyer, owner of Premier Remodeling & Construction, says Houston has seen an uptick in inquiries for both flood and nonflood-related projects — good for business, but a challenge for clients.
“A lot of those people come to the realization that ‘If we want to get our project done in the next two or three years, we better get somebody lined up quick,’” Hellyer told VOA.
But industrywide, much of the workforce is dealing with flooding issues of their own, while simultaneously attempting to earn a living.
“It really has disbursed that labor pool that we have been using for all these years,” Hellyer said.
Labor shortages in construction-related jobs have long been a challenge despite competitive wages, according to Nielsen, who describes his field — civil construction — as less-than-glamorous.
“Outside, it’s hot. What could be more fun than pouring hot asphalt on a road?” he asked.
Networking barriers
With construction costs up and waiting periods long, the hands-on rebuilding effort is typically attractive for some lower-wage immigrant communities.
Among the city’s sizable Vietnamese population, though, that’s not exactly the case, said Jannette Diep, executive director of Boat People SOS Houston office (BPSOS), a community organization serving the area’s diaspora population.
“[Vietnamese construction workers] face not only a language barrier but that networking piece, because they’re not intertwined with a lot of the rules and regulations,” Diep said. “‘Well, how do I do the bid; what’s the process?’”
Overwhelmed with paperwork and often discouraged by limited communication skills in English, Diep says many within the industry opt to work only from within their own communities, despite more widespread opportunities across Greater Houston.
The same barriers apply to the Asian diaspora’s individual post-recovery efforts. BPSOS-Houston, according to Diep, remains focused on short-term needs — food, clothing, cleaning supplies — and expects the longer-term recovery to take two to three years, particularly in lower-income neighborhoods.
Love thy neighbor
Loc Ngo, a mother of seven and grandmother from Vietnam, has lived in Houston for 40 years, but speaks little English. In Fatima Village, a tightly knit single-street community of mobile homes — comprising 33 Vietnamese families — she hardly has to.
“They came to fix the home and it cost $11,000, but they’re not finished yet,” she explained, through her son’s translation. “The washer, dryer and refrigerator — I still haven’t bought them yet, and two beds!”
Across the street, the three-generation Le family levels heaps of dirt across a barren lot that’s lined by spare pipes and cinderblocks. They plan to install a new mobile home.
At the front end of the road is the village’s single-story church, baby blue and white, like the sky — the site of services, weddings, funerals and community gatherings.
Victor Ngo, a hardwood floor installer, typically organizes church events. But for now, his attention is turned to completing reconstruction of the altar and securing donations to replace 30 ruined benches.
“At first I had to spend two months to fix up my house, and now I finished my house, and I [have started] to fix up this church,” Ngo said. “So basically, I don’t go out there to work and make money. Not yet.”
In the village, made up largely of elders, Ngo stresses the importance of staying close to home to help with rebuilding, translation, and paperwork, at least for a while longer.
“We stick together as a community to survive,” he said.
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Pro-trade Republicans in the U.S. Congress are growing worried that U.S. President Donald Trump may try to quit the NAFTA free trade deal entirely rather than negotiate a compromise that preserves its core benefits.
As a fifth round of talks to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement kicked off in Mexico on Friday, several Republicans interviewed by Reuters expressed concerns that tough U.S. demands, including a five-year sunset clause and a U.S.-specific content rule, will sink the talks and lead to the deal’s collapse.
Business groups have warned of dire economic consequences, including millions of jobs lost as Mexican and Canadian tariffs snap back to their early 1990s levels.
“I think the administration is playing a pretty dangerous game with this sunset provision,” said Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican from eastern Pennsylvania.
He said putting NAFTA under threat of extinction every five years would make it difficult for companies in his district, ranging from chocolate giant Hershey Co to small family owned manufacturing firms, to invest in supply chains and manage global operations.
Hershey operates candy plants in Monterrey and Guadalajara, Mexico.
Lawmakers’ letter
Nearly 75 House of Representatives members signed a letter this week opposing U.S. proposals on automotive rules of origin, which would require 50 percent U.S. content in NAFTA-built vehicles and 85 percent regional content.
They warned that this would “eliminate the competitive advantages” that NAFTA brings to U.S. automakers or lead to a collapse of the trade pact.
Representative Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican who has long been a supporter of free trade deals, said he disagreed with the Trump approach of “trying to beat someone” in the NAFTA talks. Texas is the largest U.S. exporting state with nearly half of its $231 billion in exports last year headed to Mexico and Canada, according to Commerce Department data.
“We need to offer Mexico a fair deal. If we want them to take our cattle, we need to take their avocados,” Sessions said.
Still, congressional apprehension about Trump’s stance is far from unanimous. The signers were largely Republicans, with no Democrats from auto-intensive states such as Michigan and Ohio signing.
Democratic support
Some pro-labor Democrats have actually expressed support for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s tough approach.
“Some of those demands are in tune,” said Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee.
“We don’t want to blow it up, Republicans don’t want to blow it up. But we want substantial changes in the labor, the environmental, the currency, on how you come to an agreement when there’s a dispute, and on problems of origin.”
Farm state Republicans are especially concerned that a collapse of NAFTA would lead to the loss of crucial export markets in Mexico and Canada for corn, beef and other products.
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said Lighthizer in a recent meeting agreed that a withdrawal from NAFTA would be hard on U.S. agriculture, which has largely benefited from the trade pact.
U.S. agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico quintupled to about $41 billion in 2016 from about $9 billion in 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, according to U.S. Commerce Department data.
Grassley said, however, that Lighthizer’s approach was “taking everybody to the brink on these talks.”
Other Republicans are taking a wait-and-see approach to the talks.
Representative Frank Lucas of Oklahoma said he was willing to give Trump “the benefit of the doubt” on NAFTA talks, adding that farmers and ranchers in his rural district were strong Trump supporters in the 2016 election.
“The president’s a practical fellow. When push comes to shove, he understands the base,” Lucas said.
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