YCLOAK

New British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will make his first official visit to Scotland on Monday in an attempt to bolster the union in the face of warnings over a no-deal Brexit. 

Johnson will visit a military base to announce new funding for local communities, saying that Britain is a “global brand and together we are safer, stronger and more prosperous”, according to a statement released by his Downing Street Office.

It will be the first stop on a tour of the countries that make up the United Kingdom, as he attempts to win support for his Brexit plans and head off talk of a break-up of the union.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said last week that Scotland, which voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum, needed an “alternative option” to Johnson’s Brexit strategy.

He has promised that Britain will leave the EU on October 31, with or without a deal.

Sturgeon, who leads the separatist Scottish National Party (SNP), told Johnson that the devolved Scottish Parliament would consider legislation in the coming months for another vote on seceding from the United Kingdom.

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar has also said that a no-deal Brexit would make more people in Northern Ireland “come to question the union” with Britain.

Johnson, who decided that he will take the symbolic title of Minister for the Union alongside that of prime minister, will announce £300 million (£370 million, 332 million euros) of new investment for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland during Monday’s visit.

“Important projects like the government’s growth deals… will open up opportunities across our union so people in every corner of the United Kingdom can realize their potential,” he was to say.

“As we prepare for our bright future after Brexit, it’s vital we renew the ties that bind our United Kingdom.

“I look forward to visiting Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure that every decision I make as prime minister promotes and strengthens our union,” he will add.

Johnson plans to visit local farmers in Wales and discuss the ongoing talks to restore the devolved government when he visits Northern Ireland.

The investment boost comes after the prime minister announced a £3.6 billion fund supporting 100 towns in England, raising suggestions that he is already in campaign mode for an election. 

Many MPs are opposed to leaving the EU without a deal, and could try and topple the government in an attempt to prevent it, potentially triggering a vote.

Johnson has made a busy start to his premiership as he attempts win over public opinion for his Brexit plans and put pressure on those who could bring him down.

But the EU has already said his demands to renegotiate the deal struck by his predecessor Theresa May, but which was three times rejected by parliament, are  “unacceptable.”

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U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators shift to Shanghai this week for their first in-person talks since a G20 truce last month, a change of scenery for two sides struggling to resolve deep differences on how to end a year-long trade war.

Expectations for progress during the two-day Shanghai meeting are low, so officials and businesses are hoping Washington and Beijing can at least detail commitments for “goodwill” gestures and clear the path for future negotiations.

These include Chinese purchases of U.S. farm commodities and the United States allowing firms to resume some sales to China’s tech giant Huawei Technologies.

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he thinks China may not want to sign a trade deal until after the 2020 election in the hope that they could then negotiate more favorable terms with a different U.S. president.

“I think probably China will say “Let’s wait,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Let’s wait and see if one of these people who gives the United States away, let’s see if one of them could get elected.”

For more than a year, the world’s two largest economies have slapped billions of dollars of tariffs on each other’s imports, disrupting global supply chains and shaking financial markets in their dispute over China’s “state capitalism” mode of doing business with the world. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at last month’s G20 summit in Osaka, Japan to restart trade talks that stalled in May, after Washington accused Beijing of reneging on major portions of a draft agreement — a collapse in the talks that prompted a steep U.S. tariff hike on $200 billion of Chinese goods.

Trump said after the Osaka meeting that he would not impose new tariffs on a final $300 billion of Chinese imports and would ease some U.S. restrictions on Huawei if China agreed to make purchases of U.S. agricultural products.

Chips and commodities

Since then, China has signaled that it would allow Chinese firms to make some tariff-free purchases of U.S. farm goods. Washington has encouraged companies to apply for waivers to a national security ban on sales to Huawei, and said it would respond to them in the next few weeks. 

But going into next week’s talks, neither side has implemented the measures that were intended to show their goodwill. That bodes ill for their chances of resolving core issues in the trade dispute, such as U.S. complaints about Chinese state subsidies, forced technology transfers and intellectual property violations.

U.S. officials have stressed that relief on U.S. sales to Huawei would apply only to products with no implications for national security, and industry watchers expect those waivers will only allow the Chinese technology giant to buy the most commoditized U.S. components.

Reuters reported last week that despite the carrot of a potential exemption from import tariffs, Chinese soybean crushers are unlikely to buy in bulk from the United States any time soon as they grapple with poor margins and longer-term doubts about Sino-U.S. trade relations. Soybeans are the largest U.S. agricultural export to China.

“They are doing this little dance with Huawei and Ag purchases,” said one source recently briefed by senior Chinese negotiators.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Friday said he “wouldn’t expect any grand deal,” at the meeting and negotiators would try to “reset the stage” to bring the talks back to where they were before the May blow-up. “We anticipate, we strongly expect the Chinese to follow through (on) goodwill and just helping the trade balance with large-scale purchases of U.S. agriculture products and services.” Kudlow said on CNBC television.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He for two days of talks in Shanghai starting on Tuesday, both sides said.

“Less politics, more business,” Tu Xinquan, a trade expert at Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics, who closely follows the trade talks, said of the possible reason Shanghai was chosen as the site for talks. “Each side can take a small step first to build some trust, followed by more actions,” Tu said of the potential goodwill gestures.

‘Do the Deal’

A delegation of U.S. company executives traveled to Beijing last week to stress to Chinese officials the urgency of a trade deal, according to three sources who asked to not be named. They cautioned Chinese negotiators in meetings that if a deal is not reached in the coming months the political calendar in China and the impending U.S. presidential election will make reaching an agreement extremely difficult.

“Do the deal. It’s going to be a slog, but if this goes past Dec. 31, it’s not going to happen,” one American executive told Reuters, citing the U.S. 2020 election campaign. Others said the timeline was even shorter.

Two sources briefed by senior-level Chinese negotiators ahead of next week’s talks said China was still demanding that all U.S. tariffs be removed as one of the conditions for a deal. Beijing is opposed to a phased withdrawal of duties, while U.S. trade officials see tariff removal — and the threat of reinstating them — as leverage for enforcing any agreement. China also is adamant that any purchase agreement for U.S. goods be at a reasonable level, and that the deal is balanced and respects Chinese legal sovereignty.

U.S. negotiators have demanded that China make changes to its laws as assurances for safeguarding U.S. companies’ know-how, an insistence that Beijing has vehemently rejected. If U.S. negotiators want progress in this area, they might be satisfied with directives issued by China’s State Council instead, one of the sources said.

One U.S.-based industry source said expectations for any kind of breakthrough during the Shanghai talks were low, and that the main objective was for each side to get clarity on the “goodwill” measures associated with the Osaka summit.

There is little clarity on which negotiating text the two sides will rely on, with Washington wanting to adhere to the pre-May draft, and China wanting to start anew with the copy it sent back to U.S. officials with numerous edits and redactions, precipitating the collapse in talks in May.

Zhang Huanbo, senior researcher at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), said he could not verify U.S. officials’ complaints that 90 percent of the deal had been agreed before the May breakdown. “We can only say there may be an initial draft. There is only zero and 100% – deal or no deal,” Zhang said.

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Police in Moscow detained more than 1,300 people in a day of protests against alleged irregularities in the run-up to local elections, according to an independent group that monitors crackdowns on demonstrations.

Officers clad in riot gear used batons against demonstrators who had gathered outside Moscow City Hall on July 27 and roughly detained people.

The crackdown continued after the protesters moved to other locations in the Russian capital, chanting slogans such as “Russia without [President Vladimir] Putin!”

The United States, the European Union, and human rights groups denounced what they called the “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” use of force against the demonstrators, who were protesting against the refusal of election officials to register several opposition figures as candidates in municipal polls in September.

Opposition leaders said the ban was an attempt to deny them the chance to challenge pro-government candidates.

Police said 1,074 arrests were made at the unsanctioned rally, while the OVD-Info independent organization reported 1,373 detentions.

A number of those held were released by the evening.

Several opposition figures and would-be candidates were among those detained by police, including Ivan Zhdanov, Ilya Yashin, and Dmitry Gudkov.

Some protest leaders were detained on their way to the rally in central Moscow.

Aleksandra Parushina, a Moscow City Duma deputy from the opposition A Just Russia party, told RFE/RL’s Current Time — a project led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA — that she was struck in the head by riot police from Russia’s OMON force, who “brutally” dispersed a crowd that was attempting to form near the Moscow mayor’s office on Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow’s main thoroughfares.

“Detention of over 1000 peaceful protestors in Russia and use of disproportionate police force undermine rights of citizens to participate in the democratic process,” U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Andrea Kalan tweeted.

In a statement, EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said the “disproportionate use of force against peaceful protesters” undermined “the fundamental freedoms of expression, association, and assembly.”

Amnesty International also condemned what it called the “indiscriminate use of force by police, who beat protesters with batons and knocked them to the ground.”

The director of the London-based human rights watchdog’s office in Russia, Natalya Zvyagina, said Russian authorities “hit a new low by imposing military lawlike security measures on the unsanctioned rally, blocking access to major Moscow streets and shutting down businesses in advance,” despite the absence of credible reports of potential violence.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a close ally of Putin, had warned beforehand that “order in the city will be ensured.”

It is unclear how many people turned up for the rally because authorities prevented a mass crowd from gathering together in any one location.

According to police, about 3,500 people gathered near the mayor’s office, including 700 registered journalists and bloggers.

However, opposition activists said the number was much higher.

The decision to bar opposition candidates from the September 8 City Duma election over what Moscow election officials described as insufficient signatures on nominating petitions has sparked several days of demonstrations this month.

A July 20 opposition rally in Moscow drew an estimated crowd of 20,000.

Aleksei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition activist who is currently serving a 30-day jail sentence for calling the latest protest, has said demonstrations would continue until the rejected candidates are allowed to run.

The 45 members of the Moscow City Duma hold powerful posts — retaining the ability to propose legislation as well as inspect how the city’s $43 billion budget is spent.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin led Russia’s first major naval parade in years on Sunday, the day after a violent police crackdown on anti-government protesters in Moscow.

Putin on Sunday morning went aboard one of the vessels in the Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. The parade, the biggest in years, included 43 ships and submarines and 4,000 troops.

Putin was spending the weekend away from Moscow, the Russian capital, where nearly 1,400 people were detained Saturday in a violent police crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. A Russian group that monitors police arrests gave the figure Sunday, saying it was the largest number of detentions at a rally in the Russian capital this decade.

Police wielded batons and wrestled with protesters around the Moscow City Hall after thousands thronged nearby streets, rallying against a move by election authorities to bar opposition candidates from the Sept. 8 ballot for the Moscow city council.

 

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The campaign to elect Afghanistan’s new president started Sunday amid fear of foul play, insecurity and doubts whether the vote — set for September 28 —  will actually take place.

Eighteen candidates, including incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and his governing partner, chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, have embarked on a two-month campaign.  

Key rival candidates, including Abdullah, have accused the president of using government resources for the electoral campaign. Several contenders have also expressed lack of confidence in the election process,

Election officials, however, have vowed to ensure a transparent and safe election, even though half of the Afghan territory is controlled or hotly contested by the Taliban insurgency.

The September presidential ballot is the fourth held in since the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Ghani and Abdullah were among the candidates who addressed their campaign rallies Sunday, with both promising to put the country on the path of stability and economic development.

Both the leaders, however, have faced sever criticism for failing to deliver on commitments under the current coalition government mainly due to simmering internal political rifts between the two over governance-related matters.

Ghani said in his speech Sunday he will push his peace efforts with the Taliban if he won another five-year term to end the bloodshed in Afghanistan.

“Peace is around the corner and negotiations will begin. Those negotiations will be serious and legitimate,” Ghani insisted.

But the Taliban insurgency refuses to engage in any reconciliation process with Ghani and his administration, denouncing them as illegitimate and “American puppets.”

US-Taliban peace talks

The lingering election-related uncertainty stems from peace negotiations the United States is holding with the Taliban in a bid to end the 18-year-old Afghan war between the two adversaries and prepare the way for intra-Afghan peace talks. 

American and Taliban negotiators are said to be on the verge of announcing a final agreement after nearly a year-long dialogue. Such an eventually, it is widely perceived, would mean the election will be overseen by transitional government in Kabul, where the Taliban will also have a say.

Some presidential candidates have supported a deadline to allow the peace process take root. But in his speech Sunday, President Ghani rejected any compromise on the elections, saying they will go ahead as planned.

The election campaign started a day after the Afghan government announced direct talks with the Taliban will begin in the next two weeks. But the insurgent group swiftly rejected the claims, raising questions about the motives of Ghani’s administration as some critics said Saturday’s official announcement was aimed at subverting the U.S.-led peace process.

A spokesman for the Taliban’s negotiating team, Suhail Shaheen, while talking to VOA, stressed again that only if an agreement is reached with Washington on a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the insurgent group would negotiate peace with Afghans, where Kabul would have its representation but not as a government.

U.S. chief negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, also issued a clarification late Saturday, backing the insurgent assertions, saying direct Afghan-to-Afghan negotiations will happen after a U.S.-Taliban agreement is concluded.

“They [intra-Afghan negotiations] will take place between the Taliban and an inclusive and effective national negotiating team consisting of senior government officials, key political party representatives, civil society and women,” Khalilzad tweeted.  

The Afghan-born American envoy’s statement just before the election campaign was to be launched, critics said, dealt a political blow to Ghani.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month Washington hopes an Afghan peace deal would be reached by September 1.

 

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Shelsea, whose husband was recently detained by ICE inside her family’s home, recounts the moments leading up to his arrest.

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President Donald Trump listened to Robert Mueller testify to Congress this past week, then misrepresented what the former special counsel said. Some partisans on both sides did much the same, whether to defend or condemn the president.

Trump seized on Mueller’s testimony to claim anew that he was exonerated by the Russia investigation, which the president wasn’t. He capped the week by wishing aloud that President Barack Obama had received some of the congressional scrutiny he’s endured, ignoring the boatload of investigations, subpoenas and insults visited on the Democrat and his team.

Highlights from a week in review:

THE GENTLEMEN

TRUMP on Democrats: “All they want to do is impede, they want to investigate. They want to go fishing. … We want to find out what happened with the last Democrat president. Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked at me. Let’s subpoena all of the records having to do with Hillary Clinton and all of the nonsense that went on with Clinton and her foundation and everything else. Could do that all day long. Frankly, the Republicans were gentlemen and women when we had the majority in the House. They didn’t do subpoenas all day long. They didn’t do what these people are doing. What they’ve done is a disgrace.” — Oval Office remarks Friday.

THE FACTS: He’s distorting recent history. Republicans made aggressive use of their investigative powers when they controlled one chamber or the other during the Obama years. Moreover, matters involving Hillary Clinton, her use of email as secretary of state, her conduct of foreign policy and the Clinton Foundation were very much part of their scrutiny. And they weren’t notably polite about it.

Over a few months in 2016, House Republicans unleashed a barrage of subpoenas in what minority Democrats called a “desperate onslaught of frivolous attacks” against Clinton. In addition, Clinton was investigated by the FBI.

Earlier, a half-dozen GOP-led House committees conducted protracted investigations of the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya. Republican-led investigations of the 2009-2011 Operation Fast and Furious episode — a botched initiative against drug cartels that ended up putting guns in the hands of violent criminals — lasted into the Trump administration.

On the notion that Obama was treated with courtesy by GOP “gentlemen and women,” Trump ignored an episode at Obama’s 2013 speech to Congress that was shocking at the time.

“You lie!” Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina hollered at Obama. His outburst came when Obama attempted to assure lawmakers that his health care initiative would not provide coverage to people in the U.S. illegally.

Obama also faced persistent innuendo over the country of his birth. Trump himself was a leading voice raising baseless suspicions that Obama was born outside the U.S.

NORTH KOREA

TRUMP: “We’re getting the remains back.” — Fox News interview Thursday.

THE FACTS: No remains of U.S. service members have been returned since last summer and the U.S. suspended efforts in May to get negotiations on the remains back on track in time to have more repatriated this year. It hopes more remains may be brought home next year.

The Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, which is responsible for recovering U.S. war remains and returning them to families, “has not received any new information from (North Korean) officials regarding the turn over or recovery of remains,” spokesman Charles Prichard said this month.

He said his agency is “still working to communicate” with the North Korean army “as it is our intent to find common ground on resuming recovery missions” in 2020.

Last summer, in line with the first summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S. service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.

U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.

The Pentagon estimates that 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.

MUELLER

TRUMP to his critics, in a fundraising letter from his 2020 campaign: “How many times do I have to be exonerated before they stop?” — during Mueller’s testimony Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Trump has not been exonerated by Mueller at all. “No,” Mueller said when asked during his Capitol Hill questioning whether he had cleared the president of criminal wrongdoing in the investigation that looked into the 2016 Trump campaign’s relations with Russians and Russia’s interference in the U.S. election.

In his report, Mueller said his team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge Trump, partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted.

As a result, his detailed report factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, leaving it up to Congress to take up the matter.

As well, Mueller looked into a potential criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and said the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges on that front.

Following Mueller’s testimony, Trump abruptly took a different stance on the special counsel’s report. After months of claiming exoneration, and only hours after stating as much in the fundraising letter while the hearing unfolded, Trump incongruously flipped, saying “He didn’t have the right to exonerate.”

TRUMP, on why Mueller did not recommend charges: “He made his decision based on the facts, not based on some rule.” — remarks to reporters Wednesday after the hearings.

THE FACTS: Mueller did not say that.

The special counsel said his team never reached a determination on charging Trump. At no point has he suggested that he made that decision because the facts themselves did not support charges.

The rule Trump refers to is the Justice Department legal opinion that says sitting presidents are immune from indictment — and that guidance did restrain the investigators, though it was not the only factor in play.

JOE BIDEN, Democratic presidential contender: “Mueller said there was enough evidence to bring charges against the president after he is president of the United States, when he is a private citizen … that’s a pretty compelling thing.” — speaking to reporters in Dearborn, Michigan.

THE FACTS: Mueller did not say that, either. He deliberately drew no conclusions about whether he collected sufficient evidence to charge Trump with a crime.

Mueller said that if prosecutors want to charge Trump once he is out of office, they would have that ability because obstacles to indicting a sitting president would be gone.

Even that came with a caveat, though. Mueller did not answer whether the statute of limitations might put Trump off limits to an indictment should he win re-election.

Biden spoke after being briefed on the hearings and prefaced his remark with a request to “correct me if I’m wrong.”

Rep. JOHN RATCLIFFE, R-Texas, to Mueller: “You didn’t follow the special counsel regulations. It clearly says, write a confidential report about decisions reached. Nowhere in here does it say write a report about decisions that weren’t reached. You wrote 180 pages — 180 pages — about decisions that weren’t reached, about potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided. …This report was not authorized under the law to be written.” — hearing Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Mueller’s report is lawful. Nothing in Justice Department regulations governing special counsels prevents Mueller from saying what he did in the report.

It is true that the regulations provide for the special counsel to submit a “confidential report” to the attorney general explaining his decisions to recommend for or against a prosecution. But it was Attorney General William Barr who made the decision to make the report public, which is his right.

Special counsels have wide latitude, and are not directed to avoid writing about “potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided,” as Ratcliffe put it.

Mueller felt constrained from bringing charges because of the apparent restriction on indicting sitting presidents. But his report left open the possibility that Congress could use the information in an impeachment proceeding or that Trump could be charged after he leaves office.

The factual investigation was conducted “in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available,” the report said.

In a tweet, Neal Katyal, who drafted the Justice Department regulations, wrote: “Ratcliffe dead wrong about the Special Counsel regs. I drafted them in 1999. They absolutely don’t forbid the Mueller Report. And they recognize the need for a Report ‘both for historical purposes and to enhance accountability.’”

Rep. MIKE JOHNSON, R-La., addressing Mueller: “Millions of Americans today maintain genuine concerns about your work in large part because of the infamous and widely publicized bias of your investigating team members, which we now know included 14 Democrats and zero Republicans.” — hearing Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Johnson echoes a widely repeated false claim by Trump that the Mueller probe was biased because the investigators were all a bunch of “angry Democrats.” In fact, Mueller himself is a Republican.

Some have given money to Democratic candidates over the years. But Mueller could not have barred them from serving on that basis because regulations prohibit the consideration of political affiliation for personnel actions involving career attorneys. Mueller reported to Barr, and before him, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who were both Trump appointees.

THE SQUAD

TRUMP, on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York: “She called our country and our people garbage. She said garbage. That’s worse than deplorable. Remember deplorable?” — remarks Tuesday at gathering of conservative youth.

THE FACTS: Ocasio-Cortez did not label people “garbage.” She did use that term, somewhat indirectly, to describe the state of the country.

Arguing for a liberal agenda at a South by Southwest event in March, she said the U.S. shouldn’t settle for centrist policies because they would produce only marginal improvement — “10% better” than the “garbage” of where the country is now.

Trump has been assailing Ocasio-Cortez and three other liberal Democratic women of color in the House for more than a week, ever since he posted tweets saying they should “go back” to their countries, though all are U.S. citizens and all but one was born in the U.S.

VOTING FRAUD

TRUMP: “And when they’re saying all of this stuff, and then those illegals get out and vote — because they vote anyway. Don’t kid yourself, those numbers in California and numerous other states, they’re rigged. You got people voting that shouldn’t be voting. They vote many times, not just twice, not just three times. They vote — it’s like a circle. They come back, they put a new hat on. They come back, they put a new shirt. And in many cases, they don’t even do that. You know what’s going on. It’s a rigged deal.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump has produced no evidence of widespread voting fraud by people in the country illegally or by any group of people.

He tried, but the commission he appointed on voting fraud collapsed from infighting and from the refusal of states to cooperate when tapped for reams of personal voter data, like names, partial Social Security numbers and voting histories. Studies have found only isolated cases of voter fraud in recent U.S. elections and no evidence that election results were affected. Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt found 31 cases of impersonation fraud, for example, in about 1 billion votes cast in elections from 2000 to 2014.

Trump has falsely claimed that 1 million fraudulent votes were cast in California and cited a Texas state government report that suggested 58,000 people in the country illegally may have cast a ballot at least once since 1996. But state elections officials subsequently acknowledged serious problems with the report, as tens of thousands on the list were actually U.S. citizens.

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “We have the best stock market numbers we’ve ever had … Blue-collar workers went up proportionately more than anybody.” — Fox News interview Thursday.

THE FACTS: Wealthier Americans have largely benefited from the stock market gains, not blue-collar workers.

The problem with Trump claiming the stock market has helped working-class Americans is that the richest 10% of the country controls 84% of stock market value, according to a Federal Reserve survey. Because they hold more stocks, wealthier Americans have inherently benefited more from the 19% gain in the Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks so far this year. Only about half of U.S. families hold stocks, so plenty of people are getting little to no benefit from the stock market gains.

What Trump may be claiming with regard to the stock market is that working Americans are disproportionately benefiting in their 401(k) retirement savings.

Trump has said that 401(k) plans are up more than 50%. His data source is vague. But 401(k) balances have increased in large part due to routine contributions by workers and employers, not just stock market gains.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that only one group of Americans has gotten an average annual 401(k) gain in excess of 50% during Trump’s presidency. These are workers age 25 to 34 who have fewer than five years at their current employer. At that age, the gains largely came from the regular contributions instead of the stock market. And the percentage gains look large because the account levels are relatively small.

TRUMP: “We have the best economy we’ve ever had.” — Fox News interview Thursday.

TRUMP: “We have the best economy in history.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: No matter how often he repeats this claim, which is a lot, the economy is nowhere near the best in the country’s history.

In fact, in the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth reached 7.2% in 1984. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. Most of that took place under Obama.

TRUMP: “Most people working within U.S. ever!” — tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “The most people working, almost 160 million, in the history of our country.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Yes, but that’s only because of population growth.

A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.

According to Labor Department data, 60.6% of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in June. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7% in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9% when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

TRUMP: “The best employment numbers in history.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: They are not the best ever.

The 3.7% unemployment rate in the latest report is not a record low. It’s the lowest in 50 years. The rate was 3.5% in 1969 and 3.4% in 1968.

The U.S. also had lower rates than now in the early 1950s. And during three years of World War II, the annual rate was under 2%.

VETERANS

TRUMP, on his efforts to help veterans: “I got Choice.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He is not the president who “got” the Veterans Choice program, which gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense.

Obama got it. Congress approved the program in 2014, and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

NATO

TRUMP: “We’re paying close to 100% on NATO.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The U.S. isn’t “paying close to 100%” of the price of protecting Europe.

NATO has a shared budget to which each member makes contributions based on the size of its economy. The United States, with the biggest economy, pays the biggest share, about 22%.

Four European members — Germany, France, Britain and Italy — combined pay nearly 44% of the total. The money, about $3 billion, runs NATO’s headquarters and covers certain other civilian and military costs.

Defending Europe involves far more than that fund. The primary cost of doing so would come from each member country’s military budget, as the alliance operates under a mutual defense treaty.

The U.S. is the largest military spender, but others in the alliance have armed forces, too. The notion that almost all costs would fall to the U.S. is false. In fact, NATO’s Article 5, calling for allies to act if one is attacked, has only been invoked once, and it was on behalf of the U.S., after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran is at a crossroads.

His administration is trying to decide whether to risk stoking international tensions even more by ending one of the last remaining components of the 2015 nuclear deal. The U.S. faces a Thursday deadline to decide whether to extend or cancel sanctions waivers to foreign companies working on Iran’s civilian nuclear program as permitted under the deal.

Ending the waivers would be the next logical step in the campaign and it’s a move favored by Trump’s allies in Congress who endorse a tough approach to Iran. But it also would escalate tensions with Iran and with some European allies, and two officials say a divided administration is likely to keep the waivers afloat with temporary extensions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The mere fact that the administration is divided on the issue — it’s already postponed an announcement twice, according to the officials — is the latest in a series of confusing signals that Trump has sent over Iran, causing confusion among supporters and critics of the president about just what he hopes to achieve in the standoff with the Islamic Republic.

Some fear the mixed messages could trigger open conflict amid a buildup of U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf region.

“It’s always a problem when you don’t have a coherent policy because you are vulnerable to manipulation and the mixed messages have created the environment for dangerous miscalculation,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Trump has simultaneously provoked an escalatory cycle with Iran while also making clear to Iran that he is averse to conflict.”

The public face of the pressure campaign is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he rejects suggestions the strategy is less than clear cut.

“America has a strategy which we are convinced will work,” he said this past week. “We will deny Iran the wealth to foment terror around the world and build out their nuclear program.”

Yet the administration’s recent actions — which included an unusual mediation effort by Kentucky’s anti-interventionist Sen. Rand Paul — have frustrated some of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Those actions also have led to unease in Europe and Asia, where the administration’s attempt to rally support for a coalition to protect ships transiting the Gulf has drawn only lukewarm responses.

Trump withdrew last year from the 2015 deal that Iran signed with the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China. The agreement lifted punishing economic sanctions in exchange for limits on the Iranian nuclear program. Critics in the United States believed it didn’t do enough to thwart Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons and enabled Iran to rebuild its economy and continue funding militants throughout the Middle East.

Trump, who called it “the worst deal in history,” began reinstating sanctions, and they have hobbled an already weak Iranian economy.

Iran responded by blowing through limits on its low-enriched uranium stockpiles and announcing plans to enrich uranium beyond levels permitted under the deal. Iran has taken increasingly provocative actions against ships in the Gulf, including the seizure of a British vessel, and the downing of a U.S. drone.

Sometime before Thursday, the administration will have to either cancel or extend waivers that allow European, Russian and Chinese companies to work in Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The officials familiar with the “civil nuclear cooperation waivers” say a decision in principle has been made to let them expire but that they are likely to be extended for 90 more days to allow companies time to wind down their operations.

At the same time, Trump gave his blessing to Paul to meet last week with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in New York to attend a U.N. meeting. Officials familiar with the development said Paul raised the idea with Trump at a golf outing and the president nodded his assent.

Deal critics, including Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, say the waivers should be revoked because they give Iran access to technology that could be used for weapons. In particular, they have targeted a waiver that allows conversion work at the once-secret Fordow site. The other facilities are the Bushehr nuclear power station, the Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor.

Deal supporters say the waivers give international experts a valuable window into Iran’s atomic program that might otherwise not exist. They also say some of the work, particularly on nuclear isotopes that can be used in medicine at the Tehran reactor, is humanitarian in nature.

Trump has been coy about his plans. He said this past week that “it could go either way very easily. Very easily. And I’m OK either way it goes.”

That vacillation has left administration hawks such as Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton in a quandary.

Bolton has long advocated military action against Iran with the goal of changing the Tehran government and, while Pompeo may agree, he is more sensitive to Trump’s reluctance to military intervention, according to the officials.

“Pompeo is trying to reconcile contradictory impulses by focusing on the means rather than ends, which is sanctions,” said Sadjadpour. “But rather than bringing clarity, Trump has brought further confusion by promoting the idea of Rand Paul as an envoy.”

This has given Iran an opening that it is trying to exploit, he said.

“For years, the U.S. has tried to create fissures between hard-liners and moderates in Tehran and now Iran is trying to do the exact same thing in Washington.”

…

ROME — A young American tourist has confessed to fatally stabbing an Italian paramilitary policeman who was investigating the theft of a bag and cellphone before dawn Friday, the Italian news agency ANSA and state radio reported. 
 
ANSA, citing unidentified investigators, said two American tourists allegedly snatched the bag of a drug dealer who had swindled them. It said the owner called police to say he had arranged a meeting with the thieves to get back his bag and phone.  
 
When two plainclothes officers arrived at the rendezvous site in Rome’s Prati neighborhood about 3 a.m., there was a scuffle during which Carabinieri paramilitary officer Mario Cerciello Rega was stabbed eight times, ANSA said. 
 
RAI state radio reported early Saturday that the two tourists are 19 years old and had been seen on video surveillance cameras apparently running away with the bag, which was stolen in another neighborhood, Trastevere, which is very popular with young Italians and foreigners for its night life. 
 
The Carabinieri police corps did not immediately confirm the alleged confession.  

Questioning continues
 
Prosecutors were apparently still questioning the Americans at a Carabinieri station in Rome early Saturday. 
 
Police said earlier Friday evening that several people, including two American tourists, were being questioned in the case.  
 
Carabinieri Lt. Col. Orazio Ianniello said the Americans were staying at an upscale hotel near where the policeman was stabbed. He said their identities and hometowns were not being immediately released. 
 
Earlier, the Carabinieri said the thieves had been demanding a 100-euro ($112) ransom to return the bag with the cellphone. 

Stabbed in the heart and the back, the officer died shortly after in a hospital, Italian media said. 
 
Cerciello Rega’s station commander, Sandro Ottaviani, said the 35-year-old officer had married his longtime sweetheart about five weeks ago and had returned from his honeymoon just a few days ago. 
 
Colleagues and charities praised Cerciello Rega for his generosity. He sometimes accompanied ailing people to a religious shrine in the town of Loreto, Ottaviani said. 
 
Others recalled that the Carabinieri officer would frequently check on the homeless living in Rome’s main train station, helping dish out hot meals to the hungry, distributing clothes and sometimes even buying lunch for them out of his own pocket. 
 
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who commands state police, another national law enforcement branch, vowed to apprehend the killer, saying authorities would “make him pay dearly.” 

…

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico. 

The court’s five conservative justices gave the administration the green light to begin work on four contracts it has awarded using Defense Department money. Funding for the projects had been frozen by lower courts while a lawsuit over the money proceeded. The court’s four liberal justices wouldn’t have allowed construction to start. 

The justices’ decision to lift the freeze on the money allows President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump tweeted after the announcement: “Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!” 

The Supreme Court’s action reverses the decision of a trial court, which initially froze the funds in May, and an appeals court, which kept that freeze in place earlier this month. The freeze had prevented the government from tapping approximately $2.5 billion in Defense Department money to replace existing sections of barrier in Arizona, California and New Mexico with more robust fencing. 

The case the Supreme Court ruled in began after the 35-day partial government shutdown that started in December 2018. Trump ended the shutdown in February after Congress gave him approximately $1.4 billion in border wall funding. But the amount was far less than the $5.7 billion he was seeking, and Trump then declared a national emergency to take cash from other government accounts to use to construct sections of wall. 

The money Trump identified includes $3.6 billion from military construction funds, $2.5 billion in Defense Department money and $600 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund. 

The case before the Supreme Court involved just the $2.5 billion in Defense Department funds, which the administration says will be used to construct more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of fencing. One project would replace 46 miles (74 kilometers) of barrier in New Mexico for $789 million. Another would replace 63 miles (101 kilometers) in Arizona for $646 million. The other two projects in California and Arizona are smaller. 

The other funds were not at issue in the case. The Treasury Department funds have so far survived legal challenges, and Customs and Border Protection has earmarked the money for work in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley but has not yet awarded contracts. Transfer of the $3.6 billion in military construction funds is awaiting approval from the defense secretary. 

The lawsuit at the Supreme Court was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Sierra Club and Southern Border Communities Coalition. The justices who lifted the freeze on the money did not give a lengthy explanation for their decision. But they said among the reasons they were doing so was that the government had made a “sufficient showing at this stage” that those bringing the lawsuit don’t have a right to challenge the decision to use the money. 

Alexei Woltornist, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said in a statement, “We are pleased that the Supreme Court recognized that the lower courts should not have halted construction of walls on the southern border.  We will continue to vigorously defend the administration’s efforts to protect our nation.” 

ACLU lawyer Dror Ladin said after the court’s announcement that the fight “is not over.” The case will continue, but the Supreme Court’s decision suggests an ultimate victory for the ACLU is unlikely. Even if the ACLU were to win, fencing will have already been built. 

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would not have allowed construction to begin. Justice Stephen Breyer said he would have allowed the government to finalize the contracts for the segments but not begin construction while the lawsuit proceeded. The administration had argued that if it wasn’t able to finalize the contracts by Sept. 30, then it would lose the ability to use the funds. The administration had asked for a decision quickly. 

The Supreme Court is on break for the summer but does act on certain pressing items. 

…

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó says his country has shown that migration can be stopped on the western Balkan route.

…

North Korea has formally announced its latest ballistic missile test, saying the launch was a warning to “military warmongers” in South Korea who are set to soon hold joint military exercises with the United States.

North Korean state media showed pictures of Kim Jong Un personally supervising the Thursday test of what it called a “new-type tactical guided weapon.” U.S. and South Korean officials say the projectile was a short-range ballistic missile.

The official Korean Central News Agency said the test was meant “to send a solemn warning to the south Korean military warmongers who are running high fever in their moves to introduce the ultramodern offensive weapons into south Korea and hold military exercise in defiance of the repeated warnings.”

Complaints about South Korea

North Korea has repeatedly complained about South Korea’s recent acquisition of U.S. F-35 fighter jets, as well as upcoming U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises. Pyongyang has warned it may not resume working-level talks with the United States if the drills take place.

“South Korean authorities show such strange double-dealing behavior as acting a ‘handshake of peace’ and fingering joint declaration and agreement and the like before the world people and, behind the scene, shipping ultra-modern offensive weapons and holding joint military exercises,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.

New type of missile

South Korea’s National Security Council expressed “strong concern” about the launch, which it determined was a “new type of short-range ballistic missile.” That is firmer than Seoul’s response after a similar North Korean launch in May. At the time, South Korea referred to the North Korean weapons as “projectiles.”

The U.S. military command in South Korea also assessed that North Korea tested a “new type of missile for the DPRK,” using an acronym for North Korea’s official name. “These two short range ballistic missiles were not a threat directed at the ROK or the U.S., and have no impact on our defense posture,” the statement said.

The test raises further doubts about working-level talks, which were supposed to resume shortly after last month’s meeting between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.

Trump, Pompeo optimistic

In an interview with the U.S. cable network Fox News, Trump was optimistic, saying he still gets along “very well” with Kim. 

“They haven’t done nuclear testing. They really haven’t tested missiles other than, you know, smaller ones. Which is something that lots test,” Trump said.

In an earlier interview with Fox News, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he still believes negotiations will start soon. 

“We’re working our way towards that. I think we’ll be able to pull that off in just a handful of weeks,” Pompeo said.

“North Korea has engaged in activity before we were having diplomatic conversations far worse than this. … I think this allows negotiations to go forward. Lots of countries posture before they come to the table,” he said.

Asked about Kim’s unveiling Tuesday of a newly built submarine that is apparently capable of handling nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, Pompeo said: “We all go look at our militaries. And we all take pictures of them.”

UN resolution

Under United Nations Security Council resolutions, North Korea is banned from conducting any ballistic missile activity. But Trump administration officials have said they do not see North Korea’s short-range tests as a breach of trust.

Kim last year declared a moratorium on intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear tests. During their meeting at the DMZ last month, Kim also promised Trump that he would “continue to avoid launching intermediate range and long-range ballistic missiles,” Pompeo said Thursday.

At a State Department briefing Thursday, spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the Trump administration’s focus is on continued diplomatic engagement with North Korea.

“And we continue to urge the North Koreans to resolve all of the things that the president and Chairman Kim (Jong Un) have talked about through diplomacy. We urge no more provocations, and that all parties should abide by our obligations under Security Council resolutions.”

Trump and Kim have held three meetings since June of last year. At their first meeting, both men agreed to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But neither side has agreed on what that idea means or how to work toward it.

North Korea wants the United States to provide security guarantees and relax sanctions in exchange for partial steps to dismantle its nuclear program. Washington has insisted it will not ease sanctions unless Pyongyang commits to totally abandoning its nuclear program.

North Korea has given the United States until the end of the year to change its approach to the talks. Trump insists he is in no hurry to reach a deal, insisting his friendship with Kim will eventually persuade the young North Korean leader to give up his nuclear weapons.
 

…

There was more flash than substance Thursday as the White House celebrated the anniversary of an initiative to spur job training by companies.

The initiative, led by President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, has garnered commitments from 300 companies to provide 12 million training opportunities in the years ahead. But there are questions about how much the administration is willing to spend to help U.S. workers, whether the agreements by companies will result in higher salaries and whether employers will stick to their nonbinding pledge if the economy sours.

A look at the celebratory rhetoric:

Ivanka Trump: “This administration believes that every American should have a chance to earn a great living doing work that they love. … The president’s call to action for the pledge has become a full-blown national movement. Over the last year, more than 300 businesses, 300 businesses, have signed the pledge, businesses large and small, and today we celebrate reaching 12 million pledged commitments. … This pledge is more than just a number. Every single pledge is a commitment to the promise of an individual and his or her potential.”

Vice President Mike Pence: “That is an astonishing accomplishment.”

The Facts: It’s much too early to declare the pledge a game changer for working Americans.

Spending cut

For one thing, the government has not devoted significant spending to training workers. In fact, the Trump administration has come up with budget proposals calling for cuts in that area. The government spends just 0.03% of the gross domestic product on job training, a level of support that has been halved since 2000, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Of the 36 countries in the organization, only Japan and Mexico spend less than the U.S. by that measure.

By having companies sign the pledge, the Trump administration is relying on the private sector to take on more of the financial burden of training workers. It’s unclear whether the commitment by 300 entities will be honored during the half-decade horizon if the economy begins to weaken and companies have less incentive to invest in employees.

Nor is it clear how many workers were already going to be trained, absent the initiative. In many cases, the pledge simply confers a presidential seal of approval on what some companies are doing anyway.

Not college

Major corporate leaders such as IBM CEO Ginni Rometty have worked with the administration and sincerely committed company resources to training workers. But she also told reporters at an event this year that the government should expand its grant and student debt programs to what were later described as “career-oriented learning programs” other than colleges. That means some workers would need to finance their training with personal debt. Other companies such as the tech firm Infosys have lengthened their training programs and partnered with universities.

Yet on the whole, companies have done relatively little to invest in workers — who increasingly hold college degrees — by paying them more money.

Until 2003, compensation and corporate profits had moved roughly in sync, according to figures compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But they have sharply diverged in the past 15 years as profits shot upward while spending on employee pay has crept up much more slowly. This gap between profits and incomes has persisted under Trump.

A key victory

The Trump administration can claim one small victory as the number of registered apprentices — a key initiative — increased 10% last year to 585,026 people, according to the Labor Department.

It’s also worth putting the 12 million commitments for job training over five or so years into context.

Roughly 20 million people enroll in a college or university annually, according to the government. This means that plenty of Americans are already seeking out training, though not necessarily the kind of training that employers say they want.
 

…

RFE/RL contributed to this report.

Despite the arrest of a top Kremlin critic and police raids on the homes of several political activists, opposition leaders in Russia remained determined to go ahead with a planned protest in Moscow on Saturday.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was ordered jailed Wednesday for 30 days for calling “unauthorized protests” for this weekend to protest the disqualification of several opposition-minded candidates from the Sept. 8 Moscow city council elections.

Election officials have barred about 30 independent candidates from the ballot, saying some of the 5,500 signatures they needed to get on the ballot were invalid. The rejected candidates say the reason for not validating the signatures is to keep genuine independents off the ballots and ensure the ruling United Russia party and others who do President Vladimir Putin’s bidding maintain dominance.

“If the United Russia swindlers don’t register the independent candidates and spit on the opinions of the citizenry, then all of us … will come to the mayor’s office at Tverskaya 13,” Navalny wrote on a social media post earlier this week.

Last weekend, more than 20,000 people marched in the streets of Moscow to protest the disqualifications. That’s when Navalny called for an even bigger rally Saturday.

Mass protests

Rejected candidate Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer with Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, also called for mass protests after a meeting between the disqualified candidates and Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova.

The Russian authorities appear to be adopting a carrot-and-stick approach as the July 27 demonstration nears. Pamfilova met with the opposition candidates and heard their complaints — one of which was that Moscow election officials had refused to meet with them and hear their complaints.

Pamfilova promised to consider the complaints of the disqualified candidates, but warned them that the CEC does not have the authority to overturn decisions of the Moscow Election Commission. She said the law grants local election commissions such autonomy to prevent Moscow from exerting influence on them.

Pamfilova also urged candidates not to participate in protests, saying “the influence of street protests on the CEC is zero.”

Navalny was arrested just hours after the meeting with Pamfilova.

On the ballot

Sixteen regions will choose governors in Russia’s Sept. 8 elections, including the city of St. Petersburg. Fourteen regions and the city of Moscow will select legislative assemblies, and 21 other cities will choose municipal councils.

United Russia has entered the election season with a record-low public approval rating. Analysts and Kremlin critics say the authorities are resorting to numerous “dirty tricks” and other tactics to ensure the party maintains the grip on power it has enjoyed through most of Putin’s nearly two decades at the country’s helm.

…

The clamor from “Game of Thrones” fans for a do-over of the drama’s final season has been in vain.

HBO programming chief Casey Bloys said Wednesday there was no serious consideration to remaking the story that some viewers and critics called disappointing.

There are few downsides to having a hugely popular show like “Game of Thrones,” Bloys said, but one is that fans have strong opinions on what would be a satisfying conclusion.

Bloys said during a TV critics’ meeting that it comes with the territory, adding that he appreciates fans’ passion for the saga based on George R.R. Martin’s novels.

Emmy voters proved unswayed by petitioners demanding a remake: They gave “Game of Thrones” a record-breaking 32 nominations earlier this month. The series also hit record highs for HBO.

HBO will want to keep the fan fervor alive for the prequel to “Game of Thrones” that’s in the works. The first episode completed taping in Ireland and the dailies look “really good,” Bloys said. The planned series stars Naomi Watts and is set thousands of years before the original.

Asked whether negative reaction to the “Game of Thrones” conclusion will shape the prequel, Bloys replied, “Not at all.”

…

A federal judge is considering whether to order Georgia to immediately stop using its outdated voting machines, even as state officials prepare to announce their replacement.

A lawsuit filed by election integrity activists argues that the paperless touchscreen voting machines Georgia has used since 2002 are unsecure, vulnerable to hacking and can’t be audited. It seeks statewide use of hand-marked paper ballots.

A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system, which state officials said will be in place for the 2020 presidential election.

But the plaintiffs are asking U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg to order the state to immediately stop using the current system, which it plans to use for special and municipal elections this year and which the plaintiffs fear would be used in 2020 if a new system isn’t implemented in time. Totenberg has scheduled a hearing Thursday on those requests.

Georgia’s voting system drew national scrutiny last year during the closely watched governor’s race in which Kemp, a Republican who was the state’s top election official at the time, narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams.

The plaintiffs in this case _ the Coalition for Good Governance and individual voters asked Totenberg last August to force Georgia to use hand-marked paper ballots for the November election. While Totenberg expressed grave concerns about vulnerabilities in the state’s voting system and scolded state officials for being slow to respond to evidence of those problems, she said a switch to paper ballots so close to that election would be too chaotic.

The plaintiffs argue the state has done nothing to address the problems, and the outdated machines should not be used. They argue a switch to hand-marked paper ballots would be relatively easy since the state already uses such ballots for absentee and provisional voting, and the scale is smaller given that there are no statewide elections this year.
 
They cite problems they say arose in last year’s election, including malfunctioning voting machines, long lines, electronic poll book errors and an extreme undervote in the lieutenant governor’s race on ballots cast using voting machines.

In addition to the use of hand-marked paper ballots, they asked the judge to order the state to take some other immediate steps, including post-election audits to verify results.

Lawyers for state election officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, argue concrete steps have been taken to address the concerns, including arranging for the purchase of new voting technology statewide and adding security measures to existing systems.

They also argue that paper ballots have vulnerabilities and that putting an intermediate system in place while the state is moving to a new voting system “places an impossible burden on both state and local election officials and may result in voter frustration and disaffection from the voting process.”

The new law calls for voters to make their selections on electronic machines that print out a paper record that is read and tallied by scanners. The state is expected to choose a vendor soon. The request for proposals specifies that vendors must be able to distribute all voting machine equipment before March 31, which is a week after the state’s presidential primary election is set to be held on March 24.
 
The plaintiffs argue the ballot-marking machines provided for in the new law have many of the same fundamental flaws as the machines they’re replacing. They say any system that puts a computer between the voter and the permanent record of the vote can’t be effectively audited and is unconstitutional. They’ve said they plan to challenge the new system once the state announces which machines it plans to use.

The plaintiffs also say the state’s plan to implement a new system statewide in time for the 2020 elections is extremely ambitious and that putting a hand-marked paper ballot system in place now would be a secure and constitutional backup plan, unlike using the current system.

This lawsuit is one of several that challenge various aspects of Georgia’s election system. Another, filed by a group founded by Abrams, alleges systemic problems in the election system and accuses election officials of mismanaging the 2018 election.

 

…

An African Union special envoy is urging South Sudan’s leaders to enact and enforce laws to end the pervasive problem of sexual violence in the country. AU special envoy on youth, Aya Chebbi, said authorities must involve men if South Sudan is going to end gender-based violence. 

“Men should be doing all these initiatives to end gender-based violence. Why? Because these women are their mothers, their sisters, their daughters, they are not some women out there who are suffering and I don’t care about; these are their communities,” Chebbi told South Sudan in Focus.

During a five-day visit to South Sudan, she said the AU’s plan for ending gender-based violence focuses on eliminating all forms of violence, including genital mutilation and child marriage.  “So I call on civil society to advocate for legal frameworks that protect women. For the communities, there is also resilience and community policing which means the community must protect itself,” Chebbi told VOA.

Simon Marot Tonloung, a member of the African Union’s Youth Advisory Council, says preventing sexual violence begins at home.  

“How will you feel if your sister, if your daughter, or your mother undergoes such kinds of troubling experiences? It’s sad. So it will start from families. It will not come from outside,” Tonloung told South Sudan in Focus.

Tonloung said AU member states like South Sudan must ratify policies that protect all citizens including women, and it is the duty of every citizen to hold the government of South Sudan accountable for enforcing those policies.

“So, if we don’t hold out our institutions at the grassroots level accountable, then we’ll not have an impact even if we pass a lot of policies,” Tonloung told VOA.

Earlier this month, the AU’s legal counsel signed a document to form the Hybrid Court for South Sudan as stipulated in the 2018 peace deal.  Once in operation, the court will combine South Sudanese and other African judges and staff to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

After a gang rape last Friday in Jonglei state, women rights activists and leaders called on state officials to do more to protect women and girls against sexual abuse. Jonglei officials accused armed cattle raiders from neighboring Fangak state of gang-raping two women in Jonglei state’s Duk-Padiet county.
 
A 30-year old mother of three who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the stigma attached to rape victims in South Sudan, said she was walking to Bor from her village about five kilometers away when armed men attacked her.

 “When that happened, I hated myself and felt like that was the end of my life. I felt so crushed and useless. But because God can turn a bad situation around, that is why I am here today talking to you,” the woman told South Sudan in Focus.

She said a local non-profit called African Leadership And Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM) brought her to a counseling center in Bor where she received counseling.

Jonglei state information minister Atong Kuol Manyang said the men were hiding until the women came along the road.
 
“They went and hid in the bush for some hours and they met two women who had gone to collect firewood in the forest. So in that process they continuously raped the women and these men were from Gaweer [of Fangak state],” Manyang told South Sudan in Focus.

Manyang did not explain how he knew the women’s attackers were from neighboring Pangak state.

Jonglei state assembly lawmaker Hellen Akech Marial said South Sudanese women are often at high risk of being attacked while carrying out daily chores.

“We don’t have electricity so that people cook in the houses and so women always resort to going out to look for firewood. Once they are out, they are subjected to such criminal acts,” Marial told South Sudan in Focus.

The United Nations has repeatedly expressed concern about the high level of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls in South Sudan.

 

…

…

The Trump administration’s new asylum rule survived an initial court challenge Wednesday, keeping in place a directive that disqualifies a significant proportion of mostly Central American asylum-seekers who reach the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly denied requests to block the rule while a pending court case goes forward, saying, “It’s in the greater public interest to allow the administration to carry out its immigration policy.” 

Announced earlier this month, the new rule bars asylum for migrants who reach the U.S. southern border without having applied for and been denied asylum in any country they passed through on their way to the United States.

The case was brought by two immigrant rights organizations: the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and RAICES, or Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. Both organizations argued the asylum rule would harm migrants fleeing dangerous situations.

Kelly, who serves on the U.S. District Court in the nation’s capital, voiced doubts that plaintiffs could demonstrate the administration exceeded its authority by issuing the asylum rule. 

The White House’s legal victory could be short-lived, as a federal judge in San Francisco was to consider a separate challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union later in the day.

“We’ve filed suit to stop the Trump administration from reversing our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect people fleeing danger,” the ACLU tweeted.

Trump administration officials have said the new rule is meant to ease the strain on the U.S. asylum system. 

In a recent statement, U.S. Attorney General William Barr noted a “dramatic increase in the number of aliens” arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that “[o]nly a small minority of these individuals” qualify for asylum. 

…

The Gulf of Guinea is a hot spot for illegal activities, which affect global trade and security. This week a conference in Ghana’s capital, Accra, seeks solutions to overcome issues that plague the region. Experts say collaboration will be the focus of a seaborne law enforcement effort.

On board the USNS Carson City, which is visiting Sekondi, in Ghana’s Western Region, Admiral James Foggo thanked the American crew, telling personnel how important its role is in building partnerships and bringing security to the Gulf of Guinea – a coastal region of West and Central Africa.

The ship arrived for a port visit Sunday as part of the U.S. Navy’s effort to support African navies in anti-piracy, small boat maintenance and marine law enforcement. Personnel from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian forces are also part of the collaborative mission.

Alongside naval leaders from other nations, Foggo toured U.S., Ghanaian and Nigerian vessels at the port of Sekondi.

“Our interest in the Gulf of Guinea is helping our African partners and friends legitimize and control the sea lines of communication that lead to the ports of Africa. Ninety percent of their commerce travels by those sea lines of communication. There is a lot of activity that is legal, probably more legal than illegal. We want to stop the illegal activity, it takes away from their tax base, their profitability and detracts from their economy,” Foggo said.

But for success to endure, Foggo said there is a need for more emphasis on arresting, charging and prosecuting those committing illegal activities in the Gulf.

“There has got to be some kind of deterrence or punishment applied in order to keep people from doing this in the future, otherwise if they go into a detention facility or jail and they get out, they just go back and do it again,” he said.

Foggo is the commander of U.S. Allied Joint Force Command Naples, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, and U.S. Naval Forces Africa.  

The Accra conference is focused on tackling threats from illegal fishing, piracy, kidnappings for ransom, illegal oil bunkering and drug trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea.

Commander Veronica Arhin, a spokesperson for Ghana’s Navy, says the goal of the meeting is to get as many experts and navies together to address security in the Gulf of Guinea.  

”Collaboration between the navies in the Gulf of Guinea is extremely important because crimes or insecurity is transnational, it can move from one country to another, so there is a need for us to have that collaboration, such that if a ship has a problem in another country’s waters or there is a piracy attack and the pirates move to another country, there could be that communication. And the navies around the various countries could come together to fight such crimes,” said Arhin.

Those ideas are endorsed by Ahmed Tabsoba, who grew up in Ghana and is now an American citizen in the U.S. Navy.

Tabsoba has been stationed in Naples where the U.S. works with its 28 NATO allies. He was back in his home country, traveling with Admiral Foggo.

“We live in a world that you cannot predict what is going to happen next, so it’s really good to always build this relation[ship] and make sure we are there to help if something happens,” Tabsoba said.

The two-day International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference ending Thursday brings together 25 countries represented by speakers and exhibitors who hope to find ways to collaborate on solutions to the region’s challenges.
 

 

…

Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a law returning the OPEC nation to a regional defense treaty on Tuesday, but opposition leader Juan Guaido sought to tamp down supporters’ hopes it could lead to President Nicolas Maduro’s imminent downfall.

Opposition hardliners had been pressuring Guaido to join the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, as a precursor to requesting a foreign military intervention to oust Maduro, a socialist who has overseen an economic collapse and is accused of human rights violations.

“The TIAR is not magic, it is not a button that we press and then tomorrow everything is resolved,” Guaido told a rally of supporters in Caracas, using the treaty’s Spanish initials. “In itself it is not the solution – it obliges us to take to the streets with greater force to exercise our majority.”

The treaty states that an attack on one of the members – which include most large Western Hemisphere countries including the United States, Brazil and Colombia – should be considered an attack on all. Venezuela and other leftist Latin American countries left the alliance between 2012 and 2013.

Venezuela plunged into a deep power struggle in January when Guaido invoked the constitution to declare a rival presidency, arguing Maduro’s May 2018 re-election was illegitimate. He has been recognized as the rightful leader by most Western countries, including the United States.

Maduro, who calls Guaido a U.S. puppet seeking to oust him in a coup, remains in control of government functions six months into Guaido’s campaign. The economy and public services have continued to deteriorate in that time, and on Monday much of the country went dark in the biggest blackout since March.

That has led some Maduro opponents, such as former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, to push Guaido to request foreign military intervention to oust Maduro.

U.S. officials have said a military option is “on the table” for Venezuela, but has so far focused on economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure to choke off cash flow to Maduro and try to convince top military officials to get behind Guaido.

Latin American and European countries are pushing a diplomatic solution to Venezuela’s political and economic crisis, and many have criticized the possible use of force.

Norway’s government is currently mediating negotiations between the government and the opposition in Barbados.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday told young people a number of falsehoods he’s been relating to adults for months and took a misleading swipe at the female Democratic lawmakers he’s trying to turn into foils.

A sampling of his remarks at a Turning Point USA gathering of conservative youth:

Trump, on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York: “She called our country and our people garbage. She said garbage. That’s worse than deplorable. Remember deplorable?”

The facts: Ocasio-Cortez did not label people “garbage.” She did use that term, somewhat indirectly, to describe the state of the country.

Arguing for a liberal agenda at a South by Southwest event in March, she said the U.S. shouldn’t settle for centrist policies because they would produce only marginal improvement — “10% better” than the “garbage” of where the country is now.

Trump has been assailing Ocasio-Cortez and three other liberal Democratic women of color in the House for more than a week, ever since he posted tweets saying they should “go back” to their countries, though all are U.S. citizens and all but one was born in the U.S.

Voter fraud

Trump: “And when they’re saying all of this stuff, and then those illegals get out and vote — because they vote anyway. Don’t kid yourself, those numbers in California and numerous other states, they’re rigged.  You got people voting that shouldn’t be voting. They vote many times, not just twice, not just three times. They vote — it’s like a circle. They come back, they put a new hat on. They come back, they put a new shirt. And in many cases, they don’t even do that.  You know what’s going on. It’s a rigged deal.”

The facts: Trump has produced no evidence of widespread voting fraud by people in the country illegally or by any group of people. 
 
He tried, but the commission he appointed on voting fraud collapsed from infighting and from the refusal of states to cooperate when tapped for reams of personal voter data, like names, partial Social Security numbers and voting histories. Studies have found only isolated cases of voter fraud in recent U.S. elections and no evidence that election results were affected. Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt found 31 cases of impersonation fraud, for example, in about 1 billion votes cast in elections from 2000 to 2014. 
 
Trump has falsely claimed that 1 million fraudulent votes were cast in California and cited a Texas state government report that suggested 58,000 people in the country illegally may have cast a ballot at least once since 1996. But state elections officials subsequently acknowledged serious problems with the report, as tens of thousands on the list were actually U.S. citizens.

U.S. economy

Trump: “We have the best economy in history.”

The facts: No matter how often he repeats this claim, the economy is nowhere near the best in the country’s history.

In fact, in the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth reached 7.2% in 1984. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under President Barack Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. Most of that took place under Obama.

Unemployment rate

Trump: “The best employment numbers in history.”

The facts: They are not the best ever.

The 3.7% unemployment rate in the latest report is not a record low. It’s near the lowest level in 50 years, when it was 3.5%. The U.S. also had lower rates than now in the early 1950s. And during three years of World War II, the annual rate was under 2%.

Employment numbers

Trump: “The most people working, almost 160 million, in the history of our country.”

The facts: Yes, but that’s only because of population growth.

A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.

According to Labor Department data, 60.6% of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in June. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7% in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9% when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

Veterans Choice

Trump, on his efforts to help veterans: “I got Choice.” 
 
The facts: He is not the president who “got” the Veterans Choice program, which gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. 
 
Obama got it. Congress approved the program in 2014, and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

NATO

Trump: “We’re paying close to 100% on NATO.”

The facts: The U.S. is not “paying close to 100%” of the price of protecting Europe.

NATO has a shared budget to which each member makes contributions based on the size of its economy. The United States, with the biggest economy, pays the biggest share, about 22%.

Four European members — Germany, France, Britain and Italy — combined pay nearly 44% of the total. The money, about $3 billion, runs NATO’s headquarters and covers certain other civilian and military costs.

Defending Europe involves far more than that fund. The primary cost of doing so would come from each member country’s military budget, as the alliance operates under a mutual defense treaty.

The U.S. is the largest military spender, but others in the alliance have armed forces, too. The notion that almost all costs would fall to the U.S. is false. In fact, NATO’s Article 5, calling for allies to act if one is attacked, has only been invoked once, and it was on behalf of the U.S., after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said Tuesday he plans to meet with the Taliban to persuade them to hold negotiations with the government in Afghanistan but cautioned that securing a political settlement to war will not be easy. 

While delivering a public talk at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, Khan noted that for the first time in the 18-year-old Afghan conflict, Pakistan and the United States are working together to advance peace efforts in the neighboring country. 

Khan spoke a day after he met with President Donald Trump at the White House where the two leaders agreed to work together to end to the conflict. 

“Now, when I go back after meeting President Trump … I will meet the Taliban and I will try my best to get them to talk to the Afghan government so that the elections in Afghanistan must be inclusive where the Taliban also participate in it,” he said.

 The Taliban is strongly opposed to engaging in any formal intra-Afghan negotiations, involving the Kabul government, until securing a peace deal with the U.S.

Khan said that a Taliban delegation had wanted to meet him a few months back but he had to cancel the meeting because of objections from the Afghan government. He said he has now spoken to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani about his possible upcoming meeting with the insurgent group.

Pakistani leader visits Capitol Hill

Later, the Pakistani prime minister attended a reception at the Capitol Hill where he addressed a large number of American congressmen. Khan said his country has already arranged U.S.-Taliban talks and it will do all within its powers to advance the Afghan peace process. 

“Pakistan is now trying its best to get the Taliban on the table to start this dialogue and, so far, we have done pretty well. But it’s not going to be easy. Do not expect this to be easy because it’s a very complicated situation in Afghanistan,” Khan cautioned. “We all have one object and it’s exactly the same objective as the U.S., which is to have a peaceful solution as quickly as possible in Afghanistan,”  he added. 

Afghan leaders have consistently accused Islamabad of covertly backing the Taliban-led violent insurgency in their country, charges Pakistani officials reject and insist continued instability in the neighboring country is hurting Pakistan’s own stability and economic development. 

American and Taliban officials in their months-long talks are said to have come close to concluding an agreement toward ending the Afghan war. The proposed truce would require the insurgents to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a base for international terrorists in exchange for U.S. troops leaving the country. 

Afghan reaction to Trump’s remarks 

Meanwhile, U.S. chief negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, arrived Tuesday in Kabul to brief the Afghan leadership on his talks with the Taliban before he visits Qatar for another round of negotiations with insurgent envoys based there. The Afghan-born American diplomat tweeted he is focused on achieving an enduring peace that ends the war. 

Khalilzad arrived in Kabul a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he has military plans that could wipe Afghanistan “off the face of Earth,” killing millions of people.

Trump’s remarks, which he made during meeting with Khan at the White House, have outraged Afghan officials, opposition leaders and the Taliban as well.

President Ghani’s office in a statement issued Tuesday demanded a clarification from Washington.

Trump said if he wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan he could win that war in a week. 

“I just don’t want to kill 10 million people … Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone … It would be over in, literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do that — I don’t want to go that route,” the president said. 

Former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, while talking to VOA Afghan service strongly condemned Trump’s statement, saying it comes from a “criminal mindset” and shows “contempt” toward Afghanistan and the Afghan people.” 

“The U.S. shouldn’t have come in the first place. They should go. They should go now,” Karzai said when asked about the possible U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Karzai came to power with the help of the U.S. and for most of his time in office American special forces had been doing the job of his personal security. 

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement, denounced as “irresponsible” the comments made by the American president.

“We believe that Trump should pay close attention to the actual cause of the problem instead of irresponsible comments and take practical steps towards finding a solution instead of failed policies and impractical hubris,” Mujahid asserted. 

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Most Americans think that tanking levels of distrust in the government and in other people are hindering efforts to solve pervasive, persistent issues, ranging from immigration and racism to healthcare, taxes and voting rights. Pew Research Center released results for the poll on Monday. It was conducted from November to December 2018 and included over 10,000 adults.

“Many people no longer think the federal government can actually be a force for good or change in their lives,” Pew quoted one survey participant as saying. “This kind of apathy and disengagement will lead to an even worse and less representative government.”

Nearly 70% of Americans say the federal government purposely withholds information that it could safely release, and a further 64% say that when elected officials speak, it’s hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t.

Public confidence in government, which dipped in the 60s and 70s, made a recovery in the 80s and early 2000s, according to an April Pew poll. Now, at 17%, the American populace’s trust in government is near historic lows.

And a large majority of people think this distrust is justified, with 75% answering that the government shouldn’t have more public confidence than it does.

Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents were more likely to pin the blame for distrust on corruption and poor government performance, while their Democrat and Democrat-leaning counterparts were more likely to point at U.S. President Donald Trump’s performance.

Confidence in other people has dropped too, but most prominently when politics come into the mix. While majorities trust others to “do the right thing,” such as in following the law, this changes when it comes to accepting election results, voting in informed ways, reconsidering views upon learning new information and a host of other situations.

Trust in others differed based on race, age, income and education, with older, richer and more educated participants holding higher levels of personal trust. White people had high levels of trust for others 27% of the time, more than double the share of black and Hispanic respondents.

“Americans who might feel disadvantaged are less likely to express generalized trust in other people,” Pew noted.

Strikingly, Republicans and Democrats held similar levels of personal trust in others, but had markedly different views regarding the government, with Republicans expressing more general confidence.

Why does public trust in government matter? Besides being the basis of any government that proclaims its power is drawn from the people, 64% of Americans say low trust in government is hampering responses to the country’s biggest problems. Exactly 70% think the same for distrust in other people. Solutions to persistent, divisive issues, like immigration, healthcare, taxes, voting rights and gerrymandering, were suffering, survey respondents said.

However, fully 84% of participants thought low confidence in the federal government could be remedied. In open comments, participants suggested solutions, including tamping down political partisanship and minimizing sensationalist he-said-she-said media coverage.

“Trust is the glue that binds humans together. Without it, we cooperate with one another less, and variables in our overall quality of life are affected,” wrote one 38-year-old man.

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