London police say they will start using live facial recognition cameras in operational deployments, in a major advance for the controversial technology.The Metropolitan Police Service said Friday it will use the cameras to automatically scan the faces of people passing through small targeted areas where intelligence suggests serious offenders will be found.Real-time crowd surveillance by police in the British capital is among the more aggressive uses of facial recognition in modern democracies and raises questions about how the technology will enter people’s daily lives. Rights groups said the London police deployment threatens civil liberties such as the right to privacy and represents an expansion of surveillance.London police said the facial recognition system, which runs on technology from Japan’s NEC, looks for faces in crowds to see if they match any on “watchlists” of people wanted for serious and violent offences, including gun and knife crimes and child sexual exploitation.
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The Spanish government is holding an emergency meeting Friday after an unusual winter storm caused death and destruction on its Mediterranean coast. The death toll in Spain rose to 11 on Thursday, the fifth day of the storm, which has also caused floods in southern France. VOA Zlatica Hoke reports.
 
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For the past 20 years, young people in Venezuela have been on the front lines of protests to demand change in the socialist-run country.  But many university students interviewed by VOA in Caracas say they are disillusioned by the lack of change and have stopped taking part in protests because of government repression and fears for their safety.  From Caracas, reporter Adriana Nunez Rabascall has the story, narrated by Cristina Caicedo Smit. 
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A violent storm on the eastern and southern coasts of Spain has killed at least 10 people after causing severe infrastructural damage.According to weather authorities, the storm named Gloria has lasted for five days, accompanied by heavy winds, snow and hail, which has drowned people and caused them to be hit with loose debris.The storm also has caused power outages in more than 10,000 homes and the destruction of bridges, railway lines, and entire beaches. Due to the possibility of severe damage to river banks, 600 residents were evacuated Wednesday from their homes in northeastern Spain.In order to prepare for the upcoming tourist season, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he will address both short- and medium-term needs of the damaged areas in an emergency meeting on Friday.The prime minister said climate change may have had an impact. “Public administrations have to reflect on how to shift gears and focus our economic resources and public policies … on a new element, and that is climate change,” said Sanchez.The storm is continuing to spread across Spain, France and Portugal.    
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Haiti should set a date for elections, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday, more than a week after Haiti’s president began ruling by decree. Pompeo did not specify which elections he was referring to, but Haiti failed to hold scheduled legislative elections last year. “We need to have the elections. That is important,” Pompeo said in an interview with the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. “Once those elections will be held, there’ll be a duly elected government. We won’t have to be concerned about ruling by decree.” The U.S. State Department provided a transcript of Pompeo’s interview with the newspapers. Pompeo said he voiced concerns about the political situation with his Haitian counterpart in a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, on Wednesday. The Haitian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Moise rules directlyHaitian President Jovenel Moise is three years into a five-year term, which began in 2017 after the results of an initial vote, in October 2015, were scrapped over fraud allegations. Moise’s support in the country has never been overwhelming. Electoral turnout for the rerun election was low, with Moise receiving only 600,000 votes in a country of 10 million people. FILE – Anti-corruption protesters fill the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 9, 2019.Last year, the country was mired in anti-corruption protests for months, with the opposition calling for Moise to step down. Nevertheless, Moise has outlived his political opposition for now. The mandate of all deputies and most senators expired earlier in January and there were no successors as parliament failed to approve an electoral law last year necessary for holding legislative elections. In this situation, under Haitian law, the president rules directly. Accusations tradedMoise has blamed parliament for failing to approve the electoral law last year, though his opponents have accused him of trying to take advantage of the law. The last two elected Haitian presidents, Rene Preval and Moise’s political benefactor, Michel Martelly, both ruled by decree at some points. Moise has said he wanted to overhaul the constitution. Though the precise changes he is seeking are not clear, the process would be aimed at strengthening the presidency, which was weakened after the 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship. 
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After weeks of crippling transportation strikes, France’s government will formally unveil controversial pension reform legislation Friday, which will test its ability to overcome powerful union dissent and overhaul an indebted retirement system that is one of Europe’s most generous. The pension reforms arguably are the most central and problematic of President Emmanuel Macron’s broader campaign promises to make the country more economically sustainable and business friendly. But it remains unclear whether he will succeed where previous governments have failed — and angry voters may sanction the 42-year-old leader and his young Republic on the Move party in upcoming elections.   “The government thought it would have the reforms without a problem. That’s not what happened,” said Jean Grosset, director of the Observatory of Social Dialogue at Paris, the research group at the Jean Jaures Foundation. He predicts the government’s success in pushing through meaningful reforms will come at a cost. ‘Beginning of the end’But sociologist Guy Groux said the government had emerged as the clear winner in a standoff that ultimately split unions and mobilized only a small fraction of the workforce.   “I think this is the beginning of the end” of the strikes, Groux said, adding the government “has come out very well” despite some concessions. Hardline syndicates plan to counter the draft bill with a “black Friday” marked by massive street protests and metro shutdowns, echoing some of the worst days of a transportation strike that began in early December and is the longest in the country’s history.   “Friday is the day or never,” said Philippe Martinez, head of the hardline General Confederation of Labor, or CGT union, which wants the legislation scrapped. This graffiti in a French suburb calls on President Emmanuel Macron to resign. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Petering out? This week has seen highway, port and plant blockages, but the broader protest movement appears to be petering out. Public transportation was mostly back to normal Monday. And while polls show most French still oppose Macron’s pension reforms, the numbers of those backing continued strike action are dwindling.   “I think this country needs the reform,” said salesman Pierre Maerten, whose chocolate shop has lost significant business because of the strikes. “People are getting older, life expectancy is longer. Pension reforms are absolutely necessary.” Still, the pension protests add to months of separate yellow vest demonstrations that have together cost the economy billions and laid bare intense, if disparate, sentiments of anger and injustice. Lawyers are worried about paying more into a broader public pension pot; dancers and opera singers passionately defend their special retirement scheme that dates to the 17th century.   Workers ‘created this wealth’“We’re not spoiled. We workers are the ones who created this wealth,” said Makan Dambele, 52, an airline mechanic and CGT unionist. “We want to benefit from the fruits of our labor.” The government already has made some key concessions to its plan to reconcile myriad separate pension plans into a single, point-based system. For now, it has retreated from earlier goals to increase the retirement age to receive full benefits from 62 to 64 — still among the lowest in Europe. It hopes Parliament will pass final legislation by summer.   “I don’t think the government has won,” said Grosset, of the Jean Jaures Foundation. “It communicated badly. It didn’t respond to workers’ legitimate questions. It needed big protests to change its positions.” Grosset predicts the government could see worker anger spill into March municipal elections and possibly 2022 presidential ones. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen already has announced a new run for president, setting the stage for another possible runoff against Macron. The two politicians are currently neck and neck in the polls. But sociologist Groux believes Macron would have lost key center-right votes had he not pushed through the reforms.    “If Macron backtracks in the faceoff with the unions, then he’ll lose these voters and he’ll be outdistanced by Le Pen,” he said. French union members gather at a recent pension strike. The sign reads, “The force of French workers is striking.” (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Unions spotlighted While the pension strikes have translated into a major headache for many commuters, they are far from the national gridlock of two decades ago. The 1995 protests paralyzed transportation and forced the then-conservative government to backtrack on reforms, handing unions a significant victory. But today, union power is diminished and unity is splintering. Two moderate syndicates, including France’s largest, CFDT, are in compromise talks with Macron’s government and support key parts of the reform package. Hardliners, starting with the CGT, are staging sabotage and wildcat actions, insisting on nothing less than full repeal. Forecasts for protestsStill, they are making headlines in ways they never did over months of yellow vest protests, which largely sidelined them. Grosset believes French syndicates will continue to be relevant going forward, although they need to modernize.   “At their height, the yellow vests mobilized 240,000 people,” he said. “Once the unions mobilize in a big way, they get 1 [million], 2 million people out.” Sociologist Groux is less certain. The unions failed to get many private sector employees behind the pension protests, he said, and ultimately mobilized only a small fraction of France’s overall workforce.   “The mobilization was very weak,” he said, adding, “Some union leaders believe their base and the workers haven’t changed since the 1960s. We’re a long way from there.” 
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The partnership between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken the West by surprise. The two leaders met no less than six times in 2019, underscoring the close relationship they’ve established, one that seems at times built on a mutual interest in riling Turkey’s NATO partners.And this year they already have met twice, with the latest encounter in Berlin at an international conference aimed at resolving the seemingly intractable conflict in Libya, which for centuries was part of the Ottoman Empire, and has been plagued by war and instability since the ouster of autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.They’ve collaborated, too, on Syria, despite backing opposing sides in the long-running conflict and where, as in Libya, they have positioned themselves as twin arbiters. But is this just a marriage of convenience, a partnership that’s bound eventually to unravel because of conflicting geopolitical ambitions and the difficulty they face controlling their clients, who are not always pliant?German Chancellor Angela Merkel, rear center, leads a conference on Libya at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020. (Kay Nietfeld/DPA via AP, Pool)The Berlin conference this week on Libya, which has turned partly into a proxy war featuring foreign drones, Turkish troops and Russian mercenaries, and its unfolding aftermath, hint at the challenges the two leaders face in reining in their clients. They’re trying at the same time to balance their own conflicting regional ambitions to maintain their partnership, according to analysts.Turkey has been supporting Libya’s U.N.-recognized government, led by Fayez Serraj, which has been struggling to withstand a months-long assault on the capital, Tripoli, by rebel commander Khalifa Haftar, who among others is backed by Russia. Both Russia and Turkey have much invested in Libya — Russia in terms of reputation, clout and potential oil deals, and Turkey with even more wide-ranging commercial and energy interests, say analysts.The Berlin conference, attended by Western powers, too, produced an agreement to respect the U.N. arms embargo, halt outside military interference, and to push Libya’s warring parties to observe a cease-fire.Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar meets Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not pictured) at the Parliament in Athens, Greece, Jan. 17, 2020.But the complex situation on the ground in Libya has only worsened since the conference — pro-Haftar militias have blockaded two large crude oil production plants in Libya, and on Thursday the Libyan capital’s only functioning airport was closed after Haftar’s spokesman threatened to shoot down planes flying over the city, dealing another setback to the peace efforts.“Any military or civilian aircraft, regardless of its affiliation, flying over the capital will be destroyed,” warned spokesman Ahmad al-Mesmari. He claimed the airport was being used for military purposes by Turkish soldiers sent by Ankara.Midweek, the airport came under a barrage of rockets. Press reports also suggest that foreign backers have continued to send weapons to Haftar, suggesting no one has the intention of backing down. Either Russia has been unable to rein Haftar in or has not wanted to him to observe the cease-fire, experts say.Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during a meeting with heads of local councils, in Damascus, Syria, Feb. 17, 2019.Unruly clients also are a problem for Russia in Syria, where Moscow is challenged by growing Iranian influence and is struggling to dissuade President Bashar al-Assad from launching an assault on the remaining major opposition stronghold in the country in the northwestern province of Idlib, according to Russian analysts Kirill Semenov and Dmitriy Frolovskiy.They note in a commentary for the Middle East Institute, a think tank, that Assad has vowed to “liberate every inch of Syria from foreign troops” and is eager to regain control of Idlib, a move that would endanger the neighboring Turkish enclave in northern Syria and damage Turkish-Russian diplomatic relations. Such a move would upend the efforts by Moscow and Ankara to try to forge a post-war future for Syria that works for both the Turks and Russians, and balances out their interests and influence.”Putin’s recent unexpected visit to Damascus may well have been to personally inform Assad about the necessity of maintaining the cease-fire in Idlib,” one which was agreed upon by Moscow and Ankara, they say.Military vehicles and equipment, parts of the S-400 air defense systems, are unloaded from a Russian transport aircraft, at Murted military airport in Ankara, Turkey, July 12, 2019.So far, Russia and Turkey have been able to compartmentalize flash-points and disagreements that threaten their partnership and have managed to maintain a rapprochement that started after a Turkish Air Force jet shot down a Russian warplane near the Syria–Turkey border in 2015. Turkey’s purchase of a Russian-made S-400 anti-aircraft missile system and cooperation on energy projects is testimony to the partnership.But some analysts say the relationship is weighted with geopolitical conflicts that risk undermining it. “The Turks have been gravitating to the Russians, even as their vision of Syria directly conflicts with that of Putin,” says Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.“This could be their greatest divergence. But there are others. They are uneasy about Iran’s growing role in the region, which Putin generally backs — so long as it irks the U.S. They hate the Sissi regime in Egypt, which Putin courts. They are at odds with the Israelis, with whom Putin has a solid, working relationship,” he says.Overall, he says the partnership risks collapse because of the grandness of the geopolitical ambitions of the two key players, Putin and Erdoğan, whose long-term aims for their countries are at cross-purposes.Schanzer points to the grandiose Ottoman vision being outlined by one of Erdoğan’s top advisers, retired general Adnan Tanrıverdi, who says Turkey can emerge as an Islamic superpower, wielding authority over 61 Muslim countries with Istanbul as the capital of a new caliphate.“I see a collision course here,” Schanzer says.
 
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The United States, the European Union and what will soon be post-Brexit Britain have all raised the prospect of concluding trade deals between themselves by the end of this year, setting up an intense few months of negotiations.
High-level representatives said Thursday at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos that it’s possible that those discussions, operating in parallel, could be wrapped up by the end of the year.
That would be some achievement given that most trade deals take years as they get bogged down in minutiae of rules and regulations.
“Never rule out a miracle, of course, but let’s just see how these good intentions roll down the snowy hills of Davos as reality sinks in next week,” analysts at Rabobank International said in a note to investors.
Britain could be a focal point. It leaves the EU on Jan. 31 and will then open parallel trade discussions with both the U.S. and the EU. And the U.S. and the EU have just started their own discussions as President Donald Trump turns his focus away from China following the conclusion of a first round of trade talks with Beijing.
Members of Trump’s Cabinet talked up the prospects of a swift trade deal with Britain and argued that it should be relatively straightforward given how similar the two economies are.
At a press briefing, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he’s heading to London this weekend to meet with his counterpart, Sajid Javid, particularly about trade.
“It’s an absolute priority of President Trump and we expect to complete that within this year,” Mnuchin said.
 
Though Javid has said that negotiating a trade deal with the EU will be his “top priority,” discussions with the U.S. will take place at the same time.
Mnuchin said that was “obviously an aggressive timeline.”
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said a trade deal between the U.S. and Britain shouldn’t be too difficult as the two economies have more in common than they do with the EU.
“Both are very heavily services-oriented and within services, such as financial services there’s already a pretty high degree of integration and coordination, so it should be much easier mechanically,” he said.
Ross also sought to dampen concerns raised in Britain that a future trade deal would mean higher drug prices as U.S. pharmaceutical companies look to gain concessions from Britain’s state-run National Health Service.
“What we think is that drugs should have similar prices wherever they are but I don’t believe we are in any position to tell the U.K. what they should pay for drugs,” he said.
Though the U.S. is hugely important, Britain conducts far more business with the other 27 countries of the EU — that’s why so many businesses want economic relations to be as close as possible.Paolo Gentiloni, the former Italian prime minister who is now the EU’s main economy commissioner, said he welcomes the clarity over Brexit following last month’s convincing election win by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party.
“Eleven months for a free trade agreement is really very short if we look at other free trade agreements, but the EU is ready to do all in our power to have the best possible relation with the U.K.,” he said. “It’s not easy in 11 months but I think it is still possible.”
How quickly a deal can be reached will depend on what Britain is looking for. Javid has insisted Britain will not stick to EU rules and regulations, which could make a deal harder.
“As we leave there’s bound to be change but we have also been clear that there’s no point in leaving the EU but sticking with all its rules and regulations forever,” he said.
Given that stance, expectations are slim for anything more than a bare-bones trade agreement.
 
“Hopefully we can minimize the disruption as much as possible,” said Roberto Gualtieri, Italy’s new finance minister.
The final piece of the trade jigsaw relates to the U.S. and the EU, and discussions have begun as Trump turns his gaze to what he considers to be the unfair treatment of American businesses by Brussels.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s new president, said a deal could be secured “within weeks,” an aspiration that took many close observers by surprise and wasn’t wholly shared by U.S. officials.
She didn’t lay out the scope of any such agreement but she appeared intent on avoiding any tariffs on European carmakers, which Trump has threatened repeatedly in recent days.
Mnuchin said the purpose of tariffs, and the threat of tariffs, “is to get free, fair and reciprocal trade.”
On Wednesday, France agreed to delay its tax on big tech firms like Google and Facebook in exchange for a U.S. promise to hold off its retaliatory tariffs on French cheese and wine. Discussions on an international approach to digital taxes will now take place under the auspices of the Paris-based Organization or Economic Co-operation and Development.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the agreement was a big win for France’s “aggressive” approach.
 “If France would not have been the first European country to introduce a national digital taxation, there would not be any discussion at the OECD level anymore,” he said Thursday.
“It would have been buried, to be very clear. So we can be tough. We can be offensive.”
The approach seems to be setting the tone for what are likely to be complicated discussions 
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The complex extradition case designed to determine whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be sent to the U.S. to face espionage charges will take longer than expected.
    
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser agreed on Thursday to add a three-week session in May in addition to the five-day hearing already set for Feb. 24.
    
The judge said she was “unlikely to look favorably” on any further requests for delays in the long-awaited confrontation between Assange and U.S. officials.
    
Assange is being held at Belmarsh Prison in east London while he waits for the hearing. The U.S. has charged him with espionage related to WikiLeaks’ hacking of hundreds of thousands of confidential government documents.
    
Assange, 48, did not attend the court session in person but briefly confirmed his name and date of birth via videolink.
    
He claims he is a journalist whose publishing activities have First Amendment protection.
    
Both sides agreed the extra session in May was necessary because of the many legal issues.
    
Clair Dobbin, representing the U.S. government, said she needed more time to respond to evidence recently submitted by the WikiLeaks team.
    
Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s lawyer, said his team has had trouble getting adequate access to Assange at the high security prison.
    “We simply cannot get in as we require to see Mr. Assange and to take his instruction,” he said.
    
Assange’s supporters gathered inside and outside Westminster Magistrates Court to lobby for his release. His cause has been embraced by many press freedom groups.
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Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Thursday issued an emotional plea to political and business leaders at Davos, saying he needed their international help as he could not achieve change alone.Guaido is recognized as Venezuela’s interim president by the United States and 50 other countries but has so far failed to shift President Nicolas Maduro from power despite months of struggle and ongoing economic crisis.”We are facing an international criminal conglomerate and we need your help,” he told the World Economic Forum (WEF), adding that Venezuela was experiencing an “unprecedented tragedy.””Alone, we are not going to get there,” he added.Guaido has defied a travel ban issued by Maduro’s administration to go on an international charm offensive aimed at ensuring continued diplomatic support for his bid to oust Maduro.The parliament speaker first headed to his chief ally and arch Maduro foe Colombia, then Britain and EU headquarters in Brussels, before traveling to Davos.It was in Davos last year that several heads of state recognized Guaido as interim Venezuela president. But despite presiding over the economic collapse of his oil rich nation, Maduro is still in charge, defying a growing list of U.S. and EU sanctions. 
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Nine parents who were deported as the Trump administration separated thousands of migrant families landed back into the U.S. late Wednesday to reunite with children they had not seen in a year and a half.The group arrived at Los Angeles International Airport from Guatemala City in a trip arranged under the order of a federal judge who found the U.S. government had unlawfully prevented them from seeking asylum. An asylum advocate confirmed the nine parents were all aboard the flight.Some of the children were at the airport to greet them, including David Xol’s 9-year-old son Byron.David fell to one knee and tearfully embraced Byron for about three minutes, patting the back of his son’s head.“He was small,” David said after rising to his feet. He looked at his attorney — who accompanied him on the flight — raised his hand about chest-high and said, “He grew a lot.”David, Byron and his attorney, Ricardo de Anda, then embraced in a three-way hug and exchanged words in their huddle. Byron was all smiles. Father, son, attorney and family sponsor eagerly left the airport for their hotel.The reunion was a powerful reminder of the lasting effects of Trump’s separation policy, even as attention and outrage has faded amid impeachment proceedings and tensions with Iran. But it also underscored that hundreds, potentially thousands, of other parents and children are still apart nearly two years after the zero-tolerance policy on unauthorized border crossings took effect.“They all kind of hit the lottery,” said Linda Grimm, an attorney who represents one of the parents returning to the U.S. “There are so many people out there who have been traumatized by the family separation policy whose pain is not going to be redressed.”More than 4,000 children are known to have been separated from their parents before and during the official start of zero tolerance in spring 2018. Under the policy, border agents charged parents en masse with illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, then placed their children in government facilities, including some “tender-age shelters” set up for infants.The U.S. has acknowledged that agents separated families long before they enforced zero tolerance across the entire southern border, its agencies did not properly record separations, and some detention centers were overcrowded and undersupplied, with families denied food, water or medical care.In June 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the government to stop separating families and reunite parents and children.At least 470 parents were deported without their children. Some of the kids were held in U.S. government facilities and ultimately placed with sponsors. Others were deported to their home countries.Accounts emerged of many parents being told to sign paperwork they couldn’t read or understand or being denied a chance to request asylum in ways that violated federal law.The U.S. Department of Homeland Security referred a request for comment to the Justice Department, which did not respond.The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the original family separation lawsuit before Sabraw, asked the judge to order the return of a small group of parents whose children remained in the U.S. In September, Sabraw required the U.S. to allow 11 parents to come back and denied relief to seven others.ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said Sabraw made clear he would only order the return of people “who were misled or coerced into giving up their asylum rights.” That will leave other parents who fled violence, poverty and persecution to decide whether to have their children return to their home countries or remain in the U.S. without them.“Many are going to make the decision that generations of immigrant parents have made — to leave their child in the U.S. and endure the hardship of separation, but to do it for their child’s own safety,” Gelernt said.Xol said that after he and his then-7-year-old son, Byron, crossed the border, they were taken to a U.S. Border Patrol processing center in South Texas. Xol was charged with illegal entry on May 19, 2018.Two days later, Xol said an officer told him to sign a document that would allow him and Byron to be deported together. If he didn’t sign, Byron would be given up for adoption and Xol would be detained for at least two years.Xol signed the document, only to have Byron taken away and then get deported to Guatemala. Byron was placed in government facilities for 11 months.The family’s attorney, Ricardo de Anda, persuaded a federal court to force the U.S. to let a Texas family take in Byron. Since May 2019, Byron has lived with Holly and Matthew Sewell and their two children, with regular video calls to his family.Holly Sewell brought Byron, now 9, to meet his father at the airport. They planned to go back to Texas to pack and prepare for Byron to move in with his father once Xol is settled in California. Before the reunion, Byron kept asking Sewell, his caretaker, when his father would clear immigration authorities.“They’re almost here, you’re doing great,” she said. “Count to 1,000.”“999,” Byron responded.She said she was thrilled Byron could see his dad again but sharply criticized the U.S. government’s treatment of asylum-seekers.Esvin Fernando Arredondo was expected to be on the plane. The father from Guatemala was separated from one of his daughters, Andrea Arredondo — then 12 years old and now 13, after they turned themselves in on May 16, 2018, at a Texas crossing and sought asylum legally, according to Grimm, his lawyer. He failed an initial screening and agreed to go back to Guatemala.According to Sabraw’s ruling, the government deported Arredondo even after the judge had ordered families reunited and subsequently prohibited U.S. officials from removing any parent separated from their child. He’s now being given a second chance at asylum under the court order.Andrea was separated from all family for about a month, living in a shelter as the government struggled to connect children with their parents because they lacked adequate tracking systems. She was finally reunited with her mother, who had turned herself in at the Texas crossing with the other two daughters four days earlier than her husband, on May 12, 2018.She and her two daughters passed the initial screening interview for asylum, unlike her husband, even though they were fleeing for the same reason. Their son Marco, 17, was shot and killed by suspected gang members in Guatemala City.Arredondo’s wife, Cleivi Jerez, 41, arrived at LAX less than an hour before the flight landed with their three daughters in tow, ages 17, 13 and 7.“Lots of nerves, last night I couldn’t sleep,” she said in Spanish in an interview after the flight landed.Jerez said she planned to stay up late catching up with her husband. She planned to rest at their Los Angeles home tomorrow as well, catching up on their 17 months apart before he has to report to an ICE office Friday in San Diego. Alison Arredondo, 7, said she missed going to the park with her father and she wanted to go to one with him in LA.While the U.S. has stopped the large-scale separations, it has implemented policies to prevent many asylum-seekers from entering the country. Under its “Remain in Mexico” policy, more than 50,000 people have been told to wait there for weeks or months for U.S. court dates. The Trump administration also is ramping up deportations of Central Americans to other countries in the region to seek asylum there.“People want to make this a heartwarming story, but it’s not. It’s devastating,” Sewell said. “There is just no good reason why we had to do this to this child and this family. And he symbolizes thousands of others who have been put in this exact same position.”
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The primary impacts of climate change are obvious, from the unprecedented fires in Australia to the melting ice caps in the Arctic. However more observers are starting to consider secondary impacts, and none is less obvious perhaps than the credit worthiness of governments, which is analyzed in a new report from Moody’s, a ratings company.A diverse mix of nations including Vietnam, Suriname, Egypt, and the Bahamas are most vulnerable to a rise in sea levels, according to the report released last week. It said rising seas may cause “lost income, damage to assets, loss of life, health issues, and forced migration,” which could hurt governments’ sovereign ratings.The report was released ahead of this week’s Davos forum, an annual meeting of world business and government officials to discuss the world’s problems. Past themes at Davos include populism and globalization. The theme is climate change at this year’s Alpine forum, where climate activist Greta Thunberg and U.S. President Donald Trump have clashed on the issue’s impact on business. The irony is not lost on observers that officials are getting to the forum by air travel, a key source of climate-changing emissions, in order to discuss climate change. Not often represented at the forum are the vulnerable nations named in the Moody’s report.“Vulnerability to extreme events related to sea level rise can also undermine investment and heighten susceptibility to event risk, by hindering the ability of governments to borrow to rebuild, increasing losses for banks, raising external pressures, and/or amplifying political risk as populations come under stress,” said Anushka Shah, Moody’s vice president and senior analyst, in the report. “While one isolated shock related to sea level rise is unlikely to materially weaken a sovereign’s credit profile, repeated shocks could do.”Her report, with contributions from Caleb Coppersmith and Natasha Brereton-Fukui, explained the link between climate and credit.Major cities that could be submerged amid rising seas include Amsterdam, according to Moody’s.Credit scoreGovernments, like individuals and businesses, have credit scores that affect how much interest they pay to borrow. “Shocks” may come along because of rising seas, such as floods, storm surges, cyclones, and erosion. Governments have to spend money to recover from disasters and build infrastructure, while at the same time losing tax income as companies go out of business or individuals can’t work. With more money going out and less money coming in, governments risk a hit to their credit ratings.The nations highlighted in the report, along with Bahrain, Benin, the Cayman Islands, Fiji, the Maldives, and others, are vulnerable because of a mix of their location by seas and economic and fiscal strength.They are vulnerable in relative terms, but other nations that are vulnerable in terms of absolute population impacts include Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, and India, the report said. It said credit risks based on climate can vary by nation. The Netherlands, for instance, is at risk of having cities submerged under water, while Japan has physical assets at risk, like buildings and cars.Residents walk down a street in Kyoto, Japan, one of the nations with the most physical assets, like buildings, at risk of climate disasters.Climate change views evolveMoody’s noted three government climate strategies are protection, accommodation, and managed retreat. That is, protection like sea walls, accommodating rising waters with higher bridges and other tools, and pushing people to retreat by living inland away from coasts.The report comes as business views on the climate are changing.Whereas emissions used to be considered a part of doing business, companies now say they can’t survive if emissions keep rising.Microsoft said last week it will spend $1 billion to remove carbon from the air, a dramatic break from past corporate efforts to simply buy carbon offsets. Around the same time BlackRock, the world’s biggest money manager, said it would divest from coal and make climate an investment priority.“A big part of the challenge is that as a society we have not committed sufficiently to reduce emissions,” Microsoft president Brad Smith said in announcing the new company policy, adding: “If we don’t curb emissions, and temperatures continue to climb, science tells us that the results will be catastrophic.”He said the company would also support government policies to reduce emissions. The Moody’s report said there’s not much governments can do about past emissions, whether to protect their credit ratings or their populations. It said past emissions have already locked in a sea level rise of 1.6 meters. However emissions reductions could keep that number from getting even higher, it said.
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Residents of three Greek islands protested Wednesday against the overcrowding of refugee camps and demanded government action to ease migrant pressure. Most stores were closed and public services were halted on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, where some refugee camps have more than 10 times the number of people they were built for. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Greek protesters want a closure of the ports of entry as well as more equal distribution of migrants throughout the country.
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EU countries can restrict or exclude high-risk 5G providers from core parts of their telecoms network infrastructure under new guidelines to be issued by the European Commission next week, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The non-binding recommendations are part of a set of measures aimed at addressing cybersecurity risks at national and bloc-wide level, in particular concerns related to world No. 1 player Huawei Technologies.
The guidelines do not identify any particular country or company, the people said.
“Stricter security measures will apply for high-risk vendors for sensitive parts of the network or the core infrastructure,” one of the people said.
EU digital economy chief Margrethe Vestager is expected to announce the recommendations on Jan. 29.Other measures include urging EU countries to audit or even issue certificates for high-risk suppliers.EU governments will also be advised to diversify their suppliers and not depend on one company and to use technical and non-technical factors to assess them.
Europe is under pressure from the United States to ban Huawei equipment on concerns that its gear could be used by China for spying. Huawei, which competes with Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson has denied the allegations.
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In parts of Britain, thousands of children have fallen victim to so-called “county lines,” drug networks run by gangs, with many forced to sell drugs in small towns and rural areas. Helping affected children in the $600 million illegal narcotics industry is a long and difficult process.Officials estimate that some 46,000 children are involved with gangs across Britain, and many of them are exploited through drug networks and routes termed “county lines.”The children are groomed and forced to travel across the country to sell heroin and crack cocaine, using dedicated mobile phone lines.The children exploited through the “county lines” witness a lot of violence and intimidation.Tamsin Gregory works with the St. Giles Trust, an organization that offers support to youngsters who have been affected by “county lines.”Gregory says it is common to see post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD among the young people they work with.”It takes a lot of care and kindness, and non-judgmental support to help young people overcome those kinds of experiences,” Gregory said. “And it’s not a quick process. What we often find is that young people, they don’t stop their ‘county lines’ activity overnight. So they will reduce it over a period of time. And then eventually over maybe a period of a year or so we can help them fully accept that lifestyle and put them back in touch with things such as helping them get back into education.””County lines” have been around for a long time, but the number of people involved in selling drugs in rural areas has grown in recent years. There are currently about 2,000 operational “county lines.”Anton Noble was a gang member as a teenager. Although not personally involved in “county lines,” he witnessed it. After almost ending up in jail, he says he turned his life around.Noble founded the organization Guiding Young Minds in 2018 to warn young people in Britain about the dangers of gangs and “county lines.””This generation they’re ain’t no level, they’ll go to any level,” Noble said. “They’ll go to four-year-olds, they’ll go to six-year-olds, they’ll do anything just to move their product. It’s not a gang anymore, it’s a business. Money is the motive but obviously I educated the kids to say to them money don’t make you happy.”While its mostly vulnerable youngsters who end up being exploited, children from a variety of backgrounds are targeted. The children are victims but often end up in the criminal system for selling drugs or committing violent acts.Noble says he has seen through his work as a youth mentor that it takes time to connect with young people and change their mindset. He says the root causes of the drug epidemic must first be address.If you take a drug runner off the road, it replaces itself, it’s a business,” Noble said. “But if you take the root out, it’s gone. It won’t grow again.”The British government announced it would spend nearly $33 million to tackle drug networks, mostly through strengthening law enforcement.Critics of that approach note that austerity policies in the last decade have led to thousands of British police and social workers losing their jobs, and the closing of hundreds of youth centers across the country.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this month he wanted “county lines” to be stopped because “they are killing our children.” 
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The phone of Amazon billionaire and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos was hacked after receiving a file sent from an account used by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, United Nations experts alleged Wednesday.The experts called for an “immediate investigation” by the United States and others into information they received that suggests that Bezos’ phone was hacked after receiving an MP4 video file sent from the Saudi prince’s WhatsApp account.Bezos went public about the incident after allegedly being shaken down by the National Enquirer tabloid, which he said threatened to expose a “below-the-belt” selfie he’d taken and other private messages he’d exchanged with a woman he was dating while still married at the time.A forensic report that was commissioned by Bezos and shared with the U.N. experts assessed with “medium to high confidence” that his phone was infiltrated on May 1, 2018, via the MP4 video file.Saudi critic and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October that same year. The Post was highly critical of the Saudi government after his killing.“The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia,” the independent U.N. experts said.“At a time when Saudi Arabia was supposedly investigating the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, and prosecuting those it deemed responsible, it was clandestinely waging a massive online campaign against Mr. Bezos and Amazon targeting him principally as the owner of The Washington Post,” the U.N. experts said.The U.N. experts reviewed the 2019 digital forensic analysis of Bezos’ iPhone, which they said was made available to them as U.N. special rapporteurs, which are independent experts appointed by the world body.The experts said that records showed that within hours of receipt of the video from the crown prince’s account, there was “an anomalous and extreme change in phone behavior” with enormous amounts of data from the phone being transmitted over the following months.The Financial Times has seen the forensic report that was done by FTI Consulting, the private firm hired by Bezos. The newspaper said the forensic report “does not claim to have conclusive evidence,” and “could not ascertain what alleged spyware was used.”
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As world leaders rub shoulders with billionaire executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities around the world demanding action to tackle growing inequality. A new report from Oxfam highlights the scale of the problem – with most of the world’s wealth concentrated in the hands of a few thousand of the world’s super-rich. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Davos organizers insist the forum is the ideal place to come up with solutions to global problems – from inequality to climate change
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Hundreds of Central American migrants who entered southern Mexico in recent days have either been pushed back into Guatemala by Mexican troops, shipped to detention centers or returned to Honduras, officials said Tuesday. An unknown number slipped past Mexican authorities and continued north.
The latest migrant caravan provided a public platform for Mexico to show the U.S. government and migrants thinking of making the trip that it has refined its strategy and produced its desired result: This caravan will not advance past its southern border.
What remained unclear was the treatment of the migrants who already find themselves on their way back to the countries they fled last week.
“Mexico doesn’t have the capacity to process so many people in such a simple way in a couple of days,” said Guadalupe Correa Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University studying how the caravans form.
The caravan of thousands had set out from Honduras in hopes Mexico would grant them passage, posing a fresh test of U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to reduce the flow of migrants arriving at the U.S. border by pressuring other governments to stop them.
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said 2,400 migrants entered Mexico legally over the weekend. About 1,000 of them requested Mexico’s help in returning to their countries. The rest were being held in immigration centers while they start legal processes that would allow them to seek refuge in Mexico or obtain temporary work permits that would confine them to southern Mexico.
On Tuesday afternoon, Jesus, a young father from Honduras who offered only his first name, rested in a shelter in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, with his wife and their baby, unsure of what to do next.
“No country’s policy sustains us,” he said in response to hearing Ebrard’s comments about the situation. “If we don’t work, we don’t eat. (He) doesn’t feed us, doesn’t care for our children.”
Honduran officials said more than 600 of its citizens were expected to arrive in that country Tuesday by plane and bus and more would follow in the coming days.
Of an additional 1,000 who tried to enter Mexico illegally Monday by wading across the Suchiate river, most were either forced back or detained later by immigration agents, according to Mexican officials.
Most of the hundreds stranded in the no-man’s land on the Mexican side of the river Monday night returned to Guatemala in search of water, food and a place to sleep. Late Tuesday, the first buses carrying Hondurans left Tecun Uman with approximately 150 migrants heading back to their home country.
Mexican authorities distributed no water or food to those who entered illegally, in what appeared to be an attempt by the government to wear out the migrants.
Alejandro Rendon, an official from Mexico’s social welfare department, said his colleagues were giving water to those who turned themselves in or were caught by immigration agents, but were not doing the same along the river because it was not safe for workers to do so.
“It isn’t prudent to come here because we can’t put the safety of the colleagues at risk,” he said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday that the government is trying to protect the migrants from harm by preventing them from traveling illegally through the country. He said they need to respect Mexican laws.
“If we don’t take care of them, if we don’t know who they are, if we don’t have a register, they pass and get to the north, and the criminal gangs grab them and assault them, because that’s how it was before,” he said. “They disappeared them.”
Mexican Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero commended the National Guard for its restraint, saying: “In no way has there been an act that we could call repression and not even annoyance.”
But Honduras’ ambassador to Mexico said there had been instances of excessive force on the part of the National Guard. “We made a complaint before the Mexican government,” Alden Rivera said in an interview with HCH Noticias without offering details. He also conceded migrants had thrown rocks at Mexican authorities.
An Associated Press photograph of a Mexican National Guardsman holding a migrant in a headlock was sent via Twitter by acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli with the message: “We appreciate Mexico doing more than they did last year to interdict caravans attempting to move illegally north to our southern border.”
“They absolutely must be satisfied with (Mexico’s) actions because in reality it’s their (the United States’) plan,” said Correa Cabrera, the George Mason professor. “They’re congratulating themselves, because in reality it wasn’t Lopez Obrador’s plan.”
She said it is an complicated issue for Mexico, but the National Guard had no business being placed at the border to handle immigration because they weren’t trained for it. The government “is sending a group that doesn’t know how to and can’t protect human rights because they’re trained to do other kinds of things,” she said.
Mexico announced last June that it was deploying the newly formed National Guard to assist in immigration enforcement to avoid tariffs that Trump threatened on Mexican imports.
Darlin Rene Romero and his wife were among the few who spent the night pinned between the river and Mexican authorities.
Rumors had circulated through the night that “anything could happen, that being there was very dangerous,” Romero said. But the couple from Copan, Honduras, spread a blanket on the ground and passed the night 20 yards from a line of National Guard troops forming a wall with their riot shields.
They remained confident that Mexico would allow them to pass through and were trying to make it to the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, where his sister lives.
They said a return home to impoverished and gang-plagued Honduras, where most of the migrants are from, was unthinkable.       
 
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U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan delegation Tuesday on a visit to the former Nazi camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, died in the death camp before it was liberated by the allied forces 75 years ago. The main event commemorating the event will be held in Jerusalem Thursday. Pelosi will join representatives from about 50 other countries and Holocaust survivors at a conference, which will also address the need to fight the resurgence of anti-semitism in the world. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is quickly moving to consolidate proposed constitutional reforms unveiled last week – the first in Russia in over a quarter century. The moves are part of a political shakeup that analysts say may be aimed at allowing Putin to retain influence when his current and final term at the Kremlin ends in 2024. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.
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A Minneapolis carpenter whom the Associated Press exposed as a former Nazi commander — a charge his family fiercely denied — has died.According to a Hennepin County, Minnesota, death certificate, Michael Karkoc died last month in a nursing home at age 100.The Ukrainian-born Karkoc came to the United States after World War II in 1949 and led a modest life, working as a carpenter and worshipping at a Ukrainian Orthodox church.FILE – This undated file photo shows Michael Karkoc, which was part of his application for German citizenship filed with the Nazi SS-run immigration office on Feb. 14, 1940.A 2013 Associated Press investigation concluded that Karkoc commanded a Nazi-led Ukrainian military unit accused of committing atrocities against Polish civilians in 1944. Dozens of women and children were among the victims. The AP said Karkoc concealed his wartime activities from U.S. immigration officials.The AP said it relied on interviews, Nazi documents, and U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence files. It also looked at Karkoc’s own memoirs where he said he was a founder of what he called the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion — a group that collaborated with the Nazi SS to stave off communist forces.German prosecutors declined to extradite Karkoc, citing his age. But Polish prosecutors say a suspected Nazi war criminal’s age is no barrier to punishment. They announced in 2017 they would seek his arrest and extradition from the United States.Karkoc’s son strongly denied his father was a war criminal, calling him a Ukrainian patriot who fought to free Ukraine of both Nazi and communist rule. Andrij Karkoc called the AP report “evil, fabricated, intolerable and malicious.”But the top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff, said he regrets U.S. and Polish officials did not move fast enough to put Karkoc on trial.”He didn’t deserve the privilege of living in a great democracy like the United States,” Zuroff said.
 
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Spain’s new government on Tuesday declared a “climate emergency” and pledged to unveil a draft bill on transitioning to renewable energy within its first 100 days in office.In a statement announced after the weekly cabinet meeting, the government committed to bringing a draft bill “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the objective of reaching climate neutrality by 2050” — effectively net-zero carbon emissions.Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s leftwing coalition government, which took office on Jan. 13, also committed to updating the national plan for tackling climate change.The government has decided to ensure that “climate change and the transition is the cornerstone for all (ministerial) departments and governmental action,” spokeswoman Maria Jesus Montero told reporters.Environment Minister Teresa Ribera said the government had been inspired by French moves to create a public advisory panel “to generate ideas about responding to climate change in an inclusive, consultative way with a special focus on the youth.”Last summer, France announced the creation of a citizens’ panel on climate change made up of 150 people who would offer ideas and views on an array of issues touching on climate change “in keeping with the spirit of social justice”.At the end of November, the European Parliament voted to declare a “climate and environment emergency” in a symbolic gesture just ahead of the UN global crisis summit which took place in Madrid last monthThe motion urged efforts to ensure the “objective of limiting global warming to under 1.5 degrees C (35.7 degrees Fahrenheit).”It was followed by similar moves in a number of parliaments across the EU, notably in France, the United Kingdom and in Austria.
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