A jailed Catalan separatist leader was entitled to immunity as a member of the European Parliament, the EU’s highest court ruled on Thursday.Oriol Junqueras was sentenced to 13 years in prison in October for his role in a 2017 Catalan independence referendum that was deemed illegal by Spanish courts. He was elected an MEP while in prison awaiting the verdict and has not been able to take up his seat.The EU court ruled anyone elected to the European Parliament “enjoys immunities” to travel and take part in parliamentary sessions and an MEP cannot be subject to detention or legal proceedings because of views expressed or votes cast.The immunity does not, however, apply to an MEP who has committed an offense. The Spanish Supreme Court, which had referred the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), must now decide how to comply with the verdict.Junqueras’ lawyer Andreu Van den Eynde told reporters the ruling should push Spain’s Supreme Court to overturn his client’s conviction and grant his immediate release from jail.”I believe that, one way or another, the State Attorney must accept we are right,” he said at a news conference outside the prison where Junqueras is being held.The ruling could jeopardize efforts by Spain’s Socialists to court Junqueras’ Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) party, whose support they need to form a government and break a political deadlock after two inconclusive elections this year.ERC’s parliamentary spokesperson Marta Vilalta said the party would not return to negotiations until the Socialists and the state attorney react to the verdict.”What they do and say is very important to show that indeed they are abandoning … the path of repression and are seriously embracing the political path,” she said.The acting government said the state attorney would analyze the ruling and present findings in the coming days and that it wanted “a new phase of dialog, negotiations and agreement” on Catalonia.The EU court did not examine Junqueras’ criminal case and sentencing. The ruling only responds to the Supreme Court’s questions on the impact of Junqueras being elected as a European lawmaker, a CJEU source said.If Spanish authorities had wanted to prevent Junqueras from traveling to the European Parliament, they would have had to request the Parliament waive his immunity, the ruling said.Other Catalan leadersTwo other Catalan politicians won European Parliament seats in May but fears of returning to Spain, where they face arrest warrants, prevented them from collecting their MEP credentials. Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comin are both living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.”Today European justice did more to resolve the (Catalan) conflict than two years of repression by Spanish governments and the shameful silence of the European institutions,” Puigdemont said at a news conference in Brussels.He described Spain’s continuing imprisonment of Junqueras after today’s ruling as a “kidnapping.”Separately, a Barcelona court ruled the pro-independence president of Catalonia’s regional government, Quim Torra, should be barred from holding public office for 18 months after he refused to remove symbols of support for jailed separatists from public buildings during April’s election campaign. Torra said he would appeal.
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The son of Russian spies who was born in Canada and was stripped of his citizenship after his parents were arrested for espionage in the United States is a Canadian national, the country’s top court ruled  Thursday.
Canada’s Supreme Court unanimously upheld an earlier federal court ruling that said a 2014 administrative decision to strip Alexander Vavilov of his citizenship was unreasonable. Vavilov was born in Canada in 1994, as was his brother, Timothy, four years earlier.
“The judges said that Mr. Vavilov was a Canadian citizen,” according to the ruling.
The hit TV series The Americans was based partly on the story of Vavilov’s family. His parents came to Canada in the 1980s under deep cover and assumed names, with the mission to immerse themselves in Western society. The family later moved to Boston, where Vavilov’s parents were arrested in 2010 and charged with spying.
Vavilov’s parents returned to Russia in a spy swap. Both brothers were also sent to Russia. Alexander said he had no idea that his parents were spies until they were arrested.
Children born in Canada normally automatically become Canadian citizens, but the country’s Registrar of Citizenship said Alexander was an exception because his parents had been like diplomats — representatives or employees of a foreign government.
The Supreme Court upheld a previous federal appeals court ruling saying that Vavilov’s parents did not enjoy the “privileges and immunities” of diplomats and so the exception could not be applied to their son.
Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova used the aliases Donald Heathfield and Tracey Ann Foley — names lifted from two Canadian children who had died in infancy. They later admitted their real names to U.S. authorities.
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Police on Thursday arrested more than 300 suspected members of the ‘Ndrangheta criminal organization in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Bulgaria in a major mafia crackdown.In Italy alone, 2,500 officers participated in raids that also targeted property valued at 15 million euros ($16.7 million), focusing on the Calabrian town of Vibo Valentina, but extending through much of the country.The arrested included a former lawmaker, an ex-regional official, a mayor in Calabria, a political party official and a Carabinieri commander previously assigned to the Calabrian capital.The suspects were being held on suspicion of extortion, murder money-laundering and belonging to a Mafia organization.”It is the biggest operation since the maxi-trial of Palermo,” anti-Mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told the news agency ANSA. He referred to a trial against the Sicilian mafia that lasted from 1986 to early 1992 that led to the convictions of more than 300 people, considered the most significant trial ever against the Sicilian Mafia.”We have completely disrupted the clans of Vibo province, but Italian regions were involved from the Alps to Sicily,” Gratteri saidThe Calabrian `Ndrangheta has increasingly eclipsed the Sicilian Cosa Nostra in power and wealth, infiltrating all sectors of Italian economic and political life. From Calabria, it has spread its tentacles to northern Italy, where it migrated in the 1970s and 1980s, to Germany, and as far away as Canada and Australia.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is warning of another refugee exodus from Syria as government forces there conduct airstrikes against rebel targets in Idlib province. With Russian forces backing the assault, Ankara and Moscow face a looming threat to their recent warming ties.”Now, there are 50,000 people coming to our lands from Idlib. We already host 4 million people, and now, an additional 50,000 are coming. Maybe this figure will increase even further,” Erdogan said Thursday at the Kuala Lumpur summit of Muslim world leaders in Malaysia.Erdogan gave no details on whether any of the refugees had reached the Turkish border. Idlib province is the last main rebel-controlled area in Syria. Around 3 million people are believed trapped in the enclave that borders Turkey.The latest refugee exodus was triggered by the intense bombardment by Damascus, backed by Russian air power. Turkish officials say that around 200,000 refugees in Idlib are camped close to Turkey’s border, after escaping a previous Syrian government assault.”This [Idlib] crisis is not only the problem of Turkey, but it’s also the security problem of the European Union,” said Mesut Casin, a foreign policy adviser to Erdogan.A Syrian man comforts another on the rubble of a building after a reported Russian airstrike on a popular market in the village of Balyun in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, Dec, 7, 2019.Erdogan also renewed his criticism of the international community. “We spent over $40 billion. There is neither serious support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees nor does the European Union fulfill the promises it gave. No one is keeping their word,” he said.Analysts say Erdogan is desperate to avoid another refugee exodus into Turkey. “He has faced the consequences of keeping so many refugees in Turkey,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc, of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.”The result was the loss of major urban centers in recent local elections, including Istanbul. Many advisers and analysts link the loss to hosting refugees,” he added.Guvenc warns a new wave of refugees could well be passed on to Europe. “Erdogan holds the threat of opening up borders to Europe. Like a sword of Damocles over the EU, he is repeatedly warning this,” said Guvenc.  Local media reports from Idlib suggest the latest offensive by Damascus could just be preparation for a major offensive to retake the enclave. “Pressure on Idlib, it makes for an explosive cocktail for everybody,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Athens University. “Greece is already struggling with the steady flow of refugees coming from neighboring Turkey.”FILE – Syrian refugees are seen in a commercial district in Istanbul. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing growing domestic pressure over the presence in Turkey of over three and half million Syrian refugees. (Dorian Jones/VOA)A Damascus-led offensive would likely also put Ankara and Moscow on a collision course. Last year, Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin hammered out an agreement that guaranteed Idlib’s protection.  While Erdogan is a strong backer of the Syrian rebels and Putin of the Damascus government, the two men have increasingly cooperated in seeking to resolve Syria’s civil war.  
 
Such cooperation has fostered more extensive improvement in Turkish-Russian relations, much to the alarm of Turkey’s NATO allies.Analysts point out that given Erdogan’s strained relations with his traditional Western allies over myriad differences, a deepening relationship with Moscow makes tactical sense.  Ultimately, however, regional policy differences are predicted to be increasingly difficult to manage. “In the long run, Turkish and Russian Middle East policies do not converge, because of their two different interpretations of the situation,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.”In Idlib, Putin is committed to supporting [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad’s reclaim of control of all of the Syrian territory. For Erdogan, he is determined to defend the rebel enclave. Something will have to give,” he added.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, May 17, 2018.Some analysts suggest that Putin uses the threat of an offensive in Idlib as leverage on Ankara. The looming crisis over Idlib comes as Ankara and Moscow are facing a new dispute over Libya.Ankara appeared to have taken Moscow by surprise when Erdogan signed a security agreement last month in Istanbul with Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the Presidential Council of Libya’s Government of National Accord, or GNA. Sarraj is Libya’s internationally recognized prime minister.Under the agreement, the Tripoli-based government can invite Turkish forces to deploy in Libya. According to local media reports, Ankara is preparing a rapid action force for possible deployment.Erdogan said he was reacting to the presence of what he called “Russian Wagner mercenaries,” which are fighting for General Khalifa Haftar, the de facto leader of a rival government in eastern Libya. The Wagner Group is a private security force run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close links to the Kremlin.”I wish that the matter of Haftar would not create a new Syria in our relations with Russia,” Erdogan said in a television interview earlier this month. The two governments in Libya have been at war with each other as they jockey for power. Haftar is seeking to overthrow the GNA.Unverified reports from Libya claim the GNA has already requested Turkish military assistance. Ankara has so far not commented on the reports. Libya has been riven by turmoil and division since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Ankara is set to dispatch a diplomatic delegation to Moscow to discuss differences over Libya.Bagci says ties with Moscow “may not become sustainable” if Turkey insists on sending troops to Libya.”The party, I think, that will eventually have to step back is Turkey. Moscow has too much leverage over Turkey,” he added. 
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“I’m buying dollars, I’m buying euros,” Roly, 28, whispers furtively to tourists outside a hotel in Havana.Roly, who declined to disclose his last name for fear of reprisals, works as a “mule”, traveling abroad to buy goods to sell back in Communist-run Cuba where the black market booms due to shortages and high prices in the state-run economy.But like many Cubans, he says that he is struggling to acquire the hard currency he needs as it has become near impossible in recent weeks to obtain it legally at the country’s banks and exchange houses.Analysts say the recent elusiveness of hard currency is likely due to a deteriorating economic situation and increased demand as the government steps up moves to end Cuba’s labyrinthine dual currency system.Among those affected are Cubans who want to protect themselves from any kind of possible depreciation this complex process could entail by parking their savings in hard currency and those, like Roly, wanting to travel abroad.Neither of Cuba’s two currencies – the peso or the dollar-equivalent convertible peso (CUC) – are legal tender outside the island, where all financial institutions are state-run.”There’s been no money available at the banks or exchange houses for weeks, you have to look elsewhere,” said Roly. “I’ve spent half a day on the streets under the sun and I haven’t managed to buy a single dollar.”Cuba’s foreign exchange earnings have declined in recent years in tandem with the economic woes of its ally Venezuela and a tightening of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo under President Donald Trump, including increased restrictions on U.S. travel.Several countries such as Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador have also ended over the past year contracts under which they hired thousands of Cuban doctors from the state. Such service exports make up most of Cuba’s hard currency earnings.In October, Cuba opened around a dozen stores selling appliances, car parts and other items for dollars, with a bank card. Economists said this should help authorities rake in some hard currency and stem capital flight through the activity of mules such as Roly.Some say establishing the “dollar stores” could also be a sign the government is bringing back the greenback to stabilize the economy during elimination of the dual currency system, at least during a transition phase.”The economy is already being dollarized, even if no-one says it” said Cuban economist Omar Everleny. “That the CUC has started to lose value…is a reality”.Cuba’s two currencies have circulated on the island at multiple exchange rates ever since the decline of Cuba’s former benefactor the Soviet Union as part of a strategy to open up the economy while shielding local industry and citizens.But the system has for years been deemed more damaging than beneficial to the economy and the government is expected to eliminate the CUC over the next year.In November, it banned its export and import. Passengers catching flights abroad have to now exchange their CUCs before passing through customs and purchase goods on the other side in tradeable currency.”For the last few weeks, they’ve not allowed us to sell hard currency, neither dollars or euros, because there’s no money,” said Miriam Gonzalez, 55, a cashier at an exchange house.”They are sending all the hard currency received here to the airport.”Even those with accounts in hard currency at Cuban banks have struggled to get their money out, sometimes having to wait for weeks, much to their frustration.”You just can’t trust our country’s banks,” said one client, who declined to give her name after attempting to withdraw 500 euros someone had transferred her from Spain. Her bank instead put her on a waiting list.”There’s no money available at the moment … it’s disrespectful.” 
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy named Volodymyr Yelchenko, 60, his envoy to Washington on Thursday. In choosing the soft-spoken but seasoned diplomat, he is putting his faith in Yelchenko to steer relations with the administration of President Donald Trump at a sensitive time.
 
Ukraine’s new envoy to Washington is no stranger to difficult situations, but he may face some of his biggest professional challenges yet, as he takes up his post in a city politically divided over whether Trump abused the power of his office by withholding military aid to Ukraine for personal political gain.
 
Yelchenko has been Kyiv’s ambassador to the United Nations since December 2015. His tenure included a two-year rotating seat on the powerful U.N. Security Council from 2016-17.
 
He came to New York at the height of the crisis in eastern Ukraine, after Russia annexed Crimea and fomented an armed separatist insurgency in the country’s east.
 
Yelchenko, though calm and even-tempered in public, did not shrink from confrontation with his legendary Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, at numerous Security Council meetings on the crisis.
 
“Ambassador Yelchenko was quiet one-on-one, but there was nothing shy about him when he represented his country in the Security Council,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wrote of him in her recent book, “With All Due Respect.” She described the Ukrainian envoy as “a genuinely kind man,” and one of Washington’s “best friends” on the Security Council.FILE – Then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks with Ukraine’s envoy to the U.N. Volodymyr Yelchenko before a Security Council meeting at U.N. headquarters, in New York, Feb. 28, 2017.The Ukrainian diplomat recognized early on the value of public praise in the Trump administration, regularly complimenting Ambassador Haley on Twitter.
 
He also was never reluctant to engage with the international press corps who cover the United Nations.
 
This is Yelchenko’s second stint as U.N. ambassador, having previously held the post from 1997 to 2000. He also was Ukraine’s deputy minister for foreign affairs from 2000-2001.
 
While some might consider Washington in its current political climate a potential “hot seat” for any Ukrainian envoy, Yelchenko is a veteran of difficult postings, having been Kyiv’s ambassador to Moscow from July 2010 until December 2015.
 
Some of his former Security Council counterparts describe him as “a very talented and principled diplomat,” “extremely professional and true to the facts,” a “tough negotiator,” and having a “great sense of humor.” They express confidence he will be successful in Washington.
 
Additionally, Yelchenko has a lighter side. He is passionate about progressive and heavy metal rock music and often uses his Twitter feed to mention some of his favorite bands.Sent from Viber https://t.co/lP75IEQDt3pic.twitter.com/aAQ6XY5Jdp— Volodymyr Yelchenko (@YelchenkoUN) December 12, 2019  
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Queen Elizabeth II formally opened a new session of Britain’s Parliament on Thursday with a speech laying out Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans to use his commanding majority to take the U.K. out of the European Union and shake up the country’s public services.Johnson’s Conservative Party won an 80-strong majority in the 650-seat House of Commons last week on a pledge to “get Brexit done” by leaving the European Union on Jan. 31, and a broad promise to end years of public spending austerity.Now Johnson has to turn his election pledges into political reality.The Queen’s Speech — written by the government but read out by the monarch from atop a golden throne in the House of Lords — rattled through several dozen bills that the government plans to pass in the coming year.The first will be Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law needed to make Brexit a reality. It must become law before Jan. 31 if Johnson is to stick to his timetable, and the government plans to hold the first significant vote on it Friday.The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on Jan. 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by the end of 2020. Johnson insists he won’t agree to any more delays — a vow that has set off alarm bells among businesses, who fear that means the country will face a “no-deal” Brexit at the start of 2021.Trade experts and EU officials say striking a free trade deal within 11 months will be a struggle. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday called the timetable “extremely challenging.”The government also plans to pass several other Brexit-related measures, including a new immigration system that will be introduced after Brexit, when EU citizens will lose the automatic right to live and work in the U.K., and new structures for agriculture and fishing.Johnson also promised “an ambitious program of domestic reform,” including a law committing the government to spend more on the National Health Service, which has struggled to keep up with growing demand during a decade-long funding squeeze by previous Conservative governments.There were tough-sounding announcements on law and order, including longer sentences for people convicted of terrorist offenses and other serious crimes.Several of the measures are likely to prove contentious. The government plans to set up a “Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission” that could lead to reform of the Supreme Court. The court angered the government by ruling in September that Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was illegal.Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Britain’s Prince Charles walk through the Royal Gallery before ahead of the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament ceremony at the Palace of Westminster in London, Britain, Dec. 19, 2019.The government also intends to pass a law protecting military veterans from “vexatious” prosecutions. The question of whether veterans who served decades ago in Northern Ireland should be open to war crimes prosecution is hugely controversial.Johnson also promised to lessen regional inequality and bring greater unity to the United Kingdom, which is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But Brexit is making that more difficult. Scotland voted to remain in the EU in Britain’s 2016 referendum, and last week most Scottish seats in Parliament were won by the Scottish National Party, which opposes Brexit and wants Scotland to become independent of the U.K.SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon says that means Scotland should be able to hold a vote on independence, an option Scots rejected in a 2014 referendum that was billed as a “once in a generation” event.Sturgeon said Thursday she had formally written to the prime minister requesting the power to hold a new independence vote.”The alternative is a future that we have rejected being imposed upon us,” Sturgeon said in Edinburgh. “Scotland made it very clear last week it does not want a Tory government led by Boris Johnson taking us out of the European Union.”Johnson has said he will refuse, and the two sides look set for a slow-burning constitutional showdown.The Queen’s Speech was the centerpiece of the State Opening of Parliament, a blend of politics and pageantry that usually takes place about once a year. Britain saw its last state opening just two months ago, soon after Johnson took over as prime minister from Theresa May through a Conservative Party leadership contest and shortly before the early election that returned him to power.The pomp was toned down for the queen’s second visit this year. There were still officials with titles like Black Rod, scarlet-clad yeomen of the guard and lords in ermine-trimmed robes. But the 93-year-old monarch was driven from Buckingham Palace to Parliament in a car, rather than a horse-drawn carriage, and wore a pale blue dress and matching hat rather than robes and a diamond-studded crown.Johnson will make his mark on the government more decisively in the new year. He’s expected to shake up his Cabinet and merge or even eliminate some ministries — all under the guiding eye of chief adviser Dominic Cummings, a self-styled political disruptor.Johnson will also have to wait to see how Brexit affects the U.K. economy. A downturn could hamper the government’s plans to spend more on public services.Thursday’s speech will give the British public some idea of what drives Johnson, a politician whose core beliefs remain a mystery, even to his allies.He sometimes acts like a Donald Trump-style populist — dubbing his administration a “People’s Government” and banning his ministers from attending the elitist World Economic Forum next month in Davos, Switzerland. But he also claims to be a socially liberal “one nation” Tory who welcomes immigration and wants Britain to be a leader in tackling climate change.Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said Conservative prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Theresa May all took office promising, like Johnson, to “heal the nation” and tackle social injustice.”But actually in the end they don’t want to spend too much money, they don’t want to raise taxes too high, they don’t want to regulate the economy — and actually nothing much happens,” he said. “So don’t hold your breath.” 
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A British man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to U.S. charges alleging that he and co-conspirators in an international hacking group called The Dark Overlord stole data from health care and accounting companies in Missouri, Illinois and Georgia and threatened to release the information unless they paid ransom.Nathan Francis Wyatt, 38, was charged in federal court in St. Louis with conspiracy, two counts of aggravated identity theft and three counts of threatening to damage a protected computer, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday. His court appearance came after he lost an 11-month fight to avoid being extradited from Britain to the U.S.The indictment does not name the companies that were allegedly attacked but said they include a health care provider in Farmington, Missouri; a medical records company in Swansea, Illinois; an accounting business in St. Louis; a health care provider in Athens, Georgia; and a health care provider with several locations in Missouri.The indictment also does not name the co-conspirators or provide any details on them.Wyatt’s attorney, federal public defender Kayla Williams, did not immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press.The conspiracy charge alleges that Wyatt and his co-conspirators remotely accessed the companies’ computers to obtain personal and sensitive information, then sought to sell the records on criminal forums and marketplaces. Prosecutors said the group used email and telephones to threaten the companies unless they paid ransom in bitcoin or wire transfers.The crimes occurred between June 10 and July 26, 2016.The indictment says the defendants sent threatening text messages to the daughter of one of the owners of the Farmington company, at one point asking, “Did your daddy tell you he refused to pay us when we stole his company files?” and threatening to release thousands of patient files, including hers.The hackers also threatened to call the public accountants’ clients “one by one” unless the company paid, the indictment alleges.They also are accused of stealing money from the PayPal account of another health care provider, demanding $75,000 in bitcoin from a third health care company, and extorting money from another health care company.Prosecutors have asked that Wyatt be kept in jail until trial. He has a fiance and three children in England, but no ties to St. Louis or the United States, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.The Dark Overlord claimed credit in April 2017 for the release of stolen episodes of the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black.”
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A year after the United Nation’s General Assembly adopted the Global Refugee Compact to deal with the world refugees crisis, world leaders gathered in Geneva to weigh the progress made, and pledged more than $3 billion to support refugees and about 50,000 resettlement communities.U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the Global Forum on Refugees divvied up the responsibility for dealing with the 25.9 million refugees who have fled war and persecution, mainly exiled in poor neighboring countries.In addition to the $3 billion, Grandi said Germany, which has hosted hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, pledged about $1.9 billion. The Inter-American Development Bank pledged $1 billion to communities hosting refugees in Latin America. The World Bank also increased its funding for projects supporting refugees by 10%, to $2.2 billion.At the end of 2018, nearly 71 million people were living in forced displacement due to war, violence and persecution, including the nearly 26 million who had fled to other countries as refugees.The meeting this week in Geneva stressed the need to share the economic and societal burden of nearly 80% of the world’s refugees living in poor and developing countries.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country hosts a large amount of the world’s refugees, criticized wealthy nations for setting “tiny” refugee quotas and for not providing adequate financial support to Ankara.Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees, about 3.7 million, following by Pakistan, with 1.4 million registered refugees.”We cannot go into a world in which responsibility-sharing means some states keep all the refugees and some states pay all the money. We cannot do that, that is why we have resettlement, why we have different types of partnerships,” Grandi said Wednesday at the close of the two-day meeting.Rising tide of refugeesThe number of people fleeing their homeland has been surging. According to a new report by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of global migrants has increased from 150 million, to 272 million, in the past 20 years.Contributing to these burgeoning numbers are the reasons why large numbers of people are being forced out of their homes, Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, said.”People are being forced out for reasons — whether it’s gangs, whether it’s civil war, whether it’s a state collapse, whether it’s environmental degradation — things that a normal person would decide to flee from,” Selee said.Along with the challenge of dealing with accommodating large amounts of refugees is the issue of who to let in. Countries are facing the question of who is a refugee and who isn’t. Some cases are clear cut, such as Turkey with the Syrians who are fleeing a brutal civil war; or Colombia with the Venezuelans fleeing their country’s revolution and subsequent economic meltdown.But there are other cases, such as in Europe and the United States at the southern border with Mexico, in which they are trying to figure out who should be returned to their home country, and who actually has a legitimate claim for asylum or refugee protection.”And, so some people say, OK, we’ll call all these people refugees. Then people say, let’s not expand the definition but at least accept that these people are forced migrants that aren’t leaving by choice,” Selee said. “They’re leaving because something has pushed them out. And there’s a recognition that we need to offer some protection to those people, whether or not we call them refugees.”Mass migrationAnother challenge facing host countries is the issue of mass flows of migrants, and the perception of migrants’ impact on communities.Dany Bahar of the Brookings Institution said when you think of a refugee crisis today, you think about a huge inflow of people that come to a country in a very short period of time.Bahar said economists who have been researching the effect of migration have found the perception people had — about how massive inflows of migrants and refugees have negative impacts on the local labor markets — is not really backed by research.”When refugees are allowed to work, that helps a country that is receiving them to become more productive, to grow etc. When the country has the ability to integrate these refugees by allowing them to be part of society, take part in the public sector, health system and education systems, that is of course positive for everybody,” Behar said.Lebanon has anestimated population is 5.9 million, with nearly 1.5 million Syrian refugees. This makes it the country with the highest number of refugees per capita – with one refugee for every four nationals, according to the UN.
 These numbers have placed an enormous strain on the country’s already fragile economy, society and politics.”So in the case of Turkey and Lebanon receiving a lot of Syrian refugees, or in the case of Colombia receiving a lot of Venezuelan refugees, or Ethiopia receiving Eritrean and Sudanese refugees — these are countries that, to begin with, are lagging behind in terms of their infrastructure,”  Behar said.He said that is why international financing is so important, not only for humanitarian reasons to help people, but to get the services they need by sending financial aid to allow host countries to invest in infrastructure and capital, so that they can integrate these refugees.All in all, more than 770 pledges were made at this week’s forum for financial support as well as improving refugee access to employment, education, electricity, infrastructure and promises of more resettlement spots for the most vulnerable.Katherine Ahn and VOA Persian contributed to this report
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The first-ever Global Refugee Forum has ended with more than 770 pledges worth billions of dollars in financial, technical, material, legal and other assistance in support of millions of refugees and the communities that host them. The biggest single contribution came from the World Bank, which pledged $2.2 billion. This was matched by pledges of more than $3 billion dollars in additional resources by states and $250 million from private corporations.However, the total value of the pledges made at the forum will not be known for some time. This is because many of the contributions come in the form of projects run by corporations, aid agencies, civic, faith-based and other organizations. Many involve beneficial projects for refugees by creating jobs and livelihoods, enhancing employment for women, educational opportunities for children, pro bono legal services and the like.UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi says everything will be quickly analyzed and monitored.“It is difficult to add up the different type of contributions, but…we want to monitor the implementation of these pledges altogether and we want to measure impact as soon as possible. We have developed with states a set of indicators that will give us progressively a sense of how much the pledges made around this forum have an impact,” Grandi said. More than 3,000 people, including heads of state, U.N. leaders, senior officials from international institutions, development organizations, and the private sector attended the forum.About 80 refugees from 22 countries living in 30 countries of exile also participated. Their presence, testimonies and stories of suffering and endurance put a human face on the cold statistics that accompany refugee numbers.The aim of the three-day meeting was to generate new approaches and long-term commitments in support of the world’s 25 million refugees. Grandi says the burden of caring for these refugees falls mainly on the poor countries. He says the forum pushed the message that this responsibility must be shared by the rich countries.“We cannot go to a world in which responsibility sharing means some states keep all the refugees and some states pay all the money. We cannot do that. That is why we have resettlement. That is why we have different types of partnership. That is why asylum has to remain in reality in all parts of the world, including in the rich countries,” Grandi said.Grandi says the success of this forum will be measured by the number of pledges that are kept and implemented. He says he believes the enthusiasm and creativity shown by the participants augurs well. He says this has all the makings for a successful outcome. He notes a second Global Refugee Forum will take place in four years time.
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Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists failed Wednesday to agree on a prisoner exchange and troop pullback after several hours of tense talks on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the separatist rebels met in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to discuss conditions for an all for all'' prisoner swap. This followed the reaching of a tentative agreement during Ukraine peace talks in Paris last week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who met with the leaders of Russia, France and Germany on December 9, had hailed the prospective exchange as a key result of the Paris talks. He said he expected all 72 Ukrainian prisoners held by the separatists to return home before year's end. But Olga Kobtseva, a rebel representative in the so-called Contact Group in Minsk, said Wednesday's talks failed to produce an agreement. She cited Ukraine's refusal to absolve the rebels in its custody of criminal charges as the main stumbling block. On top of that, the parties were unable to confirm the numbers and verify the lists of prisoners to be swapped. Another rebel envoy, Vladislav Dainego, said the parties also failed to agree on the areas where Ukrainian forces and the rebels would pull back from the front line to help maintain a lasting cease-fire. We proposed some areas, but the Ukrainian side [roposed nothing,“ Dainego said. Previous pullbackUkraine and the rebels had pulled back troops and weapons in several areas to help pave the way for the Paris talks, and the four leaders agreed last week that the disengagement would continue in a few other sectors of the front line. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko in televised comments voiced regret that the talks failed to produce an agreement. He wouldn’t elaborate on details of the talks. The fighting in eastern Ukraine that flared up in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea has killed more than 14,000 and ravaged Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland. A 2015 peace deal in Minsk brokered by France and Germany helped reduce the scope of hostilities, but Ukrainian forces and the rebels have continued to exchange artillery salvos and gunfire. During the talks in Paris, Zelenskiy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced their adherence to the 2015 deal and agreed to revive the peace process. However, they made no progress on central issues — a timeline for holding local elections in eastern Ukraine and control of the borders in the rebel-held region. The Minsk deal envisaged that Ukraine can regain control over the border with Russia in the separatist-held regions only after they are granted broad self-rule and hold local elections. The agreement was a diplomatic coup for Russia, ensuring that the rebel regions get broad authority and resources to survive on their own without cross-border support. Zelenskiy pushed for tweaking the timeline laid out in the accord so that Ukraine gets control of its border first before local elections are held, but Putin insisted that the 2015 deal should be implemented without revisions. 
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Five Japanese fishing vessels were seized Wednesday by Russia in the country’s far east — the latest in a series of incidents over fishing rights that lay bare a larger Russo-Japanese territorial dispute dating back to the end of World War II.  The Japanese ships were fishing for octopus when they were overtaken by Russian border patrol investigating claims of illegal poaching in Russian waters, said Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga in comments on Wednesday.FILE – Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, speaks during a press conference at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo, Sept. 11, 2019.”This is unacceptable,” added Suga in a press conference in Tokyo. “The government is strongly demanding, from a humanitarian perspective, the early release of the crew and ships.”Back in Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova confirmed the incident had taken place a day earlier and insisted Japan had repeatedly — and once again —  violated maritime law concerning natural resources.”Unfortunately, what you say, happened,” said Zakharova in addressing the issue when pressed by journalists.   She also insisted the Japanese fishermen were being given all necessary food, clothing, and medical aid while in custody.  Past is prologueAt the real heart of the issue: a lingering dispute over four small islands the Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War II, which have kept Moscow and Tokyo — formally, at least — at war all these years.Japan insists the four Russian-held islands, which it calls the Northern Territories, must be returned.  FILE – A Russian vessel is seen off the coast of the Southern Kuril island of Shikotan, Sept. 14, 2015. The Southern Kurils are referred to in Japan as the Northern Territories.Russia, which refers to the islands as the Southern Kurils, insists the islands are legitimate spoils of war back from the days when Japan was part the World War II Axis powers, along with Nazi Germany.  Despite decades of negotiations, increased cultural exchanges, and occasional hints at a breakthrough, the island dispute has kept any peace treaty from ever being signed.Both sides insist the islands are theirs. So, too, do their populations.  New century, new bargain?  The latest push for a compromise came from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who unexpectedly announced at a Far Eastern economic forum in 2018 that he was eager to sign a deal “without preconditions” within a matter of months.  The gesture set off a new flurry of diplomatic activity by both sides that ultimately stalled on a key Russian demand: that Japan recognize Russia’s right to the territory before Russia would gift back to Japan two of the smaller islands.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attend a news conference at the G-20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. Equally vexing are Russia’s concerns over post-war Japan’s longstanding alliance with the United States. Despite Japanese assurances, the Kremlin has called the mere possibility of an American military on the islands a non-starter for negotiations.  Then there is public opinion. A 2018 Russian poll by the respected Levada Center found 74% of Russians were against handing over any of the territory.Yet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has indicated he sees a deal on the islands as central to his political legacy as the country’s longest-serving leader.   Also of interest, say observers, are the generational ambitions at play.  Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, also had come tantalizingly close to reaching a deal with the Soviets over the island issue during his own tenure as prime minister from 1957-60.Despite the continued impasse, both Moscow and Tokyo insist discussions will continue.   Indeed, even as the news spread of Russia’s seizure of the Japanese ships, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi was in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that begin Thursday.     Their primary topic of discussion? A peace deal long awaited, and — if history is a lesson — perhaps out of reach for a bit longer.  
 
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Bryan Russell has Down syndrome and does daily speech exercises, putting pens and corks in his mouth to help build up low muscle tone there. He is also waging a long-shot bid to become a national Peruvian lawmaker, going door to door in Lima to ask for votes.Russell, 27, wants to use his campaign to raise awareness about people with developmental disabilities and he says he represents an alternative to the scourge of corruption in Peru that has brought down presidents and weakened democratic institutions.”I’m someone clean, honest, transparent,” Russell said in an interview with The Associated Press. He spoke while sitting next to Amor, a pet dog he rescued from the street.The purpose of politicking, he said, is to “break the paradigm” that people with Down syndrome can’t be independent.FILE – Congressional candidate Bryan Russell, right, kisses his mother Gladys Mujica at his home, in Lima, Peru, Dec. 13, 2019.Russell may be the first person with Down syndrome to run for public office anywhere, according to the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.”We are thrilled that Bryan Russell is running for Congress in Peru,” said Michelle Sie Whitten, president and CEO of the foundation. “As far as we know, he is the first professional who has Down syndrome running for a publicly elected office, and he is showing the world that we need diversity in all areas of society including in our governments.”In 2013, Angela Bachiller, who has Down syndrome, became a city councilor in Valladolid, Spain. But she didn’t run for election, instead taking over the post after her predecessor resigned because of corruption allegations.Down syndrome is a genetic abnormality that causes developmental delays and medical conditions such as heart defects and respiratory and hearing problems.Russell is a candidate for Peru-Nacion, a center-right party that is not widely known and has fared poorly in past elections. However, Russell’s bold campaign ahead of the Jan. 26 parliamentary elections is getting attention. He was invited to speak at a leftist forum where he asked people to fight for people like him, regardless of political leanings.”I want people with my condition to have a voice,” said Russell, who studied communications at the Peruvian San Ignacio de Loyola University and said his parents encouraged him to find his own way.”I learned how to read and write, walk, run and eat, basically to respect myself,” the candidate has written.FILE – Congressional candidate Bryan Russell campaigns at San Martin Plaza in Lima, Peru, Dec. 13, 2019.”Well this is really impressive, because Bryan is changing the history and that is the most important thing,” said Gladys Mujica, Russell’s mother.Mujica, an English teacher, described her son as a “symbol.”‘Give him a chance’Some Peruvians are open to Russell’s campaigning, which consists on a normal day of handing out leaflets while carrying a sign with an image of his face.”He’s looking to do his best. The ‘normal’ people try to steal from the country. That’s a very big difference,” said Carlos Maza, a retired man who said he would vote for Russell.”We have to give him a chance,” said Elena Saavedra, a secretary who shook the candidate’s hand.About 3 million Peruvians have some kind of disability in a country of more than 30 million, according to official figures. There is no data for the number of Peruvians with Down syndrome, though historian Liliana Penaherrera, founder of the Peruvian Society for Down Syndrome, estimates there could be up to 25,000 people with the condition.PrejudicesPeople with Down syndrome struggle to overcome prejudices, including a perception that they are basically big children and can’t make their own decisions, said psychologist Patricia Andrade.As a result, many with Down syndrome live on the margins of society because employers prefer to hire people with other kinds of disabilities, filling a quota of 3% and 5% in workplaces of more than 50 people.Last year, Peru changed its laws to allow people described as disabled to exercise their rights without the intervention of a representative on their behalf. Previously, they needed a guardian to marry, vote, sign a work contract, acquire a credit card and do other things.Penaherrera welcomed Russell’s political candidacy, saying it draws attention to people who struggle against discrimination and the invisibility that society forces upon them.Still, she said, Russell should be held to the same standards as “any other politician” if he gets elected.
 
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A minibus carrying a family to a holiday beach getaway in Mexico crashed into a lumber truck on Wednesday and caught fire, killing 14 people, including five children, authorities said. 
 
Many of the victims were trapped inside the burning minibus, whose charred chassis could be seen impaled on the back of the truck. The accident occurred in Jalisco state, on the highway that runs from the family’s native Guanajuato state to the Pacific beach resort of Puerto Vallarta. 
 
Twelve more people were injured in the pre-dawn crash. Two were in serious condition and were airlifted to a hospital in the state capital, Guadalajara, said state emergency authorities. 
 
Officials said the truck had stopped on the side of the road when the minibus crashed into it. 
 
“It was a tourism service hired by a family” traveling to Puerto Vallarta for the holidays, said Samuel Flores of the Jalisco state civil protection service. 
 
Deadly accidents occur frequently during the Christmas season in Mexico as roads fill with vacationers and revelers. 
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French government and union representatives launched negotiations Wednesday to resolve differences over a pension reform bill that has triggered nationwide transportation strikes and widespread street protests.French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed unifying the country’s 42 pension schemes into a single plan, which critics say could force millions of employees to work beyond the official retirement age of 62.French newly appointed junior minister for pensions, Laurent Pietraszewski leaves the Elysee Palace after the weekly cabinet meeting, Dec.18, 2019 in Paris.At Macron’s request, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe began talks with union leaders, but a deal with hard-left unions does not appear to be imminent.CGT union leader Philippe Martinez said after the talks that “deep disagreement” remains between the two sides.A close aide to Macron said the president is “willing to improve” the proposed law but won’t “abandon” it.Sources close to Macron said he hopes to strike a deal with more moderate unions, resulting in the weakening of the protest movement.The general strike, which has crippled public transportation and hurt businesses, entered its 14th day on Wednesday.Protests show no signs of abating, as more than 600,000 people demonstrated Tuesday throughout the country.Unions have called for another mass protest on Thursday and balked at the possibility of a Christmas truce.
 
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The European Parliament on Wednesday blasted Poland for creating zones “free from any LGBTI ideology” and suggested closer attention should be paid as a result to EU grants destined for Warsaw.Brussels has already criticized Poland’s conservative government over plans to revamp its judicial system with court reforms which EU authorities fear will leave judges subject to political interference.The EU assembly on Wednesday voted through by 463 votes to 107 a motion calling on Warsaw to “revoke all resolutions” by dozens of municipal authorities targeting gay, lesbian and transgender people.Although the resolutions concerned are not legally binding, they call on local authorities to “abstain from any action encouraging tolerance of LGBTI persons and not to provide any financial assistance to NGOs working for equal rights,” the assembly noted.EU lawmakers also called on the European Union to “control use of all EU funds as a reminder … that such funds should not be used for discriminatory ends.”Looking further afield, the assembly said it was “deeply concerned at the growing number of attacks on lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and intersexuals in the EU by states, officials, national and local governments as well as politicians.”Lawmakers pointed to examples of homophobic language in recent electoral campaigns in Romania, Estonia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Hungary and also Poland.
 
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Prosecutors in Bolivia’s capital issued an arrest warrant against ousted President Evo Morales on Wednesday, accusing him of sedition and terrorism.Interior Minister Arturo Murillo recently brought charges against Morales, alleging he promoted violent clashes that led to 35 deaths during disturbances before and after he left office.Officials say he ordered supporters to blockade cities in order to force the ouster of interim President Jeanine Anez, who took over when Morales resigned on Nov. 10 after a wave of protests and under pressure from the police and military.Morales, who first flew to Mexico and now is based in Argentina, has repeatedly denied the charges as a setup.Morales said Tuesday that he would campaign for the presidential candidate of his party in elections expected within the next several months, though a date has not been set. The candidate from Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party is yet to be chosen, and the former president cannot run in the new elections.Bolivia’s first indigenous president has described the movement that pressured him to leave as a coup d’etat.Fraud allegationsCritics of the long-ruling leader had accused him of using fraud to win a fourth straight term in office in an Oct. 20 vote. An audit by the Organization of American States backed up the allegations, saying it found evidence of vote-rigging.Morales retains a strong following in Bolivia and has an ally in the government of Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who took office two days before the former Bolivian leader arrived in the country.Bolivia’s interim government has expressed concern that Morales could use Buenos Aires as a campaign headquarters and might plot his return home.
 
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Immigrants convicted of illegally reentering the U.S., driving drunk or committing domestic violence will be barred from claiming asylum under a proposed regulation announced Wednesday by the Trump administration.The proposal, which must go through a public comment period before it is finalized, lists seven criminal areas, including some low-level crimes, that would bar migrants from claiming asylum in addition to federal restrictions already in place. It also would remove a requirement for immigration judges to reconsider some asylum denials.It’s another push to restrict asylum by President Donald Trump’s administration, which claims migrants are gaming the system so they can spend years in the U.S. despite their ineligibility, in part because of a lower bar for initial screenings. Most of the people who claim asylum are fleeing violence, poverty and corruption in their home countries.Immigrant advocates and humanitarian groups have criticized Trump’s hard-line policies as inhumane and have said the U.S. is abdicating its role as a safe haven for refugees.But an immigration court backlog has reached more than 1 million cases, and border agencies were overwhelmed this year by hundreds of thousands of Central American families that require more care-giving and are not easily returned over the U.S.-Mexico border.In an effort to stop the flow of migrants, the Department of Homeland Security, which manages immigration, has sent more than 50,000 migrants back over the border to wait out asylum claims. The migrants often are victimized in violent parts of Mexico and sickened by unsanitary conditions in what have become large refugee camps. Homeland Security officials also have signed agreements with Guatemala and other Central American nations to send asylum seekers there. The first families have already been sent to Guatemala.The Justice Department also has taken aim at so-called sanctuary cities, like New York and Chicago, which do not assist Homeland Security agents with immigration-related requests. New York officials, for example, say they do not believe immigrants should be deported for minor offenses and won’t notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they have an immigrant in their custody. Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf complained about such policies.“I think what we are doing is playing politics with public safety,” Wolf said recently in a Fox News Channel interview on New York laws. “That is really concerning from protecting the homeland perspective, making sure that DHS law enforcement officers have the data and the tools that they need to protect their communities.”The proposed new rules would make asylum seekers ineligible if they were convicted of a felony or if they were arrested repeatedly on domestic violence charges. Other crimes include: low-level convictions for false identification or unlawful receipt of public benefits. Plus: smuggling or harboring immigrants, illegal reentry, a federal crime involving street gang activity or driving while under the influence of an intoxicant.These crimes are in addition to other bars already in place  through federal asylum laws.The changes were made so that the departments “will be able to devote more resources to the adjudication of asylum cases filed by non-criminal aliens,” according to a joint release Wednesday by the Justice Department and Homeland Security.For the budget year 2018, there were about 105,500 asylum applications by those who came to the U.S. and were not in deportation proceedings first. The figure decreased by 25% from the previous budget year.During the same period, the number of asylum applications by migrants who were already in court for deportation proceedings increased about 12%, to 159,473, mostly from Central America and Mexico.According to Homeland Security data, the total number of people granted asylum increased 46%, to 38,687, in 2018. The top countries were China, Venezuela and El Salvador.
 
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European Union nations say the fish catch quotas they agreed upon for next year means they have made more headway in securing sustainable fishing in their waters — but environmentalists are strongly disputing that claim.EU fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said Wednesday after two days of negotiations that almost 100% of EU fish landings from the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea will come from sustainable sources.After having overfished both regions for years, the EU claims that 2020 will bring in a new era for fisheries.”Next year, the EU member states fleet will fish at the level that will not hinder the regeneration of the stocks,” Sinkevicius said.Environmental groups strongly disagree with that claim. They say EU nations have again put the interests of their fishing industry ahead of the health of their waters. Some cod quotas for next year were cut but fishing for several other species can increase.”The limits agreed by ministers suggest that progress to end overfishing has stalled or even reversed, a disappointing outcome for the year. Overfishing was supposed to become a thing of the past,” said Andrew Clayton of The Pew Charitable Trusts. 
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When the Honduran boy complained of a toothache, Dr. Psyche Calderon asked the obvious question: “When did the pain start?”The answer broke her heart.”When La Mara broke all my teeth and killed all my family,” the 14-year-old said.He said little else about the attack by the infamous Central American gang, La Mara Salvatrucha. Just: “I was the only one that survived.”Calderon is not a therapist, nor a lawyer or a dentist. She is a general practitioner volunteering her time to provide care for Central Americans stuck in Mexico while they try to obtain asylum in the United States. There was little she could do for this teenager.”So I gave him an antibiotic, then went home and cried,” she said.Calderon is part of a movement of health professionals and medical students from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border that is quietly battling to keep asylum seekers healthy and safe while their lives remain in flux.They try desperately to tend to a need left largely unmet by the governments of both countries. It has thrust volunteer doctors into new and unusual roles where they often have to improvise while working with limited donated medications and equipment and dealing with non-medical issues. Besides giving patients a pill for pain relief, the doctors might need to direct them to legal help for their cases while offering a listening ear as a kind of therapist to a population suffering deep trauma from violence that forced them to flee their homelands.With little training or preparation for this type of medical work, doctors like Calderon are trying to come up with guidelines to better treat migrants with emotional trauma.Tens of thousands of people are stuck in Mexican border cities as their asylum cases wind their way through the U.S. court system under a Trump administration policy that returns them across the border to wait out a decision, rather than allowing them to stay with relatives or sponsors in the United States. Thousands of others wait for their numbers to be called so they can start their claim in a process that meters the number of asylum requests that are submitted to U.S. officials.Many in Tijuana have lived for months at crowded shelters, sleeping on floors, with little access to public health clinics.Along Mexico’s border with Texas, hundreds are living outside in tents made out of garbage bags. Families sleep near piles of human feces and bathe in the Rio Grande, known to be contaminated with E. coli and other bacteria.In the Mexican city of Matamoros, the nonprofit Global Response Management bought flu vaccines from a local pharmacy at roughly $50 a dose to administer. Its volunteers set up sidewalk clinics to treat asylum seekers.The health crisis spans both sides of the border. In the past year, at least three children, detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents, have died from the flu while being held. They include a 16-year-old boy who was seen on security footage writhing in agony on the floor in a U.S. Border Patrol holding cell.Doctors recently protested outside a detention facility in San Diego to pressure the U.S. government to allow them to administer the flu vaccine to migrants for free, but so far Customs and Border Protection has refused, saying it is not equipped to run a vaccination program.Meanwhile, in Tijuana, volunteers like Calderon have been going out to gritty, far-flung neighborhoods to set up pop-up clinics on the weekends at shelters that are rarely visited by Mexico’s public health doctors, if at all.”I shouldn’t be doing this,” Calderon said. “They need to be in another place to be safe. That other place should be taking care of them, or the Mexican government should be taking care of these refugees.”The 34-year-old Tijuana doctor treats addictions in her day job. Her private practice caters to Americans seeking lower-cost medical care across the border who pay in dollars, allowing her to be able to volunteer. She found her new calling in 2018 when thousands of Central Americans poured into Tijuana after crossing Mexico in a caravan.Calderon, who slips in and out of English and Spanish seamlessly in a single sentence, grew up in Tijuana watching the border walls go up. At 11, she participated with her family in protests against California’s Proposition 187 that denied public education and health care to people in the United States illegally. At the age of 17, she shadowed doctors treating Mexicans deported to Tijuana from the U.S.So when the caravan arrived, she reflexively went to the sprawling soccer field where they camped and start treating people. There she met other volunteers, including an emergency room physician from Los Angeles and a medical student from San Diego.When the Mexican government closed down the festering soccer field camp, the volunteers realized the health crisis was not going away. So they joined forces under the Refugee Health Alliance, one of a handful of such groups along the 1,954-mile border.Advocating for what they call “border-less medicine,” they started by organizing pop-up clinics at the shelters on Saturdays and attracting volunteers by word of mouth and through social media postings.A year later, the Refugee Health Alliance has hosted 800 volunteers who have seen more than 9,000 patients; in addition to treatment, they document signs of torture and abuse for asylum cases. Volunteers also see asylum seekers during the week at a clinical space shared with a Mexican nonprofit that treats sex workers and drug addicts.Each Saturday at 9 a.m., the volunteers gather less than a block from the towering border wall in Tijuana.They improvise to overcome barriers. On a Saturday in October, a Chicago doctor who did not know Spanish used Google translate on his iPhone to tell a Guatemalan man and his family that he needed to go to the hospital because he likely had appendicitis. On the other side of the curtain, a Mexican midwife gave a Honduran woman who was eight months pregnant an ultrasound while talking over the mechanical iPhone voice conveying the urgent news about the man’s appendix.The Refugee Health Alliance hopes to open its own clinic next year.On the group’s 52nd consecutive Saturday at the shelters, a 24-year-old San Diego woman who moved to Tijuana to help coordinate the efforts gives volunteers a brief orientation.Celeste Pain, who crosses back to San Diego daily to work at an outlet store, rattles off instructions: Don’t ask about people’s backgrounds, which could trigger traumatic memories, or take photographs. Fill out medical forms that ask for a person’s medical history, their court date and their number in line of those waiting to ask for asylum. Determine when the client will be crossing the border; they likely will be held in U.S. immigration detention centers, which could disrupt their care.The volunteers also are given labels and told to put them on any medication they give to the asylum seekers so U.S. immigration officials will not take the pills away — though they often do, anyway.They head out to the first stop, at the bottom of “Scorpion Canyon.”There they meet Calderon traipsing past barking pit bulls, crowing roosters and pigs, lugging a massive duffel bag down a muddy, trash-strewn road. Two University of Arizona medical students jump in to help.Calderon leads the dozen or so volunteers into a cavernous Christian church that first sheltered Haitians who flocked by the thousands to this border city in 2016. Now the church is filled with scores of tents housing Central Americans.The two dozen volunteers include two pediatricians, a university professor who also practices medicine, medical students from Phoenix and San Francisco, a Stanford University psychology doctorate student who worked with children at refugee camps in Iran, and two sisters from Los Angeles who have relatives in Tijuana.They unfold tables and metal chairs in the congregation hall to set up makeshift examining spaces as giggling children run by. They unpack a half-dozen duffel bags and suitcases bursting with plastic bags filled with asthma inhalers, antibiotics and other prescription drugs. Some medications were brought in by volunteers, including the two sisters who said they were stopped by Mexican customs officials and had to pay up to $100 before being allowed into the country.Calderon works between the church where she sees mostly Central Americans and a neighboring cluster of rooms built out of discarded doors and crates housing several dozen Haitians.”Tenemos tongue depressors?” she asks one of the bilingual volunteers.She sees a woman with a badly healed broken wrist, a girl’s belly covered with scabies, an undernourished pregnant woman, a baby with a cold, a toddler who is underweight, a woman with a swollen check and infected tooth, another with a red, swollen eye.With a warm smile and a pink stethoscope around her neck, she sees patient after patient. She calls dentists, ophthalmologists and other specialists she knows to see if they are willing to see the patients she cannot treat.Meanwhile she teaches the U.S. volunteers how to make do with the limited supplies and traditional equipment, like a non-digital blood pressure monitor. With no scale, she has learned to calculate weight by lifting babies under their arms. She scurries to a cinder-block room abutting a row of outhouses to find privacy to do a breast exam on a Honduran woman.Eight months have passed since that day she saw the boy with the broken teeth. She still thinks of him. She never saw him again nor learned of his fate.The experience made her a better doctor, she said. Now when Calderon asks about migrants’ pain, she treads carefully: A hurt neck, might be from getting a head smashed in by thieves. A case of acid reflux might stem from anxiety about not being in a safe place.”When you see someone who comes to you with insomnia, with no hope, it’s really hard on us too. What do we say? What do we treat? Is this an illness?” she asks.What’s more, how do doctors treat patients they are unlikely to see more than once?”That’s why we’re trying to write the protocol for mental health, and trying to get experts for refugee medicine to help us out with these questions,” she said.Five hours into this Saturday’s work, Calderon takes a sip from her thermos of water, which bears a sticker of a dog exclaiming: “This is fine.” It’s a stark contrast to what she feels. She always wishes she could do more.But in some ways, it’s a reminder to herself as much as a reassurance to her patients: This is fine, even though it’s not, but it’s what she has to accept given the limitations, the barriers that have created these conditions of mothers, fathers and children living for months as campers using outhouses, water from buckets and spigots and sleeping on cement floors side by side.Calderon learned to accept those limitations after treating the boy with the toothache. She took time off and sought therapy for herself, feeling overwhelmed. Then she took a course to learn how to treat patients who have endured tragedies.”I need to be OK that I did something,” she said. “It’s a thing that all doctors come to understand at some point, right? I hope. We do what we can.” 
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The daughter of jailed Uighur rights activist Ilham Tohti accepted a European Parliament prize on his behalf on Wednesday, urging lawmakers in an address not to be “complicit in the Chinese persecution of the Uighur people.”China has come under increasing international scrutiny for cracking down on the Muslim Uighur minority in its northwesterly Xinjiang region.Tohti, an economist, was jailed for life in China in 2014 on separatism charges that were widely denounced in Western capitals.His daughter, Jewher Ilham, urged politicians, academics and students on Wednesday to protest against the treatment of the Uighurs as she accepted her father’s Sakharov Prize for defense of human rights at the parliament in Strasbourg.Independent German researcher Adrian Zenz, an expert on China’s ethnic policies, estimated in March that 1.5 million Uighurs and other Muslims had been or were being detained in so-called re-education centers in Xinjiang.After Tohti’s prize was announced in October, China said he was “a criminal who was sentenced in accordance with the law by a Chinese court,” and urged that “all sides respect China’s internal affairs and judicial sovereignty and not inflate the arrogance of terrorists.”China has said Xinjiang is under threat from Islamist militants and separatists. It denies mistreatment or mass internment, saying it is simply seeking to end extremism and violence through education.The 50,000 euro ($55,000) Sakharov Prize has been awarded annually since 1988 to individuals and organizations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms.Two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives gave initial approval to a bill that would require the U.S. administration to toughen its response to China’s crackdown.In Strasbourg, European Parliament president David Sassoli said: “By awarding this prize, we strongly urge the Chinese government to release Tohti and we call for the respect of minority rights in China.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Guatemala’s outgoing president Jimmy Morales at the White House Tuesday, where the two discussed immigration and trade.Trump called the relationship with Guatemala “tremendous” and praised Morales on the immigration deal where Guatemala agrees to accept migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.”The relationship is very good, it’s a very important country from the standpoint of the border and trade,”  Trump added.In July the Trump administration reached an agreement with the Morales government that will allow U.S. immigration officials to send migrants requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border to Guatemala.The U.S. has signed similar agreements with El Salvador and Honduras, requiring migrants on their way to the U.S. to apply for protections in those countries first. U.S. immigration authorities may send migrants back to those countries if they fail to do so, effectively making it almost impossible for migrants from the Northern Triangle countries to seek asylum.The Trump administration has sent the first migrants back to Guatemala in November. According to the Guatemalan government, a total of 24 people have been sent to the country under the program.President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Friday, July 26, 2019. Trump announced that Guatemala is signing an agreement to restrict asylum applications to the U.S. from Central America.”Now they have to take them back, and they take them back with open arms,” said Trump.That may not be the case as Guatemala’s president-elect Alejandro Giammattei who will take office in January has balked at accepting the agreement reached by his predecessor.In August Giammattei said that Guatemala will not be able to hold up its side of the agreement and serve as a “safe third country” for asylum seekers as the country  “does not fulfill the requirements” to be one.The incoming government will have to weigh their options as the Trump administration has made it clear that Guatemala must agree to accept asylum-seekers in order to benefit from a U.S-sponsored regional economic development plan.In October, Mauricio Claver-Carone, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the White House National Security Council said that Guatemala must embrace the safe third country agreement if it hopes to benefit from the economic development plan for Mexico and Central America known as America Crece.Although Giammattei has been critical of the ACA (Asylum Cooperative Agreements), “the prospect of governing a country without U.S. aid may deter him from following through with revoking its implementation,” said Cristobal Ramon, senior policy analyst with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Immigration ProjectRamon said that Giammattei could always threaten to revoke the agreement unless the U.S. agrees to make more aid investments in the country or receive other benefits for Guatemalan nationals like receiving a second package of H-2A visas for Guatemalan farm workers.It’s too early to know if Giammattei would take this route “and if Trump could make these concessions in the face of these threats”  but it’s something that Giammettei could potentially do to bolster the gains Guatemala gets from implementing this agreement, Ramon added.Trump dismissed VOA’s questioning on whether he would withhold aid from the country should Giammattei continue to reject the agreement.”Guatemala is terrific. Guatemala has been terrific,” Trump said.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out Tuesday at Western nations for their lack of support for his so-called Operation Peace Spring, which he launched in October in Kurdish-controlled areas of northeastern Syria. Speaking at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Erdogan described the difficulties encountered by the millions of refugees forced to flee war and persecution, and the need for universal solidarity to support them.  The Turkish president, who said his country has welcomed more than 5 million displaced individuals — 3.7 million of them Syrian refugees, criticized the European Union for its lack of financial support and the member nations’ unwillingness to share the burden of welcoming refugees inside their own borders.FILE – Thousands of Syrian refugees cross into Turkey, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, June 14, 2015.Erdogan also criticized Western leaders, whom he said have failed to support his military offensive against the Kurds in northern Syria. He has accused the Kurds of being allied with PKK terrorists in Turkey, and said his reason for launching Operation Peace Spring was to clear a 120-kilometer area in Syria of what he called a terrorist presence.”Let us declare these areas as safe zones,” Erdogan said through an interpreter. “Let us implement resettlement and housing projects altogether. Let us have hospitals. Let us have schools there and let the refugees go back to their motherland peacefully and in a dignified fashion. But nobody seems to be inclined to help us. Why? Because oil is a much more needed commodity.”  President Donald Trump announced in November his decision to post U.S. soldiers in Syria to guard oil fields. The Trump administration previously had been criticized by allies for allowing Turkey’s military assault to go forward by withdrawing U.S. troops allied with the Kurds in the region. The Kurds have called the move a betrayal.Erdogan said he will go ahead with his plans to resettle about 1 million Syrian refugees in this so-called peace zone in northern Syria, despite international criticism. “The YPG and PKK terrorist organizations are attacking civilians, but despite that fact, these areas are now the safest and most stable zones of Syria, which are inhabitable,” Erdogan said. “The Syrian refugees should go back on a voluntary basis, but we know what powers around the world would be disturbed by their resettlement peacefully and in a dignified fashion.”  Western powers and humanitarian organizations have expressed alarm at Turkey’s insistence on relocating the refugees across the border into the area once controlled by the Syrian Kurds. They warn this will lead to enduring ethnic tensions between the two groups, leading to permanent instability in the region.
 
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