America’s annual Independence Day is celebrated a bit differently in Washington, D.C., this year, with a display of military might and a speech about patriotism by U.S. President Donald Trump. The event draws Trump supporters, as well as protesters who accuse the president of politicizing a nonpartisan holiday and wasting taxpayer money. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
Category Archives: News
Worldwide news. News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called “hard news” to differentiate it from soft media
German Fire Exercise Aims to Prevent Notre Dame Tragedy
A single cigarette may have started the April fire that destroyed much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Flames tore through the global tourist destination as firefighters struggled to find and extinguish their source. German authorities want to make sure what happened in France, doesn’t happen there. Arash Arabasadi has more.
https://www.voltron.voanews.com/node/3941531/edit?destination=/admin/content%3Ftype%3Dvideo_episode#edit-group-teaser-contentAntarctic Sea Ice Plunges from Record High to Record Lows
The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has plunged from a record high to a record low in just three years, according to a new report released this week by the U.S. space agency NASA. Faith Lapidus reports scientists are not sure why.
Trump, Protesters Gear Up for an Untraditional July Fourth
In a sweltering capital threatened by storms, the traditional Fourth of July parade Thursday served as a warm-up act to a distinctly nontraditional evening event at the Lincoln Memorial, where President Donald Trump made plans to command the stage against the backdrop of a show of military muscle.
Protesters unimpressed by his “Salute to America” program inflated a roly-poly balloon depicting Trump as an angry, diaper-clad baby.
With his decision to add his own production to the usual festivities, Trump set himself up to be the first president in nearly seven decades to address a crowd at the National Mall on Independence Day. “I will speak on behalf of our great Country!” he said in a morning tweet. “Perhaps even Air Force One will do a low & loud sprint over the crowd.”
But thunderstorms threatened, with periods of “torrential rain” forecast by the National Weather Service and a flash-flood watch in effect.
Not since 1951, when President Harry Truman spoke before a large gathering on the Washington Monument grounds to mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has a commander in chief made an Independence Day speech to a sizable crowd on the Mall. Protests erupted in 1970 when President Richard Nixon taped a message that was played to crowds on the Mall at an “Honor America Day” celebration organized by supporters.
In the shadow of the Washington Monument, the anti-war organization Codepink erected a 20-foot tall “Trump baby” balloon to protest what it called the president’s co-opting of Independence Day.
“We think that he is making this about himself and it’s really a campaign rally,” said Medea Benjamin, the organization’s co-director. “We think that he’s a big baby. … He’s erratic, he’s prone to tantrums, he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions. And so this is a great symbol of how we feel about our president.’
The balloon remained tied down at the Mall because park officials restricted the group’s permission to move the balloon or fill it with helium, Benjamin said.
A small crowd gathered to take pictures with the balloon, which drew Trump supporters and detractors.
Kevin Malton, a Trump supporter from Middlesboro, Kentucky, came with his son for the holiday and took pictures with the balloon. He was glad to see the mix of political beliefs at the event, he said. “Even though everybody has different opinions,” he said, “everybody’s getting along.”
In a message marking the 243rd anniversary of the Founding Fathers’ adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Trump called the document a milestone that “cast off the shackles of tyranny.”
The White House said Trump would speak at the Lincoln Memorial in front of a ticket-only, VIP crowd of Republican donors, administration and campaign officials, family members and those who had come to see him or protest what they saw as a divisive intrusion on a traditionally unifying national holiday.
Trump had sounded a defensive note Wednesday, tweeting that the cost “will be very little compared to what it is worth.”
“We own the planes, we have the pilots, the airport is right next door (Andrews), all we need is the fuel,” he said, referring to Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews, home for some of the planes expected for the holiday flyover. “We own the tanks and all. Fireworks are donated by two of the greats.”
Trump glossed over the expense of shipping tanks and fighting vehicles to Washington by rail and guarding them for several days, and other costs.
One of the Democrats running for president said “this business of diverting money and military assets to use them as a kind of prop, to prop up a presidential ego, is not reflecting well on our country.” Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a Navy Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2014.
Some of the Republican president’s supporters welcomed his stamp on the holiday.
Rachel McKenna of McKinney, Texas, said her relatives have served in the military and she thought it was important to say “`We love you guys, we appreciate everything you do,’ and I love the fact I can see that,” as she pointed to the Bradley fighting vehicle positioned near the Lincoln Memorial.
“I’ve never ever seen one,” she said. “I just think it’s so cool.”
Under White House direction, the Pentagon was arranging for an Air Force B-2 stealth bomber and other warplanes to conduct flyovers. There will be Navy F-35 and F-18 fighter jets, the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics team, Army and Coast Guard helicopters and Marine V-22 Ospreys. A small number of Army Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles were stationed in the zone.
Two groups, the National Parks Conservation Foundation and Democracy Forward, want the Interior Department’s internal watchdog to investigate what they say may be a “potentially unlawful decision to divert” national parks money to Trump’s “spectacle.”
Trump and the event’s organizers could be on the hook to reimburse the government millions of dollars if he goes into campaign mode, in violation of federal appropriations law and the Hatch Act, which bars politicking on government time, said Walter Shaub, who left the Office of Government Ethics in 2017 after clashing with the White House over ethics and disclosure issues.
Trump originally wanted a parade with military tanks and other machinery rolling through downtown Washington ever since he was enthralled by a two-hour procession of French military tanks and fighter jets in Paris on Bastille Day in July 2017 .
Later that year Trump said he’d have a similar parade in Washington on the Fourth of July, 2018, and would “top” the Paris show. The event ended up being pushed to Veterans Day, which conflicted with one of Trump’s trips abroad, before it was scuttled after cost estimates exceeding $90 million were made public.
Washington has held an Independence Day celebration for decades, featuring a parade along Constitution Avenue, a concert on the Capitol lawn with music by the National Symphony Orchestra and fireworks beginning at dusk near the Washington Monument.
Trump altered the lineup by adding his speech, moving the fireworks closer to the Lincoln Memorial and summoning the tanks and warplanes.
US Republican Who Called For Trump’s Impeachment Defects From Party
Justin Amash, the only U.S. Republican lawmaker who has called for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, quit the party on Thursday, Independence Day in America, to become an independent.
Amash, a 39-year-old, five-term congressman from the Midwestern state of Michigan, said in a Washington Post opinion article that the country’s two-party political system is broken, with modern politics “trapped in a partisan death spiral” between warring Democrats and Republicans.
Amash angered Trump and Republican colleagues in Congress when he recently called for Trump’s impeachment, based on allegations that Trump obstructed justice by trying to thwart special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Amash now becomes the only independent lawmaker in the 435-member House of Representatives.
After Amash’s defection from the Republicans, Trump launched a new attack on him.
Impeachment Questions Still Swirling in Washington
‘Great news for the Republican Party as one of the dumbest & most disloyal men in Congress is ‘quitting’ the Party,” Trump said on Twitter. “No Collusion, No Obstruction! Knew he couldn’t get the nomination to run again in the Great State of Michigan. Already being challenged for his seat. A total loser!”
In the newspaper article, Amash decried what he said are the “consequences of a mind-set among the political class that loyalty to party is more important than serving the American people or protecting our governing institutions. The parties value winning for its own sake, and at whatever cost. Instead of acting as an independent branch of government and serving as a check on the executive branch, congressional leaders of both parties expect the House and Senate to act in obedience or opposition to the president and their colleagues on a partisan basis.”
Pelosi Ally, Freshman Democrat Join Calls for Trump Impeachment
Congressmen Jan Schakowsky and Sean Casten join more than 60 others who have called for impeachment, but most Democrats don’t support the idea
He concluded, “Most Americans are not rigidly partisan and do not feel well represented by either of the two major parties. In fact, the parties have become more partisan in part because they are catering to fewer people, as Americans are rejecting party affiliation in record numbers.”
“Preserving liberty means telling the Republican Party and the Democratic Party that we’ll no longer let them play their partisan game at our expense,” he said. “Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party. No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.”
At least 80 of the 235 Democrats in the House have called for Trump’s impeachment or an inquiry that could lead to his impeachment. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled chamber, has resisted the call for an impeachment inquiry while supporting multiple committee investigations into Trump and his presidency.
Mueller concluded that Trump did not conspire with Russia to help him win the election three years ago, but reached no conclusion whether, as president, he obstructed justice. Subsequently, however, Attorney General William Barr and then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided that obstruction charges were not warranted against Trump.
Mueller is set to testify about his 22-month investigation before two House committees on July 17.
Vietnam Asks Firms to Use Local Materials as US Threatens Tariffs
Vietnamese manufacturers should use domestically-sourced raw materials to avoid incurring U.S. tariffs, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, days after Washington said it would impose large duties on some steel products shipped through the Southeast Asian country.
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday it would slap tariffs of up to 456% on certain steel produced in South Korea or Taiwan which are then shipped to Vietnam for minor processing and finally exported to the United States.
“The Ministry of Industry and Trade has warned local companies about possible moves by importing countries, including the United States, to apply stricter requirements in trade protection cases,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at a routine news conference in Hanoi.
Vietnamese companies should consider business strategies that include switching to domestic materials, she said.
Hang said Vietnam will continue to work with the United States in its efforts to crack down on goods of foreign origin illegally relabeled “Made in Vietnam” by exporters seeking to dodge tariffs.
Vietnam has been touted as one of the largest beneficiaries of the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, but recent comments from U.S. President Donald Trump have led some to believe that Vietnam may be the next target of U.S. tariffs.
Last month, Trump said Hanoi treated the United States “even worse” than China, amid the ongoing trade spat between Washington and Beijing.
Vietnam responded by saying it was committed to free and fair trade with the United States.
Vietnam’s largest export market is the United States, with which it has a rapidly growing trade surplus, which widened to $17 billion in the first five months of this year from $12.9
billion in the same period last year.
Warning Light Flashing for Slovakia’s Auto Industry
When David landed an assembly line job at Volkswagen’s Bratislava factory, his colleagues congratulated him on securing a well-paid position he could ride to retirement.
Two years later, he is among the 3,000 workers being laid off at the plant that produces the Volkswagen Touareg and Porsche Cayenne in a round of job cuts that has sent shockwaves through Slovakia, the world’s biggest car producer per capita.
“All my colleagues were saying there’s nothing to worry about, if I get used to the work load and work pace, the salary will gradually increase and I will have a stable job until retirement,” said David, who declined to give his last name.
“And suddenly I get a call from human resources and learn that I’m being let go.”
The job losses at the factory, Slovakia’s largest private sector employer, underline the challenges the country faces to keep the engine revving in an industry that accounts for about 12% of annual economic output and more than one in ten jobs.
Competition from lower-cost southeastern European markets, a shift to electric vehicles and global trade tensions are among the headwinds buffetting the small central European nation as automakers mull where to launch future production lines.
Volkswagen itself is looking at building a new plant in eastern Europe, with trade publications citing Bulgaria, Serbia and Turkey as the most likely locations.
While David found a job at another carmaker, the layoffs at the Bratislava plant, which also makes the Audi Q7 and Q8 models, have put the government on alert.
“To use a car metaphor, we see a warning light, we don’t need to take the car for a general repair yet,” economy minister Peter Ziga told Reuters.
“We have 300,000 people working in the car sector (directly and indirectly). Should anything happen to them it would be serious.”
The uncertainty has spurred unions, which have previously pushed for big wage increases, to change tack.
“At the moment, we do not focus on salaries, the priority is job stability,” Volkswagen union chief Zoroslav Smolinsky told Reuters. “We need to wait out the worse times and wait for the better times.”
COMPETITIVE EDGE
Seeking to bolster an auto industry that accounts for 44% of industrial output and 40% of exports, the government has approved subsidies to boost the sale of electric cars and announced tax breaks of up to 200% of the amount invested in research and development.
But at the same time, moves to raise the minimum wage and increase bonuses for night shifts introduced last year are making Slovakia less competitive, said Jan Pribula, secretary general of the Slovak Automotive Industry Association.
“This is the time when companies are deciding who gets new models in seven years,” said Pribula, whose group represents Slovakia’s four carmakers – Volkswagen, PSA Group, Kia Motors and Jaguar Land Rover – along with suppliers, research institutes and importers.
“It is important to send a signal that we are responsible because now we are gradually losing a competitive edge.”
Slovakia is not the only central European country facing such challenges. Fellow European Union members the Czech Republic, home to Volkswagen’s Skoda brand, and Hungary, where both BMW and Daimler have plants, rely heavily on investment from foreign automakers.
A brewing global trade war is a particular concern for such countries, given their high reliance on foreign trade, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said earlier this month.
Deloitte Chief Economist David Marek has said a 25% tariff on U.S. imports of cars from Europe would cut the revenue of the Czech auto industry by 12 billion crowns ($532 million) a year.
Poland, the region’s biggest economy, is betting on electric vehicles, setting a target of having 1 million such cars and vans on the road by 2025 and highlighting a battle for investment as the auto industry embraces new technologies.
At the same time, faltering global growth has led some carmakers to put expansion plans on hold, such as Daimler’s announcement in May to postpone an increase in capacity at its Kecskemet compact-car plant in Hungary.
“It has been taken for granted that plants like Bratislava would just carry on and produce the next generation model,” Carol Thomas, an auto analyst at LMC Automotive, told Reuters.
“But we can’t just assume that anymore. Plants will not only have to fight for new models, they will also face greater competition to retain new generations of models they already produce.”
So far this year, Volkswagen has scaled back production lines in Bratislava and returned workers borrowed from Hungary’s Audi plant in 2016.
“This is the key year that will decide the future of the Slovak factory,” VW Slovak Chief Executive Oliver Grunberg said, adding a decision was expected by the end of the year.
“Improvements in Slovakia’s business environment would help increase attractiveness of Bratislava’s plant.”
Prince Harry, Meghan Say They Won’t Name Archie’s Godparents
Buckingham Palace says that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not reveal the names of the godparents of their son Archie when he is christened this weekend.
The palace said in a statement Wednesday that the christening at Windsor Castle on Saturday will be private and that “the godparents, in keeping with their wishes, will remain private.”
The decision sparked controversy in Britain’s media on Thursday, in part because the royal couple’s home was renovated with 2.4 million pounds ($3.06 million) of taxpayer money. Anti-monarchy campaign group Republic questioned why so much money was spent at a time when public services are under financial pressure.
Critics suggest that occasions like christenings should be public, but Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have repeatedly signaled that they’re entitled to privacy.
Courts Seek Clarity After US Justice Department Changes Course on Census Question
This story was updated 8:33AM.
U.S. federal courts and states that challenged the Trump administration’s decision to include a citizenship question on the country’s 2020 census are asking for clarity after the Departments of Justice and Commerce suddenly reversed what had been an acceptance of finalizing the questionnaire without inquiring about citizenship status.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that the government’s reasoning for including the citizenship question did not meet standards for a clear explanation of why it should be asked during the count of people in the United States that takes place every ten years.
The matter seemed further settled on Tuesday when the DOJ and Commerce Department made public statements and comments in legal cases that the process of printing the census was going forward without a citizenship question in order to meet deadlines for carrying out the count on time.
But with a series of tweets President Donald Trump injected uncertainty back into the process as he proclaimed, “We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”
The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2019
At the start of the country’s annual Independence Day holiday, Trump tweeted that Commerce and Justice department officials “are working very hard on this, even on the 4th of July!”
Friday hearing
U.S. District Judge George Hazel of Maryland has set a deadline of 2 p.m. Friday for the government to either say the citizenship question will not appear on the census, or to explain how the court should proceed with an unresolved challenge that the government violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
So far, rulings have focused on the administrative process and whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted reasonably in pursuing his agency’s goals. An examination of equal protection challenges would bring into the case whether the administration sought to suppress the count of minorities in the census.
Trump’s Democratic opponents have claimed that including the citizenship question is a Republican ploy to scare immigrants into not participating in the census out of fear that immigration officials might target them for deportation when they determine that they are in the country illegally. An undercount in Democrat-leaning areas with large immigrant and Latino populations could reduce congressional representation for such states and cut federal aid.
The attorneys general of California and New York have asked federal courts in those states to hold conferences Friday so that the Justice Department can make its positions clear after what has happened in the Maryland District Court and with the changing statements from the Trump administration.
What’s going on
In the conference call with the Maryland court on Wednesday, Justice Department special counsel Joshua Gardner admitted that they were still sorting out how to respond to Trump’s statements.
“The tweet this morning was the first I had heard of the president’s position on this issue, just like the plaintiffs and your honor,” Gardner said. “I do not have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture, other than what the president has tweeted. But, obviously, as you can imagine, I am doing my absolute best to figure out what’s going on.”
However, Gardner added that the Census Bureau has not stopped its current process of printing the census without a citizenship question, as the government continues to weigh what options it may have.
The Census Bureau had previously set a target date of early July to begin printing the questionnaire in order to have it prepared for delivery to the American public by the April 1 deadline.
The census is important because it determines how many seats in the House of Representatives each state is allotted and how $800 billion in federal aid is disbursed.
After the Supreme Court heard arguments on the citizenship question but before it ruled, documents emerged from the files of a deceased Republican election districting expert showing that the citizenship question was aimed at helping Republicans gain an electoral edge over Democrats.
Congressional hearing
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the House Oversight Committee, announced Wednesday that the director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Steven Dillingham, will testify at a hearing on July 24 on the status of planning and preparations for the 2020 Census.
“It is time for the Census Bureau to move beyond all the outside political agendas and distractions and devote its full attention to preparing for the 2020 Census,” said Raskin, a Maryland Democrat. “This hearing will examine the current status of the bureau’s readiness for the census next year — especially in areas where the bureau may be falling behind such as IT, security and public education.”
US Capitol Prepares for Trump Independence Day Celebration
The celebration of the United States’ 243rd birthday looks different this year, as President Trump stages his own military-themed celebration, in addition to the now-traditional ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on how the capital city, Washington, D.C., is preparing.
AP Fact Check: Trump’s Falsified Record on Military Matters
Editor’s note: A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
WASHINGTON — In his Fourth of July remarks, President Donald Trump will be celebrating the armed forces and showcasing what he’s done for them. But in recent days, he has falsified his record on military matters on several fronts.
He’s claimed, for example, that he came up with the “genius idea” of giving veterans private health care so they don’t have to wait for Veterans Affairs appointments, only to find out that others had thought of it but failed to get it done.
President Barack Obama signed the law getting it done in 2014.
Trump also made the flatly false statement that he won troops their first raise in a decade, suggested he’s made progress reducing veteran suicides that is not backed up by the numbers, and contradicted the record in claiming that North Korea is cooperating on the return of the remains of U.S. troops.
A look at his statements on military matters and personnel, some of which may be heard from the stage Thursday or in tweets:
Military pay
Trump, addressing military members: “You also got very nice pay raises for the last couple of years. Congratulations. Oh, you care about that. They care about that. I didn’t think you noticed. Yeah, you were entitled. You know, it was close to 10 years before you had an increase. Ten years. And we said, ‘It’s time.’ And you got a couple of good ones, big ones, nice ones.” — remarks Sunday at Osan Air Base, South Korea.
The facts: He’s been spreading this falsehood for more than a year, soaking up cheers from crowds for something he didn’t do. In May 2018, for example, he declared to graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy: “We just got you a big pay raise. First time in 10 years.”
U.S. military members have received a pay raise every year for decades.
Trump also boasts about the size of the military pay raises under his administration, but there’s nothing extraordinary about them.
Several raises in the last decade have been larger than service members are getting under Trump — 2.6% this year, 2.4% last year, 2.1% in 2017.
Raises in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for example, were all 3.4% or more.
Pay increases shrank after that because of congressionally mandated budget caps. Trump and Congress did break a trend that began in 2011 of pay raises that hovered between 1% and 2%.
Veterans’ suicide
Trump: “On average, 20 veterans and members take their own lives every day. … We’re working very, very hard on that. In fact, the first time I heard the number was 23, and now it’s down somewhat. But it’s such an unacceptable number.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.
The facts: Trump incorrectly suggests that he helped reduce veterans’ suicide, noting that his administration was working “very, very hard” on the problem and that in fact the figure had come down. But no decline has been registered during his administration. There was a drop during the Obama administration, but that might be because of the way veterans’ suicides are counted.
The Veterans Affairs Department estimated in 2013 that 22 veterans were taking their lives each day on average (not 23, as Trump put it). The estimate was based on data submitted from fewer than half of the states. In 2016, VA released an estimate of 20 suicides per day, based on 2014 data from all 50 states as well as the Pentagon.
The estimated average has not budged since.
Trump has pledged additional money for suicide prevention and created in March a Cabinet-level task force that will seek to develop a national roadmap for suicide prevention, part of a campaign pledge to improve health care for veterans.
Still, a report by the Government Accountability Office in December found the VA had left millions of dollars unspent that were available for suicide prevention efforts. The report said VA had spent just $57,000 out of $6.2 million available for paid media, such as social-media postings, thanks in part to leadership turmoil at the agency.
North Korea
Trump, on North Korea’s help in returning the remains of U.S. troops from the Korean War: “The remains are coming back as they get them, as they find them. The remains of our great heroes from the war. And we really appreciate that.” — remarks Sunday to Korean business leaders in Seoul.
Trump: “We’re very happy about the remains having come back. And they’re bringing back — in fact, we were notified they have additional remains of our great heroes from many years ago.” — remarks June 28 in Japan.
The facts: His account is at odds with developments.
No remains of U.S. service members have been returned since last summer and the U.S. suspended efforts in May to get negotiations on the remains back on track in time to have more repatriated this year. It hopes more remains may be brought home next year.
The Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, which is the outfit responsible for recovering U.S. war remains and returning them to families, “has not received any new information from (North Korean) officials regarding the turn over or recovery of remains,” spokesman Charles Prichard said Wednesday.
Prichard said his agency is “still working to communicate” with the North Korean army “as it is our intent to find common ground on resuming recovery missions” in 2020.
Last summer, in line with the first summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.
U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.
The Pentagon estimates that 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.
Health care
Trump, on approving private-sector health care for veterans: “I actually came up with the idea. I said, ‘Why don’t we just have the veterans go out and see a private doctor and we’ll pay the cost of the doctor and that will solve the problem?’ Because some veterans were waiting for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, they couldn’t get any service at all. I said, ‘We’ll just send them out.’ And I thought it was a genius idea, brilliant idea. And then I came back and met with the board and a lot of the people that handled the VA. … They said, ‘Actually, sir, we’ve been trying to get that passed for 40 years, and we haven’t been able to get it.’ … I’m good at getting things done. … It’s really cut down big on the waits.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.
Trump: “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care that they deserve and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.” — Montoursville, Pennsylvania, rally May 20.
The facts: Trump did not invent the idea of giving veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. Nor is he the first president in 40 years to pass the program.
Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.
Under the expansion, which took effect last month, veterans still may have to wait weeks to see a doctor. The program allows veterans to see a private doctor if their VA wait is 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes.
Indeed, the VA says it does not expect a major increase in veterans seeking care outside the VA under Trump’s expanded program, partly because waiting times in the private sector are typically longer than at VA.
“The care in the private sector, nine times out of 10, is probably not as good as care in VA,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told Congress in March.
White House Blasts Seattle Judge’s Ruling on Asylum-Seekers
The White House is blasting a Seattle judge’s ruling that says the Trump administration can’t indefinitely lock up migrants who are seeking asylum without giving them a chance to be released on bond.
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman on Tuesday blocked a new administration policy saying that asylum-seekers will no longer get bond hearings but instead must remain in custody as they pursue their claims.
She said it’s unconstitutional for the government to detain people without demonstrating it’s necessary.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement Wednesday calling the ruling “at war with the rule of law.” She says it “only incentivizes smugglers and traffickers.”
American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Michael Tan says the ruling “upholds the law against this administration’s ongoing attempts to violate it.”
Ben Gurion Incident Exposes West’s Vulnerability to GPS Disruption
This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian service.
A spate of GPS disruptions at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport has confirmed what several prominent tech analysts have long feared: that Western nations, and the U.S. in particular, are unusually vulnerable to foreign meddling with location-based technology.
Most location-based software programs, such as the U.S.’s Global Positioning System (GPS), the European Union’s Galileo, China’s BeiDou and Russia’s Glonass, depend on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), the vast network of international satellites orbiting the Earth.
The technology plays an integral part in our everyday lives, affecting such things as personal phone use, car navigation, international shipping, air travel, power grids, financial markets, and law enforcement and emergency response services. It’s also vital to military operations.
So it is no surprise that authorities were alarmed last week when several aircraft flying near Ben Gurion reported disruption to their satellite navigation systems. Officials said they thought the disruptions were caused by signals emanating from Syria, where Russian forces are involved in that nation’s long-running civil war.
Russian diplomats ridiculed the claim, but it was not the first time their country has been singled out. A report issued in March by the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) charged that Russia has been hacking non-Russian navigation systems on an extraordinary scale.
Since February 2016, C4ADS analysts reported, Russian intelligence had meddled with GPS equipment aboard 1,311 civilian ships. The report said 9,883 hacking incidents were reported or detected by maritime vessels or aircraft in 2017, with most of the incidents involving planes and ships near the Black Sea, Russia and Syria.
Beyond pinpointing geographic coordinates, GNSS is also used for precision timing, a feature that can also be hacked and manipulated. Various cybersecurity and automotive trade journals reported in March that an unknown entity hacked the GPS systems in a range of high-end cars featured at the annual Geneva Motor Show, programming the cars to report a location of Buckingham, England, in the year 2036.
How it works
GPS spoofing is an attack in which a radio transmitter located near the target is used to send out false GPS signals. Using tools that are cheap and easily accessible online, the attacker can transmit inaccurate coordinates or no data at all.
Russia has been known to protectively scramble radio signal devices near sensitive state facilities or along routes traveled by VIPs. For example, multiple ships reported phony geographic coordinates in the Kerch Strait on the day that Russian President Vladimir Putin drove a truck across a newly completed bridge to Russian-annexed Crimea.
But some analysts say the scale of recent disruptions indicates that Russia is taking its coordinates-spoofing game to another level, methodically calculating the damage it can inflict on unprotected systems in case of conflict.
“A ship that has falsified information navigating through the Kerch Strait, for instance, would be at a much greater risk of colliding with another ship or of potentially violating some sort of territorial water regime,” said Thomas Ewing, C4ADS chief analyst, referring to a Nov. 25 incident in which Russia seized three Ukrainian navy vessels near the Kerch Strait and detained their crews.
Ewing also said evidence of spoofed coordinates had been recorded by U.S. forces in Syria, suggesting that Russia may be hacking satellite networks as part of its electronic warfare campaigns. There have also been reports of Russian spoofing of GPS signals during the Russian military training exercise Zapad in 2017 and NATO’s Trident Juncture in 2018.
“Our report details a number of Russian assets that are designed to interfere with GNSS as part of a general electronic warfare capability,” Ewing told VOA.
Some analysts have questioned why Russian intelligence would meddle with commercial airliners servicing Tel Aviv, the most populous city in a country with which the Kremlin seeks friendly relations.
Others, however, say formal attribution to a malign state actor is beside the point.
“The basic danger is that when your positioning, navigation or timing information is falsified, you could make a decision based on information that doesn’t correspond to reality,” said Ewing, explaining that spoofed coordinates could easily spark an international dispute.
Dana Goward, president of the U.S. Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, said the U.S. remains particularly vulnerable.
Because American engineers designed GPS to be used by everyone, its signal characteristics are routinely published and easily accessible. That makes them easier to imitate than signals relayed by mainly ground-based positioning systems in China and Russia.
America’s ‘gift to the world’
“I think that European countries and the United States are especially vulnerable because Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and South Korea have alternate navigation systems that transmit from the ground,” Goward told VOA’s Ukrainian service. He said those systems “have very high power and are very difficult to disrupt. So those countries are not nearly as dependent upon satellite navigation as Europe and the United States.”
Asked about the erroneous coordinates reported by vessels in the Kerch Strait and along the Syrian coast, Goward said he thought Russia was using the vulnerabilities of the technology to demonstrate its power.
“America likes to think of GPS as its gift to the world,” he said. “But by doing this, Russia is saying to the whole world that ‘we can take that away from you with a flip of a switch, so America’s gift is not so great.’ So they’re certainly using it as an instrument of strategic state power as well.”
To protect itself, Goward said, the United States should increase its protection of GPS frequencies, use only high-quality receivers that can resist jamming and spoofing, and augment the GPSS with a ground-based system that would be harder to disrupt.
The incident in Ben Gurion again attracted attention to the need to create a fully functional backup system for GPS, Goward said. “It is fortunate that aviation has a terrestrial electronic navigation system it can rely upon when GPS is not available,” Goward said. He praised the 2001 U.S. Department of Transportation decision not to give up the terrestrial system completely in favor of the GPS-based one.
U.S. policy has called for maintaining an effective backup system since 2004, but experts say its full implementation is still in the works both in the United States and Europe.
According to the Military Times newspaper, the U.S. Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany will field test jam-resistant positioning, navigation and timing gear in September, including a Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module in some vehicles.
Frenchman Takes Groping Complaint Case to Vatican
One of a half-dozen men who have accused the Vatican’s ambassador to France of groping them said Wednesday he plans to take his legal complaint directly to the Vatican, alleging the Holy See had invoked diplomatic immunity for the high-ranking churchman in a French criminal probe.
Mathieu De La Souchere filed a police report in Paris earlier this year accusing Archbishop Luigi Ventura of touching his buttocks repeatedly during a Jan. 17 reception at Paris City Hall. De La Souchere met with one of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisers about the allegations Wednesday.
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into alleged sexual aggression. The Vatican said Ventura was cooperating with the investigation. But De La Souchere said the French case was essentially stalled over the immunity question.
“The French government’s request to the Vatican to lift the diplomatic immunity remained unanswered,” he told The Associated Press.
De La Souchere said his lawyer plans to file a complaint with the Vatican City State’s criminal tribunal next week. The tribunal largely follows the Italian penal code and is separate from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse-related crimes under the Catholic Church’s canon law.
“This new judicial step here in the Vatican, we hope, will be one more step toward the trial that we all the victims in France are waiting for,” De La Souchere said after meeting with the Rev. Hans Zollner, a founding member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
De La Souchere met with Zollner and another man who has accused Ventura. Catholic online site Crux has said as many as a half-dozen men have accused Ventura of unwanted groping over the course of his diplomatic postings, which have included Canada and Chile.
Ventura has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. His French lawyer, Bertrand Ollivier, did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
The archbishop’s whereabouts are unknown, but he attended a meeting at the Vatican last month of all the Holy See’s apostolic nuncios, or ambassadors.
Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said Ventura “has fully and voluntarily cooperated with French judicial authorities who are in charge of his case, and will continue to do so.” He didn’t immediately respond when asked about the status of Ventura’s immunity.
Ventura did agree to investigators’ request to take part in a “confrontation” with his accusers in May, according to French media reports. All accused him of putting his hands on their buttocks, sometimes repeatedly, or making other inappropriate gestures.
Speaking to one alleged victim, identified as Benjamin G., Ventura first claimed he didn’t remember the incidents in question and then said Benjamin misinterpreted his actions, according to French newspaper Le Monde.
The Vatican has previously recalled its diplomats when they get into trouble during overseas postings, as is common for governments with diplomats serving abroad.
In the most high-profile case, the Vatican recalled its ambassador to the Dominican Republic and prepared to put him on trial in the city state’s criminal tribunal for allegedly sexually abusing young boys. But he died before trial started.
More recently, the Vatican convicted a diplomat from its U.S. embassy for possession and distribution of child pornography and sentenced him to five years in prison.
The Vatican also invoked immunity during the recently-concluded trial in France that convicted French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of failing to report an admitted pedophile to police. Also accused in the case was a Vatican official, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, who now heads the Vatican office in charge of handling sex abuse cases.
The Vatican invoked Ladaria’s immunity as a public official of a foreign sovereign — the Holy See — and he was not prosecuted. Barbarin enjoyed no such immunity as the archbishop of Lyon and was convicted and given a six-month suspended sentence.
Francis recently named a temporary administrator to run the Lyon archdiocese after Barbarin stepped aside pending his appeal.
Trump Claims Census Question on Citizenship Still Alive
U.S. President Donald Trump contended Wednesday that the government will still try to ask a question about citizenship in the once-a-decade census in 2020, a day after top officials announced they had given up on including the citizenship question following a Supreme Court ruling on the matter last week.
“The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE!” Trump claimed on Twitter. “We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”
The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2019
But his comment sowed confusion about the inclusion of the question, coming after both the Department of Justice and the Commerce Department said they had abandoned the effort for the census that starts April 1. The government has said it already has started printing the questionnaires this week in order to have them all ready for use in nine months.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said, “I respect the Supreme Court but strongly disagree with its ruling regarding my decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 Census,” for the first time since 1950. “The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question. My focus, and that of the Bureau and the entire Department, is to conduct a complete and accurate census.”
In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices in ruling that the reasoning the Trump administration offered for including the citizenship question — that the information was needed to protect minority voting rights — was “contrived” and did not meet the standards for a clear explanation of why it should be asked.
Government officials offered no explanation of why they were dropping their effort to include the question, but were confronting weeks and maybe months of new challenges to the question. The census is important because it determines how many seats in the House of Representatives each state is allotted and how $800 billion in federal aid is disbursed.
Trump’s Democratic opponents have claimed that including the question is a Republican ploy to scare immigrants in to not participating in the census out of fear that immigration officials might target them for deportation when they determine that they are in the country illegally. An undercount in Democrat-leaning areas with large immigrant and Latino populations could reduce congressional representation for such states and cut federal aid.
After the Supreme Court heard arguments on the citizenship question but before it ruled, documents emerged from the files of a deceased Republican election districting expert showing that the citizenship question was aimed at helping Republicans gain an electoral edge over Democrats.
Although the citizenship question has not been asked in 70 years, Trump tweeted that it was”A very sad time for America when the Supreme Court of the United States won’t allow a question of ‘Is this person a Citizen of the United States?’ to be asked on the #2020 Census!”
When the high court issued its ruling, Trump called it “totally ridiculous.”
Justice Watchdog to Probe FBI Role in Dropping Plan to Move Headquarters
The U.S. Justice Department’s watchdog will review the role of the FBI and Justice Department in a reversal of plans to move FBI headquarters to the Washington suburbs, Democratic congressional leaders said Wednesday.
The department’s inspector general informed House committee leaders of the review in a letter on Tuesday after two committees had pushed him to investigate the reversal.
The leaders of four House committees, including Oversight and Transportation, who are pursuing their own investigations into the shift of FBI headquarters plans, said in a statement they welcomed the watchdog’s examination.
Before he was elected, U.S. President Donald Trump had favored a government plan to move FBI headquarters from downtown Washington, where it is housed in a crumbling building adorned with safety nets to catch falling chunks of concrete. It is also too small for the bureau’s thousands of local employees.
Current preference
Trump now favors replacing the building with a new structure in the same location.
Democrats have alleged that Trump, a real estate developer before becoming president, had expressed interest in the FBI’s move so he could buy the land where the current headquarters sits and redevelop it.
The Democrats say Trump, who owns a hotel down the street from the current FBI building, changed his position on the headquarters move after he became president and was disqualified from bidding for the land.
The watchdog for the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings, said last year that the revised plan would be more expensive than the original proposal to move the headquarters.
The GSA’s inspector general also found that the GSA administrator had not disclosed a meeting with the president on the subject.
The White House and the GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment.
What Americans Don’t Know About the US Constitution
Written in 1787, the U.S. Constitution is the world’s oldest written charter of government in use today.
Most Americans are familiar with its first three words – “We the People.” Yet they “don’t understand” the venerable document, says Kimberly Wehle, a professor of law at the University of Baltimore.
To get readers interested in the charter, Wehle recently published “How to Read the Constitution — and Why,” a back-to-the-basics, accessible primer on the U.S. charter of government written for a time when many on the left and some on the right think the Constitution is under assault.
The book’s launch coincides with the end of a consequential term for the Supreme Court, during which President Donald Trump’s second court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, joined the bench following a contentious confirmation hearing. It also coincides with the nation’s 243rd observance of Independence Day, July 4.
VOA spoke with Wehle about the Supreme Court and how and why to read the Constitution. The following excerpts have been edited for clarity and length.
The U.S. Constitution is the oldest surviving written constitution in use today. What makes it so enduring?
Kimberly Wehle: It’s enduring because of the structure of the first part of the Constitution. That is not the Bill of Rights. But the structure of the first part of the Constitution assumes that there is no person in elected office or appointed office that’s above the law. So each branch is checked by the other two branches and so far, that balance of power ensuring that the human desire to amass unlimited power is checked. I think that that is one of the most enduring elements.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia once said that the “real key to the distinctiveness of America” in the world, what makes America a free country, is not the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but rather the structure of government enshrined in the Constitution. Do you agree?
Wehle: The framers, as Justice Scalia indicated, didn’t include express rights in the original Constitution, because they believed that the three-part structure would preserve rights. So there’s a direct connection between the checks and balances and the separation of powers (on the one hand) and individual rights (on the other), meaning the three-part system ensures that the government doesn’t arbitrarily bully individual people. If there’s bullying going on, one of the other two branches is situated to check that.
And yet every branch of government, it seems, over time has accumulated some degree of power at the expense of the other. For example, the Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, yet American presidents have waged war without clear congressional authorization. How did that happen?
Wehle: There’s a chicken-and-egg issue with the power to declare war and the commander-in-chief power. Scholars generally believe that Congress has to declare war. The president can use the military to respond to threats and attacks. As we saw during the George W. Bush administration, Congress authorized the president to preemptively start a war. But when people in office and in the judiciary don’t enforce parts of the Constitution, they cease to really have meaning.
So how do you read the Constitution? Do you examine the text to decipher its original meaning, as the so-called “originalists” do, or do you approach it as a “living document” open to interpretation, as the so-called “judicial” activists do.
Wehle: I disagree with that distinction. In the book, I compare the Constitution to reading a poem, for example, where, you know, there’s ambiguous language, and there are various ways of reading that ambiguity and deciding what it means. The Constitution is the same way. People bring different points of view to it. But the idea that it’s clear, most of the time is just not accurate.
In your book, you make an urgent plea to Americans to read their own Constitution, a text many are taught in grade school. Why read it?
Wehle: Because we’re overloaded in our society with information, online social media, 24-hour cable news and information, various political points of view, people feeding bottom lines to us. And of course, as we saw in the 2016 presidential elections, some of what we get is actually planted — and it’s deliberately false — by Russians, in this instance, that aren’t really interested in promoting American democracy. So in order to cut through this polarized conversation, my suggestion as an educator, which I tell my students, is start with the text. If you want to know what (special counsel) Robert Mueller indicted someone for, read the indictment. If you want to know what your Constitution says, start with the language itself. That’s what the Supreme Court does.
What benefit would citizens of other countries derive from reading the American Constitution?
Wehle: There are a lot of eyes on America for lots of reasons, including this reputation for having, freedoms, which, I think, (are) being challenged and tarnished internationally. So it benefits, given that the United States is a place that a lot of other countries watch. It is beneficial for everyone to understand how our Constitution works, and the dangers if it stops working.
The Supreme Court is the nation’s top appellate court as well as its top constitutional court. What role does it play in American life?
Wehle: It really functions like a mini legislature, and I say that with great care. Meaning when a case gets to the Supreme Court on an important issue, and the court issues a decision under the Constitution, that can’t even be amended by a statute. The Constitution is the boss of all bosses.
So if the court decides that there’s a constitutional question lurking in a statute passed by Congress and then it rules one way or the other under the Constitution, the only way to change that outcome is to amend the Constitution, or amend the configuration of the court such that they will reverse precedent. Both of those are extremely, extremely hard to do.
The Supreme Court is deeply ideologically divided. Many critics see the justices on the court as politicians in robes. Help our international audience understand how the judiciary in this country became so politicized?
Wehle: I don’t think they’re politicians in robes, because politicians tend to make decisions in America based on getting more money to win elections. So they will set aside principle, they’ll set aside policy outcomes, just for that objective.
That’s not the case at the Supreme Court. That being said, it’s unfortunate what happened with Justice Kavanaugh. It’s the most glaring example of how the Senate has allowed the confirmation process to become politicized.
But once justices are on the court, their decision on how to construe vague language will depend on their judicial philosophy. Some justices might believe Congress should have a lot more power over executive branch agencies. Some justices might believe the president has unlimited power in certain circumstances, like when it comes to the use of the military.
Other justices, the liberal wing, are more interested in making sure individual people retain as many rights versus the government. These are philosophical differences over how the government should work.
Venezuela’s Guaido: ‘Never’ a Good Moment to Negotiate with Maduro
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said on Tuesday that there would “never” be a good moment to negotiate with President Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship,” ruling out an expected new round of talks to find an exit from the country’s crisis.
Guaido and Maduro had both sent representatives to Oslo in May for discussions that Norway’s government had encouraged, but they were unable to reach any agreement. On Saturday, people familiar with the talks told Reuters that talks would restart this week.
Guaido on Tuesday said there had been “no official statement that we would attend a new round” of dialogue.
“It is never going to be a good moment to mediate… with kidnappers, human rights violators, and a dictatorship,” Guaido told reporters at the opposition-controlled National Assembly legislature, which he heads.
Few details have been released about the talks in Oslo between representatives of Maduro and Guaido, who assumed a rival presidency in January and denounces Maduro as an illegitimate usurper who has overseen a five-year recession.
Guaido’s comments came as the opposition expressed outrage over the death last week of Venezuelan navy captain Rafael Acosta in military custody. The captain’s wife and rights groups accuse Maduro’s government of torturing Acosta and refusing to clarify the circumstances of his death.
Death of Venezuelan Navy Captain Draws Eye of UN Watchdog
A manhunt is underway for eight other men suspected in a plot to assassinate President Maduro
Venezuela’s chief prosecutor on Monday charged two intelligence officials with homicide in connection with Acosta’s death, without explaining how he was killed.
Tesla Delivers Record Number of Electric Cars in Quarter
Tesla set a record for quarterly vehicle deliveries in a triumphant response to months of questions about demand for its luxury electric cars, sending shares up 7% after hours Tuesday.
Tesla did not comment on profit — which is still elusive — but the robust deliveries could help jumpstart investor sentiment on Tesla, which has been challenged in recent months.
Before Tuesday’s after-hours spike, Tesla shares were down about a third from the beginning of the year.
Brushing aside concerns about demand that have dogged the company all year, Tesla said orders during the second quarter exceeded deliveries, despite buyers getting a smaller tax credit.
A $7,500 U.S. federal tax credit was cut in half at the end of last year, fell to $1,875 on Monday and expires at the end of the year.
“We believe we are well positioned to continue growing total production and deliveries in Q3,” the company said in a statement.
Tesla delivered 77,550 Model 3s in the quarter, the company’s latest sedan and linchpin of the company’s growth strategy. That compared with analysts’ average estimate of 73,144, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Deliveries of all models rose 51% from the first quarter to 95,200 vehicles, including 17,650 Model S and X. Analysts on average were expecting total deliveries of 89,084.
Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has repeatedly said Tesla could deliver a record number of cars in the second quarter, beating the 90,700 it sent to customers in the final quarter of last year.
Wall Street ‘skeptical’
Tuesday’s numbers helped take the sting off a difficult first quarter, in which deliveries plunged and the company lost $702 million.
That fraught quarter — hurt by logistics issues at Tesla’s international ports and a drop-off in U.S. orders after the tax credit was halved — spurred worries that Tesla may have tapped a limited market for electric cars at premium prices.
Despite the positive second-quarter delivery numbers, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives cautioned that “the Street remains skeptical.”
Demand and profitability will remain the two main drivers to buoy Tesla shares in coming quarters, Ives told Reuters, signaling that Tesla’s challenges are far from over.
Garrett Nelson of CFRA Research noted that second-quarter deliveries were likely artificially boosted by customers pulling forward their vehicle purchases before the July 1 tax credit cut, warning that could result in a “significant retracement” in deliveries in the third quarter.
Tesla did not repeat its prior forecast that it would post a second-quarter loss but return to profit in the third quarter.
Delivery challenge
A big challenge for Tesla has been how to deliver its vehicles efficiently and swiftly to customers around the world.
An improved system for logistics helped in the second quarter, Tesla said, without providing more detail.
In prior quarters, Tesla has diverted employees from all parts of the company to help with deliveries in an all-hands-on-deck effort to meet delivery goals. That has proved to be an expensive and inefficient way to meet targets, which reduces potential profit margins on each vehicle.
The delivery numbers included 10,600 vehicles that had been in transit at the end of the first quarter.
The company has pledged to deliver 360,000 to 400,000 vehicles in 2019, a goal many analysts predict will be difficult to meet.
Overall, total production rose 13% to 87,048 vehicles compared with the first quarter. The company churned out 72,531 Model 3s in the second quarter, up from a total of 62,950 Model 3s in the preceding quarter.
Tesla said that going forward, it would no longer disclose how many vehicles were in transit at the end of each quarter due to production changes that made the number less relevant. At the end of the second quarter, over 7,400 vehicles were in transit.
Brazil: Protecting Environment Not Only European ‘Interest’
Brazil’s foreign minister said Tuesday that protecting the environment “is not only a European interest” after France said it would ratify a free-trade deal between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur only if Brazil respects its commitment to reduce deforestation.
The EU and Mercosur last Friday finalized, after two decades of negotiations, an agreement that would integrate the blocs into a market of 800 million people. But the deal must still be ratified by the legislatures of the countries involved.
The French government said Tuesday that it was yet not ready to ratify the pact, saying Brazil must “respect its commitments” to protecting its rainforest. Before the deal was finalized, French President Emmanuel Macron had said France would not sign if Brazil did not continue within the Paris climate agreement.
Brazilian foreign minister Ernesto Araujo responded to France’s comments by saying: “No country is ready to ratify (the agreement) from the constitutional point of view. It must be still submitted to parliament and approved.”
“Most European countries use more agrotoxins per hectare then Brazil. The agricultural health crisis of mad cow disease began in Europe because of the poor feeding of livestock,” Araujo said at a news conference in the capital, Brasilia. “This issue is not only a European interest, but ours” as well.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has raised fears among environmentalists by promising to open up the Amazon to further development and because of his close ties to the country’s agro-industry lobby.
A survey by the National Institute of Space Research that was published Tuesday showed that Amazon deforestation grew 60% in June compared to the same month last year, the worst data since 2016.
Mercosur is made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
2020 Hopeful Buttigieg Pitches Plan to Fight Systemic Racism
Looking to improve his standing with black voters, Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg pitched a plan Tuesday to tackle “systemic racism” he said exists in housing, health care, education, policing and other aspects of American life.
The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told a predominantly black audience at a Chicago meeting of Rainbow PUSH, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s civil rights organization, that his plan includes providing more opportunity for minority businesses, strengthening voting rights and reforming the criminal justice system.
He said he would cut incarceration numbers in half by legalizing marijuana and eliminating prison time for simple drug possession. He wants to restore voting rights for some 6 million Americans with felony convictions and supports “bold and meaningful action” on reparations for the descendants of slaves.
Buttigieg’s speech followed the June 16 fatal shooting of a black man by a white South Bend police officer, which he said re-exposed a “racial chasm” between black and white residents in the racially diverse community of roughly 100,000 people. The shooting prompted Buttigieg to leave the campaign trail, and it has threatened to erode the already marginal backing he’s received from black voters for his 2020 bid so far.
“This is deeper than politics. This is not just a political problem, and it is not just a police problem, and it is not just my problem or my city’s problem,” he said Tuesday. “And it is certainly not just a black problem. This is an American problem. And it requires nationwide American solutions.”
Buttigieg is among the top tier of 2020 candidates, bringing in almost $25 million in the second quarter — an amount expected to exceed many of his rivals’ totals. But he’s struggled to gain support from black voters who are crucial to a Democratic victory.
He told reporters he needs to get to know more voters, and they need to “see me in action for a longer period of time” and learn more about the agenda he’s dubbed his “Douglass Plan,” after abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
“Look, when you’re new on the scene, and you’re not from a community of color, you’ve got to work much harder in order to earn that trust because trust is largely a function of quantity time,” he said. “I’m committed to doing that work. But I think the most important question is: Will our policy benefit black Americans and all Americans? And if that happens, and if I can show that, I think the politics will start to take care of themselves.”
Trump Administration Ends Bid to Add Census Citizenship Question
In a stinging defeat for President Donald Trump, his administration has ended its effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census, saying that it will begin printing forms that do not include the contentious query.
White House and Justice Department officials confirmed the decision, which came in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling on June 27 that faulted the Trump administration for its original attempt to add the question.
Although the court left open the possibility of the administration adding the question, there was little time left for the government to come up with a new rationale.
The government had said in court filings that it needed to finalize the details of the questionnaire by the end of June.
Trump had suggested delaying the census so that the question could be added.
Presidential Hopeful Booker Vows to End ‘Moral Vandalism’ of Trump Immigration Policy
Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker would “virtually eliminate immigration detention” if elected, his campaign said on Tuesday, including ending the use of for-profit detention facilities and minimizing the time unaccompanied children spend in custody.
Booker, 50, is among some two dozen Democrats seeking to take on Republican U.S. President Donald Trump in next year’s election.
Trump has made clamping down on illegal immigration the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda. He has railed against Central American migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico – many of whom are seeking refuge under U.S. asylum laws – and has sought to build a wall along vast portions of the U.S. southern border.
US 2020 Hopeful Cory Booker Rolls Out Iowa Steering Committee
Democratic White House hopeful Cory Booker is rolling out his Iowa steering committee, a team of activists and operatives that features party powerbroker Jerry Crawford, who played a key role in each of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns in the state.
Crawford, a Des Moines-area attorney who also played leading roles on Al Gore and John Kerry’s campaigns, said he’s been courted by multiple campaigns but told The Associated Press in an interview he’s backing Booker because of the New Jersey U.S.
But U.S. agencies have struggled to keep up with a surge of mostly families arriving at the border, straining resources and overcrowding facilities. Last week, lawyers asked a federal judge to intervene after they detailed several instances in which children were being held in unsanitary, unsafe conditions.
“On day one of my presidency, I will take immediate steps to end this administration’s moral vandalism,” Booker said in a statement. “Our country must have an immigration system that reflects our values, not one that strips dignity away from people fleeing danger, threats, and violence.”
Booker’s plan would require border facilities operated by the U.S. Border Patrol, including those holding children, to comply with stringent health standards or face closure.
He would also phase out contracts with private prison operators such as GEO Group Inc and CoreCivic Inc , which operate a number of facilities for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house adult migrants awaiting court proceedings.
In addition to targeting detention centers, Booker’s plan would reverse the Trump administration’s decision to end protections for “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review Trump’s decision next year. The program will remain in place until that case is resolved.
Booker also would do away with Trump administration rules intended to restrict asylum claims and refugees, including Trump’s entry ban for several Muslim-majority countries and a requirement that asylum seekers remain in Mexico until their U.S. court hearing.
The plan calls for providing legal counsel to all immigrants and making it easier for them to post bond in immigration court proceedings.
Several other Democratic contenders have released immigration plans, including former Secretary of Housing Julian Castro, U.S. senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris and former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke.
Malawi Musician Fight Myths About Albinism
In Malawi, a young albino man is using music to fight discrimination and misconceptions about the genetic condition in a country where more than 100 people with albinism have been attacked since 2014. Lazarus Chigwandali has long been performing on the streets of Lilongwe. But after catching the eye of a Swedish producer, he began work on an album that is due out in August. He’s also about to embark on a nationwide tour to promote a documentary, produced by American pop star Madonna, about the plight of albinos in Malawi. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe.