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

News, World 04/18/2018 No comments

Ex-FBI Agent Pleads Guilty to Leaking Secrets to Reporter

A former FBI agent accused of leaking government secrets to a reporter pleaded guilty Tuesday to two criminal counts related to retaining and disclosing defense information, the Justice Department said.

Terry Albury, 39, a former special agent in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, could face up to 10 years in prison for each of the two counts against him, the Justice Department said in a statement.

“As this prosecution demonstrates, we will not waiver in our commitment to pursue and hold accountable government officials who violate their obligations to protect our nation’s secrets,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a statement.

Albury’s attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.

‘FBI secret rules’

At the time Albury was charged in March, his attorneys said his actions were “driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI.”

A source familiar with the case has told Reuters that the online news organization The Intercept was the recipient of the information Albury was charged with leaking.

The Intercept could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

In January 2017, The Intercept published a series titled “The FBI’s Secret Rules” based on Albury’s leaked documents, which showed the depth and broad powers of the FBI expansion since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and its recruitment efforts, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

The Intercept reported the initial charges against Albury and published a statement from its editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed, saying the news outlet did not discuss anonymous sources.

But she said the use of the Espionage Act “to prosecute whistleblowers seeking to shed light on matters of vital public concern is an outrage” and defended the right of journalists to report such stories.

Second leak to The Intercept

It was the second time someone suspected of leaking information to The Intercept had been prosecuted. Last year, a U.S. intelligence contractor pleaded not guilty to an espionage count after being accused of leaking a classified report on Russian interference in the U.S. elections to the news outlet.

The Justice Department did not identify the news organization that received the information Albury leaked. It said he worked at the time as a liaison with Customs and Border Protection at the Minneapolis airport and had a top-secret clearance that gave him access to some secret material.

The Justice Department said that between 2016 and continuing through August 2017, Albury disclosed national defense information classified as secret to a reporter.
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Business, News 04/18/2018 No comments

Venezuela Arrests Two Chevron Executives Amid Oil Purge

Chevron said on Tuesday two of its executives were arrested in Venezuela, a rare move likely to spook foreign energy firms still operating in the OPEC nation stricken by hyperinflation, shortages and crime.

Venezuelan Sebin intelligence agents burst into the Petropiar joint venture’s office in the coastal city of Puerto La Cruz on Monday and arrested the two Venezuelan employees for alleged wrongdoing, a half-dozen sources with knowledge of the detentions told Reuters.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry and state oil company PDVSA did not respond to a request for information about the detentions, which come amid a crackdown on alleged graft in the oil sector.

One of the detainees, Carlos Algarra, is a Venezuelan chemical engineer and expert in oil upgrading whom Chevron had brought in from its Argentina operations. The other, Rene Vasquez, is a procurement adviser, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Arrests comfirmed

The U.S. company confirmed the arrests, which are believed to be the first to affect a foreign oil company’s direct employees.

“Chevron Global Technology Services Company is aware that two of its Venezuelan-based employees have been arrested by local authorities,” Chevron said in a statement.

“We have contacted the local authorities to understand the basis of the detention and to ensure the safety and wellbeing of these employees. Our legal team is evaluating the situation and working towards the timely release of these employees.”

Disagreements lead to arrests

A Chevron spokeswoman declined to provide further details on the case or the status of its operations. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The executives were arrested after disagreements with their PDVSA counterparts over procurement processes, two of the sources said.

The arrests highlight risks for foreign companies in Venezuela, home to the world’s biggest crude reserves but heaving under a fifth straight year of recession. Some insiders say a fracturing ruling elite is using the purge to wage turf wars or settle scores.

“Our view has been that oil industry companies would do well to be cautious and stop assuming that good relations with PDVSA can last forever due to a common interest in pumping oil,” said Raul Gallegos, associate director with the consultancy Control Risks. “The level of corruption in PDVSA, especially under a military administration, can and will trump production logic.”

Other oil executives jailed

President Nicolas Maduro since last year has overseen the arrest of dozens of oil executives, including the former energy minister and PDVSA president.

The purge comes years after industry analysts began criticizing PDVSA for widespread graft. The government long decried such accusations as “smear campaigns.” But last year, Maduro changed his tone and started blaming “thieves” for rampant graft in the oil sector and an economic crisis that has spawned malnutrition, disease and emigration.

Vowing a cleanup, Maduro replaced many jailed executives with soldiers, but the unpopular management has spurred a wave of resignations.
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News, Technology 04/17/2018 No comments

Cambridge Analytica ex-CEO Refuses to Testify in UK

Cambridge Analytica’s ex-CEO, Alexander Nix, has refused to testify before the U.K. Parliament’s media committee, citing British authorities’ investigation into his former company’s alleged misuse of data from millions of Facebook accounts in political campaigns.

Committee Chairman Damian Collins announced Nix’s decision a day before his scheduled appearance but flatly rejected the notion that he should be let off the hook, saying Nix hasn’t been charged with a crime and there are no active legal proceedings against him.

“There is therefore no legal reason why Mr. Nix cannot appear,” Collins said in a statement. “The committee is minded to issue a formal summons for him to appear on a named day in the very near future.”

Nix gave evidence to the committee in February, but was recalled after former Cambridge Analytica staffer Christopher Wylie sparked a global debate over electronic privacy when he alleged the company used data from millions of Facebook accounts to help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Wylie worked on Cambridge Analytica’s “information operations” in 2014 and 2015.

Wylie has also said the official campaign backing Britain’s exit from the European Union had access to the Facebook data.

Cambridge Analytica has previously said that none of the Facebook data it acquired from an academic researcher was used in the Trump campaign. The company also says it did no paid or unpaid work on the Brexit campaign. The company did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said Tuesday that it had written to Nix to “invite him” to be interviewed by investigators. The office is investigating Facebook and 30 other organizations over their use of data and analytics.

“Our investigation is looking at whether criminal and civil offences have been committed under the Data Protection Act,” the office said in a statement.

Nix’s refusal to appear comes as the seriousness of the British inquiry becomes more evident.

Facebook has said it directed Cambridge Analytica to delete all of the data harvested from user accounts as soon as it learned of the problem.

But former Cambridge Analytica business development director Brittany Kaiser testified Tuesday that the U.S. tech giant didn’t really try to verify Cambridge Analytica’s assurances that it had done so.

“I find it incredibly irresponsible that a company with as much money as Facebook … had no due diligence mechanisms in place for protecting the data of U.K. citizens, U.S. citizens or their users in general,” she said.

Kaiser suggested that the number of individuals whose Facebook data was misused could be far higher than the 87 million acknowledged by the Silicon Valley giant.

In an atmosphere where data abuse was rife, Kaiser told lawmakers she believed the leadership of the Leave.EU campaign had combined data from members of the U.K. Independence Party and customers from two insurance companies, Eldon Insurance and GoSkippy Insurance. The data was then sent the University of Mississippi for analysis.

“If the personal data of U.K. citizens who just wanted to buy car insurance was used by GoSkippy and Eldon Insurance for political purposes, as may have been the case, people clearly did not opt in for their data to be used in this way by Leave.EU,” she said in written testimony to the committee.

Leave.EU’s communications director, Andy Wigmore, called Kaiser’s statements a “litany of lies.”

It is how the data was used that alarms some members of the committee and has captured the attention of the public.

An expert on propaganda told the committee Monday that Cambridge Analytica used techniques developed by the Nazis to help Trump’s presidential campaign, turning Muslims and immigrants into an “artificial enemy” to win support from fearful voters.

University of Essex lecturer Emma Briant, who has for a decade studied the SCL Group – a conglomerate of companies, including Cambridge Analytica – interviewed company founder Nigel Oakes when she was doing research for a book. Oakes compared Trump’s tactics to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in singling out Jews for reprisals.

“Hitler attacked the Jews, because … the people didn’t like the Jews,” he said on tapes of the interview conducted with Briant. “He could just use them to . leverage an artificial enemy. Well that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim.”
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News, Technology 04/17/2018 No comments

More Than 100 Parts for NASA’s Orion Capsule to Be 3-D Printed

More than 100 parts for U.S. space agency NASA’s deep-space capsule Orion will be made by 3-D printers, using technology that experts say will eventually become key to efforts to send humans to Mars.

U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, 3-D printing specialist Stratasys, and engineering firm PADT have developed the parts using new materials that can withstand the extreme temperatures and chemical exposure of deep-space missions, Stratasys said Tuesday.

“In space, for instance, materials will build up a charge. If that was to shock the electronics on a space craft, there could be significant damage,” Scott Sevcik, Vice President Manufacturing Solutions at Stratasys told Reuters.

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been used for making prototypes across a range of industries for many years, but is being increasingly eyed for scale production.

The technology can help make light-weight parts made of plastics more quickly and cheaply than traditional assembly lines that require major investments into equipment.

“But even more significant is that we have more freedom with the design … parts can look more organic, more skeletal,” Sevcik said.

Stratasys’ partner Lockheed Martin said the use of 3-D printing on the Orion project would also pay off at other parts of its business.

“We look to apply benefits across our programs — missile defense, satellites, planetary probes, especially as we create more and more common products,” said Brian Kaplun, additive manufacturing manager at Lockheed Martin Space.

Orion is part of NASA’s follow-up program to the now-retired space shuttles that will allow astronauts to travel beyond the International Space Station, which flies about 260 miles (420 km) above Earth.

The agency’s European counterpart, ESA, has suggested that moon rock and Mars dust could be used to 3-D print structures and tools, which could significantly reduce the cost of future space missions because less material would need to be brought along from Earth.
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Business, News 04/17/2018 No comments

China Responds to Trump Currency Manipulation Charges

China has responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s charges China and Russia are manipulating the value of their currencies.

Monday, Trump tweeted, “Russia and China are playing the Currency Devaluation game as the U.S. keeps raising interest rates. Not acceptable!”

His charge came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department declined to label China and Russia as currency manipulators in its latest report.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday the messages coming from the United States are confusing, and China will continue to promote the reform of its currency exchange rate mechanism.

Trump said Russia and China are devaluing their currencies amid a possible new round of sanctions against Russia and a simmering trade war with China.

In general, when a country artificially devalues its currency, its exports become cheaper and more competitive in the global marketplace.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration is closely watching China’s currency practices. “That’s something that the Treasury Department is watching very closely and we’re continuing to monitor it,” she said Monday.

In a semiannual report titled “Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States” released Friday, the Treasury Department did not designate China as a currency manipulator, but put it as one of the six countries on a monitoring list. The other five countries on the list are Japan, Korea, India, Germany, and Switzerland. Russia is not on the monitoring list.

The Chinese currency, the Renminbi, has appreciated about three percent against the dollar since the beginning of this year, after strengthening by six percent in 2017.

In the past three years, the Federal Reserve raised interest rate six times to a range between 1.5 percent and 1.75 percent, and says it expects to raise the rate two or three more times this year.

Usually, when a country raises its interest rates, the value of its currency rises, making its exports more expensive and less competitive. However, higher U.S. interest rates have not raised the value of the dollar.
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Business, News 04/17/2018 No comments

Supreme Court Hearing Case About Online Sales Tax Collection

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether a rule it announced decades ago in a case involving a catalog retailer should still apply in the age of the internet.

The case on Tuesday focuses on businesses’ collection of sales tax on online purchases. Right now, under the decades-old Supreme Court rule, if a business is shipping a product to a state where it doesn’t have an office, warehouse or other physical presence, it doesn’t have to collect the state’s sales tax. Customers are generally supposed to pay the tax to the state themselves, but the vast majority don’t.

States say that as a result of the rule and the growth of internet shopping, they’re losing billions of dollars in tax revenue every year. More than 40 states are asking the Supreme Court to abandon the rule.

Large retailers such as Apple, Macy’s, Target and Walmart, which have brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, generally collect sales tax from their customers who buy online. But other online sellers that only have a physical presence in a few states can sidestep charging customers sales tax when they’re shipping to addresses outside those states.

Sellers who defend the current rule say collecting sales tax nationwide is complex and costly, especially for small sellers. That complexity was a concern for the Supreme Court when it announced the physical presence rule in a case involving a catalog retailer in 1967, a rule it reaffirmed in 1992. But states say software has now made collecting sales tax easy.

The case the court is hearing has to do with a law passed by South Dakota in 2016, a law designed to challenge the Supreme Court’s physical presence rule. The law requires out-of-state sellers who do more than $100,000 of business in the state or more than 200 transactions annually with state residents to collect and turn over sales tax to the state.

The state wanted out-of-state retailers to begin collecting the tax and sued Overstock.com, home goods company Wayfair and electronics retailer Newegg. The state has conceded in court, however, that it can only win by persuading the Supreme Court to do away with its current physical presence rule.
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News, Technology 04/17/2018 No comments

What Does It Take to Make Computer Science Attractive to Girls?

In the United States less than 18 percent of the women who graduate from college major in computer science. The shortage of females with computer skills comes at a time when there are a lot of jobs available in computer science, a field that pays better than most. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee looks at the cultural and other reasons for the shortage of women in this important area — and what one university in Los Angeles is doing to inspire girls.
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News, World 04/17/2018 No comments

Trump Remains in Battle Mode Over Comey Interview

The Trump White House remained in battle mode Monday, one day after former FBI director James Comey described the president as “morally unfit” for office in an interview with ABC News. The administration has mounted a furious counterattack against Comey through Twitter and White House surrogates, as we hear from VOA National correspondent Jim Malone.
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Business, News 04/17/2018 No comments

As Drought Keeps Men on the Road, Mauritania’s Pastoralist Women Take Charge

Every year when the pastoralist men in Fatima Demba’s Mauritanian village return from their months-long journey to find pastures and water, the women erupt in wild celebrations.

“We draw henna tattoos on our bodies, we braid our hair, we wear our nicest clothes,” she said, re-adjusting her bright yellow and blue robe.

Yet although she longs for her husband to come home, Demba sees one benefit in his absence.

“I am in charge of everything,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, sitting in the shade of a mud-brick hut in Mafoundou village. “Our money, our field of millet — even the village’s borehole is my responsibility.”

Prolonged dry spells in this southern region of Mauritania have depleted grazing land, forcing pastoralists to travel ever longer distances to search for food and water for their herds.

That gives women in these predominantly male-dominated societies newfound power to manage harvests, the family’s remaining animals and household finances, experts say.

“Women pastoralists are the first up in the morning and the last to go to bed at night,” said Aminetou Mint Maouloud, who started the country’s first association of women herders in 2014.

“Whether it’s making butter from cow milk, fetching wood or tending to ill animals, it all comes down to women,” she added.

Worsening Drought

Livestock herding is a traditional way of making a living in West Africa’s Sahel, a semi-arid belt below the Sahara, but herders have become increasingly vulnerable to food insecurity as climate change disrupts rain patterns in the region.

That is particularly true in the impoverished desert nation of Mauritania, according to El Hacen Ould Taleb, head of the Groupement National des Associations Pastorales (GNAP), a charity working with pastoralists.

“Transhumance — the seasonal migration of pastoralists and their herds to neighboring Senegal or Mali — normally starts in October but the rains were so bad last year that people started leaving in August,” he said.

His organization is helping pastoralists find smarter migration routes — with water sources and markets along the way, for example — as part of the British government-funded Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) program.

Demba, whose husband has been gone for seven months, says she does not know when he will return.

“He has no choice, he must save our animals,” she said, pausing to take a sip of a glass of green mint tea.

In the meantime, “the family depends on me,” she added.

Under-recognized

Although women play a crucial role in pastoralism, it is rarely acknowledged, according to Mint Maouloud.

“A man will listen to everything his wife whispers on the pillow, but in the morning she won’t get any credit for it,” she said.

To change that, her association has elected a council of eight women from villages around the country. Together they lobby the country’s government on pastoralism issues.

“We tell them where an animal clinic might be needed, or which markets are best for specific kinds of animals,” she explained.

Their suggestions could find an unusually understanding ear.

Since Mauritania’s livestock ministry was created in 2014, both of its leaders have been women.

Vatma Vall Mint Soueina, the current minister, says women seeking political roles is “extremely encouraging” — and that she has seen women grow in economic clout.

“We are seeing women becoming more independent, by virtue of being so active economically,” she said from her office in Nouakchott, the capital.

Financial Independence

In Hadad village, amid stretches of sand and dirt dotted with the odd wilting tree, a dozen women huddle under a large tent covered with striped rugs.

Mariem Mint Lessiyad, a tiny woman with piercing brown eyes, chats energetically to the group, interrupted only by a bleating baby goat.

She leads a cooperative of 100 pastoralist women from nearby villages who buy chickens and sheep to raise and slaughter, selling affordable portions to local families.

“There is less meat going around, so we need to be clever with how we consume it,” she said.

The women buy a sheep for 12,000 Mauritanian ouguiya ($34), for instance, and make a profit of about 2,000 ouguiya ($6) per animal, she said.

They plan to reinvest the surplus in setting up a leather goods business.

“We can’t rely on our husbands to support us financially. They are too poor, especially now that they have to spend more money on keeping our animals healthy,” Mint Lessiyad said.

Mint Maouloud and her association are trying to persuade financial institutions to make it easier for women to get loans, so groups like Mint Lessiyad’s can get ahead.

Access to finance can be problematic, she said, with some banks outright refusing to lend money to women.

“It’s important to make women herders more independent financially, so they don’t rely on their husbands’ generosity or understanding,” she added.
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News, Technology 04/17/2018 No comments

Toyota to Launch ‘Talking’ Vehicles in US in 2021

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to start selling U.S. vehicles that can talk to each other using short-range wireless technology in 2021, the Japanese automaker said on Monday, potentially preventing thousands of accidents annually.

The U.S. Transportation Department must decide whether to adopt a pending proposal that would require all future vehicles to have the advanced technology.

Toyota hopes to adopt the dedicated short-range communications systems in the United States across most of its lineup by the mid-2020s. Toyota said it hopes that by announcing its plans, other automakers will follow suit.

The Obama administration in December 2016 proposed requiring the technology and giving automakers at least four years to comply. The proposal requires automakers to ensure all vehicles “speak the same language through a standard technology.”

Automakers were granted a block of spectrum in 1999 in the 5.9 GHz band for “vehicle-to-vehicle” and “vehicle to infrastructure” communications and have studied the technology for more than a decade, but it has gone largely unused. Some in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission think it should be opened to other uses.

In 2017, General Motors Co began offering vehicle-to-vehicle technologies on its Cadillac CTS model, but it is currently the only commercially available vehicle with the system.

Talking vehicles, which have been tested in pilot projects and by U.S. carmakers for more than a decade, use dedicated short-range communications to transmit data up to 300 meters, including location, direction and speed, to nearby vehicles.

The data is broadcast up to 10 times per second to nearby vehicles, which can identify risks and provide warnings to avoid imminent crashes, especially at intersections.

Toyota has deployed the technology in Japan to more than 100,000 vehicles since 2015.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said last year the regulation could eventually cost between $135 and $300 per new vehicle, or up to $5 billion annually but could prevent up to 600,000 crashes and reduce costs by $71 billion annually when fully deployed.

NHTSA said last year it has “not made any final decision” on requiring the technology, but no decision is expected before December.

Last year, major automakers, state regulators and others urged U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to finalize standards for the technology and protect the spectrum that has been reserved, saying there is a need to expand deployment and uses of the traffic safety technology.
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News, World 04/17/2018 No comments

US Senators Offer Legislation Covering Military Action Against Militants

U.S. senators announced long-awaited legislation on Monday to provide congressional authorization for campaigns against militant groups in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, as lawmakers push to take back authority over the military from the White House.

A group led by Senators Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Tim Kaine, a committee Democrat, proposed an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that would authorize “all necessary and appropriate force” against al-Qaida, the Taliban, Islamic State and associated forces.

Despite coming days after the U.S. bombing of Syria over chemical weapons, the proposed legislation does not authorize military action against any nation state, including Syria.

It also does not set an end date for military action, although it proposes a congressional review every four years.

Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress have long argued that they ceded too much authority over the military to both Republican and Democrat presidents — with no time limits — after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the right to authorize war. But presidents have used AUMFs passed in 2001 for campaigns against al Qaeda and affiliates, and one passed in 2002 for the war in Iraq, to justify a wide range of conflicts since.

Corker said he expected the Foreign Relations Committee to debate and possibly vote on the new AUMF as soon as next week.

It was not immediately clear if the House of Representatives would take up the measure. To become law, it would have to pass the Senate and House and be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

Noting that Foreign Relations has been trying to pass a new AUMF for years, Corker said it was too soon to discuss the view of the Senate’s Republican leaders.

“I don’t really worry about much beyond having a successful vote in the committee,” he said.

Trump national security aides have pushed back against congressional calls for a new AUMF. However, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state, told senators last week it would be useful for lawmakers to weigh in on the military campaign.

The legislation also would require the president to report to Congress on any new military actions and allow lawmakers to vote on whether to reject them.

It would repeal the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs after being in effect for 120 days.
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News, World 04/16/2018 No comments

Trump Lawyer Cohen Secretly Represented Conservative Talk Show Host Sean Hannity

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer who is under investigation for his business dealings, has provided legal advice to Fox News host Sean Hannity, one of Trump’s most prominent media supporters.

The dramatic revelation came Monday during a court hearing in New York where lawyers for Cohen and Trump argued for permission to determine whether thousands of pages of documents FBI agents seized from Cohen last week should be subject to attorney-client privilege.

U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood appeared to reject the idea, saying that a “taint team” created by prosecutors to set aside privileged documents is a “viable option,” while a court-appointed outside lawyer known as a “special master” may also play a role in determining which records can and cannot be viewed by prosecutors.

The disclosure about Hannity, who also hosts a nationally syndicated talk radio show, came after prosecutors indicated that Cohen performed “little to no legal work” and had just one client: Trump.

In response, Cohen’s lawyers said that Cohen has represented three clients in the past year — Trump, GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy and a third “publicly prominent individual” who wished to remain anonymous. Cohen’s lawyers identified Hannity as the third unnamed client only after Judge Wood ruled that it must be made public.

In a statement, Hannity sought to minimize his relationship with Cohen, saying he had never retained him as a lawyer.

“Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter,” Hannity said. “I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.”

“I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third-party,” Hannity said.

Cohen was thrust into the spotlight in January after the Wall Street Journal reported that he’d secretly provided $130,000 in hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 U.S. presidential election to keep her quiet about an affair she allegedly had with Trump.

Cohen later admitted to making the payoff though Trump has said he did not know about it.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Cohen last year brokered a second “hush money” deal, arranging for a payment of $1.6 million to a former Playboy model who became pregnant by Broidy, the Deputy Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Broidy stepped down after the report.

After the FBI raid on Cohen’s office, home and hotel room in New York last Monday, prosecutors revealed in court that Cohen had been under investigation for months for what they described as “criminal conduct that largely centers on his personal business dealings.”

Cohen’s lawyers called the FBI raid “completely inappropriate and unnecessary” and moved to prevent prosecutors from viewing thousands of pages of “protected attorney-client communications.”

Trump’s lawyers joined the legal challenge over the weekend, asking that they be allowed to review the seized material before government prosecutors.

“I don’t know what’s in Mr. Cohen’s law files but some amount of material was generated in the course of representing my client,” Joanna Hendon, an attorney representing Trump in the case, said in court on Monday.

Prosecutors insisted that the “overwhelming majority” of evidence seized during the search warrants on Cohen’s office and home is not privileged material but rather related to his business dealings.

“No one has yet given a basis why President Trump’s assertion of attorney-client privilege is any different than any other citizen of the United States,” prosecutor Tom McKay said in court.
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News, Technology 04/16/2018 No comments

British Facial Recognition Tech Firm Secures US Border Contract

A British technology firm has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use biometric facial verification technology to improve border control, the first foreign firm to win such a contract in the United States.

London-based iProov will develop technology to improve border controls at unmanned ports of entry with a verification system that uses the traveler’s cell phone.

British trade minister Liam Fox said in a statement on Monday that the contract was “one example of our shared economic and security ties” with the United States.

IProov said it was the first non-U.S. firm to be awarded a contract under the Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP), which is run by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate.
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News, Technology 04/16/2018 No comments

Russia Blocks Popular Telegram Messaging App

Russia began implementing a ban on popular instant messaging service Telegram after the app refused to provide encrypted messages to Russia’s security services.

Russia’s state telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor said Monday that it had sent a notice to telecommunications operators in the country instructing them to block the service following last week’s court ruling that sided with the government to ban the app.

“Roskomnadzor has received the ruling by the Tagansky District Court on restricting access in Russia to the web resources of the online information dissemination organizer, Telegram Messenger Limited Liability Partnership. This information was sent to providers on Monday 16th of April,” the watchdog said in a statement.

In a statement posted on social media, Telegram’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov said, “We consider the decision to block the app to be unconstitutional, and we will continue to defend the right to secret correspondence for Russians.”

Durov is a Russian entrepreneur who left the country in 2014 and is now based in Dubai. He has long said he will reject any attempt by Russia’s security services to gain access to the app, arguing such access would violate users’ privacy.

Roskomnadzor is implementing a decision handed down by a Russian court, which ruled on April 13 that Telegram should be blocked. The court said the app was in violation of Russian regulations to provide information to state security.

Telegram is ranked the world’s ninth most popular messaging app with over 200 million users worldwide. It is widely used in countries across the former Soviet Union and the Middle East and is popular among political activists and journalists. Russian authorities said the app is also used by violent extremists.

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Business, News 04/16/2018 No comments

Consumers in China Weigh Options as Trade Frictions Simmer

Consumers in the Chinese capital of Beijing are watching closely the simmering trade spat between China and the United States and some are concerned about the possible impact heightened trade frictions, if not an all-out trade war, could have on the cost of goods and even the broader economy. VOA’s Bill Ide files this report.
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News, World 04/16/2018 No comments

Fired FBI Director Comey Calls Trump ‘Morally Unfit to Be President’

Former U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey says President Donald Trump is “morally unfit” to be president and that there is “some evidence” Trump obstructed justice.

“There’s something more important than that that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country,” Comey said. “The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that.”

Comey’s comments came in an interview with ABC News Sunday night ahead of the publication this week of a book Comey wrote, “A Higher Loyalty.” In part, it recounts his role in investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and Democrat Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server that contained classified information, as well as Comey’s private discussions with Trump before the president fired him last May.

On Monday, hours after the telecast, Trump claimed that “Comey drafted the Crooked Hillary exoneration long before he talked to her,” lied to Congress about it and “then based his decisions on her poll numbers.” The U.S. leader claimed that Comey and former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, himself recently fired, and others “committed many crimes!”

Comey claimed that in one of his meetings with Trump, which he had previously described in public congressional testimony, Trump brought up the investigation of his one-time national security adviser Michael Flynn and asked if the FBI director could “let it go.”

“It’s certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice. It would depend — and I’m just a witness in this case, not the investigator or prosecutor — it would depend upon other things that reflected on his intent,” Comey said.

Trump has denied he asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Trump has also used Twitter to call Comey a liar and called for his imprisonment.

“The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail),” Trump posted Sunday, apparently claiming wrongly that the notes Comey wrote about private meetings with Trump and talked about publicly were classified. It was not immediately clear what Trump was referencing in his contention that Comey lied in testimony before congressional committees.

Comey recounted in the interview another meeting where he said Trump asked for his loyalty.

“I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty,” Trump said on Twitter before the interview aired. “I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His ‘memos’ are self serving and FAKE!”

Trump’s move to fire Comey led to the appointment of former FBI chief Robert Mueller as special counsel investigating Russia’s election interference and whether Trump obstructed justice. Mueller has so far charged 19 people in the probe, including Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and campaign aides Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said last week the Trump administration believes the president has the legal authority to fire Mueller, a move Comey told ABC would be the president’s “most serious attack yet on the rule of law.”

Comey said if allowed to continue his work, he is confident Mueller “will find the truth.”

“And again, I don’t know what that will be. He may conclude that there is nothing that touches President Trump or any of his senior people. And that’s fine, so long as he’s able to find that truth,” Comey said.

Trump denies his campaign colluded with Russia.

The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign meant to undermine confidence in the election, hurt Clinton’s chances of winning and boost the likelihood of Trump being elected president.

Comey also said he cannot rule out the possibility that Russia has compromising information about Trump.

“I think it’s possible. I don’t know. These are more words I never thought I’d utter about a president of the United States, but it’s possible,” he said.

Comey faced criticism for his handling of the investigation into Clinton’s email practices while she served as secretary of state under former President Barack Obama, including announcing just before the election that the probe had been reopened. Clinton said that decision helped cost her the election.

Comey told ABC he made what he thought was the appropriate decision and that a belief Clinton would win the vote was a factor.

“I don’t remember spelling it out, but it had to have been,” he said. “That she’s going to be elected president, and if I hide this from the American people, she’ll be illegitimate the moment she’s elected, the moment this comes out.”

Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with those comments on Twitter.

“Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton Email probe. In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!”

Trump expressed a similar view of Comey in another tweet: “Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!”

FBI directors are appointed for 10-year terms that span presidencies. When asked if he would still be serving in that position had Trump not fired him, Comey said he would be unhappy, but would still be leading the organization and “trying to protect it.”

Comey likened the Trump presidency to a forest fire, saying it is doing “tremendous damage to our norms and values,” but that he is optimistic because he sees “already things growing and flourishing that didn’t before this fire.”
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Business, News 04/16/2018 No comments

Urban Millennials Go to Farmer School

Doug Fabbioli is concerned about the future of the rural economy, as urban sprawl expands from metropolitan areas into farm fields and pastureland. The Virginia winery owner decided to be part of the solution and founded The New AG School, the school’s mission is raising the next generation of farmers.

Farming, the hardship and joy

Being a farmer is hard work, but Fabbioli says if young people knew the joys and fulfillment of farming, they’d love it. But to succeed – they will need specialized skills.

That’s what Fabbioli is hoping to teach at his new school. The goal is to fill the immediate need for farm workers, but also to prepare future leaders, those who can to be mentors and teach new people how to do this down the road.

The New AG School attracts a wide range of students.

“We have some younger folks that are either right out of high school or even in high school,” Fabbioli says. “We have some folks who are out of college that are saying, ‘Gee, didn’t really study what I wanted and I can’t find that job I was looking for, let’s see what this farming is, and maybe I want to go further on that. ’ We also get folks that are a change life point that maybe in their 40s, or 50’s and say, ‘I have land, I want to be a farmer now, I’m ready to do something else. ”

Farm Experiences

The tuition-free program takes a step-by-step, hands on teaching approach.

Olga Goadalupe Alfoseca says joining the program helps her find the right career path. “I learned a lot of stuff like (planting) hops and raspberries. My dream is maybe I can plant my own plants and start my own business.”

Liam Marshall-Brown who quit college finds farm work interesting and engaging. “It’s fun,” he says. “I mostly did restaurants before. I was a host or inside the kitchen. You feel trapped after a while, doing the same thing over and over and over again. It’s just nice to be outside. Pretty much you’re doing something new every day, not exactly the same. I like being outside more.”

But, not all the work is outdoors. Students go through a curriculum of five different modules, covering everything from cleaning and sanitation, horticulture, hospitality, to leadership and entrepreneurship.

And the training is not complete until they learn about the machines they use every day; how they work and how to fix them.

And as you might expect from a vineyard owner, wine making is also part of the curriculum.

Winemaker Meaghan Tardif is a mentor at the school… she teaches students winemaking – and leadership skills.

“My favorite part about being a mentor is I always give the student a chance to teach someone else.” Tardif explains. “Leadership is everywhere. It’s not just in the work. It’s not just your employees, but it helps you throughout your life.”

Cultivating dreams, saving land

The experience has inspired Marshall-Brown to find a future in agriculture.

“I would like to be that, but I still have a lot to learn to be able to do that. Hopefully I’ll get there and I’ll run my own farm one day and have people work under me.”

That pleases Fabbioli, who says it’s good for the community to have more farmers.

“This is a wealthy community,” he notes. “We are actually one of the richest counties in the nations. The goal for folks in Loudoun, on a state level or on a community level is to save the land, is to save the green space in western Loudoun County. We can do that by farming, but we need more farmers very much. So giving people the opportunity to learn, put more people to work. It may also keep the cars off the highways because they’re living locally and they’re working locally.”

That’s what the New AG School hopes to do — grow the next generation of dedicated, skillful farmers.
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News, Technology 04/16/2018 No comments

Farmers Go High-Tech to Monitor Their Cows

Farmers in the American South are upgrading their cattle to the 21st Century. With tech tools like AI (artificial intelligence) and Wi-Fi, they are now able to monitor the herd and keep tabs on the animals that drive their business. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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News, World 04/16/2018 No comments

WH: Trump Wants US Forces Out of Syria as Soon as Possible

The White House says President Donald Trump remains determined to pull out U.S. troops deployed in Syria, a message that comes after French President Emmanuel Macron said he convinced Trump to keep U.S. forces there.

“The U.S. mission has not changed — the president has been clear that he wants U.S. forces to come home as quickly as possible,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement late Sunday.

She added that the United States wants to “complete crush” the Islamic State militant group and work to prevent it from coming back.

Macron spoke earlier Sunday to France’s BFM television, saying: “Ten days ago, President Trump was saying ‘The United States should withdraw from Syria,’ We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term.” However, on Monday, Macron sought to clarify his comments, saying both countries were committed to finishing the battle against the Islamic State group and helping the peace process in Syria.

France joined the United States and Britain in airstrikes against Syrian chemical weapons sites on Saturday.

WATCH: US defends attack on Syria

Macron also said he told Trump that it was necessary to limit the airstrikes in Syria, suggesting Trump wanted to go further.

“We also persuaded him that we needed to limit the strikes to chemical weapons sites after things got a little carried away over tweets,” Macron told reporters.

The French leader said there is proof the Syrian government used poison gas in Douma and that missile strikes were necessary to give the international community credibility. He also said Syrian ally Russia is complicit.

“They have not used chlorine themselves but they have methodically built the international community’s inability to act through diplomatic channels to stop the use of chemical weapons.”

Macron told BFM that France has not declared war on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but it was necessary to show Assad that using poison gas on civilians will not go unpunished.
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News, World 04/15/2018 No comments

Trump-Comey Spat Erupts Anew

Washington is witnessing a renewed war of words between President Donald Trump and a man he fired last year, former FBI director James Comey. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports Comey is speaking out ahead of the release of a book detailing turbulent encounters with Trump, as well as the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s handling of emails as secretary of state.
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News, World 04/15/2018 No comments

Trump Contends FBI Chief He Fired Should Be Jailed

U.S. President Donald Trump contended Sunday that James Comey, the FBI director he fired who has written a scathing new book on the Trump presidency, should be imprisoned, claiming that he revealed classified information and lied to Congress.

Trump unleashed a new broadside on Comey hours ahead of a widely publicized television interview with the former chief of the country’s top law enforcement agency. Comey’s book, “A Higher Loyalty,” is set for publication Tuesday and has already soared to near the top of bestseller lists because of pre-sales.

In the book, Comey likens Trump to a “mafia boss” and referred to his presidency as a “forest fire.”

Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

“The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail),” Trump said on Twitter, apparently claiming wrongly that the notes Comey wrote about private meetings with Trump and talked about publicly were classified. It was not immediately clear what Trump was referencing in his contention that Comey lied in testimony before congressional committees.

“I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty,” Trump said, disputing a key contention made by Comey. “I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His ‘memos’ are self serving and FAKE!”

Trump declared, “Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!”

Comey wrote in the book, “This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.” Comey claimed Trump was particularly concerned about unproven allegations that in 2013 he had watched as prostitutes urinated on a bed in a Moscow hotel, asking Comey to investigate to disprove it.

Comey is kicking off his national publicity tour promoting sales of the book with a Sunday night interview on ABC News. After Trump assailed the book, Comey replied on Twitter, “My book is about ethical leadership & draws on stories from my life & lessons I learned from others. 3 presidents are in my book: 2 help illustrate the values at the heart of ethical leadership; 1 serves as a counterpoint. I hope folks read the whole thing and find it useful.”

Trump assailed Comey for acknowledging that shortly before Trump’s November 2016 election victory, he considered the fact that Trump’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, was leading in national polls over Trump as the FBI chief reopened an investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to handle classified information when she was secretary of state several years before.

The U.S. leader also revisited a June 2016 incident, when Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, met privately with then-attorney general Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac at a time when Lynch was overseeing the FBI’s email investigation involving Hillary Clinton in which Hillary Clinton was weeks later cleared of criminal wrongdoing.

“Comey throws AG Lynch ‘under the bus!'” Trump claimed. “Why can’t we all find out what happened on the tarmac in the back of the plane with Wild Bill and Lynch? Was she promised a Supreme Court seat, or (to stay on as attorney general in a would-be Clinton presidency), in order to lay off Hillary. No golf and grandkids talk (give us all a break)!”

Trump also railed again about last week’s FBI raid on the New York office and home of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, in search of documents related to hefty hush money payoffs shortly before the election to two women who claim to have had affairs with Trump a decade before he ran for the presidency. Trump has denied both purported liaisons.

U.S. legal principles shield from disclosure conversations lawyers hold with their clients — attorney-client privilege — unless they are plotting criminal activity.

“Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past,” Trump tweeted. “I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!”

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Business, News 04/15/2018 No comments

China Eyes Australian Donkey Exports

The Northern Territory government in Australia says it has been approached by nearly 50 Chinese companies looking to buy land to start donkey farms. Demand for donkey products, especially donkey-hide gelatin is increasing in China, while global supplies are falling.

The Northern Territory government has bought a small herd of wild donkeys for its research station near the outback town of Katherine. Earlier this a month of delegation of Chinese business people visited the facility, and up to 50 companies from China have expressed interest in buying land to set up donkey farms.

It is estimated there are up to 60,000 wild donkeys in the Northern Territory. Donkeys were brought to Australia from Africa as pack animals in the 1860s, and many were released when they were no longer needed. For years feral donkeys have been considered a major pest by farmers.The animals trample native vegetation, spread weeds and compete with domestic cattle for food and water.

Now the authorities believe there are economic benefits in captive donkey herds.

Alister Trier, the head of the Northern Territory’s department of primary industry believes the donkey trade has a bright future.

“My feel[ing] is the industry will develop but it will not displace the cattle industry, for example, I just do not think that will happen.What it will do is add some diversification opportunities for the use of pastoral land and Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory,” said Trier.

In China, donkey skins are boiled down to make gelatin, which is then used in alternative Chinese medicines and cosmetics.

Animal rights campaigners are pressuring the authorities not to allow the live export of donkeys to China, claiming that conditions in transit would be cruel and unacceptable.

Activists also insist that donkeys’ health suffers when they are kept in large herds.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Australia wants the donkey skin trade stopped altogether because of concerns the animals are being skinned alive overseas and treated with extreme cruelty.
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Business, News 04/15/2018 No comments

Full Steam Ahead for Mozambique’s Rail Network

Dozens of passengers line up in single file along the platform in the dead of night, ready to gather their luggage and pile into the ageing railway carriages.

At the small railway station in Nampula, in northeastern Mozambique, the 4:00 a.m. train to Cuamba in the north west is more than full, as it is every day, to the detriment of those slow to board and forced to stand.

In recent years, the government in Maputo has made developing the train network a priority as part of its economic plan.

But mounting public debt has meant that authorities had no choice but to cede control of the project to the private sector.

Seconds before the train — six passenger coaches coupled between two elderly US-made locomotives — leaves Nampula station, the platforms are already entirely empty.

No one can afford to be late.

Inside, the carriages remain pitch dark until the sun rises as the operator has not installed any lighting.

A blast of the horn and the sound of grinding metal marks the train’s stately progress along the 350-kilometre (220-mile) line to Cuamba — more than 10 hours away.

Five or six passengers cram onto benches intended for four without a murmur of complaint.

“The train is always full,” said Argentina Armendo, his son kneeling down nearby.

“Lots of people stay standing. Even those who have a ticket can’t be sure of getting on. They should add some coaches!”

‘Enormous growth potential’

“Yes, but it’s not expensive,” insists the conductor Edson Fortes, cooly. “It’s the most competitive means of transport for the poor. With the train, they are able to travel.”

Sitting in a vast, ferociously air-conditioned office Mario Moura da Silva, the rail operations manager for CDN, the company operating the line, appears more concerned about passenger numbers as a measure of success than perhaps their comfort.

In 2017, its trains carried almost 500,000 — a 265-percent increase on a year earlier.

“Passenger traffic isn’t profitable but it’s a requirement of the contract with the government,” said Moura da Silva.

“It’s not that which earns us money, it’s more the retail,” he added, referring to the company’s commercial operation, which has grown by 65 percent in a year.

Brazilian mining giant Vale, which owns CDN along with Japanese conglomerate Mitsui, began its Mozambican rail venture in 2005.

Having won a contract to run the concession from the government, it restored the former colonial line, which linked its inland coal mines with the port at Nacala.

It now operates a network of 1,350 kilometres (840 miles) following an investment of nearly $5 billion (around 4 billion euros).

“The growth potential is enormous,” said Moura da Silva.

Rail corridors

Mozambique’s government is eyeing the project as a bellwether for the industry.

“We have made infrastructure one of our four investment priorities,” said Transport Minister Carlos Fortes Mesquita.

“Thanks to this investment, the country recorded a strong growth in the railway sector.”

Eight new “rail corridor” projects are now under way in Mozambique, all funded with private capital, as the state grapples with a long-standing cash shortage.

The government has been engulfed in a scandal linked to secret borrowing by the treasury, which is juggling debt amounting to 112 percent of GDP.

As a result, a handful of large companies, attracted by Mozambique’s vast mineral wealth, have taken the lead in developing the country’s rail infrastructure.

But it is unclear if their interest in the sector will continue in the long-term.

Until the coal runs out?

“Today the Nacala line only exists because of coal. But once the mine closes, who will be able to justify continuing operations?” asked Benjamin Pequenino, an economist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

“The private sector won’t continue to invest if it knows it will lose money,” he said.

But in the absence of any alternative, former parliament speaker Abdul Carimo accepts that public-private partnerships are the least worst option.

Carimo, who remains close to the ruling party, now heads up the “Zambezi Development Corridor”.

The scheme is managed by Thai group, ITD, and plans to build 480 kilometres of track between Macuse port and the coal mines at Moatize for a price tag of $2.3 billion.

Carimo, who closely follows developments on the project, has vowed that “his” line will not only be used to carry minerals but will stimulate activity across the region it serves.

“I hate coal but I want this infrastructure to relaunch agriculture in Zambezi province,” he said, adding that the region was “one of the richest in the country in the 1970s.”

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News, World 04/14/2018 No comments

Gun Rights Advocates Hold Rallies in US State Capitals

Gun rights supporters gathered in Atlanta and dozens of other U.S. state capitals Saturday at a time when many Americans are pressing for tougher restrictions on weapons.

According to a early Associated Press count, more than 135 people attended the rally in Atlanta, and more were arriving. Most of them were armed, and some held signs as they listened to speeches. A few people wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts made videos but didn’t interact with the ralliers.

About 400 people, as estimated by an AP reporter, attended the rally in front of Delaware’s statehouse to support the right to keep and bear firearms. Some of those participating on Dover’s legislative mall openly carried rifles and handguns. Others carried American flags and flags reading “Don’t Tread on Me.”

In all, a group called the National Constitutional Coalition of Patriotic Americans said organizers had permits for gatherings in 45 states. They encouraged supporters to bring unloaded rifles in states where it’s legal.

The rallies came less than three weeks after hundreds of thousands marched in Washington, New York and elsewhere to demand tougher gun laws after the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17.

Daniyel Baron helped organize the Delaware rally. The former Marine said he feared the current gun-restriction efforts were a precursor to eventual prohibition of all gun ownership.
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