In his first public comments since President Donald Trump sharply criticized the FBI on Twitter, Director Christopher Wray Thursday vigorously defended his agency as it came under fire from some lawmakers on a congressional oversight panel. Lawmakers questioned the impartiality of the nation’s top law enforcement agency as it investigates Russian election meddling and possible ties to the Trump campaign. VOA’s Congressional reporter Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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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
Protests Against US Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital Continue Friday
Protests unleashed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital continue in the Palestinian territories and outside U.S. missions elsewhere. Dozens have been wounded in clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian protesters in the West Bank and Gaza. Muslims in other countries took to the streets Thursday in solidarity. The violence could worsen Friday when Muslims attend weekly prayers at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Ford to Test New Self-driving Vehicle Technology in 2018
Ford Motor Co will begin testing its latest self-driving vehicle technology next year in at least one city but has not changed its plan to begin commercial production until 2021, the company said.
The automaker said on Thursday that it would test self-driving prototypes in various pilot programs with partners such as Lyft, the ride services company in which rival General Motors owns a minority stake, and Domino’s Pizza. However, Ford has still not decided whether to operate its own on-demand transportation service.
New business models
In a blog post, Jim Farley, president of global markets, said Ford also would test new business models that involve its self-driving vehicles, including the movement of people and goods.
GM unveiled plans last week to introduce its own on-demand ride-sharing service in several U.S. cities in 2019, using self-driving versions of the battery-powered Chevrolet Bolt.
Ford is shifting production of a future battery electric vehicle to Mexico to free up capacity at its Flat Rock, Michigan, plant to build the self-driving vehicles in 2021, according to spokesman Alan Hall.
The electric vehicle, whose more-advanced battery system will enable a driving range of more than 300 miles, will go into production in 2020 at Ford’s Cuatitlan plant, which suppliers say will also build a new hybrid crossover vehicle around the same time.
Adding 850 jobs
At the Flat Rock plant, Ford is boosting investment to $900 million from $700 million and adding 850 jobs.
Both the 2020 electric and the 2021 self-driving vehicles will draw on the next-generation Ford Focus for some of their underbody structure and components while using different propulsion systems.
Unlike the full electric vehicle from Cuatitlan, the self-driving vehicle from Flat Rock will use a hybrid system with a gasoline engine and an electric motor, Hall said.
Report: Ethiopia Targeted Dissidents, Journalists With International Spyware Attacks
Since 2016, the Ethiopian government has targeted dissidents and journalists in nearly two dozen countries with spyware provided by an Israeli software company, according to a new report from Citizen Lab, a research and development group at the University of Toronto.
Once their computers are infected, victims of the attack can be monitored covertly whenever they browse the web, the report says.
Based on an in-depth analysis of the methods used to trick victims into installing the software, Citizen Lab concluded that “agencies of the Ethiopian government” deployed the spyware to target individuals critical of their policies.
More than 40 devices in 20 countries were infected, according to Citizen Lab’s research. It’s unknown how many individuals might have been targeted.
Full access
Citizen Lab’s report found that attackers used email to target dissidents, outspoken critics and perceived enemies by impersonating legitimate websites and software companies. In some cases, they sent messages about events related to Ethiopian politics, with links purporting to show related videos.
Those links led to web pages that prompted victims to update their Flash Players or download “Adobe PdfWriter,” fictitious software that, in fact, led to CutePDF Writer, a tool to create PDF files.
The attackers embedded the spyware in bona fide programs by exploiting security vulnerabilities, creating the impression that recipients were installing legitimate software and coaxing them to provide the administrator-level permissions needed to activate the surveillance. Once installed, the spyware spread to additional files tied to web browsers, making the software difficult to remove and nearly always active.
Any activity on an infected computer can be monitored, and information from web searches, emails and Skype contact lists can be extracted. A remote operator can take screenshots and record audio and video from a connected webcam.
Based on information provided by WiFi networks, attackers can also track the physical location of the infected device.
“Once the government has that information, they can do things like hijacking your email account,” said Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab and lead author of the new report.
“So, they’ll sign into your email account and then use your account to target your friends and basically expand the number of targets they have,” Marczak told VOA.
Eritrean, Ethiopian dissidents among those targeted
In October 2016, the Ethiopian government declared a nearly year-long state of emergency following months of protests that spread across the country.
Those protests — and a subsequent government crackdown that resulted in more than 800 deaths, according to a 2016 report by Amnesty International — were monitored by diaspora media groups, including the Oromia Media Network.
OMN’s executive director, Jawar Mohammed, was a confirmed target of the recently uncovered spyware attack.
“The pattern seems to be that they were very interested in what these Oromo activists and journalists were saying, how they were working, and perhaps even whom they were talking to back in Ethiopia,” Marczak said.
The Citizen Lab report also found seven infections in Ethiopia’s neighbor and longtime rival, Eritrea, most of whom were targets with ties to Eritrean government agencies and businesses.
According to Human Rights Watch, this is at least the third spyware vendor since 2013 that Ethiopia has used to target dissidents, journalists and activists.
Ethiopia previously used Remote Control System spyware from HackingTeam, an Italian company, to target journalists based in the United States, Citizen Lab said. It said Ethiopia also targeted dissidents using FinSpy spyware by FinFisher, a company based in Munich, Germany.
Citizen Lab’s analysis produced an unusual level of detail about the program due to the discovery of a publicly available log file with in-depth data about both the attackers and targets. After analyzing that file, Citizen Lab concluded “that the spyware’s operators are inside Ethiopia, and that victims also include various Eritrean companies and government agencies.”
Since the Israel-based spyware manufacturer was only authorized to sell their software to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Citizen Lab concluded that the Ethiopian government was behind the attacks.
Israeli security firm
The group behind the spyware, Cyberbit, is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, a $3 billion company that trades on the NASDAQ. Cyberbit describes itself as “a team of cybersecurity experts, who know firsthand what it means to protect high-risk organizations and manage complex incidents.”
The spyware used in the attacks uncovered by Citizen Lab is called PC Surveillance System (PSS). Cyberbit no longer lists PSS on its website, but marketing materials from 2015 describe the software as “a comprehensive solution for monitoring and extracting information from remote PCs.”
Key features touted by Cyberbit include covert operation, the ability to bypass encryption and the ability to target devices anywhere in the world. Cyberbit marketed the product to intelligence organizations and law enforcement agencies.
Citizen Lab also determined that Cyberbit representatives contacted Zambia’s Financial Intelligence Center and potential clients in Rwanda and Nigeria.
Spying with impunity
Citizen Lab and Human Rights Watch both have raised concerns about the ease with which governments can acquire sophisticated surveillance tools to target dissidents with impunity.
According to Marczak, it’s legal to produce and sell spyware to governments and law enforcement organizations, but Cyberbit would have required approval from the Israeli government to export the software to Ethiopia.
Missing in the process, Marczak said, is careful consideration of the impact on human rights.
In their report, researchers with Citizen Lab concluded that, “The fact that PSS wound up in the hands of Ethiopian government agencies, which for many years have demonstrably misused spyware to target civil society, raises urgent questions around Cyberbit’s corporate social responsibility and due diligence efforts, and the effectiveness of Israel’s export controls in preventing human rights abuses.”
The use of spyware by governments to monitor people around the world also occupies a murky legal space.
In 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit filed by an American citizen born in Ethiopia. The plaintiff claimed the Ethiopian government used spyware to monitor his activities for months, but the court dismissed the case because the law allegedly broken did not apply to foreign states.
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Bitcoin Worth Millions Stolen Days Before US Exchange Opens
A bitcoin mining company in Slovenia has been hacked for the possible theft of tens of millions of dollars, just days before the virtual currency, which hit a record above $15,000 on Thursday, is due to start trading on major U.S. exchanges.
NiceHash, a company that mines bitcoins on behalf of customers, said it is investigating a security breach and will stop operating for 24 hours while it verifies how many bitcoins were taken.
Research company Coindesk said that a wallet address referred to by NiceHash users indicates that about 4,700 bitcoins had been stolen. At Thursday’s record price of about $15,000, that puts the value at over $70 million.
There was no immediate response from NiceHash to an emailed request for more details.
“The incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement and we are cooperating with them as a matter of urgency,” it said. The statement urged users to change their online passwords.
Slovenian police are investigating the case together with authorities in other states, spokesman Bostjan Lindav said, without providing details.
The hack will put a spotlight on the security of bitcoin just as the trading community prepares for the currency to start trading on two established U.S. exchanges. Futures for bitcoin will start trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange on Sunday evening and on crosstown rival CME Group’s platforms later in the month.
That has increased the sense among some investors that bitcoin is gaining in mainstream legitimacy after several countries, like China, tried to stifle the virtual currency.
As a result, the price of bitcoin has jumped in the past year, particularly so in recent weeks. On Thursday it surged to over $15,000, up $1,300 in less than a day, according to Coindesk. At the start of the year, one bitcoin was worth less than $1,000.
Bitcoin is the world’s most popular virtual currency. Such currencies are not tied to a bank or government and allow users to spend money anonymously. They are basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they are traded.
A debate is raging on the merits of such currencies. Some say they serve merely to facilitate money laundering and illicit, anonymous payments. Others say they can be helpful methods of payment, such as in crisis situations where national currencies have collapsed.
Miners of bitcoins and other virtual currencies help keep the systems honest by having their computers keep a global running tally of transactions. That prevents cheaters from spending the same digital coin twice.
Online security is a vital concern for such dealings.
In Japan, following the failure of a bitcoin exchange called Mt. Gox, new laws were enacted to regulate bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Mt. Gox shut down in February 2014, saying it lost about 850,000 bitcoins, possibly to hackers.
Ali Zerdin in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Carlo Piovano in London contributed to this story.
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After Trump’s Shift on Jerusalem, What’s Next for Palestinians?
The dramatic U.S. policy shift on contested Jerusalem is seen by the Western-backed Palestinian leadership as a dangerous betrayal and game changer that is bound to propel them into a risky confrontation with the U.S. and Israel on the global stage.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas hasn’t decided yet whether to formally abandon U.S.-led negotiations with Israel, a troubled process that after two decades has failed to bring the Palestinians closer to statehood. However, those close to Abbas say a Mideast era of stop-and-go negotiations and Washington’s monopoly as mediator is now over.
Here is a look at what could come next.
Why Jerusalem matters
Trump’s recognition Wednesday of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital contradicts longstanding international assurances to the Palestinians that the fate of the holy city will be determined in negotiations. With Trump’s sharp pivot, the U.S. is seen as siding with Israel, which claims all of Jerusalem, including the Israeli-annexed eastern sector the Palestinians seek as a future capital.
The dispute over Jerusalem forms the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but transcends a mere real estate argument. The city, home to Judaism’s holiest site, is also sacred to billions of Muslims and Christians worldwide, and perceived slights to their claims have triggered major protests or violence in the past.
Abbas’ response so far
Abbas has been trying to rally international support, reaching out to leaders from Pope Francis to the EU foreign policy chief and Arab leaders. He warned Trump in a phone call that the U.S. shift will rock the region and threaten Washington’s plans for a Mideast peace deal.
In a speech after Trump’s announcement, Abbas said the U.S. has effectively removed itself from any role as a Mideast broker, but he did not say what immediate steps, if any, the Palestinians plan to take.
Abbas is to hold internal consultations with officials from the Palestine Liberation Organization and his Fatah party, and plans to meet Thursday with his closest Arab ally, King Abdullah II of Jordan.
A moment of truth?
The crisis over Jerusalem may push Abbas, the most steadfast Palestinian champion of seeking statehood through negotiations, to a point he avoided for so long — acknowledgment that the peace process isn’t working, at least in its current format.
Critics have argued that endless negotiations mainly serve Israel by providing diplomatic cover for its expansion of settlements on war-won lands. Abbas also derived some political legitimacy from the process, positioning himself as the only leader with a shot at delivering statehood.
Trump says he remains committed to brokering a Mideast deal, despite the Jerusalem pivot. However, those close to Abbas say it’s time to look for alternatives.
Any talks with U.S. officials are now “superfluous and irrelevant,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior PLO official. “The peace process is finished.”
Abbas has warned in the past that a failure to achieve a so-called two-state solution could prompt Palestinians to pursue a single state for two peoples, a prospect most Israelis reject.
The Palestinian leader may be reluctant to break away from his longstanding policies or lack the political courage to do so, but not shifting course now would be worse, said analyst Bassem Zbaidi.
“It’s time for the Palestinians to say no before coming under pressure to accept” future U.S. proposals that could fall far short of their minimal demands, he said.
Other options?
Some PLO and Fatah officials suggested shifting from cooperation with the U.S. and avoidance of conflict with Israel to a more confrontational approach.
Fatah supports halting contacts with the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, closing the PLO office in Washington and filing a complaint against the U.S. at the U.N. Security Council over plans to start a multiyear process of moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, said senior Fatah official Nasser al-Kidwa.
The Palestinians could also try to press prosecutors at the International Criminal Court to charge Israeli leaders with war crimes, including over settlement building, others said.
Abbas has refrained from such a step until now, under apparent U.S. pressure.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor is currently conducting a preliminary examination of the situation in the Palestinian territories, but this is a more open-ended review and could take years. The probe was triggered by “Palestine” becoming a member state of the court. The status change, in turn, was made possible by the 2012 U.N. General Assembly recognition of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the lands Israel captured in 1967.
WATCH: In Controversial Announcement, Trump Recognizes Jerusalem as Capital of Israel
Help from Europe?
The Palestinians are increasingly looking to Europe for help, encouraged by the harsh criticism of Trump’s Jerusalem policy by European leaders.
European states in the past were relegated by Washington to the role of paymaster, sending hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to support the Palestinian self-rule government and help manage the long-running conflict.
European states often take a more critical view of Israeli policies than the U.S, especially on settlements, but have failed to challenge Washington’s monopoly as mediator.
Palestinians now hope the growing rift between European leaders and the U.S. over Jerusalem will earn them diplomatic points. An immediate goal is to persuade influential Western European countries to recognize a state of Palestine.
Risk or opportunity?
For Palestinians, Trump’s policy shift offers both risk and opportunity.
Jerusalem has repeatedly been a flashpoint for violence, and Palestinian protest marches planned later this week could lead to clashes with Israeli troops.
Such confrontations can spin out of control, as they did more than a decade ago when they escalated into an armed uprising. Abbas staunchly opposes violence as counterproductive, but he may not be able to contain widespread public anger.
Some say Trump’s policy shift may create a moment of clarity and help end years of paralysis by making it impossible to perpetuate the idea that statehood is possible under the old paradigm.
“That option is now off the table and that’s a good thing,” said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser of the Palestinian self-rule government. “This had really held us up for so many years.”
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DACA Decision in Jeopardy as Government Shutdown Looms
An increasingly uncertain battle over funding the U.S. government until the end of the year has complicated the future of almost 800,000 undocumented young people brought to the U.S. as children. A permanent legislative fix for the DACA program will be just one of several end-of-year legislative items on the agenda as congressional Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi meet with President Trump Thursday.
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Trump’s Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital Gets Negative Reactions
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has met with criticism in the Arab world as well as in Europe and elsewhere. In a speech Wednesday, Trump described the move as a “long overdue step” after his predecessors failed to abide by the 22-year-old U.S. pledge to Israel. But the status of Jerusalem is a contentious issue many believe should be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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7 Years in Prison for Former Top Volkswagen Manager
A federal judge in Michigan has sentenced a former high-level Volkswagen manager to seven years in prison for his part in the scheme to cheat emissions tests and defraud consumers.
Oliver Schmidt has also been fined $400,000. He pleaded guilty in August to charges that included defrauding the United States and violating the Clean Air Act.
“This sentence reflects how seriously we take environmental crime,” Acting U.S. Attorney Daniel Lemisch said Wednesday. “Protecting national resources is a priority of this office. Corporations and individuals acting on behalf of corporations will be brought to justice for harming our environment.”
Schmidt was the general manager of Volkswagen’s U.S. Environment and Engineering office. He admitted knowing about and agreeing with engineers to carry out a scheme to install a device on certain VW diesel vehicles that would switch on for emissions tests, but switch off during normal driving.
Customers bought the cars believing they were environmentally friendly when in fact the cars were polluting as much as 30 times higher than U.S. standards.
Federal courts have ordered Volkswagen to spend more than $1 billion to buy back or repair the affected cars.
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China’s Ofo Joins Crowded Paris Bike-share Market
China’s Ofo launched its dockless bicycles in Paris on Wednesday, becoming the fourth bike-sharing plan operator in a city set to banish all combustion-engine cars by 2030.
Ofo France general manager Laurent Kennel told Reuters the firm, one of two bike-sharing giants in China, had put just over 100 of its bright yellow bicycles on Paris roads on Wednesday and plans to ramp that up to 1,000 bikes by year-end.
Ofo comes hot on the wheels of Hong Kong-owned Gobee.bike, which launched in October and whose bright green bikes, estimated at a few thousand, can be seen on every Paris street.
A third Asian player, Singapore-owned oBike, has a few hundred bikes on Paris streets, and will also compete with the city’s long-established Velib plan.
Unlike the dockless Asian bikes, the Velib bikes must be parked in fixed docking stations of which there are some 1,800 in Paris, but which are often full in popular parts of the city.
“We want to be leader in free-floating bikes in Paris and France,” Kennel said.
He added that to cover Paris well, the firm plans to put several thousand bikes on the road, although there are no immediate plans to match Velib’s 24,000 bicycles.
Like Velib, the Ofo bikes have three gears – unlike the gearless Gobee and oBike bikes – but will be slightly more expensive at 0.50 euros ($0.6) per 20 minutes, compared to 0.50 euros for 30 minutes for the other two Asian operators.
Ofo’s bikes will be free for the first 40 minutes until the end of the year. Velib is free the first half hour for users with a subscription.
Kennel said Ofo operate more than 10 million bikes in 200 cities worldwide, the vast majority in China, and a few thousand in Europe, including in Milan, Madrid, Vienna, Prague, London and Cambridge.
Ofo, which has raised more than $1 billion from Chinese venture capitalists, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., will cooperate with Paris city authorities, which have said they want to regulate the dockless bike plans to prevent chaos on Paris sidewalks.
The dockless bikes can be found and unlocked with a mobile phone app, and after use they can be left anywhere. So far there have been no pile-ups as have been seen on Chinese roads.
The new Asian bike share operators’ entry into the Paris market is well timed, as longtime Velib operator JCDecaux is replaced by the Smoovengo consortium, which won a 600-700 million euro ($700-$825 million) contract to run the Paris city bike-sharing system from 2018 to 2032.
Dozens of Velib docking stations have been out of order for weeks as Velib’s old docking stations are replaced with Smoovengo’s new stations.
The Paris city government is building more bike lanes as it tries to reduce automobile traffic in a bid to cut pollution.
($1 = 0.8486 euros)
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Climate ‘Refugees,’ Sidelined From Global Deal, Ask: ‘Where Is the Justice?’
Vulnerable communities uprooted by climate change are being left out of a voluntary pact to deal with migration, campaigners said, after the United States pulled out of the global deal.
Although people within low-lying states are being forced to relocate because of worsening storms and rising seas, they will not be recognized in U.N. migration pact talks next year, putting lives at risk, campaigners said.
“Many of the situations we find ourselves in, here in the Pacific, are not caused by us. We continue to ask, ‘Where is the justice?’ Those of us who are least responsible, continue to bear the brunt,” said Emele Duituturaga, head of the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (PIANGO).
Hoping for acceptance
“We hope that there will be an openness and an acceptance that climate-induced migration is one that the world community has to be responsible for,” she said on the sidelines of a conference co-hosted by PIANGO in Fiji’s capital, Suva.
With a record 21.3 million refugees globally, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly adopted a political declaration in September 2016 in which it also agreed to spend two years negotiating a pact on safe, orderly and regular migration.
U.S. President Donald Trump this week withdrew from negotiations because the global approach to the issue was “simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regretted the U.S. decision, his spokesman said, but expressed hope the United States might re-engage in the talks ahead of the start of formal negotiations in February.
Unique heritage
Climate displacement is already a reality for Telstar Jimmy, a student from the Bank Islands in northern Vanuatu.
Her family has relocated several times because of worsening cyclones and flooding, as rising seas slowly wash away ancestral homelands and burial sites.
“The foundations of our unique heritage were taken,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Relocation just meant safety and continuing to exist. But now the question is: Safe and existing for how much longer?”
Worldwide, sea levels have risen 26 centimeters (10 inches) since the late 19th century, driven up by melting ice and a natural expansion of water in the oceans as they warm, U.N. data show. Seas could rise by up to a meter by 2100.
‘It’s only going to get worse’
“With climate-induced displacement, we know that there are already people, communities and countries at risk,” said Danny Sriskandarajah, head of the rights group CIVICUS, co-hosting the Fiji conference. “It’s only going to get worse [and] we need to come up with ways to manage those flows.”
PIANGO and CIVICUS are among campaign groups drafting a declaration that calls on the United Nations to recognize climate change as a key driver of migration.
The 1951 Refugee Convention recognizes that people fleeing persecution, war and conflict have the right to protection, but not those forced out by climate change.
Trump also plans to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, which seeks to end the fossil fuel era this century with a radical shift to cleaner energies to curb heat waves, downpours, floods and rising sea levels.
The deal aims to hold the global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and try to limit the rise even further, to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The U.S. is the only country that is not part of the climate pact after Syria and Nicaragua joined this year.
“I’m a bit nervous because other countries may also pull out with the U.S., and that’s going to be a bigger issue for us, especially at a time when we’re trying to battle climate change,” said Vanuatu local Jimmy. “Whatever each country does will impact the lives of other people around the whole globe.”
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New Apps, Gadgets on Display at this Year’s TechCrunch Berlin
Those apps on your phone are expected to earn their developers about $77 billion this year. Some entrepreneurs who are looking to grab a bit of that market were showing off their products in Germany this week. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Too Chic for Amazon: Luxury Firms in EU Can Pick Sales Sites
Luxury goods companies may ban sales of their products on online platforms like Amazon to preserve their aura of exclusivity, the European Union’s top court said Wednesday.
The European Court of Justice ruled in favor of the German branch of luxury cosmetics group Coty, whose brands include Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs, which sought to keep its products from selling on non-authorized digital sale platforms.
The court said Coty’s effort to limit distributors “is appropriate to preserve the luxury image of those goods,” adding that it “does not appear to go beyond what is necessary.” Coty wanted to ban an authorized distributor from selling its products on Amazon.de in a case pending at a Frankfurt court, which requested a ruling from EU judges.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association said the ruling was “bad news for consumers who will face fewer choices and also less competition when they want to shop online.”
Germany’s antitrust agency said it was examining the EU court ruling, but expected it to have only a limited effect on its own decisions.
The court in Luxembourg “apparently made a great effort to limit its statements to the realm of real prestige products, where the luxurious aura is a significant part of the product itself,” said Andreas Mundt, the head of the Federal Cartel Office.
Manufacturers of goods that aren’t luxury brands “still have no carte blanche to sweepingly limit their distributors’ use of sales platforms, according to our assessment,” Mundt added.
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Trump Administration Maintains Commitment to Middle East Peace Amid Criticism of Jerusalem Decision
Under heavy criticism from Arab and majority Muslim countries for a decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Trump administration says it is committed to the Middle East peace process. VOA diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine looks at the broader contours of what administration officials describe as a new approach to peace and stability in the region.
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Turkish President, Jordanian King Unite Against US President Over Jerusalem Move
The news of the United States’ intention to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel dominated talks Wednesday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and King Abdullah II of Jordan. In statements to the media at the presidential palace, both leaders voiced concern.
“If the wrong step is taken regarding Jerusalem’s status, it will be the cause of indignation in the Islamic world,” Erdogan said, adding that it will “dynamite the ground for peace, igniting new tensions and clashes.”
Abdullah, underlining Jordan’s role as guardian of Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem, said he had spoken Tuesday with U.S. President Donald Trump, and had raised his concerns. The king said the Palestinians’ cause remains the central issue in the region and the current tensions over Jerusalem reaffirmed the need for a peace settlement.
“It is imperative now to work fast to reach a final status solution and a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis, and this must allow the Palestinians to establish their independent state side-by-side with Israel and its capital in East Jerusalem,” Abdullah said. “Ignoring the Palestinians and Christian rights in Jerusalem will only fuel further extremism.”
Abdullah backed the Turkish president’s call for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, in Istanbul next Wednesday. Turkey currently heads the group of 57 Muslim nations.
“I want to make the following call to the whole world from here: Any steps to change Jerusalem’s legal status should be avoided,” Erdogan said. “Such a step would only play into the hands of terrorist organizations.”
Erdogan has been speaking to Muslim leaders to lobby against any move by Washington to change Jerusalem’s status.
The Turkish president’s efforts are expected to intensify ahead of next week’s meeting of Muslim countries’ leaders in Istanbul.
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Trump’s Announcement on Jerusalem Explained
What has US President Donald Trump done with respect to Israel?
Donald Trump has decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the first U.S. President to do so since Israel was founded in 1948. Tel Aviv is currently home to the U.S. Embassy and many foreign embassies.
Trump plans to eventually move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, but relocation could take up to two years. U.S. law requires the president to sign a waiver every six months that leaves the embassy in Tel Aviv. This week Trump missed the latest six-month deadline, but U.S. officials say he will sign the waiver and also order the State Department to begin the relocation process.
Why has Trump recognized Jerusalem?
Trump is fulfilling a campaign promise to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He adopted a strong pro-Israel position as a candidate that appealed to his large evangelical base and pro-Israel American Jews.
Trump’s promise was very popular with those two segments of his supporters, including casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, who donated $25 million to a political action committee that supported Trump during his campaign.
U.S. administration officials say the recognition of Jerusalem acknowledges “the historical and current reality” of Jerusalem.
Why is Jerusalem, long the source of intense contention, so significant?
Israelis and Palestinians have made claims over Jerusalem, the seat of Israel’s government. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital while the Palestinians see the city’s eastern sector, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The conflict is focused on Jerusalem’s Old City, which is home to Islam’s third most holy mosque and Judaism’s holiest site and the reasons the city has been a contentious issue for Jews and Muslims throughout the world.
Although Israel controls the city, its annexation of east Jerusalem is not recognized by the global community, which wants the decades-long conflict to be settled at the negotiating table.
Jerusalem is also home to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was built where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried. The Armenian and Roman Catholic denominations and the Greek Orthodox share custody of the church, where tensions frequently escalate over control of its various quarters.
What has been the reaction to Trump’s decision?
Palestinians have reacted angrily to the Trump decision, warning that it would disrupt, if not end, U.S.-sponsored negotiations aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and creating a Palestinian state next to Israel.
The decision is being applauded by Israel, whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is one of Trump’s most fervent international supporters.
Leaders of the largest Christian denominations in Jerusalem have urged Trump to reconsider his decision. They said in a letter to Trump that his decision will result in “increased hatred, conflict, violence and suffering in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.”
The letter was signed by all of Jerusalem’s major church leaders, including the Greek Orthodox patriarch and the Roman Catholic apostolic administrator.
What are the potential ramifications?
Trump’s move overturns nearly seven decades of foreign policy and analysts warn it could threaten efforts to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Arab leaders warn it could elicit new outbreaks of violence, prompting the White House to prepare by coordinating plans to protect Americans abroad.
Israeli security officials say they are prepared for all scenarios.
In addition to angering key allies in the in the Arab world, the move threatens to infuriate allies in the West.
Conflict in Jerusalem
The Israelis and the Palestinians maintain a discrete security relationship in the West Bank that has helped prevent an escalation in violence in recent years.
But much of the violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank has been linked to tensions in the Holy City.
Jerusalem is a largely open city, but a nearly decade-old Israeli separation barrier cuts through several Arab communities and requires tens of thousands of Palestinians to pass through crowded checkpoints to reach the city’s center.
Deadly riots broke out in Jerusalem in 1996 after Israel opened a new tunnel in the Old City. A second Palestinian eruption occurred in 2000 after then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, which has been revered as a holy site for thousands of years by Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
The city experienced a string of Palestinian stabbings in late 2015, partially due to an increase in the number of Jewish nationalist visitors to the Temple Mount. Last summer, Jerusalem experienced weeks of unrest when Israel attempted to install security cameras next to the Al-Aqsa Mosque after a Palestinian’s fatal shooting of two Israeli police officers.
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Driverless Buses Take to Some Roads in California
Imagine the day you board a bus and it starts moving. It obeys all traffic signs and stops at signal lights. All without a driver. That’s the future, happening right now at a business park in Northern California. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us on what’s probably your first ride on a driverless shuttle bus.
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China Dominates Top Western Economies in Patent Applications
The U.N.’s intellectual property agency says China racked up a record 1.3 million patent applications last year, topping the combined total in the U.S., Japan, Korea and Europe.
The World Intellectual Property Organization says innovators worldwide filed 3.1 million patent applications in 2016, up 8.3 percent from a year earlier, marking the seventh-straight yearly increase.
China alone accounted for 98 percent of that increase, with its patent office receiving 236,600 more applications than in 2015.
Releasing WIPO’s annual intellectual property report Wednesday, Director-General Francis Gurry cited the “extraordinary growth numbers” that epitomize the trend of recent years.
WIPO said trademark applications shot up by 16 percent to about 7 million, and worldwide industrial design applications increased by 10.4 percent to almost 1 million, again led by growth in China.
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US Records Strongest US Worker Productivity in 3 Years
U.S. worker productivity rose 3 percent in the third quarter, the best showing in three years, while labor costs fell for a second straight quarter.
The increase in productivity in the July-September quarter was double the 1.5 percent gain in the second quarter and both quarters were up significantly from a scant 0.1 percent rise in the first three months of the year. Labor costs fell 0.2 percent after an even bigger 1.2 percent decline in the second quarter.
The third quarter figure for productivity was unchanged from an initial estimate while labor costs were initially estimated to have risen by 0.5 percent.
Economists are hopeful that the upturn in productivity may be a sign that this key measure of living standards is improving after a prolonged period of weakness.
Economists believe finding ways to increase productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, is the biggest challenge facing the economy right now. They say that without an improvement, the Trump administration will have difficulty reaching its goal of doubling economic growth in coming years.
The upturn in the past two quarters reflects the fact that overall output, as measured by the gross domestic product, accelerated sharply following a weak start to the year. GDP grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the third quarter, the government reported last week, and that followed a 3.1 percent rise in the second quarter. It was the first back-to-back GDP gains of 3 percent or better in three years.
Productivity actually declined in 2016, dropping 0.1 percent. It was the first annual decline in 34 years and followed a string of weak annual performances since the economy emerged from recession in mid-2009.
Productivity has averaged annual gains of just 1.2 percent from 2007 through 2016, a sharp slowdown from average annual gains of 2.6 percent from 2000 to 20007. Those increases reflected a boost from the increased use of computers and the internet in the workplace.
Rising productivity allows employers to boost wages without triggering higher inflation.
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Apple CEO Hopeful Banned Apps Will Return to China Store
Apple’s chief executive said Wednesday he’s optimistic some apps that fell afoul of China’s tight internet laws will eventually be restored after being removed earlier this year.
Speaking at a business forum in southern China, CEO Tim Cook also dismissed criticism of his appearance days earlier at an internet conference promoting Beijing’s vison of a censored internet.
Cook’s high-profile appearance Sunday at the government-organized World Internet Conference drew comments from activists and U.S. politicians who say Apple should do more to push back against Chinese internet restrictions.
He said he believed strongly in freedoms but also thought that foreign companies need to play by local rules where they operate.
When asked about Chinese government policies requiring removal of apps, including ones from operators of virtual private networks that can get around the country’s internet filters, he said, “My hope over time is that some of these things, the couple things that have been pulled, come back.”
“I have great hope on that and great optimism,” he added.
Cook said he didn’t care about being criticized for working with China, because he believes change is more likely when companies participate rather than opting to “stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be.”
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Flourishing Esports Eye Olympic Games Link for Extra Boost
Booming esports do not need the Olympics to maintain their explosive growth, but a link with the world’s biggest multisports event would validate gaming worldwide and give the Games a much-needed younger audience, industry leaders say.
Esports, the competitive side of electronic gaming, have an estimated 250 million players, more than several of the traditional Olympic sports federations combined.
The market is also worth about $1 billion dollars a year and growing, with lucrative tournaments springing up across the world and professional teams competing for huge prize money in front of millions of mainly young viewers online.
“This will be the biggest sport in the world within 20 years,” said Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell, whose company has been making computer and gaming equipment for decades and is now riding the wave of esports.
Logitech’s gaming division has enjoyed 25 to 35 percent growth annually in the past four years alone, Darrell told Reuters. “What has happened surprises us as much as it does everyone. Esports will probably be as big or bigger than football. The earlier the Olympics gets in the mix, the better.”
Tournaments around the world are packing arenas, with the Beijing’s Birds Nest stadium, host of the 2008 Olympics, filling up for last month’s League of Legends World Championship final, which also attracted 60 million viewers online.
Traditional sports team owners from every major league are buying into esports, eager to tap into the growing market.
Olympic recognition
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last month recognized esports as a sport, the first clear indication to the growing industry that it wants to link up.
With the IOC’s traditional audience aging and several Olympic sports past their international sell-by date, it is desperate to attract younger people even if it means breaking with tradition.
“Esports are showing strong growth, especially within the youth demographic across different countries, and can provide a platform for engagement with the Olympic movement,” the IOC said last month.
Global audiences are expected to reach 385.5 million this year, according to research firm Newzoo, and as events multiply and interest grows, it looks like a one-way street for the IOC.
“We consider esports as entertainment with competitive and sports characteristics,” Jan Pommer, director of team and federation relations at the Electronic Sports League (ESL), a worldwide leader in organizing esports competitions, told Reuters.
“We fully recognize, though, the reservations of the traditional sports world. Esports competitors train like traditional athletes, they are very fit, they have their own nutritionists and psychologists. Esports has all the characteristics of traditional sports.”
Growth guaranteed
The lucrative young market has also attracted a multitude of other investors, such as NBA player Jonas Jerebko of the Utah Jazz, who recently acquired esports team Renegades.
“I did some research and checked out how many people watch esports and how big they are getting,” Jerebko told Reuters. “How much prize money, how many sponsors were getting involved.
“There won’t be less esports — it’s going to continue to grow. Many of the traditional sports are losing athletes, the interest for the Olympics has probably declined with the existing sports, so they’re trying to win back this new audience.”
The benefits for the Olympics are clear, with a potential new stream of revenue through sponsorship, broadcast rights and marketing as well as a rejuvenation of their fan base.
It is not only the IOC, though, that emerges a winner in such a possible alliance, with esports shaking off its still somewhat amateur image, Darrell said.
“There is still a bit of a what-are-they-doing-in-the-basement feel to gaming,” he said. “[An Olympic association] would help validate where the whole industry has got to quietly.”
ESL’s Pommer said esports did not necessarily need to be part of the main Olympics.
“We can build bridges. We do not demand, the industry does not demand, anything from traditional sports. What we would like is a dialogue.
“In a way it could be like the International Paralympic Committee, which has an extended role to the Olympics. Esports could play a similar role,” he said. “The wide majority of the esports community would be happy with it. It would help us in terms of social acceptance if it were part of the Olympic family.”
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Analysts: Maduro’s Cryptocurrency to Fare No Better Than Venezuela Itself
Venezuela’s plan to create an oil-backed cryptocurrency faces the same credibility problems that dog the ruling Socialist Party in financial markets and is unlikely to fare any better than the struggling OPEC member itself, investors and technical experts say.
President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday floated a plan to create the “petro” that would be backed by the world’s largest crude reserves, amid a crippling economic crisis worsened by U.S. sanctions that limit Venezuela’s capacity to borrow money.
Cryptocurrencies rely on confidence in clear rules and equal treatment of all involved, three experts said, adding that Venezuela is widely seen as flouting basic property rights and mismanaging its existing bolivar currency.
Without such confidence, the “petro” would neither help Venezuela raise funds nor help it avoid sanctions levied by the government of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“If any government is willing to set up a fair set of rules for a cryptocurrency, it would be a great thing,” said Sean Walsh of Redwood City Ventures, a bitcoin and blockchain-focused investment firm.
“But if an administration has a history of unfair treatment of the population, then tacking on a buzzword like ‘cryptocurrency’ isn’t going to change that behavior.”
The Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. In further comments on Tuesday, Maduro said Venezuela’s new virtual currency would be backed by oil from the heavy-crude Orinoco Belt, plus gold and diamonds.
Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, has soared in recent weeks to nearly $12,000 in what detractors call evidence of a bubble but supporters insist is the start of a new monetary system not dependent on central banks.
Venezuela’s inflation is expected to top 1,000 percent this year, driven by unchecked expansion of the money supply and a currency control system that critics say provides favorable treatment to well-connected officials and businessmen at the expense of everyday citizens.
‘Do We Trust Venezuela?’
Under the 15-year-old foreign exchange regime, state agencies receive dollars to import food and medicine at a rate of 10 bolivars while private citizens now pay more than 108,000 per greenback on the black market. The black market rate has depreciated more than 99 percent under Maduro.
Basic food and medical items are increasingly out of reach for most citizens, fueling malnutrition and preventable diseases. Maduro says the country is victim of an “economic war” led by political adversaries with the support of Washington.
Maduro has not outlined the rules that would govern the proposed currency, including what rights its holders would have over Venezuela’s oil reserves.
“The fact that the bolivar’s value has plummeted shows that people have very little faith in Venezuela,” said Yazan Barghuthi of Jibrel Network, a blockchain development firm.
“A tokenized asset will still have the same problem: Do we trust the institution that is backing this to fulfill the promises that this token represents?”
U.S. sanctions, in response to accusations of human rights violations and undermining of democracy, have effectively blocked the country from issuing new debt and have made global banks increasingly wary of working with Venezuela.
But Venezuela is unlikely to find foreign companies willing to accept payment for food or medicine in newly minted petros and has little chance of convincing creditors to accept them in lieu of dollars when making payments on its distressed bonds, the experts said.
“Given that there is no stable judicial system in Venezuela, no one will trust anything that the government claims is backed by assets of any kind,” wrote Marshall Swatt, founder of bitcoin exchange Coinsetter, in an email. “Even if the technology were proper and prevented government meddling (impossible to imagine), it is dead on arrival.”
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Trump Set to Announce US Recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli Capital
President Donald Trump is planning to announce Wednesday that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But analysts and officials say the president is not expected to set a date for moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, a step that would most likely trigger an extreme reaction in the Arab world.
In preparation for the announcement, Trump spoke by phone Tuesday with five Middle East leaders to brief them on his decision.
A White House statement identified the five as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Few details
The statement gave few details of the conversations except to say, “The leaders also discussed potential decisions regarding Jerusalem.” It added that Trump had reaffirmed his commitment to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Bloomberg News quoted a person familiar with Trump’s decision as saying the president had decided to sign a waiver postponing the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Under a law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, the embassy must be relocated to Jerusalem unless the president signs a waiver every six months stating that the matter is to be decided between the Israelis and Palestinians. Every president since Clinton has signed the waiver, including Trump, who did so when it came due in June.
Dennis Ross was U.S. point man on the Middle East peace process under three presidents and worked with Israelis and Palestinians to reach the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1995. He said Tuesday that Trump appeared to be leaving a lot of room for both Israelis and Arabs to maneuver in the new environment.
In a briefing for reporters, Ross said it’s very important for the president to allow opportunities for Palestinians and Arabs in the region to say that their position “still has to be part of the negotiation process. … That seems to me to be the key to this.”
On the eve of Trump’s expected announcement, Reuters quoted unnamed State Department officials as expressing concern about the potential for a violent backlash against Israel and also possibly against American interests in the region.
When asked whether Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “on board” with a decision that could put U.S. citizens and troops in the Middle East at risk, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said, “I think the secretary has communicated clearly, as have all the members of the inner agency who have a role in making this decision. … He has made his positions clear to the White House. I think the Department of Defense has as well. But it is ultimately the president’s decision to make. He is in charge.”
Preparing for violence
In a security message released Tuesday, the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, noting widespread calls for demonstrations this week, barred personal travel by American government workers and their families in Jerusalem’s Old City and West Bank, including Bethlehem and Jericho, until further notice.
U.S. embassies worldwide also were ordered to increase security in anticipation of protests.
Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the international community maintains its final status must be determined in negotiations.
Nevertheless, Trump has said he is committed to a promise he made last year during the election campaign to move the U.S. Embassy out of Tel Aviv, a step favored by many American Jews and Christian evangelicals.
Jerusalem is home to the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest place in Islam. For Jews, it is the Temple Mount, the holiest site of all.
Arab and Muslim states have warned that any decision to move the U.S. Embassy could inflame tensions in the region and destroy U.S. efforts to reach an Arab-Israeli peace agreement.
No longer a credible mediator
Senior Palestinian leader Nabil Shaath said Trump would no longer be seen as a credible mediator. “The Palestinian Authority does not condone violence, but it may not be able to control the street and prevent a third Palestinian uprising,” he said, speaking in Arabic.
Gerald Feierstein, director for Gulf affairs and government relations at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the level of anger the announcement might provoke would depend greatly on how Trump presented the issue.
“If the president just says, ‘We recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,’ without trying to define it further and without actually beginning the process of moving the embassy, then it’s a big nothingburger,” he told VOA.
Feierstein, who served as U.S. ambassador to Yemen, and later as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs under former President Barack Obama, said if Trump went any further, it could trigger a backlash and deal a crushing blow to peace efforts.
“If what he says is perceived as, or is in fact, a recognition of all of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and he is no longer maintaining the international position that Jerusalem is to be divided and that East Jerusalem is to become the capital of the Palestinian state once there is an agreement, then that is going to have a very negative effect on the peace process,” Feierstein said.
“So the devil is in the details about how significant this is going to be,” he said.
VOA’s Cindy Saine at the State Department contributed to this report.
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Senate Confirms Nielsen to Head US Homeland Security
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Deputy White House chief of staff Kirstjen Nielsen as President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
Senators approved Nielsen’s nomination, 62-37, on Tuesday. Nielsen, 45, is a former DHS official who is considered a protege of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former DHS secretary.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Nielsen a qualified candidate with the talent and experience to succeed. As a former DHS chief of staff, Nielsen understands the department’s daily operations and is ready to lead on her first day, McConnell said.
Democrats have concerns
Democrats complained that Nielsen lacks the experience needed to run a major agency with 240,000 employees. They also cited concerns about possible White House interference in a recent DHS decision to send home thousands of Nicaraguans and Haitians long granted U.S. protection.
Homeland Security oversees the nation’s borders, cybersecurity and response to natural disasters, among other areas.
Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Nielsen brings valuable, practical experience to DHS. He called her an expert in risk management, with a focus on cybersecurity, emergency management and critical infrastructure.
Nielsen “is ready to answer this call to duty,” Johnson said. “She has been working in and around the Department of Homeland Security since its creation.”
Questionable decisions
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said Nielsen has played a role in several questionable Trump administration decisions, including a travel ban to restrict entry from six mostly Muslim countries, termination of a program for young immigrants and what Harris called a “feeble response to Hurricanes Irma, Maria and Harvey.”
Harris also said she was troubled by Nielsen’s failure to acknowledge at her confirmation hearing how human behavior contributes to climate change.
Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice Education Fund, which promotes immigrants’ rights, said Trump has worked to punish immigrants and refugees, from his call to build a wall along the Mexican border to the partial travel ban to raids against immigrants.
‘Architect’ in Trump’s policies
As a key Kelly aide, Nielsen is “one of the architects” of Trump’s immigration policies, Sharry said. He called Nielsen “a willing accomplice, helping to shape and implement this profoundly disturbing and un-American vision of our country.”
Nielsen said at her confirmation hearing last month that climate change is a crucial issue and said the Trump administration is revising its climate models to better respond to rising sea levels.
“I can’t unequivocally state it’s caused by humans,” she said. “There are many contributions to it.”
Cybersecurity a top priority
On other topics, Nielsen said she agreed with Kelly that a U.S.-Mexico border wall is unlikely to be a physical barrier from “sea to shining sea.”
She also condemned white nationalism, rejected Islamophobia and promised to make cybersecurity a top priority.
Trump repeatedly promised during the campaign that he would build the wall and that Mexico would pay for it, but the administration is seeking billions in taxpayer dollars to finance the project.
Homeland Security has been leading the charge on implementing Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, and Nielsen pledged to continue that work.