The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog found no wrongdoing or misconduct by immigration officials in the deaths of two migrant children last December.

The Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security released two brief statements Friday evening on the deaths of Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin, who died Dec. 8, and Felipe Gómez Alonzo, who died Dec. 24.

Their deaths ushered in a growing border crisis that caught immigration officials unprepared to manage a crush of Central American families seeking asylum in the U.S. and raised questions on medical care and treatment. Border crossings have since declined in recent months following major crackdowns.

“We are still saddened by the tragic loss of these young lives, and we continue to bolster medical screenings and care at DHS facilities on the border,” a spokeswoman for Homeland Security said. “The men and women of Border Patrol are committed to the highest standards of professionalism and care.”

Both children made their way over the U.S.-Mexico border with a parent. Jakelin was part of a large group that crossed in an extremely remote location and it took hours for her to be transported to a hospital. Some seven hours later, she was put on a bus to the nearest Border Patrol station but soon began vomiting. By the end of the two-hour drive, she had stopped breathing.

Lawmakers and immigrant advocates questioned the care she received and criticized the immigration agency’s then-leader Kevin McAleenan for not alerting lawmakers to the death during his testimony before a Congressional committee. Customs and Border Protection said that the girl initially appeared healthy and that an interview raised no signs of trouble.

The watchdog said it had conducted a detailed investigation in coordination with the local medical examiner’s office. The girl died from Streptococcal sepsis.

Felipe was taken with his father to a hospital in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where he was diagnosed with a common cold. He was released just before 3 p.m., about 90 minutes after he had been found to have a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 Celsius), CBP said at the time. He was prescribed amoxicillin and ibuprofen and taken with his father to a holding facility at a highway checkpoint.

At about 7 p.m., agents helped clean up the boy’s vomit. By about 10 p.m., the boy “appeared lethargic and nauseous again,” the agency said, and agents decided to have him taken to the hospital. The boy died shortly before midnight.

Felipe and his father were detained by CBP for about a week and send to various facilities because of overcrowding, an unusually long period in custody at the time but something that later became more common as the agency struggled with a growing number of migrants detained.

The inspector general coordinated with the local medical examiner’s office and said the boy died from sepsis caused by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria.

The deaths pushed U.S. Customs and Border protection increase medical checks. But increasingly more family members would cross the border, overwhelming border facilities in the months after their deaths.

The inspector general in May criticized the Border Patrol for “dangerous overcrowding” in its El Paso-area detention stations. Several months after Jakelin and Felipe died, the Border Patrol had packed thousands of parents and children into cells unequipped to hold them. According to the report, one cell with a 12-person capacity had 76 people. Another cell meant for 35 people was holding 155. Border Patrol agents claimed then that detained immigrants who weren’t sick were claiming to be so they could be released from their cells, according to the inspector general’s report.

Border crossings are declining, in part because of Trump administration policies that send tens of thousands of migrants back over the border to wait out their asylum cases in Mexico, and barring asylum for anyone who crossed through another country en route to the U.S.

President Donald Trump on Friday signed off on US sanctions against companies building a Russian natural gas pipeline to Germany that Congress fears will give the Kremlin dangerous leverage over European allies.

The sanctions, which are opposed by the European Union, were included in a sprawling defense spending bill Trump signed at a ceremony on Joint Base Andrews, an air force installation outside Washington, DC.

They target companies building the nearly $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea with the aim of doubling deliveries of Russian natural gas to Europe’s leading economy, Germany.

US lawmakers have warned the pipeline would enrich a hostile Russian government and vastly increase President Vladimir Putin’s influence in Europe at a time of heightened tension across the continent.

Both houses of Congress overwhelmingly approved the sanctions, with the Senate voting Tuesday to send the measure to Trump’s desk.

Trump, who has been accused by Democratic opponents of being soft on Putin, had little choice but to give his approval.

The sanctions were inserted into a much wider $738 billion annual Pentagon funding bill and, given the level of congressional support, a veto would likely have been overturned.

The US measures have angered Moscow and the European Union, which says it should be able to decide its own energy policies.

Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, discussed the issue during a phone call Friday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

Pompeo expressed “strong opposition” to the project, Ortagus said in a statement.

The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce insisted last week that the pipeline was important for energy security and urged retaliatory sanctions against the United States if the bill passes.

The US sanctions target pipe-laying vessels for Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream, a Russia-Turkey pipeline, and include asset freezes and revocation of US visas for the contractors.

One major contractor that could be hit is Swiss-based Allseas, which has been hired by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom to build the offshore section.

The power of Gazprom, which is closely integrated with the Russian state, is at the center of concerns about the pipeline in the United States, and also in eastern and central European countries.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican ally of Trump, said that halting Nord Stream 2 should be a major security priority for the United States and Europe alike.

“It’s far better for Europe to be relying on energy from the United States than to be fueling Putin and Russia and dependent on Russia and subject to economic blackmail,” he told the Senate last week.

However, Senator Rand Paul, another Republican, voted against the bill, objecting to its bid to “sanction NATO allies and potentially American energy companies.”

The Libyan national unity government based in Tripoli is asking Turkey, the U.S. and several European countries to defend the government, as forces loyal to eastern military commander General Khalifa Haftar called on militias fighting in Tripoli and Misratat to lay down their arms.

Forces loyal to Haftar exchanged gunfire Friday with militias fighting under the banner of the Tripoli-based national unity government south and east of the capital. Libyan fighter jets, also loyal to Haftar, bombed targets and weapons depots inside Misrata and south of the capital.

The spokesman for Haftar’s Libyan National Army told journalists Friday that his forces were making “pre-emptive airstrikes against three separate locations near Tripoli that were expected landing points for Turkish military forces.” VOA could not independently confirm the claim that Turkish forces were planning to enter the battle.

Turkish media, nevertheless, reported that Libya’s unity Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj officially activated a Nov. 27 military pact between Ankara and Tripoli calling for Turkish logistic and military support to prevent the fall of his government.

Sarraj also reportedly called on the U.S., Germany, Italy and Turkey, to intervene to protect his government, which is officially recognized by the international community. Despite that recognition, many countries, including France, Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia reportedly are supporting Haftar.

Mohammed al-Zubeidi, a Libyan law professor, told Arab media, however, that “Sarraj is just calling on the U.S., Germany and Italy as a fig-leaf to cover up his call for Turkish intervention in the Libyan conflict.”

Haftar’s military spokesman, Colonel Ahmed Almasmari, claimed that his forces were “advancing inside and outside the capital, Tripoli,” and called on militias fighting his forces, some of which are based in Misrata, to “lay down their arms by midnight Sunday,” and withdraw peacefully.

He says the (Libyan National Army) is sending a message to the representatives of Misrata to pull out their forces from Tripoli and lay down their arms by midnight Sunday, if they do not want to face reprisals or further airstrikes on their city.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, according to Russian media, saying the “possible deployment of Turkish troops in Libya is a source of worry” because it “could trigger a reaction from neighboring states.”  

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual press conference with journalists Thursday he was “in contact with all regional parties to try and end the conflict in Libya.” Russia reportedly has mercenaries fighting in Libya on the side of Haftar.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told Egyptian media several days ago that “Egypt has the capability of intervening in Libya if needed, but has respected diplomatic norms until now, by not doing so.”

Egypt does reportedly help train Haftar’s forces and maintains some of his aging Russian air force jets.

Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, and why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

American citizenship for Liberians
The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act approved by the U.S. Congress includes a provision to put thousands of Liberian immigrants on the path to American citizenship.

Trump administration taken to court again
A lawsuit filed by civil rights groups is decrying the Trump administration’s “weaponization” of the U.S. immigration court system and accusing the Justice Department of creating a “deportation machine” and subverting long-standing laws governing the treatment of immigrants in America.

Facebook
Facebook vowed to prevent efforts to use its services to interfere with the 2020 U.S. Census, guarding against the posting of misleading information and prohibiting advertisements that portray taking part in the census as “useless or meaningless.”

Asylum guidelines
The Trump administration proposed a regulation to bar immigrants convicted of a new list of crimes from claiming asylum. The proposal must go through a public comment period before it is finalized.

U.S. deports convicted German killer
This week the U.S. government deported a German man convicted in the high-profile killings of his girlfriend’s parents in the U.S. 35 years ago. The crime stunned the Virginia community where it happened and prompted decades of media obsession.

Flu vaccines for migrants
Members of Congress urged U.S. Customs and Border Protection to change its decision not to vaccinate migrants against the flu. A letter sent Monday by 65 Democratic legislators to Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan expressed “disappointment and alarm about the failure of CBP to provide recommended flu vaccinations to migrants in its custody.”

From the Feds
Repatriation initiative: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Mexican Ministry of the Interior announced the continuation of a joint agreement between both governments to return Mexican migrants to the interior of Mexico.

Letter of intent to increase security: The U.S. and Panamanian governments signed a letter promising greater security cooperation. 
 

The United Nations human rights office warns conditions in Libya have seriously deteriorated over the past year as civilian war casualties multiply and rampant, gross violations of human rights escalate, pervading every aspect of Libyan society. 

U.N. officials describe Libya as a society in total disarray. They say everyone is under attack —civilians, human rights defenders, journalists, migrants and refugees. 

Rebel leader Khalifa Haftar’s military forces began an offensive in April to seize the capital Tripoli. Since then, the U.N. has documented at least 284 civilian deaths and 363 injuries. Most have been caused by airstrikes, followed by ground fighting, improvised explosive devices, abductions and killings.

U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville says journalists, media workers and human rights defenders are subject to violence, threats and harassment. He says the treatment of migrants and refugees is of particular concern.  

“They continue to be routinely subjected to violations and abuses, including extrajudicial and arbitrary killings, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, abduction for ransom, extortion, and forced labor by state officials, traffickers and by smugglers,” Colville said.  

The U.N. office reports more than 8,600 migrants have been intercepted at sea by the Libyan Coast Guard and returned to Libya this year. Most of them are migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Every year, thousands of desperately poor Africans make the arduous and deadly journey across the desert to Libya in hopes of reaching Europe and a better life.

The migrants, who have been intercepted at sea and returned to Libya, are among thousands of others who have made the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing to Italy in fragile smugglers’ boats. Many have lost their lives.

Colville notes many of those intercepted at sea have been sent to official and unofficial detention centers. There, they are subjected to serious human rights violations and abuses.

“We are also concerned that parties to the conflict in Libya continue to store weapons and ammunition in close proximity to civilian locations, particularly detention centers where migrants and refugees are being detained,” Colville said. “We remind the parties of their obligation to take all feasible precautions against the effects of attacks.”  

The U.N. office reports nearly 9,000 people are being held under extremely abusive, violent, overcrowded conditions in 28 official prisons run by Libya’s Ministry of Justice. While conditions in these facilities are extremely bad, it says conditions in unofficial places of detention, many run by armed groups, are likely to be even worse.

British lawmakers gave preliminary approval Friday to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill, clearing the way for the U.K. to leave the European Union next month.

The House of Commons voted 358-234 for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.

It will receive more scrutiny and possible amendment next month, and also has to be approved by Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords. But Johnson’s commanding Conservative majority in Parliament means it is almost certain to become law in January. Britain will then leave the EU on Jan. 31.

Johnson said Friday that passing the bill would end the “acrimony and anguish” that has consumed the country since it voted in 2016 to leave the EU. Opponents argue that leaving the EU will only trigger more uncertainty over Britain’s future trade relations with the bloc.

Friday’s vote was a moment of triumph for Johnson, who won a commanding parliamentary majority in last week’s general election on a promise to end more than three years of political gridlock and lead Britain out of the European Union on Jan. 31.

‘Move forward together’

The U.K.’s departure will open a new phase of Brexit, as Britain and the EU race to strike new relationships for trade, security and host of other areas by the end of 2020.

Johnson, however, painted Friday’s vote as a moment of closure. Opening debate on the bill he said, optimistically, that after Jan. 31, “Brexit will be done, it will be over.”

“The sorry story of the last 3 1/2 years will be at an end and we will be able to move forward together,” he said.

“This is a time when we move on and discard the old labels of ‘leave’ and ‘remain,’” Johnson added. “Now is the time to act together as one reinvigorated nation.”

Britain voted narrowly to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum. But previous attempts by Johnson and his predecessor, Theresa May, to pass a Brexit deal through the U.K. Parliament foundered as lawmakers objected to sections of the agreement and demanded a bigger say in the process. Johnson’s election victory finally gives him the power to get his way.

“The election has produced a result: We will leave the EU at the end of January,” acknowledged pro-EU Liberal Democrat legislator Wera Hobhouse. “The battle to stop Brexit is over.”

Johnson: No more delays

The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on Jan. 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by the end of 2020. Trade experts and EU officials say striking a free trade deal within 11 months will be a struggle, but Johnson insists he won’t agree to any more delays, The Brexit bill has been amended to bar ministers from agreeing to extend the transition period with the EU.

That has set off alarm bells among businesses, who fear that means the country will face a “no-deal” Brexit at the start of 2021. Economists say that would disrupt trade with the EU — Britain’s biggest trading partner — and plunge the U.K. into recession.

Johnson said Friday he was confident of striking a “deep, special and democratically accountable partnership with those nations we are proud to call our closest friends” by the Brexit deadline.

He said extending the transition period would just prolong Brexit “acrimony and anguish … a torture that came to resemble Lucy snatching away Charlie Brown’s football.”

For all Johnson’s talk of “getting Brexit done” on Jan. 31, details of Britain’s negotiating stance — and even who will lead the trade talks — remain unknown.

Changes to Brexit bill 

Armed with his 80-seat majority in the 650-seat House of Commons, Johnson has stripped out parts of the Brexit bill that gave lawmakers a role in negotiating a future trade deal with the EU and required ministers to provide regular updates to Parliament. The clauses were added earlier in the year in an attempt to win opposition lawmakers’ support for the Brexit bill — backing that Johnson no longer needs.

A promise that workers’ rights will not be eroded after Brexit has also been removed from the bill, although the Conservative government says it will enshrine employment rights in separate legislation.

Opposition Labour Party lawmaker Hilary Benn said Johnson’s bill was “a gamble with our nation’s economy.”

“If he fails, the cliff-edge of a no-deal Brexit becomes in just 12 months’ time,” he said.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his 203 lawmakers would oppose the Brexit bill because of “the reckless direction in which the government and the prime minister are determined to take our country.”

“There is a better and fairer way for this country to leave the European Union,” he said.

Even without opposition votes, the bill is expected to complete its passage through Parliament in January, in time for Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc on Jan. 31.

The divorce deal also needs to be ratified by the European Parliament. European Parliament vice president Pedro Silva Pereira said officials expect that to happen by Jan. 29.

Very little will change immediately after Brexit. Britain will remain an EU member in all but name during the 11-month transition period that ends in December 2020.
 

Ghana’s 2019 Year of Return marks the 400th anniversary of the brutal Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The country has launched a monumental “homecoming” campaign, aimed at persuading people of African descent to return to Africa to live, to visit and to invest. This week, #VOAOurVoices looks back at Ghana’s Year of Return. We take you to the capital, Accra, to speak to “returnees” about their decision. Angeline Addy, from the Embassy of Ghana in Washington joins the program. The team also discusses the challenges and realities facing Africans who “return home”.

European parties to the Iran nuclear deal are likely to trigger a dispute resolution process in January to force Tehran to rollback violations, but would stop short of rushing to restore U.N. sanctions that would kill off the accord, diplomats said.

Iran has criticized Britain, France and Germany for failing to salvage the 2015 pact by shielding Tehran’s economy from U.S. sanctions, reimposed since last year when Washington exited the agreement between Iran and six major powers.

The deal’s objective was to extend the time Iran would need to accumulate enough fissile material for an atom bomb, if it sought one —  something sometimes referred to as “breakout time” — to about a year from 2-3 months. The Europeans are alarmed Tehran’s latest moves will start eating into that time.

Washington wants to force Iran to negotiate a broader deal that includes its nuclear activities, ballistic missile program and regional influence.

In reaction to Washington’s “maximum pressure”, Iran, a longtime U.S. foe, has gradually reduced its commitments under the deal, including resuming enriching uranium at its underground Fordow plant and rapidly accelerating enrichment with advanced centrifuge machines also banned by the deal.

On Jan. 6 Iran will further distance itself from compliance with the deal, according to Iranian officials, to amplify its warnings about the dire consequences of renewing U.N. sanctions.

Six European and Western diplomats said the so-called E3 of Britain, France and Germany had agreed in principle to begin the process, although they would still wait to see how significant Iran’s latest steps were before taking a final decision.

“Launching the process aims to resolve the problematic issues and save the deal,” said a European diplomatic source.

“It’s not automatic that U.N sanctions will follow. If we decided to do that (reimpose U.N. sanctions) it would mean that we have decided to put the final nail in the coffin.”

Under the terms of the 2015 deal, if any party believes another is not upholding their commitments they can refer the issue to a Joint Commission comprising Iran, Russia, China, the three European powers, and the European Union.

They then have 15 days to resolve their differences, but can choose to extend the period by consensus between all the parties.

However, if it is not extended the process escalates and can ultimately lead to the reimposition of sanctions that were in place under previous U.N. resolutions – known as a “snapback” —  unless the U.N. Security Council decided otherwise.

Diplomats said that unless Iran’s upcoming violations crossed an unacceptable threshold, the Europeans would focus on extending the process rather than pushing towards sanctions. It is unclear what the breaking point for the European powers is.

US snapback? 

“This is not a step we want to take but Iran’s actions are leaving us little option other than to respond within the parameters of the agreement,” Britain’s envoy to the U.N. Karen Pierce said.

“Should we be forced down the path of triggering the DRM (mechanism) we would do so in order to find a diplomatic way forward with the aim of protecting the agreement.”

Three diplomats said the E3, in particular France, were lobbying Russia and China to get them on board to show unity between the five, even though Moscow and Beijing oppose launching the process for now.

A senior Iranian official involved in nuclear talks said Iran had been informed the E3 wanted to launch the mechanism.

“If they do it, Iran will act accordingly. If they want to save this deal, they have to keep their promises, otherwise Iran will take further steps,” he said, adding that the Europeans were being bullied by the United States.

The Europeans could also back down should Iran not act in January. They are hoping the first transaction as part of a humanitarian trade channel they have been working on for more than a year could be a small carrot to convince Tehran to reassess its position.

Coinciding with the European move, the U.S. State Department issued a legal reasoning seen by Reuters that concluded that the United States can trigger the “snapback” provisions of the nuclear deal despite having pulled out of the agreement, a stance that could increase pressure on the Europeans to do so.

“There isn’t a direct link between the two (the European move and the U.S. legal reasoning), but we have always made it clear we want the Europeans to return to sanctions,” a U.S. official said. “That continues to be the case.”

Police banned public gatherings in parts of New Delhi and other cities for a third day Friday and cut internet services to try to stop growing protests that have so far left eight people dead and more than 1,200 others detained.

The protests have targeted a new citizenship law that opponents say threatens the secular nature of Indian democracy in favor of a Hindu state.

Demonstrations are planned around India as opposition to a new law that provides a path to citizenship has quickly expanded from predominantly Muslim universities and communities to a much wider section of the Indian public.

While some see the law as a slight against Muslims, others, including Hindu conservatives in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own Bharatiya Janata Party, fear it will encourage immigration to India, where public services for its 1.3 billion people are already highly strained.

“In effect, some of the BJP’s own rank and file, the very people the party has sought to help, have come out against the law,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center.

Kugelman said that the government’s failure to respond to the protests, except to accuse political opponents of orchestrating them, is “likely to galvanize the protesters even more.”

A law banning the assembly of more than four people was imposed for a third day in parts of the Indian capital as well as in several cities in northeastern Assam state and the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where a motorized rickshaw driver was killed during a protest in the capital Lucknow.

A total of eight deaths have been reported so far, including five in Assam and two in southern Karnataka state.

Authorities erected roadblocks and turned areas around mosques in New Delhi, Lucknow and other Muslim-dominated areas into security fortresses to prevent widespread demonstrations after Friday prayers.

Police temporarily held 1,200 protesters in New Delhi alone on Thursday and hundreds of others were detained in other cities after they defied bans on assembly. Most protesters were released later in the day.

On Friday, New Delhi police rejected a permit application for a group representing Dalits, the lowest rung in in India’s caste hierarchy, to march from a mosque in Old Delhi to an 18th-century observatory where protesters have met every day since the law’s passage last week near India’s Parliament. Agitating students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islami were also expected to protest.

The legislation has sparked anger at what many see as the government’s push to bring India closer to a Hindu state. Critics say it’s the latest effort by Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government to marginalize India’s 200 million Muslims, and a violation of the country’s secular constitution.

Modi has defended it as a humanitarian gesture.

The protests come amid an ongoing crackdown in Muslim-majority Kashmir, the restive Himalayan region stripped of its semi-autonomous status and demoted from a state into a federal territory last summer. They also follow a contentious process in Assam meant to weed out foreigners in the country illegally. Nearly 2 million people were excluded from an official list of citizens, about half Hindu and half Muslim, and have been asked to prove their citizenship or else be considered foreign.

India is also building a detention center for some of the tens of thousands of people the courts are expected to ultimately determine have entered illegally. Modi’s interior minister, Amit Shah, has pledged to roll out the process nationwide.

Critics say the process is a thinly veiled plot to deport millions of Muslims.

The Modi government, which won a landslide reelection in May, had been able to push through those parts of its agenda without much opposition.

A new law being considered in Ethiopia is being called a threat to free speech and online expression.

Ethiopia’s “Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention and Suppression Proclamation” is in a draft stage, but if approved, it would criminalize online, broadcast or print speech that promotes hatred, said the London-based rights group Human Rights Watch in a press statement Friday. It defines this as anything inciting “hatred, discrimination or attack against a person or an identifiable group, based on ethnicity, religion, race, gender or disability.” It also outlaws “dissemination of disinformation” or falsehoods, the statement added.

The law has been approved by the prime minister’s Cabinet but must still be approved by parliament.
 
But critics believe this law could be used to silence critical voices or political opponents. This, they say, was the case with an anti-terrorism law passed in 2009 which was used to

“These kinds of laws including, in the past, the anti-terrorism law, has been used to illegally stifle opposition,” said Befeqadu Hailu, the executive director of the Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), speaking to VOA Amharic. “So there is a concern that there hasn’t been enough discussion over these laws.”   

Supporters of the law believe it is necessary, particularly to stop people from inflaming ethnic hatred.
 
Ethiopia has endured a tumultuous year of ethnic tension. In June, an Army general from the Amhara ethnic group led a

Human Rights Watch agrees that the threat of ethnic violence is real, but says a law like this is not the answer.

“The Ethiopian government is under increasing pressure to respond to rising communal violence that has at times been exacerbated by speeches and statements shared online,” said Laetitia Bader, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But an ill-construed law that opens the door for law enforcement officials to violate rights to free expression is no solution.”

The use of hate speech laws around the world shows that authorities have often abused them for political purposes, Human Rights Watch said.
 

The Democratic presidential candidates held their liveliest debate yet Thursday in Los Angeles, California.  Seven contenders were on the debate stage and clashed over the economy, health care, climate change, campaign finance reform and who best can defeat President Donald Trump next year.  VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington

Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to preside over a lavish ceremony in Macau on Friday marking the 20th anniversary of its hand-over to Chinese rule, and the swearing in of another Beijing-backed city government.

Xi is also due to announce policies aimed at diversifying the former Portuguese colony’s casino-dependent economy, in what is being seen as a reward for its loyalty, in contrast to nearby Hong Kong and its months of anti-government turmoil.

The measures are expected to include a new yuan-denominated stock exchange and policies to further integrate Macau with the mainland.

“‘Love China, love Macau’ has become the core value of the whole society … every party deeply understands Macau and China’s future and destiny are closely related,” Xi said at a celebratory gala dinner on Thursday.

Xi also joined chorus singers to participate in a rendition of patriotic song “Ode to My Motherland.” Dressed in a suit with a red tie and accompanied by his wife, he sang on stage as he clapped his hands.

His speech on Friday will be closely watched and comes at the end of a three-day visit marked by tight security and border controls to prevent any spillover of dissent from the former British colony of Hong Kong.

Journalists, activists and even the heads of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong were barred from entering the city in the run-up to Xi’s visit. Macau authorities have not commented on the issue.

Ferry and light rail services have been restricted for the visit with operators citing security concerns.

Incoming Macau chief executive Ho Iat-seng will be sworn in for a five-year term along with his team of new secretaries in the morning.

Macau returned to Chinese rule on Dec. 20, 1999, with the same “one country, two systems” formula aimed at preserving autonomy under which Hong Kong is governed.

While protesters in Hong Kong, across the mouth of the Pearl River, are furious by what they see as Beijing’s erosion of their freedoms, Macau has seen little dissent.

Protests are very rare in the territory. More than half of its 620,000 population immigrated from China in recent decades.
Macau’s cluster of islands have been decked out ahead of the anniversary with national flags and red banners hanging over schools, office towers and draped along roads.

Xi has met government officials and business leaders during his stay, praised the patriotic nature of education in Macau and lauded the territory for upholding national security.

Seven leading U.S. Democratic presidential candidates squared off in a spirited debate late Thursday, with quick attacks on the newly impeached President Donald Trump as the most corrupt leader in the country’s history.

All the challengers seeking the Democratic nomination to take on Trump in next year’s national election said they supported the House of Representatives’ adoption 24 hours before of two articles of impeachment accusing Trump of abusing the power of the presidency to benefit himself politically and obstruction of Congress.

“We need to restore the integrity of the presidency,” said former Vice President Joe Biden, the consistent front-runner in national polls of Democrats for the party’s nomination. Later, Biden, commenting on the sharp political division in the U.S. between Republicans and Democrats that has widened in the three years of the Trump presidency, said he refuses “to accept the premise that we can never get together again.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist running second behind Biden in many polls, called Trump “a pathological liar” who has “sold out the working people of this country.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts described Trump as “the most corrupt president in a century.”

“The president is not king in America,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said. She compared Trump’s actions soliciting Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son to the Watergate political corruption scandal of the 1970s that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon as he faced certain impeachment.

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Trump “has made it clear he will stop at nothing to hold on to power.”

The candidates, standing on a debate stage at a Los Angeles university, aimed repeated attacks at Trump as a failed president, only occasionally aiming their attacks on each other.

Nominating contests

It was the sixth debate of the presidential campaign, the second from the last before Democratic Party nominating contests start in six weeks, with caucuses in the farm state of Iowa followed quickly in the weeks after by primary elections in New Hampshire and numerous other states. The seven candidates on the debate stage constituted the smallest number yet, down from at least 10 in previous encounters, as other candidates have dropped out of the race or failed to meet national Democratic Party requirements for fundraising and voter support in multiple polls.

An obvious flaw in Thursday night’s debate was the dearth of African Americans or people of color on the stage. Sen. Kamala Harris of California recently dropped out of the race because of a shortage of cash, while Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro have been unable to meet the Democratic National Committee’s increasingly challenging standing in the polls.

“It’s both an honor and disappointment to be the lone candidate of color on the stage,” said Yang, an Asian American entrepreneur. He said that he hoped Booker, an African American, would be back on stage for the next debate.

One wild card candidate missing, too, from last night’s lineup was late entrant Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire publishing magnate and former New York mayor. He is is spending his own money on an expensive television advertising campaign to increase his stature in vote-rich California, the largest U.S. state, where Democrats will cast ballots in an early March nominating election.

The question of electability is a pointed concern for millions of Democratic voters. Many voters will likely base their choice of a candidate on a hunch that he or she will have the best chance to take on the Trump to try to make him a single-term president and oust him from the White House, assuming he will be acquitted when his impeachment charges go to trial in the U.S. Senate.

US economy

Several of the candidates assailed Trump’s oversight of the U.S. economy, even as the world’s biggest economy is enjoying the country’s lowest unemployment rate in five decades.

Biden said that despite robust hiring by U.S, businesses, middle-class workers are “getting crushed. We have to make sure they have an even shot.”

Buttigieg said, “Folks aren’t measuring” their economic well-being “by the Dow Jones” stock index, hovering near an all-time high and frequently touted by Trump as the standard for the country’s economic success.

Warren said the U.S. economy “works well for the people with money,” but not others.

The debate at Loyola Marymount University came after the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against Trump late Wednesday for abusing the power of the presidency to benefit himself politically and obstructing a congressional investigation of his actions.

National polls of Democratic voters have shown the 77-year-old Biden, a politically left-of-center Washington fixture on his third run for the Democratic presidential nomination, consistently ahead of two other more progressive challengers who also are in their 70s, Sanders and Warren, a former Harvard law professor.

Buttigieg, Klobuchar and two others on the debate stage, wealthy environmentalist Tom Steyer and Yang, trail behind the top three, as do other candidates who did not make the debate stage after failing to meet the national Democratic Party’s requirements for fundraising and a high enough standing in the polls.

Demcratic field of candidates

The one-time Democratic field of more than two dozen candidates has steadily shrunk, as many candidates have dropped out of the chase for the party’s nomination for lack of money and little voter support.

More Democratic candidates who did not qualify for the sixth debate continue to campaign, still hoping to make a connection with voters before voting starts in earnest early in 2020.

Biden has touted his electability chances against Trump in hypothetical matchups between the two.

Sanders and Warren also often poll ahead of Trump, as does the 37-year-old Buttigieg. But Biden usually fares better against Trump than the other three, while an occasional poll has Trump winning some of the matchups.

The polls perhaps led Trump to assume Biden would be his 2020 opponent, as he singled out the former vice president in his monthslong quest to get Ukraine to investigate him and his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company.

Trump has described the request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “perfect,” but it is at the center of the impeachment case against Trump, which is now heading to the Senate for a trial in the weeks to come — assuming Republicans, Democrats and White House lawyers can work out rules for the proceedings.

Trump remains highly unlikely to be convicted in the Republican-majority Senate and removed from office, but he now is the third U.S. president to be impeached in the nearly two-and-a-half-century history of the United States. All of the Democratic contenders supported Trump’s impeachment.

The Senate approved a bill Thursday to crack down on robocalls, sending to President Donald Trump a measure meant to combat a persistent and costly problem for Americans.

The bill, which Trump is expected to sign, would stiffen enforcement and require that phone companies offer free consumer tools to identify and block scam calls. It also calls for tougher fines when individuals intentionally violate the law.

It echoes and builds on preventive measures that the Federal Communications Commission and state attorneys general have pushed for. It potentially speeds up steps the telecom industry is already taking to protect Americans from the billions of scam calls made each month.

Maureen Mahoney, policy analyst for Consumer Reports, said the measure was an important step, though “robocalls are not going to disappear overnight.”

Robocalls have flooded Americans’ phones because technology makes it cheap and easy to call people. Enforcement is difficult, with many scammers overseas. Even with additional enforcement powers provided in the bill, that’s not likely to change, Mahoney said, which is why it’s important to give consumers free tools that can stop calls.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously, on a voice vote, following House approval earlier this month.

The bill, called the Traced Act, requires phone companies to offer free call-blocking apps and verify that the number calling you is real. That’s an issue because fraudsters fake numbers to look as though they’re coming from the IRS or others to trick you.

The bill also gives the FCC more time to fine robocallers and lets the agency fine offenders without warning them first. The bill also pushes the agency to work with the Justice Department to go after criminals. Over the long term, that could act as a deterrent.

However, the final bill leaves out some protections that were in a previous version of a House bill, Mahoney notes. That version would have broadened the definition of what a robocall is and made it harder for companies like banks and cruise-ship vacation sellers to reach consumers.

The FCC has already told phone companies that they can block unwanted calls without getting customers’ permission first, which could help increase the use of phone-blocking apps. That order did not require the tools be made free, while the bill does. The agency has said it expected the deployment of a new phone-number system to begin this year. Many major phone companies have begun rolling it out, but to work well all carriers must adopt it.

The phone industry trade group, USTelecom, applauded the bill’s passage, saying it “will supercharge” the fight against robocallers.

But experts expect that as phone companies put more tools in place to combat robocalls, scammers will adapt and try different techniques to reach victims.

A jailed Catalan separatist leader was entitled to immunity as a member of the European Parliament, the EU’s highest court ruled on Thursday.

Oriol Junqueras was sentenced to 13 years in prison in October for his role in a 2017 Catalan independence referendum that was deemed illegal by Spanish courts. He was elected an MEP while in prison awaiting the verdict and has not been able to take up his seat.

The EU court ruled anyone elected to the European Parliament “enjoys immunities” to travel and take part in parliamentary sessions and an MEP cannot be subject to detention or legal proceedings because of views expressed or votes cast.

The immunity does not, however, apply to an MEP who has committed an offense. The Spanish Supreme Court, which had referred the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), must now decide how to comply with the verdict.

Junqueras’ lawyer Andreu Van den Eynde told reporters the ruling should push Spain’s Supreme Court to overturn his client’s conviction and grant his immediate release from jail.

“I believe that, one way or another, the State Attorney must accept we are right,” he said at a news conference outside the prison where Junqueras is being held.

The ruling could jeopardize efforts by Spain’s Socialists to court Junqueras’ Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) party, whose support they need to form a government and break a political deadlock after two inconclusive elections this year.

ERC’s parliamentary spokesperson Marta Vilalta said the party would not return to negotiations until the Socialists and the state attorney react to the verdict.

“What they do and say is very important to show that indeed they are abandoning … the path of repression and are seriously embracing the political path,” she said.

The acting government said the state attorney would analyze the ruling and present findings in the coming days and that it wanted “a new phase of dialog, negotiations and agreement” on Catalonia.

The EU court did not examine Junqueras’ criminal case and sentencing. The ruling only responds to the Supreme Court’s questions on the impact of Junqueras being elected as a European lawmaker, a CJEU source said.

If Spanish authorities had wanted to prevent Junqueras from traveling to the European Parliament, they would have had to request the Parliament waive his immunity, the ruling said.

Other Catalan leaders

Two other Catalan politicians won European Parliament seats in May but fears of returning to Spain, where they face arrest warrants, prevented them from collecting their MEP credentials. Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comin are both living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

“Today European justice did more to resolve the (Catalan) conflict than two years of repression by Spanish governments and the shameful silence of the European institutions,” Puigdemont said at a news conference in Brussels.

He described Spain’s continuing imprisonment of Junqueras after today’s ruling as a “kidnapping.”

Separately, a Barcelona court ruled the pro-independence president of Catalonia’s regional government, Quim Torra, should be barred from holding public office for 18 months after he refused to remove symbols of support for jailed separatists from public buildings during April’s election campaign. Torra said he would appeal.

The sole Congressman who cast a split vote on the decision to impeach President Donald Trump said he knew the decision might not make him popular in a politically divided time, but he also felt it was the right thing to do.

“Here’s the thing. I voted my heart without fear about politics at all,” said Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden, a member of the class of 2018, on Thursday. “My conclusion was that this wasn’t about me. It was about the president and his actions; about our republic and about our Constitution.”

Golden joined with almost all of his Democratic colleagues on Wednesday in voting to impeach Trump for abuse of power, but broke with all but two Democrats in voting against impeaching trump for obstruction of Congress. Both articles of impeachment ultimately passed.

Golden represents a vast, rural, politically mixed district in Maine and is headed into an election year in which he will most likely face a hard fight to stay in Congress. He won his seat in 2018 over incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin, and emerged victorious only after a ranked-choice voting system was used in a Congressional race for the first time in U.S. history. The district, Maine’s 2nd Congressional, supported Trump by more than 10 percentage points in 2016.

Augusta resident Ken McCullough, the kind of Republican voter Golden might need to win over the stay in office, said he felt Golden had reelection in mind when he made his decision.

“I think he was looking at his own political stance, and his chance for re-election. Because he couldn’t follow through with a true vote,” McCullough said.

No other Congress members split their vote, and most voted along party lines. Democratic Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey voted against both articles of impeachment. Van Drew is expected to switch parties. Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii voted “present.”

Golden said prior to Wednesday’s vote that the House investigation “unearthed a pattern of evidence that demonstrates the corrupt intent on the part of the president” and associates to leverage presidential power to help win re-election.

However, he also said Trump’s efforts to obstruct Congress didn’t raise to the level of a crime, and he felt the House should’ve first used the courts to enforce subpoenas.

Golden reiterated those positions Thursday.

Some high profile liberal voters didn’t take kindly to Golden’s stance, such as author and Maine resident Stephen King, who tweeted prior to the vote: “If my congressman, Jared Golden, votes for only one article of impeachment, I will work with all my might to see him defeated next year.”

The Maine Democratic Party, though, is standing behind Golden. Maine’s only other representative, Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, is an outspoken Trump critic and voted for both articles of impeachment.

“We’re united on holding the president accountable for the abuse of power. Both of our congresspeople voted to,” said Holly Burke, a spokesperson for the party.

The Pentagon said Thursday that it had found no threat in its review of the roughly 850 military students from Saudi Arabia studying in the United States, following a shooting by a Saudi Air Force officer that killed three people at a base in Florida this month. 

“We can report that no information indicating an immediate threat scenario was discovered,” Garry Reid, a director for defense intelligence, counterintelligence, law enforcement and security, told Pentagon reporters. 

The conclusion cleared the way for the U.S. military services to, at their discretion, lift a freeze on operational training that had grounded Saudi military pilots and had restricted Saudi students to classwork. 

The FBI has said U.S. investigators believe Saudi Air Force Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, 21, acted alone when he launched his attack at a U.S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida, on December 6. A deputy sheriff fatallly shot Alshamrani during the attack.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy named Volodymyr Yelchenko, 60, his envoy to Washington on Thursday. In choosing the soft-spoken but seasoned diplomat, he is putting his faith in Yelchenko to steer relations with the administration of President Donald Trump at a sensitive time.
 
Ukraine’s new envoy to Washington is no stranger to difficult situations, but he may face some of his biggest professional challenges yet, as he takes up his post in a city politically divided over whether Trump abused the power of his office by withholding military aid to Ukraine for personal political gain.
 
Yelchenko has been Kyiv’s ambassador to the United Nations since December 2015. His tenure included a two-year rotating seat on the powerful U.N. Security Council from 2016-17.
 
He came to New York at the height of the crisis in eastern Ukraine, after Russia annexed Crimea and fomented an armed separatist insurgency in the country’s east.
 
Yelchenko, though calm and even-tempered in public, did not shrink from confrontation with his legendary Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, at numerous Security Council meetings on the crisis.
 
“Ambassador Yelchenko was quiet one-on-one, but there was nothing shy about him when he represented his country in the Security Council,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wrote of him in her recent book, “With All Due Respect.” She described the Ukrainian envoy as “a genuinely kind man,” and one of Washington’s “best friends” on the Security Council.

The Ukrainian diplomat recognized early on the value of public praise in the Trump administration, regularly complimenting Ambassador Haley on Twitter.
 
He also was never reluctant to engage with the international press corps who cover the United Nations.
 
This is Yelchenko’s second stint as U.N. ambassador, having previously held the post from 1997 to 2000. He also was Ukraine’s deputy minister for foreign affairs from 2000-2001.
 
While some might consider Washington in its current political climate a potential “hot seat” for any Ukrainian envoy, Yelchenko is a veteran of difficult postings, having been Kyiv’s ambassador to Moscow from July 2010 until December 2015.
 
Some of his former Security Council counterparts describe him as “a very talented and principled diplomat,” “extremely professional and true to the facts,” a “tough negotiator,” and having a “great sense of humor.” They express confidence he will be successful in Washington.
 
Additionally, Yelchenko has a lighter side. He is passionate about progressive and heavy metal rock music and often uses his Twitter feed to mention some of his favorite bands.

Sent from Viber https://t.co/lP75IEQDt3pic.twitter.com/aAQ6XY5Jdp

— Volodymyr Yelchenko (@YelchenkoUN) December 12, 2019

 

 

The legal thriller “Dark Waters” by filmmaker Todd Haynes follows corporate defense attorney Rob Billot as he investigates over a 20-year period the causes of widespread illness and death of people and cattle in a farm community of West Virginia. In the movie, health problems emerge after the chemical company DuPont dumps toxic chemicals in local waters. Based on a true story, the film aims to entertain but also to increase awareness about how hazardous chemicals pose a threat to public health in America and the world over. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
 

Lawyers representing human trafficking victims want a single federal judge to oversee multiple lawsuits alleging that major hotel chains have ignored human trafficking taking place on their premises. 

Attorneys have asked a federal panel to consolidate at least 21 such lawsuits pending in 11 states into a single case in federal court in Columbus, arguing that the lawsuits contain the same basic allegations.

“Human traffickers have capitalized on the hospitality industry’s refusal to adopt and implement industry-wide standards and anti-trafficking policies and procedures, including, but not limited to, training hotel staff on how to identify obvious and well-known signs of sex trafficking,” according to a court filing earlier this month seeking to consolidate the cases.

In Columbus, a woman who was trafficked for months has sued three hotel chains, alleging they knew she was being forced to work as a prostitute in hotel rooms for days on end — forced to serve up to 10 johns a day — but hotel employees didn’t do anything.

The lawsuit says hotel staff overlooked easily observed signs of trafficking, including trash cans full of condoms, payment for rooms in cash, and refusal of housekeeping services.

“Despite her desperate pleas and screams for help, after being beaten or choked at the Defendants’ hotel properties, the hotel staff ignored her and did nothing to prevent the ongoing and obvious torture she endured while she was regularly trafficked for sex at Defendants’ hotel properties,” according to the March 9 lawsuit. 

In Virginia in 2012, a woman said she was trafficked out of hotels owned by Wyndham Hotels — such as a Super 8 in Hampton, Virginia — by a man she sought refuge with after facing homelessness. The woman was forced to perform sex acts on men at least seven times a day but sometimes twice that and her trafficker paid hotel staff to look the other way, a Dec. 2 lawsuit alleged.

The men, many of them repeat customers, entered through the front lobby, the lawsuit said.

“I felt invisible the whole entire time,” the 32-year-old woman told The Associated Press. “That was the worst part, is knowing that people knew and nobody was willing to help.”

The AP does not identify victims of sexual assault.

The abuse happened over 43 days until she escaped when her trafficker fell asleep, exhausted from beating her, according to the lawsuit. The Richmond woman is now married and working as a restaurant general manager.

Companies named in the lawsuits, including Choice Hotels International, Inc., Inter-Continental Hotels Corps., and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, declined to comment on the lawsuit but all said they take the issue of human trafficking seriously and do everything they can to prohibit it. That includes training hotel employees on ways to identify trafficking.

“We condemn human trafficking in any form,” Wyndham Hotels said in a statement.

The American Hotel and Lodging Association says a national campaign is underway to train every hotel employee in the U.S. on ways to recognize and stop human trafficking.

About 1,500 victims of human trafficking have retained lawyers in the various lawsuits and as many as 7,000 are expected over time, said Paul Pennock, an attorney with the New York-based firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which is leading the efforts to consolidate the lawsuits.

A settlement could run into the billions of dollars, he said, because of the size of the problem and the evidence that hotels have long known of the trafficking.

“When you have something of that magnitude, the hotel industry, that dictates almost everything that happens in a hotel down to the writing pads next to your phone, need to take account of it and do something about it,” Pennock said.

A decision to consolidate the lawsuits is expected within a few weeks. The complaints have been filed in Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington State.