The leader of a prominent rights group in Pakistan has welcomed the United States’ decision this week to sanction a former Pakistani law enforcement official for human rights violations.

Manzoor Pashteen, the leader of Pakistan’s Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) , which advocates for Pashtun rights and an end to military in Pashtun-populated regions in the country, told VOA that his movement welcomes the decision and looks up to the U.S. for “upholding justice.”

“The decision by U.S. Treasury Department to blacklist Rao Anwar and place economic sanctions on him was a good step. Pashtuns feel that America will take steps to uphold justice,” Pashteen told VOA.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) last week took action against 18 individuals from six countries, sanctioning them for their roles in human rights abuses.

Sanctioned

Among those sanctioned was Anwar, a retired Pakistani police officer.

“Rao Anwar is designated for being responsible for or complicit in or having directly or indirectly engaged in serious human rights abuse,” the U.S. Treasury said in a statement released on International Human Rights Day, December 10.

In reaction to Anwar’s designation, Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) said this week that he is under trial.

“Given the scope of Global Magnitsky’s act we are surprised that the treasury department failed to hold anyone responsible for the most egregious, extensively reported and independently verified human rights violations and abuses being perpetrated in an occupied Jammu and Kashmir by Indian occupation forces,” Mohammad Faisal told VOA during a press conference last week, accusing the U.S of not going after India.

Members of PTM credit their movement for the action against Rao.

Mohsin Dawar, a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly and a prominent leader of PTM, said their advocacy group played a key role in raising awareness about human rights abuses by security forces in Pakistan.

“The sanctions placed on Rao Anwar by the U.S. Department of Treasury are a validation, a type of recognition of PTM’s stance,” Dawar told VOA.

“If we did not pressurize investigation, he would still be serving as a police officer and instead of killing 400 people, he would have killed hundreds more,” he added.

Fake encounters

Anwar has been accused of staging numerous fake police encounters in Karachi, in which hundreds of individuals have been allegedly killed.

The most high-profile case that led to the emergence of PTM was the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a 27-year-old shopkeeper-turned-model, during an encounter with police in Karachi.

Anwar, who was the senior superintendent of police (SSP) in the Malir District of Karachi at the time, was in charge the operation that led to Mehsud’s death.

Police said at the time that Mehsud had been killed in a shootout with members of the Pakistani Taliban, a U.S.-designated terror group operating in Pakistan.

But an internal inquiry cast doubt on that claim, saying Mehsud had no evident link to any militant group.

The killing sparked days of protests and a weekslong march in Pashtun-dominated northwestern Pakistan last year, and led to the establishment of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, also known as the Pashtun Protection Movement, that has since held dozens of rallies across the country demanding basic rights for ethnic Pashtuns.

The movement demands an end to extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, removal of military checkpoints, and the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission.

The PTM charges that Mehsud was one of several hundred Pashtun men racially profiled and killed by Arwan in Karachi.

“It was not until we raised our voices about Naqeeb (Mehsud) that an investigation finally took place and the other encounters were revealed,” Dawar, of PTM, said.

The U.S Treasury Department told VOA the blacklisting is not merely a motion of condemnation, but has serious consequences.

“As a result of Treasury’s designation, all of the property and interests in property of Rao Anwar Khan, and of any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by Rao Anwar Khan, individually, or with other designated persons, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons, are blocked and must be reported to OFAC,” the U.S. Treasury told VOA last week in response to an inquiry.

“Accordingly, even when designated individuals do not have bank accounts in the United States, our sanctions often disrupt their ability to do international banking or business,” the Treasury said.

Powerful officials

PTM leaders accuse Pakistani security officials of abusing their power and getting away with rights violations.

“Rao Anwar and many generals, who abuse their power like him, leave this country and settle abroad after committing or are party to crimes in Pakistan,” Pashteen told VOA.

Some Pakistani analysts, such as retired Pakistani General Talat Masood, acknowledge that Anwar was treated differently by the government.

“Rao was given VIP treatment,” he said.

“He may have been used by political parties and the establishment in Pakistan, it’s unknown. What is known is that he exercised a lot of power … power beyond his ranking,” he added.

Hussain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., said he thinks Anwar’s designation is a “warning shot to Pakistan.”

“Pakistan could shrug off the U.S. sanctions against Rao Anwar as it has ignored similar sanctions against various jihadi leaders, but eventually it has to recognize the limitations of its current policies,” Haqqani said.

Accusations

PTM accuses the Pakistani military of forcing evictions of Pashtuns from the tribal region that borders Afghanistan, and accuses the military of extra judicial killings and forced disapprences of ethnic Pashtuns.

Pakistan’s government denies the charges and accuses PTM of receiving support from outside the country.

“On the PTM website, they have got a number that states the amount of funds they have collected from Pashtuns around the world. But tell us how much money did you get from the NDS [Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security] to run your campaign? How much money did RAW [India’s Research and Analysis Wing] give you for the first dharna [sit-in protest] in Islamabad?” Major General Asif Ghafoor, spokesperson for the military, said in May of this year.

Former ambassador Haqqani, however, believes the situation in Kashmir and Anwar’s case are two unrelated issues.

“It does not reflect well on the Imran Khan government that it has to defend Rao Anwar by invoking the Kashmir issue even though Rao Anwar’s murderous actions have nothing to do with anything happening in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

VOA’s Rabia Pir and Mudassir Shah contributed to this report from Pakistan.
 

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is holding a first-ever forum in an effort to drum up international support for tens of millions of people displaced by war, poverty, repression and other woes. The Global Refugee Forum, taking place December 16-18 in Geneva, will seek to gather leaders from governments, business and civil society to work together to find solutions for the unprecedented number of people — more than 70 million, according to the U.N. — displaced in their home countries or abroad. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.

Libya has two governments. They are at war with each other and both have TV news channels.

On a channel supporting the Libyan National Army, which controls Libya’s east, a presenter in military fatigues on Sunday sat in front of pictures of soldiers, weapons, and a view the Libyan capital. “We are getting inside Tripoli,” he said.

On a channel supporting the Government of National Accord, which holds the west, including the capital Tripoli, a spokesperson proclaimed the assault had failed, and eastern forces remained in the suburbs. “They were not able to enter,” he said.

Tripoli residents say besides the dangers, ongoing battles have kept Libya in a state of financial crisis and stymied attempts to develop new businesses or attract investors.

On a break from the frontlines to celebrate a wedding in Tripoli, Mohammad Bashir, a soldier with the GNA, said the fighting had subsided by Sunday morning, but nine months of war have already had a lasting impact on his life.

“This war has kidnapped my youth,” he said.

International supporters

The LNA is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France and Russia, but it is still not strong enough to capture Tripoli, Akl, the analyst, said.

The GNA is recognized by the United Nations and the European Union, and is supported by Turkey, Qatar and Italy. Still, it is unable to fully repel the LNA, he added.

With the exception of Turkey, all of the international supporters deny providing direct military support to either side, but weapons from several countries have been observed in the field.

On Saturday, the Turkish parliament met to solidify plans to send troops to Libya if requested by the GNA, which has not officially responded to the offer.

Locals said the Turkish offer alone may have prompted Haftar to announce the assault. It was one of many speeches since April in which he declared his forces were poised to swiftly capture the city. In the speech, he called the coming days, the “zero hour” for GNA forces.

GNA soldiers fortified their lines around the city in anticipation of the attack, but Mustafa El-Majee, spokesman for the GNA operations, later reported gaining ground after the battles.

“We think he (Haftar) is playing all of his cards,” Majee said in an interview Sunday evening. “We hope this is his ‘zero hour.’”

 

Protests in New Delhi against a controversial citizenship law turned violent Sunday when police entered a university campus and used tear gas against students demonstrating.

Students at Jamia Millia Islamia University reported police firing tear gas in their library and beating up students with batons before sealing all campus gates. At least two dozen students are currently being treated in a Delhi hospital.

Student organizers blamed outsiders for the violence, saying in a statement that they only endorsed peaceful, non-violent protests.

Earlier in the day, three buses in New Delhi were set on fire. Police said six officers were injured in the melee.

At least fifteen metro stations in Delhi were closed on Sunday as a result of violent protests. Activists on Twitter have called for protests outside the police station, spreading information on how to travel despite the closures. As many as a thousand protesters were said to be in the streets Sunday evening.

Yogendra Yadav, prominent activist and leader of Swaraj India, said 125 injured people had been brought to two hospitals near Jamia and 44 students have been detained at two nearby police stations.#JamiaProtest LIVE: https://t.co/aLz74785Lf

— scroll.in (@scroll_in) December 15, 2019

The protests in the capital come as India’s northeastern state of Assam also continues to protest the law in fear that it will grant citizenship to tens of thousands of Hindu migrants living illegally in their region.

The passing of the bill last Wednesday marks the first time the country has introduced religion as a criterion for citizenship. It makes six religious groups – Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists – who fled religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before 2015, eligible to become Indian nationals.

Questioning why the bill has excluded Muslims, opposition parties, human rights groups and many intellectuals called it a ploy by Modi’s government to push a Hindu nationalist agenda, marginalize Muslims and weaken the country’s secular foundations.   

 

The United States secretly expelled two Chinese embassy officials in September after they drove onto a sensitive military base in Virginia, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The newspaper, which cited people with knowledge of the episode, said it appeared to be the first time in more than 30 years that the U.S. has expelled Chinese diplomats on suspicion of espionage.

At least one of the diplomats was believed to be an intelligence officer operating under cover, the Times said.

The Times said the diplomats, accompanied by their wives, drove up to the checkpoint at the entrance to a sensitive installation near Norfolk, Virginia that includes special operations forces.

The guard saw that they didn’t have permission to enter and directed them to go through the gates, turn around and exit.

The Chinese officials continued onto the base, evading military personnel pursuing them until they were forced to stop by fire trucks blocking their path, according to the Times.

It said the officials said they didn’t understand the guard’s instructions and got lost.

Weeks after the incident, the State Department placed restrictions on the activities of Chinese diplomats, in what it said was a response to years-old Chinese regulations limiting the movements of U.S. diplomats.

 

The Office of the U.N.’s top human rights official is urging India to scrap its new Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which it says discriminates against Muslims.

Violent protests erupted in the Indian states of Assam and Tripura in the wake of last week’s passage of India’s new citizenship law, killing three people and Injuring many others, including police officers.

The U.N. human rights office says it deplores the government’s brutal crackdown on those protesting the enactment of the law, which it calls fundamentally discriminatory.  The amended legislation grants citizenship rights to six religious minorities fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

But human rights spokesman, Jeremy Laurence, says the law does not extend the same protection to Muslims.

“The amended law would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India’s constitution and India’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention for the elimination of Racial Discrimination, to which India is a state party,” he said. 

Laurence says India’s Citizenship Act could violate these international covenants, which prohibit racial, ethnic or religious discrimination.  

“Although India’s broader naturalization laws remain in place, these amendments will have a discriminatory effect on people’s access to nationality.  All migrants, regardless of their migration status, are entitled to respect, protection and fulfillment of their human rights,”  he said.

A Muslim political party along with lawyers and rights groups have challenged the law in India’s Supreme Court, arguing that it violates the country’s secular constitution. The U.N. human rights office says it hopes the justices will consider whether the law is compatible with India’s international human rights obligations.

 

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has tweeted a photo of herself sitting on the floor of a German train surrounded by lots of bags – an image that has drawn plenty of comment online about the performance of German railways.

Thunberg posted the tweet late Saturday with the comment “traveling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home!”

Traveling on overcrowded trains through Germany. And I’m finally on my way home! pic.twitter.com/ssfLCPsR8o

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 14, 2019

Some Twitter users pitied the 16-year-old Swedish activist for not being able to get a proper seat on the train for the long ride home from Madrid, where she was attending the U.N. climate change conference. Others wished her a safe trip home after months of traveling by trains and boats to different climate events in Europe and the United States.

Thunberg doesn’t fly on planes because it’s considered harmful to the climate. Last week she was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for her efforts to prod government and others to take faster actions in fighting climate change.

German railways Deutsche Bahn, which used to be famous for its punctuality, has come under fire in recent years for delays, last-minute train cancellations and expensive ticket fares.

Deutsche Bahn replied to the teenager’s tweet, wishing her a good trip back home and adding that “we continue working hard on getting more trains, connections and seats.”

In the picture on Twitter, Thunberg is sitting on the floor at the end of a rail car with her back leaning against a suitcase, staring out of a window. There’s an empty food box next to her and more suitcases and backpacks piled up by her side.

 

A strong earthquake jolted the southern Philippines on Sunday, causing a three-story building to collapse and prompting people to rush out of shopping malls, houses and other buildings in panic, officials said.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the magnitude 6.9 quake struck an area about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) northwest of Padada town in Davao del Sur province. It had a depth of 30 kilometers (18 miles).

Ricardo Jalad, who heads the Office of Civil Defense, said his office received an initial report that a small three-story building collapsed in Padada as the ground shook and that authorities were checking if people got trapped inside. The building housed a grocery store, Jalad said without elaborating.

Officials in the southern cities of Davao and Cotabato, where the quake was felt strongly, suspended classes for Monday to allow checks on the stability of school buildings. Some cities and town lost their power due to the quake, officials said.

The Davao region has been hit by several earthquakes in recent months, causing deaths and injuries and damaging houses, hotels, malls and hospitals.

The Philippine archipelago lies on the so-called Pacific “Ring of fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

Gholam Mahaiuddin sighs softly as he thinks of his 14-year-old son, who was killed in the spring by a bomb dropped last century in the hills of Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan.

“We knew the mountain was dangerous,” said Mahaiuddin, who found his son’s remains after he didn’t come home one day.

“We were aware of mines but we could not find them. They were buried in the soft sand after the rain.”

Forty years after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan – and three decades since the conflict ended – the war’s legacy continues to claim lives across the country.

Mahaiuddin’s son, Moujtaba, was killed along with two friends, aged 12 and 14, on May 17 when they went looking for berries in this idyllic landscape where chocolate-colored mountains are topped with snow.

When none of them had returned the next day, Mahaiuddin and other residents from his tiny village, called Ahangaran, started searching.

“I found my son with just his chest and head left,” Mahaiuddin recalled.

Moujtaba and his friends had been killed by what is known as an AO-2.5 RTM submunition.

The cluster bombs were used extensively by Soviet forces, who dropped them like deadly rain across Afghanistan in the years following their December 1979 invasion.

Mahaiuddin, 44, remembers the war well. He said he used to bring tea to mujahedeen fighters who would hide in the mountains and launch ambushes against Soviet patrols.

More recently, the cluster weapons have been used in Syria, according to a 2016 Human Rights Watch report.

“It is the most dangerous, it is very sensitive to vibrations,” said Bachir Ahmad, who heads a team of deminers from the Danish Demining Group (DDG).

1980s battlefield

The humanitarian organization has been working in several Afghan provinces since 1999 to clear explosives left from a war most of the country’s current, young population never lived through.

The hills of Bamiyan, which is famous as the home of two giant 6th-century Buddha carvings that the Taliban blew up, have been extensively scoured for mines and other explosives.

Near the site of the blast that killed Moujtaba and his friends, DDG workers have painted white pathways showing which areas are clear of danger.

“This is the last battlefield we are cleaning in Bamiyan, it dates back to 1986,” said Habib Noor, the DDG’s head for the province.

Bamiyan, a region dominated by Shiite Hazaras and relatively unaffected by today’s violence ravaging the rest of Afghanistan, will soon be the first of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan where all known contaminated areas have been cleared.

The DDG found 26 explosive devices just in the area around Ahangaran.

“We explored the area with information from the people, finding locals who had fought up there,” Noor said.

Tedious work

At the site near Ahangaran visited by AFP, deminers worked under a bright blue sky, with a doctor and team leader always on hand.

The team of eight, wearing bright blue body armor, picked quietly at the ground, their silence broken only by the sound of crows crying and metal detectors buzzing.

Zarkha, 26, said she had found her first cluster bomb a few days earlier.

“I was very scared,” she said, describing how her team had carefully dug around the sensitive device and then destroyed it in a controlled explosion.

Last year, mines and other “explosive remnants of war” (ERW) killed or wounded 1,391 Afghans, according to government statistics. More than half of the victims were children.

“The explosive is still operable after one hundred years. The metal and plastic will degrade but not the explosives,” said Abdul Hakim Noorzai, DDG’s chief of demining operations based in Kabul.

Ahmad, the demining team leader, said he was angry his country remained devastated by the Soviet war.

“They destroyed our lives. Because of them we have to do demining instead of being a doctor or engineer or teacher,” he said, adding that he had been demining since 2003 and was bored with the tedious work.

While heading down the mountain, the team finds a gang of children playing outside the village’s modest school.

Nahida, 11, smiles shyly under the little white scarf covering her hair.

She remembers Moujtaba well. “He was my cousin. I cried when I learned that he was dead,” she said.

Asked if she knew anything about the war with the Soviets, she replied: “I don’t know where the bombs came from.”

A cleft lip or palate is one of the most common birth defects among infants. In developed countries like the U.S., corrective surgeries are often performed during the first couple of years of a child’s life. But in some places like Pakistan there are thousands of children with the birth defect, but not enough doctors who can perform the corrective surgery. Now there is hope thanks to a group of volunteers. VOA’s Asim Ali Rana has more from Gujrat, Pakistan in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard

Four years of a brutal civil war in Yemen has forced more than 4.3 million people to leave their homes. Many of the Yemenis desperately seeking safety are turning to neighboring Somalia.
 
Ranked as one of the 10 poorest countries in the world by the United Nations (UN), Somalia is considered one of the least politically stable countries, and faces a continued threat from al-Shabab jihadists.
 
Many Somalis who were living in the country during the 1980s conflict and the 1991 civil war outbreak fled to then-relatively stable Yemen. But the refugee movement has been reversed since late 2014, when a devastating military confrontation in Yemen, between the government and the Houthi rebels, spiraled into the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis.

One of the Yemeni refugees, Saleh al-Amodi, said he made it to Somalia in 2014 after a risky journey, in which he sailed on a small boat from the Gulf of Aden in southwest Yemen to Bosaso port in northeastern Somalia.
 
“I was lucky I made it safely to Somalia. A number of people have died in the journey through the sea after their boats sank. Sometimes clashes take place just before the coastal area of Yemen, and a missile might hit one of the fragile boats, sinking its passengers,” al-Amodi told VOA.
 
Weeks before he could leave, Al-Amodi sent his wife and two children to safety in Saudi Arabia. By the time he tried to join them in, Saudi authorities had already closed their borders. The family have been separated since then.
 
“Anyone who tries to illegally cross to neighboring countries like Saudi Arabia or Oman will be shot or arrested. I haven’t seen my family for almost five years,” al-Amodi said.
 
‘We are only seeking some dignity’
 
Al-Amodi was placed in a refugee camp in Khahda district, which is near the Somali capital, Mogadishu, shortly after his arrival. He said the camp can barely secure food, health care and education for Yemeni refugees.
 
“We are only seeking some dignity. The situation in Yemen is dangerous, and the situation here in Somalia is terrible. We depend on the support of local aid groups and individual donations that don’t meet the needs of the refugees. We don’t know what to do,” al-Amodi said.
 
Somalia is a member of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which obligates the country to allow entry in asylum-seekers. However, refugee groups said the country needs major support and capacity building in order to provide proper care for those who have been displaced.
 

Mohammed Abi, a Somali physician working with U.K.-based Muslim Aid in the Yemeni refugee camp of Khahda district, told VOA that the refugees are almost on the brink of starvation, with minimal access to food, water and medical aid.
 
“They can’t even ask people for help because they don’t speak the Somali language. We are suffering to provide medical aid to the 500 refugees in this camp,” Abi said.
 
According to the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR), at least 14,000 Yemeni refugees have sought shelter in Somalia since March 2015. The agency Thursday said it has worked with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to also help 5,087 Somali refugees return home from Yemen due to increased instability in the Persian Gulf country.
 
Kathryn Mahoney, a public information officer at UNHCR, told VOA the reverse refugee influx from Yemen to Somalia is an indicator of devastation Yemen has seen from years of violence.
 
“Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis – it is a life-threatening situation for all, refugees included. The situation has deteriorated so severely, that people have to make an impossible decision: stay in the world’s largest humanitarian crisis or go to one of the world’s largest refugee-producing countries,” Mahoney said.

Somalis in Yemen
 
Despite the conflict, an estimated 266,000 refugees and 10,000 asylum-seekers, mainly from Somalia, are believed to remain in Yemen.
 
Some Somali refugees who are living in Yemen say the country works as a transit station toward richer and more stable countries, such as to Saudi Arabia.
 
Abdulkadir Mohamed Ahmed, a Somali father of seven, told VOA his family had to change camps in Yemen four times in five years due to the conflict.
 
“I was living a good life,” Ahmed said. He said he had been running a clothing and shoe business in Mogadishu before being forced to flee with his wife and children during the height of the country’s civil war in 1992.
 
Now settled in Al Kharaz refugee camp, west of Yemen’s port city, Aden, Ahmed said two of his children have died: a 9-month-old son due to dehydration and a 19-year-old daughter due to illness. One of his sons embarked on a dangerous journey to Europe, reaching Switzerland, where he is now in limbo with no refugee status.
 
Ahmed said most Somali refugees feel trapped in Yemen, suffering from the lack of services in the camps and always at risk of being caught in the middle of the government-Houthi cross fire. Despite the difficulties, the prospects of returning to Somalia are unclear, as many have no means to support their families once they return.
 
“We don’t just want to be repatriated, we want to be resettled. If we get a small room and toilet in Somalia, I will go back there,” Ahmed said.
 
The Yemen conflict escalated after Iran-backed Houthis overran Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, from the Saudi-backed government in September 2014. In 2015, the conflict turned into a proxy war when an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched a military and economic campaign against the Houthis.

Search teams have failed to find the bodies of the last victims of a volcanic eruption in New Zealand. The official number of dead from Monday’s disaster stands at 15.

Police and navy divers have failed to find a body that was seen in the sea off New Zealand’s White Island the day after the eruption. The authorities said they faced “unique and challenging conditions.” The water has been contaminated by the volcano, and divers had to wear special protective equipment.

Another victim is thought to be near the crater. On Sunday, recovery teams again landed on the island, but neither of the two missing bodies have been found. It is unclear when another recovery attempt will be made.

Six bodies were retrieved Friday by soldiers, who were flown in despite the risk of another eruption. The remains have been taken to Auckland for postmortem examinations.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says retrieving the bodies of all of the victims is a priority.

“We know that reunification will not ease that sense of loss or grief, because I do not think anything can. But we felt an enormous duty of care as New Zealanders to make sure that we brought their family members back,” Arden said.

Police have officially named the first victim of the volcanic eruption.

Krystal Eve Browitt, a 21-year old Australian, was on holiday with her family. Identifying the other victims could take some time.

Prime Minister Ardern said the country would observe a minute of silence at 2:11 p.m. Monday, exactly a week after what she described as an “extraordinary tragedy.”

About 20 survivors with severe burns are in intensive care in New Zealand and Australia.

New Zealand lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region known for its extreme volcanic activity and earthquakes.

Albanian prosecutors have issued a series of arrest warrants on charges including murder and abuse of office over the deaths of 51 people killed when a 6.4-magnitude earthquake toppled dozens of buildings last month, police said on Saturday.

Police and prosecutors said initial investigations showed “the loss of life in the collapsed buildings came also because their builders, engineers and owners had failed to observe the rules, norms and standards of safe constructions.”

Prosecutors issued 17 warrants in total, police said. Two of the nine people detained on Saturday on murder charges were the owners of two hotels that collapsed, killing four people in Durres, Albania’s second-biggest city and main port.

A third was the manager of a police vacation hotel where a high-ranking police officer was killed under the rubble.

During the three decades since toppling communism in 1990, many Albanians have moved nearer cities, squatting on land and building with little supervision by authorities.

Many of the buildings have been legalized since then by governments eager to get votes but also seeking to urbanize such areas by putting in sewage systems and roads.

Both hotels on the 10-mile long beach on the Adriatic Sea south of Durres port were built illegally, police said, and the second had also been legalized illegally.

Police said that some of the 17 people being sought by prosecutors had fled after the Nov. 26 quake.

The high-rises built during the post-Communist boom along the beach are mostly apartments and hotels catering to both Albanians and foreigners, including ethnic Albanians from the Balkans and the Diaspora. Most suffered no damage.

Albania has yet to calculate the cost of rebuilding housing for the 14,000 people left homeless by the quake.

The promise of reparations  to atone for historical ties to slavery has opened new territory in a reckoning at U.S. colleges, which until now have responded with monuments, building name changes and public apologies. 

Georgetown University and two theological seminaries have announced funding commitments to benefit descendants of the enslaved people who were sold or toiled to benefit the institutions. 

While no other schools have gone so far, the advantages that institutions received from the slavery economy are receiving new attention as Democratic presidential candidates talk about tax credits and other subsidies that nudge the idea of reparations toward the mainstream. 

The country has been discussing reparations in one way or another since slavery officially ended in 1865. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slave, launching the violence afflicted on black people to prop up the Southern economy.

University of Buffalo senior Jeffrey Clinton said he thinks campuses should acknowledge historical ties to slavery but that the federal government should take the lead on an issue that reaches well beyond higher education. 

“It doesn’t have to be trillions of dollars … but at least address the inequities and attack the racial wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans and really everybody else, because this is an American-made institution. We didn’t immigrate here,” said Clinton, a descendant of slaves who lives in Bay Shore, New York. 

A majority of Georgetown undergraduates voted in April for a nonbinding referendum to pay a $27.20-per-semester “Reconciliation Contribution” toward projects in underprivileged communities that are home to some descendants of 272 slaves who were sold in 1838 to help pay off the school’s debts. 

Georgetown President John DeGioia responded in October with plans instead for a university-led initiative, with the goal of raising about $400,000 from donors, rather than students, to support projects like health clinics and schools in those same communities.

Elsewhere, discussions of reparations have been raised by individual professors, like at the University of Alabama, or by graduate students and community members, like at the University of Chicago. 

At least 56 universities have joined a University of Virginia-led consortium, Universities Studying Slavery, to explore their ties to slavery and share research and strategies. 

In recent years, some schools, like Yale University, have removed the names of slavery supporters from buildings. New monuments have gone up elsewhere, including Brown University’s Slavery Memorial sculpture — a partially buried ball and chain — and the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers under construction at the University of Virginia. 

“It’s a very diffused kind of set of things happening around the nation,” said Guy Emerson Mount, an associate professor of African American history at Auburn University. “It’s really important to pay attention to what each of these are doing” because they could offer learning opportunities and inform national discussions on reparations. 

Virginia Theological Seminary in September announced a $1.7 million endowment fund in recognition of slaves who worked there. It said annual allocations would go toward supporting African American clergy in the Episcopal church and programs that promote justice and inclusion.

The Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey followed with a $27.6 million endowment after a historical audit revealed that some founders used slave labor. 

“We did not want to shy away from the uncomfortable part of our history and the difficult conversations that revealing the truth would produce,” seminary President M. Craig Barnes said in October. 

In an October letter to Harvard University’s president, Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister noted the developments at Georgetown and the seminaries and asked the Ivy League school to consider how it could make amends for the oppression of Antiguan slaves by a plantation owner whose gift endowed a law professorship in 1815. Harvard’s president wrote back that the school is determined to further explore its historical ties to slavery. 

Harvard in 2016 removed a slave owner’s family crest from the law school seal and dedicated a plaque to four slaves who lived and worked on campus.

At the University of Buffalo, some have urged the public school to consider the responsibility it bears having been founded by the 13th U.S. president, Millard Fillmore, who signed the Fugitive Slave Act to help slave owners reclaim runaways. Students have not formally raised the idea of reparations, according to a school spokesman, but they led a discussion on the topic as part of Black Solidarity Week last month. 

William Darity, a Duke University public policy professor and an expert on reparations, said the voices of college students have helped bring attention to reparations in a way that hasn’t been seen since Reconstruction.

But he has warily watched what he sees as a piecemeal approach to an issue he believes merits a congressional response. 

“I don’t want anybody to be under the impression that these constitute comprehensive reparations,” Darity said. 

Supporting a reparations program for all black descendants of American slaves “would be the more courageous act,” he said. 

Few Americans support reparations, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. It showed that only 29% say the government should pay cash reparations to descendants of enslaved black people. 

University of Buffalo associate professor Keith Griffler, who specializes in African and African American studies, said he sees the cusp of a movement on college campuses. 

“And it’s probably not surprising that some of the wealthier private institutions have been the first to take those kinds of steps, because public universities still have their funding issues. 

“The conversations, just acknowledging these kinds of things,” Griffler said, “I think would go a long way toward making students feel that at least their voices are being heard.” 

Security forces on Saturday fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters in Beirut, some of whom tried to break into a barricaded central district of Lebanon’s capital. 

Hundreds of people were gathered as part of a wave of protests that have swept Lebanon since October 17, furious at a ruling elite that steered the country toward its worst economic crisis in decades. 

Since the protests pushed Saad al-Hariri to resign as prime minister in late October, talks between the main parties have been deadlocked over forming a new cabinet. 

Donors leery

Lebanon urgently needs a new government to pull it out of the crisis, which has also shaken confidence in its banking system. Foreign donors say they will help the country only after it gets a cabinet that can enact reforms. 

Riot police and security forces deployed en masse in Beirut on Saturday night, chasing demonstrators in the street, beating and detaining some of them, a Reuters witness and a protester said. 

The forces fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets as some protesters tried to push through steel barriers blocking paths to the parliament and government headquarters. 

State news agency NNA said the tear gas had made several people faint, while the Lebanese Red Cross said 14 people were injured, six of them badly enough to need hospital treatment. 

The unrest erupted from a buildup of anger at the rising cost of living, new tax plans and the record of leaders dominating the country since the 1975-90 civil war. Protesters accuse the political class of milking the state for their own benefit through networks of patronage. 

Just days after agreement on a pact to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico objected Saturday to legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress as part of an eventual ratification of the deal. 

Jesus Seade, the Mexican Foreign Relations Department’s undersecretary and chief trade negotiator for North America, said most of the bill is in line with the typical process of ratification, but it also “adds the designation of up to five U.S. labor attaches in Mexico tasked with monitoring the implementation of the labor reform that is under way in our country.” 

Seade said that was not part of the agreement signed December 10 in Mexico City by Mexico, the United States and Canada to replace NAFTA, but was rather the product of “political decisions by the Congress and administration of the United States.” 

Mexico should have been consulted but was not, Seade said, “and, of course, we are not in agreement.” 

Mexico said that it resisted having foreign inspectors on its soil out of sovereignty principles, and that the agreement provided for panels to resolve disputes pertaining to labor and other areas. The three-person panels would comprise a person chosen by the United States, one by Mexico and a third-country person agreed upon by both countries. 

Seade called the designation of labor attaches “unnecessary and redundant” and said the presence of foreign officials must be authorized by the host country. 

“U.S. officials accredited at their embassy and consulates in Mexico, as a labor attache could be, may not in any case have inspection powers under Mexican law,” he added. 

Sunday trip to Washington

Seade said that he sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expressing Mexico’s “surprise and concern” over the matter and that he would travel to Washington on Sunday to convey the message personally to Lighthizer and U.S. lawmakers. 

The elements of House Resolution 5430 in question “display a regrettable mistrust” in the treaty, which was negotiated “in the spirit of good faith,” the letter read. 

“We reserve the right to review the scope and effects of these provisions, which our government and people will no doubt clearly see as unnecessary,” it continued. “Additionally, I advise you that Mexico will evaluate not only the measures proposed in the [bill] … but the establishment of reciprocal mechanisms in defense of our country’s interests.” 

Mexico’s Senate approved the modifications to the agreement Thursday evening 107-1. 

UN investigators accused Chile’s police and army of indiscriminate violence and gross violations, including torture and rape, in crushing recent mass protests over social and economic grievances.

An investigative team from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights produced a 30-page report expressing alarm at the excessive use of force by security agents.     It said Chile’s violent crackdown on protesters resulted in the reported deaths of dozens of people, a high number of injuries, and the arbitrary detentions of thousands of demonstrators.

Chile’s Office of the Public Prosecutor says it is investigating 26 deaths.   The report holds state agents responsible for many of these deaths, noting that live ammunition was used in some cases.  

The Chilean Ministry of Justice reports that nearly 5,000 people, more than half of whom were police officers, have been injured during the protests.  UN sources say the number of injured is higher than that cited by government officials.  They accuse state agents of unnecessary and disproportionate use of less-lethal weapons, such as anti-riot shotguns, during peaceful demonstrations.

Imma Guerras-Delgado headed the mission to Chile, which took place in the first three weeks of November.  She said the demonstrations that have been occurring since mid-October were triggered by multiple causes, including social and economic inequality.

“The majority of those who have exercised the right to assembly during this period have done so in a peaceful manner,” Guerras-Delgado said. “We have found that the overall management of assemblies by the police was carried out in a fundamentally repressive manner.”  

Guerras-Delgado said the mission is particularly concerned by the use of pellets containing lead.  She said hundreds of people suffered eye injuries, causing blindness in a number of cases, and condemned the brutal suppression of peaceful nationwide protests by the police and army.

“Human rights violations documented by OHCHR [Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights] include the excessive or unnecessary use of force that led to unlawful killings and injuries, arbitrary detentions and torture and ill treatment,” she said.   

Among its recommendations, the report urges Chile to immediately end the indiscriminate use of anti-riot shotguns to control demonstrations.  It also calls on the government to make sure security forces adopt measures to guarantee accountability for human rights violations and to prevent the recurrence of similar events.

Cameroon’s Parliament is divided over the so-called special status President Paul Biya ordered for the country’s English-speaking regions as a solution to the crisis that has killed more than 3,000 people.
 
Some lawmakers who convened for the extraordinary session of Parliament on Biya’s instructions suggest that only the creation of federal states, one incorporating the country’s English-speaking regions and the other made up of the French-speaking regions, can stop the crisis. 

Others said the English-speaking regions’ special status already cedes enough power and resources to the crisis-prone areas, where separatists are fighting to create an English-speaking state

Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, speaker of Cameroon’s National Assembly, told the lower house of the Parliament that Biya asked him to convene the extraordinary session  solely to examine the bill and vote it into law because Biya is determined to restore peace in the restive English-speaking regions.  

Lawmaker Njume Peter Ambang from the English-speaking South-West said the section of the bill granting a special status to the English-speaking regions could calm rising tensions for peace to return.

“It is a moment for us to leave a legacy and we should look at this particular document with a lot of seriousness and responsibility,” Ambangsaid.  “We owe Cameroonians a lot. This is the moment that I think we have to make Cameroonians to know that they elected us for their own interest.”

The bill envisages the creation of assemblies of chiefs, regional assemblies and regional councils for the English-speaking North-West and South-West regions with each of the two regions having elected presidents, vice presidents, secretaries, public affairs management controllers and three commissioners responsible for what the bill describes as economic, health, social, educational, sports and cultural development affairs. 

It also would also create the post of a public independent conciliators, responsible for solving disputes over the functioning of regional administrations. The bill also proposes more powers for elected mayors and would give them the authority to recruit hospital staff and teachers. 

But lawmaker Henry Kemende, from the English-speaking North-West region, said the special status for the English-speaking regions will not solve the crisis because most English speakers expect the creation of a federal state recognizing the people’s cultural and linguistic diversity. He said the French-speaking regions should constitute one state while the English speakers form another in a federal republic.

“We thought that will have a bill that will admit the fact that we have failed in a unitary state and that we were going to try something different from the unitary state,” he said.

George Elanga Obam, Cameroon’s minister of decentralization, said by opting for the acceleration of decentralization, Biya is respecting proposals made by people his government consulted.

Obam said after consulting Cameroonians of all walks of life and organizing a national dialogue called by Biya, it was unanimously agreed that effective decentralization is the solution to the crisis in the English-speaking North-West and South-West regions. He said the special status will make the English-speaking regions more involved in making decisions that affect their lives and contributing to their own development.

Separatist leaders invited to the national dialogue this fall refused to take part, calling it a non-event. The talks  recommended that the English-speaking regions be given special status.

Violence erupted in 2017 in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority.

Ugandan and Rwandan officials failed to reach agreement Saturday on most of the contentious issues between them: mutual allegations of destabilizing actions, protection of the rights and freedoms of each other’s nationals, and resumption of cross-border activities.

After failing to find a resolution after eight hours of closed-door meetings, the matters will now be referred back to the respective heads of state.

“The armed groups that are operating here in Uganda and are getting support,” said Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe. “We have discussed and we have provided information, we have provided names. We have also addressed the issue of Rwandans who are arbitrarily arrested and illegally detained and also tortured in this country.”

Uganda’s foreign minister, Sam Kutesa, responded to those allegations and listed some of Uganda’s own grievances against its neighbor.  

“Issues like attempts to infiltrate our security agencies,” Kutesa said. “Issues like the closure of the border by Rwanda. We also talked about Rwandans who have been arrested here for illegal activities and some of them deported. For Uganda, clearly, we shall never support any force destabilizes or intends to destabilize our neighbors including Rwanda.” 

While Rwanda expressed hope that the issues can be resolved in good faith and good will, Uganda said it hoped for truth and trust.

The presidents of Rwanda and Uganda signed a memorandum of understanding in August in Angola in which they agreed to work toward a cease-fire along their mutual border.

Saturday’s meeting was overseen by officials from the DR Congo and Angola led by Angola’s Foreign Affairs Minister Manuel Domingos Augusto who was hopeful the crisis will be resolved. 

“We are confident that out two sister countries have all the necessary conditions to make this dialogue a success story,” he said, “given the important role that both countries have in the geopolitical balance of the subregion.”

The foreign ministers agreed to pass the issues to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame to decide and find a way forward.