Saudi Arabia said Wednesday that hip-hop star Nicki Minaj would perform in the ultraconservative kingdom as it sheds decades of restrictions on entertainment. 
 
The female rapper is known for her outlandish, provocative style and hits like “Anaconda,” where she raps about her “big fat” backside. Her lyrics are often laced with profanity, and her skin-bearing music videos often include twerking. Christian groups criticized her 2012 Grammy Awards performance, which included dancing priests and an exorcism. 

Jeddah World Fest
 
Saudi organizers announced she would be the headline act at the Jeddah World Fest on July 18. The concert, which in line with Saudi laws is alcohol- and drug-free, is open to people 16 and older and will take place at the King Abdullah Sports Stadium in the Red Sea city.  
 
Reactions on social media ranged from shock and joy to criticism and disappointment. In a profanity-laced video posted on Twitter and viewed more than 37,000 times, a Saudi woman wearing a loose headscarf accuses the Saudi government of hypocrisy for inviting Minaj to perform but requiring women who attend the concert to wear the modest full-length robe known as the abaya. Most Saudi women also veil their hair and faces.  
 
“She’s going to go and shake her ass and all her songs are indecent and about sex and shaking ass and then you tell me to wear the abaya,” the Saudi woman says. “What the hell?” 
 
Saudi organizers said the concert would be broadcast globally and covered by MTV. Other performers will include British artist Liam Payne and American DJ Steve Aoki. The kingdom is also promising quick electronic visas for international visitors who want to attend.  
 
Over the past several months, the kingdom has seen performances by Mariah Carey, Enrique Iglesias, the Black Eyed Peas, rapper Sean Paul, and DJs David Guetta and Tiesto. That’s despite the widespread international backlash since October over the killing of Saudi critic and writer Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents close to the crown prince in the kingdom’s consulate in Turkey. 

Marked contrast
 
Such concerts are a stark change from when Saudi morality police would raid establishments that played loud music. 
 
Gender segregation between single men and women is still enforced in many restaurants, coffee shops, public schools and universities, but other rules have loosened, with women now allowed to drive and attend events in sports stadiums. 

Fifteen Syrian women who fled to neighboring Lebanon because of the Syrian conflict are taking up the fight against an increasing issue among young Syrian female refugees: dropping out of school and getting married.

The women, who live in the Arsal refugee camp in northern Lebanon, have established Women’s Social Rally to empower women and girls in such camps by helping them handle the burden of war and displacement. 

Supported by Lebanese aid workers and specialists, the team seeks to raise awareness among the refugees to avoid child marriage and keep girls in school.

Radwa Hassoun, the head of the women’s network, told VOA that women, particularly young girls, have paid the heaviest price of the war in Syria’s patriarchal society and continue to be vulnerable in refugee camps. Hassoun says she hopes her team can help ease the burden by empowering women to take matters into their own hands and address the daily issues they are encountering.

“We noticed that domestic violence is on the rise among the refugees,” Hassoun said. “Most importantly, there is an increase in the rates of child marriage and school dropouts, especially among young girls. Therefore, we decided to work together within the camp to combat this crisis.”

The Lebanese border town of Arsal, in the Bekaa Valley, is home to at least 6,000 Syrian refugee families. Aid groups say the refugees struggle to cope as they lack basic services.

Hassoun said harsh conditions have forced many families to pull their children out of schools and marry off their young girls as a way to escape their financial burden.
 
Throughout the Arsal camp, Women’s Social Rally works to spread awareness among girls and their families by organizing campaigns, Hassoun added. 

The group also provides psychological support for survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse, in addition to documenting violations and registering marriages, divorces and births. 

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, more than 560,000 civilians, including women and children, have been killed and 2 million injured. The war has also displaced more than 12 million Syrians, with about half fleeing mainly to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Authorities in Beirut estimate nearly 1.5 million Syrian refugees are in Lebanon.

Child marriage

According to Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of civil society groups from 95 countries working to end child marriage, about 41% of Syrian female refugees in Lebanon married when they were under 18. It predicts many other child marriages remain undocumented given that many of these unions are not registered.

“Child marriage is the biggest challenge we are trying to face. Many of these marriages end up with divorce and young girls find themselves with children they need to take care of, and this will result in a broken family,” Hassoun said.

She said her team of activist women desperately needs a safe house where it can host abused women and their children who have been disowned by their families.

According to the Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon, a report published in 2018 by the World Food Program (WFP), 69% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon are living below the poverty line, while female-headed households remain more vulnerable than ones headed by males.

“Child marriage remains a concern, with three in 10 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 currently married, a notable increase of 7% from 2017,” the report said.

Providing protection

The United Nations considers child marriage a human rights violation that threatens a girl’s health and prevents her from fulfilling her potential.

Himaya, a Lebanon-based NGO that provides school programming on child abuse, self-protection and rehabilitation, has found that a majority of girls in Syrian refugee camps are married by their parents, in most cases without their knowledge.

In one case, during one of their psychosocial sessions investigating child marriage among Syrian refugees, Himaya workers interviewed a 12-year-old girl named Sarah who accidentally learned about her father’s plan to marry her off in order to repay his debts.

“Sarah told us that she didn’t want to marry and that she wanted to stay in school. But her family’s financial problems caused her to feel guilty and responsible,” Lama Yazbeck, the executive director of Himaya, told VOA.

Yazbeck said that they were able to keep Sarah in school and eventually persuade her father not to marry off his daughter at such an early age. 

“Early marriage will take its toll on girls’ overall state, especially when they haven’t fully grown physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically. Early marriage will also hinder girls from their rights of engaging and participating in their lives,” Yazbeck warned.

A rights group is warning that a former Egyptian presidential candidate may die in prison due to medical neglect, meeting the same fate as former president Mohamed Morsi, who collapsed in court last month after having spent almost six years behind bars.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies released a statement Thursday alleging that Egyptian authorities are deliberately denying Abdel-Moneim Aboul Fotouh — a viable contender in Egypt’s first genuine presidential race of 2012 — “direly-needed healthcare” for his chronic illnesses. The statement added that the 68-year-old politician was facing “imminent death.”

Aboul Fotouh was arrested in February 2018, after voicing harsh criticism of the ruling regime of president Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi. The statement says he has diabetes, hypertension and chronic heart and prostate conditions that require surgeries.

 

Some of Mexico’s federal police remain in revolt over the force’s planned dissolution and absorption into the newly created National Guard.

Striking police continued to hold a federal police command center in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa Thursday morning. Meanwhile, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador repeated his suggestion that rank-and-file police were being manipulated by his political adversaries.

Lopez Obrador declined to name the “dark forces” he says are responsible, but says his security secretary Alfonso Durazo will provide details later.

On Wednesday, federal police held the command center and blocked key highways around the capital. They expressed concerns about potentially losing their salaries, benefits and seniority if they transferred to the National Guard and being left unemployed if they don’t join the new force.

 

A super tanker believed to be breaching European Union sanctions by carrying a shipment of Iranian crude oil to war-ravaged Syria has been detained in Gibraltar. 

In a statement, authorities on the British overseas territory at the tip of Spain said the port and law enforcement agencies, assisted by the Royal Marines, boarded the Grace 1 early Thursday.

It added that the vessel was believed to be headed to the Baniyas Refinery in Syria, which is a government-owned facility under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad and subject to the EU’s Syrian Sanctions Regime. 

Syrian sanctions

The EU, and others, has imposed sanctions on Assad’s regime over its continued crackdown against civilians. They currently target 270 people and 70 entities. 

The Gibraltar authorities didn’t confirm the origin of the ship’s cargo, but Lloyd’s List, a publication specialized in maritime affairs, reported this week that the Panama-flagged large carrier was laden with Iranian oil. Experts were said to have concluded that it carried oil from Iran because the tanker was not sending geographic information while in Iranian waters. According to a United Nations list, the ship is owned by the Singapore-based Grace Tankers Ltd. 

According to the data firm Refinitv, the vessel likely carried just more than 2 million barrels of Iranian crude oil. Tracking data showed that the tanker made a slow trip around the southern tip of Africa before reaching the Mediterranean.

The timing for the interdiction of the Grace 1 was politically sensitive as tensions between the U.S. and Iran grow over the unraveling of a 2015 nuclear deal with President Donald Trump’s withdrawal last year.

Iranian nuclear deal

In recent days, Iran has broken through the limit the deal put on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium and plans on Sunday to boost its enrichment. Meanwhile, oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz have been targeted in mysterious attacks as Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen launch bomb-laden drones into Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has rushed thousands of additional troops, an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and F-22 fighters to the region, raising fears of a miscalculation sparking a wider conflict.
 
There was no immediate reaction from Syria, which has suffered severe fuel shortages as a result of the civil war and Western sanctions that have crippled the country’s oil industry, once the source of 20 percent of government revenues.

Iran, which has provided vital military support to Assad, extended a $3 billion credit line for oil supplies beginning in 2013 but the Iranian aid dwindled as Washington restored tough sanctions. In November, the U.S. Treasury Department added a network of Russian and Iranian companies to its blacklist for shipping oil to Syria and warned of “significant risks” for those violating the sanctions.

Fabian Picardo, Chief Minister of Gibraltar, which has in the past been a transit port for energy shipments without known buyers, said he has informed the EU about developments.

In a statement, the British government welcomed the “firm action” by authorities in Gibraltar.
 

Taliban and U.S. negotiators are scrambling to rewrite a draft agreement that will outline the withdrawal of American and NATO troops from Afghanistan and a verifiable Taliban guarantee to fight terrorism ahead of an all-Afghan peace conference Sunday.

Officials familiar with the talks, but not authorized to speak about them, say negotiations went late into the night Wednesday and were to resume again Thursday, the sixth day of direct talks between the insurgents and U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.

Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, told The Associated Press Thursday that “the talks are continuing and they will continue tomorrow as well. We have made some progress.”

Previously he said that a draft agreement was being rewritten to include agreed-upon clauses. On Thursday he said the two sides had broadened their discussion, without elaborating.

Troop withdrawal timing

Until now the two sides had been divided on the withdrawal timetable, with the United States seeking more time.

Taliban officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, earlier said the U.S. was seeking up to 18 months to complete a troop withdrawal even as U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News earlier this week that a withdrawal had quietly begun and that troop strength had been cut to 9,000. The president’s statement has since been contradicted by a senior U.S. official, who said the force strength is unchanged at about 14,000.

Still, Trump’s statements reinforced the president’s often stated desire to leave Afghanistan and end America’s 18-year war, the longest in his country’s history.

Trump eagerness helps Taliban

His eagerness to pull out has strengthened the position of the Taliban, who effectively control half the country and won a key concession in the planning of the upcoming peace gathering, which will include no official delegation from the Afghan government.

Germany and Qatar, who are co-sponsoring the dialogue and issuing the invitations, said participants will attend “only in their personal capacity,” a condition President Ashraf Ghani has strenuously opposed. He has made no comment on Sunday’s meeting.

The Taliban have steadfastly refused to talk to Ghani’s government, calling it a U.S. puppet, but have said government officials can attend the conference as private citizens.

In a tweet Wednesday, Shaheen said 60 people will attend the peace gathering, which Khalilzad called an “essential element” in achieving a peace agreement in Afghanistan.

Atta-ul-Rahman Salim, deputy head of a government-appointed peace council, said the delegation from Kabul will include a cross-section of Afghanistan’s civil society, including women’s rights activists.

“It is a good first step to hear each other’s side,” he said.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who attended two previous meetings with the Taliban in Moscow, told The Associated Press he won’t be attending the Doha gathering because he will be in China. But, he added, “I fully support the coming intra-Afghan dialogue in Doha and am in the picture.”

U.S. federal courts and states that challenged the Trump administration’s decision to include a citizenship question on the country’s 2020 census are asking for clarity after the Departments of Justice and Commerce suddenly reversed what had been an acceptance of finalizing the questionnaire without inquiring about citizenship status.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the government’s reasoning for including the citizenship question did not meet standards for a clear explanation of why it should be asked during the count of people in the United States that takes place every 10 years.

The matter seemed further settled Tuesday when the DOJ and Commerce Department made public statements and comments in legal cases that the process of printing the census was going forward without a citizenship question in order to meet deadlines for carrying out the count on time.

The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

President Donald Trump is suggesting the United States start manipulating its currency to match the “big currency manipulation game” he accuses China and Europe of playing.

“We should match or continue being the dummies who sit back and politely watch as other countries continue to play their games as they have for many years!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.

Countries that manipulate currency sell their own currency and buy foreign money, intending to artificially drive down the value of their own money. The intention is to make their exports cheaper and more competitive on the world market, giving their products an unfair advantage.

Trump constantly accused China of such action during his 2016 presidential campaign.

But since Trump took office, the Treasury Department has found that no country can be labeled a currency manipulator. Eight countries are on the manipulator watch list, including China, Germany, Ireland and Italy.
 

Pakistani counterterrorism officials have registered 23 cases related to terrorism financing against more than a dozen people, including Hafiz Saeed, a central figure in the Mumbai attacks of 2008 that killed more than 170 people.

Counter Terror Department (CTD) Punjab said in a statement the individuals were using various charities and trusts to raise funds to finance terrorism.

Saeed and the other individuals are said to be from the leadership of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), which are all organizations banned by the U.N. The U.N. sanctions committee considers the three groups, founded by Saeed, to be aliases of one another, with the latter two formed to bypass a ban Pakistan imposed on LeT in 2002.

Saeed has been sanctioned by both the United Nations and the U.S. for his role in the Mumbai attacks.

The crackdown is seen as a response to the pressure the country is facing from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international terrorism financing watchdog that last year placed Pakistan on its “gray list” of countries. Such countries, the FATF warns, lack adequate controls over money laundering and terrorism.

FATF warning

After its latest review in May, the group issued a stern warning to the country.

“The FATF expresses concern that not only did Pakistan fail to complete its action plan items with January deadlines, it also failed to complete its action plan items due May 2019. The FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its action plan by October 2019, when the last set of action plan items are set to expire,” said a statement published on the FATF website.

The consequences of inaction could be a continuation on the gray list or a downgrade to what is known as the “black list.”

The lists are akin to a credit rating system, warning international banks and investors to be wary of a country’s compliance with international terror financing laws. Placement on the lists can add to the cost of doing business internationally, and could hamper the growth of Pakistan’s already faltering economy.

The country has recently negotiated a three-year, $6 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund to help it get through a balance-of-payments crisis that sent its currency plummeting to historic lows last week.

During negotiations, IMF demanded action on “anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism efforts,” according to a statement by Ernesto Ramirez Rigo, who led an IMF mission to the country in April and May.

The move against Saeed and LeT, a long-standing demand of the United States, is also considered to be timed to help a visit of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to Washington, expected later this month.

“When Imran Khan goes to the U.S., the first request they will make is for the U.S. to lift restrictions on giving money to Pakistan. … So obviously they would want to take a performance report with them,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of two books on Pakistan’s military who also writes extensively on militancy in Pakistan.

Last year, the U.S. suspended more than $1.6 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, over its perceived inaction against militant groups, including those fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Despite the economic and other considerations, the Pakistani government faces an uphill battle in trying to convince the international community of its counterterrorism intentions.

“The U.S. will be heartened by this move, but it will want Pakistan to go further and take what it often describes as ‘irreversible’ steps — efforts that don’t just register cases against these terror groups but also dismantle their financial networks entirely,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think tank.

‘Devil is in the details’

Richard Olson, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, agreed that it would be regarded as a positive step initially but said, “The devil is in the details. Much will depend on how vigorously the prosecution is pursued.”

The doubts stem from past Pakistani actions, Siddiqa said.

“The reason why people doubt them is that they have taken such actions in the past under pressure [from the international community] but reversed them as soon as the pressure was off,” she said.

Amjad Shoaib, a retired lieutenant general of the Pakistan army who now appears as an analyst on local media, said Pakistan was expected to take action without evidence.

“Neither India nor the U.S. has ever given concrete proof against Hafiz Saeed that could lead to conviction. Then they expect us to take action against him. How can we do it?” he asked.

Pakistan’s courts have, in the past, dismissed cases against Saeed for lack of evidence. The U.S. government has offered a bounty of $10 million for information leading to his conviction.

Registering cases against Saeed or such individuals was only one part of the equation, said Amir Rana, the director of Pak Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank. The other part of the equation, a comprehensive plan on what to do with the mindset that led to militancy, was missing.

“What we need to see is what to do with these people. Even if JuD disappears, the mindset will continue. There are other groups that its members can join,” he said.

At least 26 people died after a lobster-fishing boat capsized off the Atlantic coast of Honduras during poor weather conditions, an armed forces spokesman said Wednesday, in one of the country’s worst accidents at sea.

Forty-seven people were rescued after the accident near Puerto Lempira, said Jose Domingo Meza, the armed forces spokesman.

Various boats have gathered off the Honduran coast for lobster-fishing season, which began this month and runs through February.

Another fishing boat capsized earlier in the day in the same region because of the poor weather, but all 49 people onboard were rescued, Meza said.

Honduras lobster exports generated $46 million in 2018, according to official data, and were sent mostly to the United States.
 

North Korea’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States on Wednesday of being “more and more hell-bent on hostile acts” against Pyongyang, despite President Donald Trump’s desire for talks between the two countries. 

In a statement, the mission said it was responding to a U.S. accusation that Pyongyang had breached a cap on refined petroleum imports, as well as to a letter that it said was sent on June 29 by the United States, France, Germany and Britain to all U.N. member states urging them to implement sanctions against North Korea. 

“What can’t be overlooked is the fact that this joint letter game was carried out by the permanent mission of the United States to the U.N. under instruction of the State Department, on the very same day when President Trump proposed for the summit meeting,” the statement said. 

Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea on Sunday when he met leader Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. The pair agreed to resume stalled talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. 

The North Korean U.N. mission said the June 29 letter to U.N. member states “speaks to the reality that the United States is practically more and more hell-bent on the hostile acts against the DPRK, though talking about the DPRK-U.S. dialog.” 

North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). 

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, banning exports including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capping imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products. 

‘Obsessed with sanctions’ 

The United States, backed by dozens of allies, told a council sanctions committee last month that North Korea had breached an annual U.N. cap of 500,000 barrels imposed in December 2017, mainly through transfers between ships at sea. 

Washington wanted the 15-member North Korea sanctions committee to demand an immediate halt to deliveries of refined petroleum to North Korea. However, Pyongyang allies Russia and China delayed the move. 

The letter from the United States, Germany, Britain and France cited by North Korea’s U.N. mission — and viewed by Reuters — was actually dated June 27. It urges all U.N. member states to comply with Security Council sanctions requiring the repatriation of all North Korean workers by Dec. 22, 2019. 

“It is quite ridiculous” for the United States to continue to be “obsessed” with sanctions and its pressure campaign against the DPRK, “considering sanctions as a panacea for all problems,” the North Korean U.N. mission said Wednesday. 

Following Sunday’s meeting between Kim and Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that a new round of denuclearization talks would most likely happen “sometime in July … probably in the next two or three weeks,” and that North Korea’s negotiators would be Foreign Ministry diplomats. 

The United States and other Security Council members have said there must be strict enforcement of sanctions until Pyongyang acts, while Russia and China have suggested the council discuss easing the measures. 

“All U.N. member states will have to keep vigilance against deliberate attempts by the United States to undermine the peaceful atmosphere that has been created on the Korean Peninsula in no easy way,” the North Korean statement said. 

A federal judge temporarily blocked an Ohio law Wednesday that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, allowing clinics to continue to provide the procedure as a legal faceoff continues. 
 
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett halts enforcement of the so-called heartbeat law that opponents argued would effectively ban the procedure. That’s because a fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant. 
 
Barrett said Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics represented by the American Civil Liberties Union that sued to stop the law “are certain to succeed on the merits of their claim that [the law] is unconstitutional on its face.” 
 
Barrett joined the court in 2006 after being nominated by Republican President George W. Bush. 
 
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill into law in April, after predecessor John Kasich, a fellow Republican, twice vetoed it.  
  
Ohio is among a dozen states that have considered similar legislation this year, as abortion opponents have pursued a national anti-abortion strategy to try to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. 
 
Freda Levenson, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio, said in an emailed statement that the decision “upheld the clear law: women in Ohio (and across the nation) have the constitutional right to make this deeply personal decision about their own bodies without interference from the state.” 
 
Ohio Right to Life, the state’s oldest and largest anti-abortion group, called the judge’s decision disappointing but not surprising. 
 
“The heartbeat bill has the potential to be the vehicle that overturns Roe v. Wade,” Mike Gonidakis, the group’s president, said in a statement. “We know that this temporary restraining order is just a step in the process to finally seeing Roe reconsidered.” 

New York state’s attorney general asked a judge Wednesday to help resolve conflicting accounts by President Donald Trump and his administration as to whether they still want a citizenship question added to the 2020 census.

Attorney General Letitia James asked U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for a hearing over the statements after the U.S. Supreme Court last week decided the question can’t immediately be added.

James cited a Wednesday Trump tweet in which the president said news reports saying the Department of Commerce was dropping its quest to add the citizenship question were “FAKE!”

She also cited a statement by the commerce secretary saying the Census Bureau was printing the questionnaires without the question.

In a court order, the judge said the Justice Department lawyers who defended the case before him last year must respond to James’ request for court intervention later Wednesday and include “a statement of Defendants’ position and intentions.”

Furman and two other judges in California and Maryland have concluded that the question was improperly added to the census last year by the Commerce Department without adequate consideration.

The administration had said the question was being added to aid in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voters’ access to the ballot box.

 

The windows where scantily clad sex workers stand to attract customers in Amsterdam could be closing for good.

The city’s mayor proposed fundamental changes Wednesday to the network of narrow alleys and canal side streets that make up Amsterdam’s famed red light district.
 
The proposals range from closing the window curtains so sex workers no longer are on public display and shutting down brothels with display windows altogether to adding more windows and moving prostitution somewhere else in the city.

Mayor Femke Halsema said the ideas are intended to protect sex workers’ rights, prevent crime and reduce nuisances for local residents and businesses.

Halsema plans to discuss the four proposals for the red light district’s future at two meetings later this month with those affected. In September, the city council will also debate them before narrowing down the options and checking their financial and legal viability.

The announcement of a public consultation on the future of the neighborhood and its 330 prostitution windows marks the latest attempt by Amsterdam officials to clean up a part of the city’s historic center that has in recent years become a noisy, overcrowded tourist magnet.

A red light district has existed for centuries close to the city’s main waterway. In recent years, the local government has sought to reduce the number of windows and to gentrify the area, but with limited success.

On most evenings, large groups of tourists wander through the area, which also is home to peep shows, bars and marijuana-selling cafes.

Amsterdam says the proposed reforms follow changes in the sex industry in recent years and in the rise in the number of tourists.

In a statement, the city said that for some visitors, “a sex worker is nothing more than an attraction to look at.”
Increasingly, sex workers also are offering services online, away from the regulated industry in the red light district.

“In this part of the market, abuses happen more often,” the city said.

 

The U.S. Homeland Security chief on Wednesday ordered an immediate investigation into a report that current and former U.S. Border Patrol agents are part of a Facebook group that posts racist, sexist and violent comments about migrants and Latin American lawmakers.

Acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin McAleenan said “any employee found to have compromised the public’s trust in our law enforcement mission will be held accountable.”

McAleenan said those contributing to the Facebook postings “do not represent the men and women of the Border Patrol” or the Homeland Security agency. 

I have directed an immediate investigation, and as the

Israeli police were bracing for another day of violent protests Wednesday after community activists called for renewed street demonstrations in response to the killing of an Ethiopian-Israeli teen by an off-duty police officer.

As crowds of protesters gathered in cities across Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged calm and said he was convening a ministerial committee to discuss “all issues” affecting Israel’s Ethiopian community, which suffers from poverty and discrimination and accuses the police of excessive force.

“We will discuss all issues but we will also discuss something that is unacceptable,” he said. “We are not prepared to either accept or tolerate the blocking of roads and the use of violence, including firebombs against our forces, the burning of cars or any other property of citizens.”

Police were deployed at demonstration sites throughout the country.

On Tuesday, protesters blocked major highways around the country, snarling traffic for hours. They also attacked police and vandalized vehicles in response to what they see as continued police brutality.

Iran’s president warned European partners in its faltering nuclear deal on Wednesday that Tehran will increase its enrichment of uranium to “any amount that we want” beginning on Sunday, putting pressure on them to offer a way around intense U.S. sanctions targeting the country. 

The comments by President Hassan Rouhani come as tensions remain high between Iran and the U.S. over the deal, which President Donald Trump pulled America from over a year ago. 

Authorities on Monday acknowledged Iran broke through a limit placed on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium. 

An increasing stockpile and higher enrichment closes the estimated one-year window Iran would need to produce enough material for a nuclear bomb, something Iran denies it wants but the nuclear deal sought to prevent. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. has rushed an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and F-22 fighters to the region and Iran recently shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. On Wednesday, Iran marked the shootdown by the U.S. Navy of an Iranian passenger jet in 1988, a mistake that killed 290 people and shows the danger of miscalculation in the current crisis. 

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting in Tehran, Rouhani’s comments seemed to signal that Europe has yet to offer Iran anything to alleviate the pain of the renewed U.S. sanctions targeting its oil industry and top officials. 

Iran’s nuclear deal currently bars it from enriching uranium above 3.67%, which is enough for nuclear power plants but far below the 90% needed for weapons. 

“In any amount that we want, any amount that is required, we will take over 3.67,” Rouhani said. 

“Our advice to Europe and the United States is to go back to logic and to the negotiating table,” Rouhani added. “Go back to understanding, to respecting the law and resolutions of the U.N. Security Council. Under those conditions, all of us can abide by the nuclear deal.”

There was no immediate reaction in Europe, where the European Union just the day before finalized nominations to take over the bloc’s top posts. 

On Tuesday, European powers separately issued a statement over Iran breaking through its stockpile limit, calling on Tehran “to reverse this step and to refrain from further measures that undermine the nuclear deal.”

Under the nuclear deal, Iran agreed to have less than 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of uranium enriched to a maximum of 3.67%. Both Iran and the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency confirmed Monday that Tehran had breached that limit.

While that represents Iran’s first major departure from the accord, it still remains likely a year away from having enough material for a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, but the West fears it could allow Iran to build a bomb.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, relatives of those killed in the 1988 downing of the Iranian passenger jet threw flowers into the Strait of Hormuz in mourning. 

The downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the U.S. Navy remains one of the moments the Iranian government points to in its decades-long distrust of America. They rank it alongside the 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled Iran’s elected prime minister and secured Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s absolute power until he abdicated the throne before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Just after dawn on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes sent a helicopter to hover over Iranian speedboats the Navy described as harassing commercial ships. The Iranians allegedly fired on the helicopter and the Vincennes gave chase, the Navy said. Unacknowledged for years afterward by the Navy though, the Vincennes had crossed into Iranian territorial waters in pursuit. It began firing at the Iranian ships there.

The Vincennes then mistook Iran Air flight 655, which had taken off from Bandar Abbas, Iran, heading for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, for an Iranian fighter jet. It fired missiles, killing all 290 people on board.

The U.S. later would give USS Vincennes Capt. William C. Rogers the country’s Legion of Merit award, further angering Iran.

Iranian state television aired footage Wednesday of mourners in the strait, as armed Iranian Revolutionary Guard fast boats patrolled around them. They tossed gladiolas into the strait as some wept.
 

An airstrike hit a detention center for migrants in the Libyan capital early Wednesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens, officials in the country’s U.N.-supported government said.

The airstrike was likely to raise further concerns about the European Union’s policy of partnering with Libyan militias to prevent migrants from crossing the Mediterranean, which often leaves them at the mercy of brutal traffickers or stranded in squalid detention centers near the front lines.

It could also lead to greater Western pressure on Khalifa Hifter, a Libyan general whose forces launched an offensive on Tripoli in April. The Tripoli-based government blamed his self-styled Libyan National Army for the airstrike and called for the U.N. support mission in Libya to establish a fact-finding committee to investigate.

A spokesman for Hifter’s forces did not immediately answer phone calls and messages seeking comment. Local media reported the LNA had launched airstrikes against a militia camp near the detention center.

The airstrike targeting the detention center in Tripoli’s Tajoura neighborhood also wounded 35 migrants, according to the Interior Ministry in Tripoli. Health Ministry spokesman Malek Merset posted photos of migrants being taken in ambulances to hospitals. He had earlier said that 80 were wounded.

Footage circulating online and said to be from inside the migrant detention center showed blood and body parts mixed with rubble and migrants’ belongings. 

The airstrike hit a workshop housing weapons and vehicles and an adjacent hangar where around 150 migrants were being held, mostly Sudanese and Moroccans, according to two migrants who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

The migrants said three or four survived unharmed and about 20 were wounded. They said the remainder were killed, indicating the final death toll could be much higher.

The U.N. refugee agency in Libya condemned the airstrike on the detention center, which houses a total of 616 migrants and refugees.

The LNA launched an offensive against the weak Tripoli-based government in April. Hifter’s forces control much of Libya’s east and south but were dealt a significant blow last week when militias allied with the Tripoli government reclaimed the strategic town of Gharyan, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the capital. Gharyan had been a key LNA supply route.

Many camps for militias loosely allied with the U.N.-supported government are in Tajoura, east of the city center, and Hifter’s forces have targeted such camps with airstrikes in recent weeks. The LNA said Monday it had begun an air campaign on rival forces in Tripoli after it lost control of Gharyan.

His forces include the remnants of Gadhafi’s army as well as tribal fighters and ultra-conservative Islamists known as Salafists. They appear more like a regular army than their adversaries, with uniforms and a clear chain of command. 

Hifter’s forces boast MiG fighter jets supplied by neighboring Egypt, as well as drones, attack helicopters and mine-resistant vehicles. It was not immediately clear what munitions were used in the airstrike early Wednesday.

Oded Berkowitz, a security analyst focused on the Libyan conflict, said Hifter’s LNA flies “a handful of obsolete aircraft” that are “in poor condition.” He said it has received spare parts from Egypt and possibly Russia, as well as decommissioned aircraft from both countries.

“Egypt and the UAE have been conducting air operations on behalf of the LNA, but there are no indications that the UAE transferred aircraft to the LNA,” he said.

The fighting for Tripoli has threatened to plunge Libya into another bout of violence on the scale of the 2011 conflict that ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi and led to his death.

Hifter says he is determined to restore stability to the North African country. He is backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia while his rivals, mainly Islamists, are supported by Turkey and Qatar. 

His campaign against Islamic militants across Libya since 2014 won him growing international support from world leaders who say they are concerned that Libya has turned into a haven for armed groups and a major conduit for migrants bound for Europe.

His opponents, however, view him as an aspiring autocrat and fear a return to one-man rule.

At least 6,000 migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and other nations are locked in dozens of detention facilities in Libya that are run by militias accused of torture and other abuses. Most of the migrants were apprehended by European Union-funded and -trained Libyan coast guards while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.

The detention centers have limited food and other supplies for the migrants, who made often-arduous journeys at the mercy of abusive traffickers who hold them for ransom money from families back home.

The U.N. refugee agency has said that more than 3,000 migrants are in danger because they are held in detention centers close to the front lines between Hifter’s forces and the militias allied with the Tripoli government.

Libya became a major crossing point for migrants to Europe after the 2011 ouster and killing of Gadhafi, when the North African nation was thrown into chaos, armed militias proliferated and central authority fell apart.
 

The intensity of President Donald Trump’s hardline approach to immigration hasn’t just pushed the Republican Party rightward — it’s also moving Democrats in ways that are profoundly transforming the immigration debate.

Gone are hopes for a big, bipartisan immigration overhaul once envisioned in Congress. With dire conditions taking hold at the border, and deportations stoking fear in immigrant communities, groups on the left are no longer willing to engage in the trade-offs that had long been cornerstones to any deal. That’s pushing the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to increasingly say they’ll rely on executive action to undo Trump’s policies and revamp the system that lawmakers have been unable to fix.

“The brutality of this administration has pushed this conversation to happen,” said Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream Action.

The group formed around protecting young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, but now sees that issue as a starting point, or “floor,” in the debate as the nation confronts harsh images from the border, including the deaths of migrant children and adults in federal custody.

“The world is bearing witness,” Jimenez said. “You’re seeing the pressure of this moment is pushing the conversation.”

At their first televised debate, the Democratic presidential candidates gave voice to the enormous shift under way. Talk of reviving “comprehensive immigration reform” was largely absent, replaced by calls for unilateral action.

“Day One, we take out our executive order pen and we rescind every damn thing on this issue that Trump has done,” said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

California Sen. Kamala Harris said she would immediately use executive action as president to protect young immigrants by preserving the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — and by extending those deportation protections to parents and military veterans.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro want to do away with the law that makes illegal entry into the United States a criminal, rather than civil, offense.

And Sen. Cory Booker announced a plan Tuesday to use his presidential powers to orient the Department of Homeland Security away from immigration raids on schools or churches and end Trump’s travel ban to the U.S. by residents of certain majority-Muslim nations.

Longtime immigration advocate Frank Sharry said the urgency of the situation and the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s priorities is propelling Democrats in a new direction.

“Do we think comprehensive immigration reform would pass in 2021? It’s kind of hard to imagine,” he said.

For more than a decade, Congress has tried to broker an immigration compromise by marrying two different but related concepts — a pathway to citizenship for some of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, and beefed-up border security and enforcement to prevent a wave of new arrivals. The pairing was central to a 2007 effort from John McCain and Ted Kennedy, the former Senate lions, and to a sprawling 2013 bill that was approved overwhelmingly in the Senate only to be ignored by John Boehner’s GOP-controlled House.

But that calculus changed under Trump. He entered the campaign in 2016 decrying Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and seized control of the party with his promise to “build the wall.” One of Trump’s first actions as president was to shut down entry into the U.S. for immigrants from some Muslim countries. As president, his focus has been on enforcement — both limiting new arrivals seeking asylum and stepping up deportations of those immigrants already here, even longstanding residents whose only crime was illegal entry.

Even though Trump spoke privately early on of doing something “nice” for the Dreamers, groups on the right who favor tough enforcement never signed on. Nor did some of Trump’s more influential advisers, and Trump ultimately resisted bipartisan overtures from Congress.

Last week, as the border crisis worsened, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to add provisions to improve migrant care as part of a $4.6 billion emergency funding bill. But the White House threatened a veto, saying it would “hamstring” the administration’s ability at to enforce borders.

President Barack Obama’s administration also carried out tough enforcement policies as they tried to broker a broader immigration deal with Congress — there were so many removals under his watch that immigrant advocates labeled him the “deporter-in-chief.” But when no deal could be found, Obama decided to go it alone, establishing and then expanding the deportation protections for young Dreamers that Trump is seeking to end — a step that is now pending before the Supreme Court.

Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Tuesday he still wants Congress to “fix a broken system.”

The Texas congressman, the twin brother of the presidential candidate, led a delegation of lawmakers to visit border facilities Monday and posted stark videos of women, some of them grandmothers, being detained in cramped and potentially unsanitary conditions.

“I continue to hold out hope that we can work together on some kind of immigration reform legislation,” Castro said in an interview. “Part of the challenge is that for the president it is his No. 1 go-to political punching bag issue. That makes it very hard because, even for moderate Republicans, it moves everybody to the far right.”

Republicans say the problem is Democrats want “open borders,” government benefits for those here illegally and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At the recent presidential debate, all the Democratic candidates onstage raised their hands when asked if they would provide health care for immigrants illegally in the U.S.

“All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!” Trump tweeted.

With the emotions around immigration so raw, longtime advocates see the gridlock as hard to overcome.

“The process of a McCain-Kennedy bipartisan breakthrough on immigration is hard to imagine,” said Sharry. He said even a more narrowly tailored bipartisan measure — linking funding to build Trump’s border wall to deportation protections for Dreamers — failed in the Senate in 2018 after the White House opposed it.

“The idea of a bipartisan deal with a Trumpian Republican Party is impossible to imagine for the short run,” he said.