Science and the determination of the human spirit propelled Apollo 11 to the moon fifty years ago, but it was popular culture that imagined man there, long before July 16, 1969 say filmmakers, and popular culture experts.  VOA’s Penelope Poulou revisits landmark films and TV series that allowed people to dream and helped make Apollo 11 a reality and others, recent ones, that have paid tribute to this historic event.

Dozens of prominent Afghan citizens are meeting with Taliban representatives in Qatar’s capital Doha on Monday for a second day of a conference seeking to end the 18-year war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, also in Doha, U.S. and Taliban negotiators are conducting a seventh round of talks with the U.S. looking to conclude its involvement in Afghanistan’s civil war. VOA’S Zlatica Hoke reports.

Kenyans affected by dwarfism are using football (soccer) to fight stigma. The Short Stature Society of Kenya formed East Africa’s first dwarf football (soccer) team just over a year ago, with the hope of turning it into a national league to spread across the region. Sarah Kimani reports from Nairobi. 

The head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is disputing reports of inadequate food, water and sanitation in crowded detention centers along the U.S.-Mexico border. At the same time, some members of Congress are calling for improved treatment of migrants in U.S. custody. VOA’s Marcus Harton has more.

She vowed to stay out of politics and even dropped the French far right’s signature name – Le Pen – from her moniker. But Marion Marechal, a former star lawmaker who’s still only in her 20s, is now tip-toeing back into the political arena, and is already causing trouble.

Widely seen as a potential party leader, the 29-year-old’s discreet meetings in recent days to build bridges with enemy conservatives, crippled by their crushing defeat in European Parliament elections, are further unsettling the mainstream right.

The forays into forbidden territory by the woman once voted the most popular in the far-right National Rally party (formerly the National Front) led by her aunt, Marine Le Pen, have also raised questions about Marechal’s political intentions – and whether a new war within the Le Pen clan is afoot.

Marechal is the darling of her controversial grandfather, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a National Front co-founder expelled by daughter Marine for repeating anti-Semitic remarks that got him convicted. Marechal is more conservative than her aunt. Addressing a major forum for American conservatives last year, she decried the European Union and said France is becoming “the little niece of Islam.”

To Jean-Marie’s disappointment, Marion dropped out of politics two years ago, refusing to seek a new mandate as a National Rally lawmaker to found a private school in Lyon seen as a training ground for far-right leaders.

She denies speculation she is making an end-run around Aunt Marine for a comeback. Nevertheless, the noise created after at least two below-the-radar meetings became known underscores Marechal’s potentially pivotal role in the power politics of the French right.

A dinner in late June between Marechal and more than a dozen officials and lawmakers of The Republicans, or LR, caused a firestorm within the main conservative party. The conservative mainstream has long been extremely wary of liaisons with France’s far right, but the meeting suggested that some conservatives may believe the only way to survive is by joining forces with the likes of Marechal.

Senate leader Gerard Larcher, of the LR, said those who met at a Paris restaurant with Marechal have placed themselves “outside” the party.

“I have always said there was a firewall between us and the National Rally,” party, he said on LCI TV. “Whether you like it or not, this (dinner) was a breach.” Those who attended risk exclusion from the party, Larcher said, making clear that for him they already had “placed themselves outside the values of our political formation.”

Meanwhile, France’s powerful business lobby Medef invited Marechal to speak about the rise of populism at its annual summer gathering – but then canceled the whole panel after the idea left many aghast.

The National Rally came to the forefront of French politics with its win in the European Parliament elections in May. The party bettered President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and hopes to maintain momentum ahead of municipal elections next year.

In a TV interview in early June, she said she wanted to build a “grand alliance of the right” – though she insisted her intentions were devoid of personal ambition.

She had some stinging words for the National Rally, saying it is “indispensable to political life, but unfortunately it isn’t sufficient.” Defending the nation, and countering Macron’s progressives, needs “other voices from other movements, currents” to create alliances.

Marechal has been regarded as a potential presidential candidate in the 2022 election, or later, raising occasional tensions with her aunt, who was roundly defeated in 2017 by Macron after making it to the runoff. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon praised her as a “rising star” – on a stage he shared with Marine Le Pen at an important National Rally congress.

If Marine Le Pen is wary that her niece is setting the stage for a return to politics, neither she nor her camp is saying so.

Le Pen was politely dismissive of her niece’s initiatives.

“That Marion wants to build bridges with people of the traditional right closer to us than to Emmanuel Macron, so much the better,” she said in an interview with BFMTV this month after her niece’s remarks. As for Marechal’s “regret” about short-comings of the National Rally, Le Pen took a diplomatic dig.

“One should not be pessimistic when one is young,” she said.

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling for the repatriation of families of foreign fighters suspected of being allied with Islamic State militants in Syria. 

More than 70,000 people fled to Al Hol camp after Syrian government troops regained control of Islamic State’s last stronghold of Deirel-Zour. This population includes more than 11,000 family members of suspected IS fighters from dozens of countries.

ICRC’s director for the Near and Middle East region, Fabrizio Carboni, said hundreds of thousands of people in Al Hol and the surrounding area are being kept in a legal limbo in an unstable, disputed place.

“Even for a state, it is difficult to manage a population like this one. Hundreds of thousands of people who spent the last months, if not years, under the bombs-starved, wounded, sick, traumatized. I mean it is just apocalyptical,” he said.

‘Stigmatized and categorized’

Carboni said people seen as related to IS are stigmatized and categorized as good victims or bad victims. He said this even extends to the children, most under age 12, who comprise two-thirds of Al Hol’s population. He calls this wholesale stigmatization a form of collective punishment.

He agrees the question of repatriating IS fighters is politically toxic. He notes many states are reluctant to bring back their nationals, even children, because of perceived security risks. But he said it is unconscionable and immoral to think of children in conflict as perpetrators and not as victims.

“Some of those states have for decades defended in various fora that kids are victims and cannot be considered as combatants, for instance. And, today, the very same states are reluctant to take those kids back. It does not look good,” he said.

Carboni warns that states will at some point pay a high price for failure to address this issue.

He said allowing people to fester in abysmal conditions with no end in sight is likely to result in further radicalization. He said stigmatizing such a large population is not the best way to reconcile and stabilize communities.

 

The wife of former Interpol President Meng Hongwei is suing the international police agency, accusing Interpol of failing to protect him from arrest in China and failing to protect his family.

Meng’s wife Grace Meng said her lawyers filed a legal complaint in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands. In a statement sent to The Associated Press, she says Interpol “breached its obligations owed to my family” and “is complicit in the internationally wrongful acts of its member country, China.”

Interpol said Sunday it strongly disputes the allegations.

The court in The Hague did not respond to requests for comment. Such cases generally take many months to settle, and its proceedings and rulings are not made public.

Meng Hongwei was arrested in September amid a campaign against corruption and political disloyalty led by Chinese President Xi Jinping. A Chinese court said Meng confessed last month to accepting more than $2 million in bribes, but his wife calls the case “fake” and politically driven.

The arrest, shrouded in secrecy, was a troubling episode for Interpol.

Meng – who was elected Interpol president in 2016 but retained responsibilities as Chinese vice minister of public security – vanished into custody while visiting China. Interpol was not informed about the detention, and was forced to ask China about his whereabouts.

After the arrest, Grace Meng and her family stayed in France, where Interpol is based. She said she received threats, and was put under French police protection.
Interpol’s general secretariat said in a statement Sunday that it “forcefully disputes” any wrongdoing.

The agency said the arbitration case was filed in April by lawyers representing Meng and his family, and says the allegations are “legally baseless.” Interpol says the proceedings are meant to be confidential.

Interpol denies the agency “had any involvement with China’s actions” against Meng.
There are suspicions Meng fell out of political favor with Xi, who has come down hard on corruption and perceived disloyalty in what observers say is a campaign calculated to strengthen party control while bringing down potential challengers to his authority.

 

Iran announced Sunday it will raise its enrichment of uranium, breaking another limit of its unraveling 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and further heightening tensions between Tehran and the U.S.

Government spokesman Ali Rabiei told a news conference that Iran will go beyond the limit of 3.67% enrichment Sunday and that the new percentage “will be based on our needs,” without specifying.

Iran made the decision a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal. Iran has repeatedly warned Europe in recent weeks that it would begin walking away from an accord neutered by a maximalist American campaign of sanctions that blocked Tehran’s oil sales abroad and targeted its top officials.

Sunday’s decision came less than a week after Iran acknowledged breaking the deal’s 300-kilogram (661-pound) limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile. Experts warn higher enrichment and a growing stockpile narrow the one-year window Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic bomb, something Iran denies it wants but the deal prevented.

In a last-minute diplomatic bid, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, by phone Saturday, saying he is trying to find a way by July 15 to resume dialogue between Iran and Western partners. 

Hopes for saving the faltering deal appear increasingly dim, as the Europeans have been unable to offer Iran any effective way around U.S. sanctions. While the steps are concerning to nuclear non-proliferation experts, they could be easily reversible if Europeans offer Iran the sanctions relief it seeks. 

Tensions began rising in May when the U.S. rushed thousands of additional troops, an aircraft carrier, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets to the Mideast. Mysterious oil tanker blasts near the Strait of Hormuz, attacks by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen on Saudi Arabia and Iran shooting down a U.S. military drone have raised fears of a wider conflict engulfing a region crucial to global energy supplies.

Greeks vote on Sunday in a snap election that polls say will bring opposition conservatives to power, ending four years of leftist rule blamed for saddling the country with more debt and mismanaging crises.

The election is largely a showdown of two contenders.

Incumbent Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza party is on one side — a 44-year-old radical leftist who stormed to power in 2015 vowing to tear up the austerity rule book, only to relent weeks later.

On the other side of the fence is Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 51, of New Democracy. He is from a famous political dynasty; he hopes to follow the footsteps of his father as prime minister, while a sister of his was foreign minister.

Opinion polls put New Democracy’s lead at up to 10 percentage points, potentially giving it an absolute majority in the country’s 300-seat parliament. Voting starts at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) and ends at 7 p.m., with first official projections expected about two hours after voting ends.

Financial crisis

Greece endured a debilitating financial crisis from 2010 that saw the country needing a cash lifeline from its European Union partners three times.

The economy is the public’s main concern, said Thomas Gerakis of pollsters MARC.

“Voters want to know the government can give Greeks a better tomorrow,” he said. Some voters wanted to punish Syriza for reneging on past pledges, he added.

Tsipras was also roundly criticized for mismanagement of crises on his watch, and for brokering a deeply unpopular deal to end a dispute over the name of neighoring North Macedonia.

One hundred people died in a devastating fire that swept through a seaside village east of Athens last year; while Mitsotakis was quick to the scene to console survivors, Tsipras was out of the public eye for several days.

Greece wrapped up its last economic adjustment program in 2018, but remains under surveillance from lenders to ensure no future fiscal slippage. Though economic growth has returned to the country, unemployment is the eurozone’s highest at 18 percent.

New Democracy has promised to invest in creating well-paying jobs with decent benefits. The outgoing government, meanwhile, hopes voters will reward it for upping the minimum wage by 11 percent and reinstating collective bargaining.

Mitsotakis hopes that his reforms will persuade lenders to show more flexibility in due course.

“The first thing that is necessary for economic growth to be boosted is a stable government, a strong majority in the next parliament,” Mitsotakis told Reuters.

Tsipras said that a vote cast in favor of Mitsotakis would go to the political establishment that forced Greece to the edge of the precipice in the first place.

“Each and every one of you must now consider if, after so many sacrifices, we should return to the days of despair,” he told voters, wrapping up the pre-election campaign on Friday.

Haitian opposition lawmaker Printemps Belizaire said gunmen apparently targeted his vehicle Saturday.

The incident happened Saturday afternoon shortly after the deputy had attended the funeral of journalist Rospide Petion, who was shot and killed by unknown gunmen last month on his way home from reporting on anti-corruption protests. His killer has not been found, and colleagues believe he was slain for being too outspoken about the PetroCaribe corruption probe, which has implicated multiple government officials, including the president.

Belizaire represents the Lavalas party in the Chamber of Deputies and is vocal in his demands for President Jovenel Moise to resign amid corruption allegations. He said he had been invited to a wedding in the Fontamara neighborhood of Port-au-Prince but decided not to attend and loaned his car and driver to Pedrica Saint Jean, who handles protocol matters for the parliament. He said the car, a dark gray Toyota SUV, was “ambushed” after leaving the wedding.

“The shooters had high-powered long range weapons and were shooting from the front and behind the car,” the deputy told VOA Creole as he showed the reporter bullet holes the car sustained inside and out.

“Luckily one of the people sitting in the back got down and avoided being harmed but Mrs. Saint Jean didn’t have time to get down — unfortunately there was a gunman who shot at the window near where she was sitting and she was injured by projectiles.”

VOA Creole saw a bullet hole in the front seat backrest and the front windows of the vehicle were shattered.

“This is very sad, and it should remain in the hearts and minds of all Haitian citizens, and make them determined not to let this type of thing happen again,” Deputy Guerda Benjamin told VOA Creole. She said she came to lend her support to her colleague Belizaire and to Saint Jean for whom she has much admiration.

“It’s time for the security officials, the police to say enough and put an end to this terrible insecurity. We are not living in a jungle, this is supposed to be a (civilized) country. We can’t continue like this,” she said.

“I think Deputy Belizaire was definitely targeted,” lawmaker Sinal Bertrand told VOA Creole. “But God saved his life,” he added.

Bertrand said he thinks the ruling PHTK (Pati Ayisyen Tet Kale) was behind the attack but those allegations are unsubstantiated.

A life-size rough wooden sculpture of U.S. first lady Melania Trump was unveiled Friday near her hometown of Sevnica in southeastern Slovenia. 

Commissioned by Berlin-based American artist Brad Downey and carved with a chainsaw by local folk artist Ales Zupevc, the statue serves as a perhaps wry accompaniment to Downey’s exhibition in the capital, Ljubljana, exploring Melania’s roots in the small Alpine country. 

The blocky, rustic figure was cut from the trunk of a living linden tree whose base forms a tall plinth, in a field beside the Sava River in Rozno, eight kilometers (five miles) from Sevnica. 
 
There was no attempt to create an accurate likeness, to the point that the gallery in Ljubljana appears uncertain how seriously to take the statue.  

“Perhaps we are simply trying vigorously to make sense of things that might only be a slapstick prank,” it says in a leaflet. “Who knows?” 
 
Although the statue’s face is rough-hewn and unrecognizable, the figure is shown clothed in the pale blue wraparound coat that Melania wore at Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. president. 
 
Downey said he wanted to “have a dialogue with my country’s political situation” and highlight Melania Trump’s status as an immigrant married to a president sworn to reduce immigration. 

The sculptor, known as Maxi, was born in the same hospital as Melania Trump, in the same month, and now mostly works as a pipelayer. 
 
“Let’s face it,” he says in a short film being shown as part of the exhibition, “she owns half of America while I have nothing.” 

The United States on Saturday welcomed a provisional agreement forged by Sudan’s ruling military council and a coalition of opposition and protest groups to share power for three years as an “important step forward.”

The U.S. State Department said in statement that special envoy for Sudan Donald Booth will return to the region soon. The agreement brokered by the African Union and Ethiopia Union, announced on Friday, is due to be finalized on Monday.

“The agreement between the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Transitional Military Council to establish a sovereign council is an important step forward,” the State Department said. “We look forward to immediate resumption of access to the internet, establishment of the new legislature, accountability for the violent suppression of peaceful protests, and progress toward free and fair elections.”

The deal revived hopes for a peaceful transition of power in a country plagued by internal conflicts and years of economic crisis that helped to trigger the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in April.

Relations between the military council that took over from Bashir and the Forces for Freedom and Change alliance broke down when security forces killed dozens of people as they cleared a
sit-in on June 3. But after huge protests against the military on Sunday, African mediators brokered a return to direct talks.

Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser to the president, has been the subject of criticism and ridicule after her prominent involvement during President Donald Trump’s visit to Asia last week. Many are questioning her competence to be in such high-profile events, accusing the administration of harming the country’s interest through nepotism, as well as wondering whether the president is grooming his daughter for a bigger role in the future. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California raised $12 million in the past three months, her presidential campaign said Friday. 
 
Harris’s second-quarter total was less than those of some other first-tier 2020 White House hopefuls, who had already released their totals ahead of the July 15 deadline to report to the Federal Election Commission. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg brought in $24.8 million, former Vice President Joe Biden raised $21.5 million and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont collected $18 million, their campaigns said. 
 
Harris’s announcement came a week after the first presidential debate, during which she confronted Biden about his comments on his decades-old relationship with segregationist senators and his record on public school busing during the 1970s. Since then, her campaign has sought to capitalize on the moment. 
 
Previously, her campaign said it received online donations from roughly 63,000 people in the 23 hours following the debate, and that more than half of those donors had not previously supported her campaign. 
 
The Harris campaign added Friday that, of the money she raised this quarter, $500,000 came from her online store.  
  
The campaign is pointing to sales of a shirt that highlights a moment from her exchange with Biden during first Democratic presidential debate. The shirts feature a childhood photo of Harris, who at the debate discussed her childhood experience with the busing integration of elementary schools in Berkeley, Calif., in 1968. 
 
The $12 million that Harris raised was roughly equal to the amount the California senator brought in in the first fundraising quarter, which ended March 31. 
 

Also Friday, Steve Bullock reported more than $2 million in contributions during the second quarter. The Montana governor entered the 2020 primary race in mid-May, halfway through the quarter. 
 
Bullock’s campaign said he’d amassed his total without any transfers of money from other accounts. He missed the polling qualification cutoff for the first Democratic presidential debates in Miami but has a strong chance of making the stage for this month’s second set of debates in Detroit. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Friday proposed to invest heavily in infrastructure, digital economy and job creation to lift a slugging economy that’s burdened with a 45-year-high unemployment rate of 6.1 percent.

Unveiling the budget after a major victory in national elections, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Sitharaman proposed a bigger role for foreign direct investment in aviation, media and insurance sectors.

The government set a target of a $5 trillion Indian economy by 2025 from the present $2.7 trillion. Sitharaman said the size of the economy would reach $3 trillion by March next year.

She told Parliament that India’s economy was now the sixth largest in the world. In terms of purchasing power parity, it is the third largest after the United States and China, she said.

She also announced cash handouts for small farmers, a pension scheme for informal workers and a doubling of tax relief for the lower middle class.

Small farmers would be paid 6,000 rupees ($85) annually, benefiting as many as 120 million households. Nearly 30 million retail traders and small shopkeepers with an annual income of less than 15 million rupees ($220,000) would get pension benefits, she said.

The budget doubled income tax exemptions for those earning up to 500,000 rupees ($7,142) a year from the existing 250,000 rupees ($3,571). The decision would benefit 30 million lower earning taxpayers.

Sitharaman said that foreign direct investment in aviation, media and insurance sectors could be opened further after multi-stakeholder examination. Also, insurance intermediaries could get 100% foreign direct investment. India at present allows 49% foreign ownership in the insurance sector.

She also said that local sourcing norms of 30% would be eased for foreign direct investment in single brand retail sector, a demand put forward by several multinational companies. India currently requires investors to source locally 30% of the value of goods purchased.

`These companies will certainly have to relook at their strategy to tap the large Indian consumption potential. It would now be a race for all these retail companies to evaluate the conditions and take a quick decision to invest into India,” said Anil Talreja, an industrialist.

The finance minister said the foreign direct investment into India has remained robust despite global headwinds. India’s FDI inflows in 2018-19 were around $64.375 billion, marking a 6% growth over the previous year.

Modi said that the budget would accelerate the pace of development, rationalize the tax structure and modernize the country’s infrastructure.

The government will invest 1,000 billion ($15 billion) in infrastructure over the next five years, Sitharaman said. She also said the government will raise 1,050 billion rupees ($15.5 billion) through disinvestment in government-owned companies in 2019-2020.
 
The government also earmarked 100 billion rupees ($1.5 billion) for creating an infrastructure for promoting electric cars in the country.

 

The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has plunged from a record high to a record low in just three years according to a new report released this week by the U.S, space agency NASA. Faith Lapidus reports scientists are not sure why.
 

Millennium-old Cambodian artifacts displayed in a Japanese collector’s home for two decades have been returned to the Southeast Asian country’s National Museum.

The 85 artifacts are mostly small bronze items and include statues of Buddha and the Hindu god Shiva, plus jars, ceramics and jewelry. Cambodia’s Culture Ministry says some items were older than the Angkor era, which began about 800 A.D. Others date from the Angkor era or just after it ended in the late 14th century.

Cambodia has made intense efforts to recover artifacts looted during its civil war in the 1970s.

At an official reception for the artifacts Friday, Prak Sonnara, secretary of state for the Culture and Fine Art Ministry, praised the Japanese collector for voluntarily returning the artifacts. He said her actions set a good sample for other countries and collectors to follow.

The collector, Fumiko Takakuwa, told reporters after the handover ceremony that she and her husband had bought the items in Japan and liked to collect and display them in their home. But she knew they were originally from Cambodia and that is why she returned them.

“My husband has said before he passed away that those artifacts have to be returned back to Cambodia, and today I am happy that I did,” Takakuwa said.

Prak Sonnara said the 85 items were believed to have been stolen from Cambodia’s temples during the war, when intense looting occurred and valuables were smuggled through neighboring Thailand.

A 1993 Cambodian law prohibited the removal of cultural artifacts without government permission. The law strongly compels owners of items taken abroad after that date to return them. But there is also general agreement in the art world that pieces were acquired illegitimately if they were exported without clear and valid documentation after 1970, the year of a United Nations cultural agreement targeting trafficking in antiquities.

In 2014, three 1,000-year-old statues depicting Hindu mythology were welcomed home to Cambodia after being looted from a temple and put in Western art collections.

Also in 2013, two 10th century Cambodian stone statues displayed for nearly two decades at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art were returned to their homeland in a high-profile case of allegedly looted artifacts.

U.S. government lawyers are scrambling to meet a court ordered Friday afternoon deadline to offer a plausible rationale for including a citizenship question on the country’s 2020 census, or stipulate that it is no longer seeking to put the controversial question on the survey.

U.S. federal courts and states that challenged the Trump administration’s decision to include the citizenship question on the 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.

Trump tweets

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.

But with a series of tweets, President Donald Trump injected uncertainty back into the process as he proclaimed, “We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”

So important for our Country that the very simple and basic “Are you a Citizen of the United States?” question be allowed to be asked in the 2020 Census. Department of Commerce and the Department of Justice are working very hard on this, even on the 4th of July!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2019

At the start of the country’s annual Independence Day holiday, Trump tweeted that Commerce and Justice department officials “are working very hard on this, even on the 4th of July!”

Maryland court deadline

U.S. District Judge George Hazel in Maryland set a 2 p.m. deadline Friday for the government to either say the citizenship question will not appear on the census, or to explain how the court should proceed with an unresolved challenge that the government violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution by including the question.

So far, rulings have focused on the administrative process and whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted reasonably in pursuing his agency’s goals. An examination of equal protection challenges would bring into the case whether the administration sought to suppress the count of minorities in the census.

Trump’s Democratic opponents have claimed that including the citizenship question is a Republican ploy to scare immigrants into not participating in the census out of fear that immigration officials might target them for deportation when they determine that they are in the country illegally. An undercount in Democrat-leaning areas with large immigrant and Latino populations could reduce congressional representation for such states and cut federal aid.

The attorneys general of California and New York have asked federal courts in those states to hold conferences Friday so that the Justice Department can make its positions clear after what has happened in the Maryland District Court and with the changing statements from the Trump administration.

DOJ scrambling

In the conference call with the Maryland court Wednesday, Justice Department special counsel Joshua Gardner admitted that they were still sorting out how to respond to Trump’s statements.

“The tweet this morning was the first I had heard of the president’s position on this issue, just like the plaintiffs and your honor,” Gardner said. “I do not have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture, other than what the president has tweeted. But, obviously, as you can imagine, I am doing my absolute best to figure out what’s going on.”

However, Gardner added that the Census Bureau has not stopped its current process of printing the census without a citizenship question, as the government continues to weigh what options it may have.

Questionnaire printing

The Census Bureau had previously set a target date of early July to begin printing the questionnaire in order to have it prepared for delivery to the American public by the April 1 deadline.

The census is important because it determines how many seats in the House of Representatives each state is allotted and how $800 billion in federal aid is disbursed.

After the Supreme Court heard arguments on the citizenship question but before it ruled, documents emerged from the files of a deceased Republican election districting expert showing that the citizenship question was aimed at helping Republicans gain an electoral edge over Democrats.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the House Oversight Committee, announced Wednesday that the director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Steven Dillingham, will testify at a hearing July 24 on the status of planning and preparations for the 2020 Census.

“It is time for the Census Bureau to move beyond all the outside political agendas and distractions and devote its full attention to preparing for the 2020 Census,” said Raskin, a Maryland Democrat. “This hearing will examine the current status of the bureau’s readiness for the census next year — especially in areas where the bureau may be falling behind such as IT, security and public education.”
 

Eighty-three African migrants drowned and three survived when their boat sank two days ago off the Tunisian coast, the Coast Guard says.

The vessel went down in the Mediterranean two days ago, just hours after launching from the Libyan town of Zuwara.

Fishermen saw four people clinging to pieces of wood and alerted Tunisian authorities. One of the four survivors later died at a hospital. The Red Cross says the boat was carrying too many people.

One of the survivors says the boat started filling with water while the migrants could still see lights on the shore. An urgent telephone call for help went unheeded because the caller was unable to tell Libyan rescuers the exact location of the boat. 

The survivor says he and the three others were in the water for two days before the fishermen found them.

The sinking came on the same day an airstrike hit a migrant detention center outside Tripoli, killing 44. 

The United Nations and human rights groups have decried treatment of mainly African migrants who try to escape poverty and violence by fleeing to Europe from Libyan shores.

Many picked up at sea are taken back to Libya and held in poor conditions in detention centers. Private rescue boats operated by charities have found themselves unwelcome in key European ports.

When it comes to saving Iran’s nuclear deal, Europe finds itself in the impossible situation of trying to salvage an accord unraveling because of the maximalist U.S. sanctions campaign.

Since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord over a year ago, a slow fuse has burned through Iran. At first, it appeared Iranian officials thought they might be able to wait out Trump. They spoke about “strategic patience” as the U.S. 2020 presidential election loomed.

That talk faded as U.S. sanctions choked off Iran’s vital crude oil sales abroad and then began targeting its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Soon, the talk changed to “strategic action” and making threats to the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial global oil supply point.  

That action has seen Iran break the limit put on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. President Hassan Rouhani says that starting Sunday, Iran will begin enriching uranium to “any level we think is necessary and we need.”

Those steps combined could see Iran narrow the one-year window it needs to have enough material ready to potentially build a nuclear weapon, something Iran denies it wants to do but the atomic accord prevented.

To Iran, the only people who now can prevent further escalation in the crisis are in Europe. Among the parties to the deal are Britain, France and Germany, while the European Union also has aided in the diplomacy.

In public comments, it is Europe that Iran keeps targeting.

The “actions of the Europeans have not been enough so the Islamic Republic will move ahead with its plans as it has previously announced,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday.

Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, said Thursday that Europe “called on Iran to reverse these steps and to refrain from further measures that would undermine the nuclear agreement.”

Trading options

But what, if anything, the Europeans can offer remains in question. They’ve pointed to INSTEX, a trading vehicle that allows European and Iranian firms to send goods abroad and be paid for locally to avoid American sanctions. However, questions remain about whether Iran will set up a matching system itself to facilitate the trade. The EU says from its side that INSTEX “is now operational and its first transactions are being processed.”

For Iran, being able to sell oil through INSTEX remains its most important concern.

“Without [an] oil deal, it’s very clear INSTEX will not work,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh told Bloomberg this week. However, Iran may have been able to export some oil to China last week despite sanctions.

The U.S. appears poised to potentially sanction INSTEX if it moves outside the bounds of food and medicine, which America still allows to be sold into Iran. And even if it did, there’s no sign that any major company would be willing to risk U.S. sanctions in the name of European diplomacy, something the Trump administration seems all too happy to point out.

“We just don’t see any corporate demand for it because if a corporation is given a choice between doing business in the United States or doing business in Iran, it’s going to choose the United States every single time,” Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, said in May.

Trump himself increasingly has criticized Iran for not adhering to the deal he abandoned.

“Be careful with the threats, Iran,” Trump wrote early Thursday on Twitter. “They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!”

Action by Iran

But Iran can bite as well. Already amid the crisis, Iran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone worth over $100 million that it said had illegally entered its territorial airspace. The U.S. denies that, saying an Iranian missile hit the drone over international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil passes.

Iran repeatedly has threatened to close off the strait if it can’t sell its oil. In the last two months, mysterious attacks struck oil tankers near the strait. Iran denies being involved, while the U.S. accuses Tehran of using limpet mines on the vessels.

While the strait remains open, insurance premiums for oil tankers have risen. While 80% of the oil passing through the strait goes to Asia, Saudi and Iraqi oil does find its way to Europe. Any impact to that flow through the strait likely will see global prices rise, hurting European consumers.

“The military confrontation between Iran, the U.S., and the Arab Gulf states over everything from the [nuclear deal] to Yemen can easily escalate to hybrid warfare that has far more serious forms of attack,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Such attacks can impact critical aspects of the flow of energy to key industrial states and exporters that shape the success of the global economy.”

Europe now finds itself directly involved in halting the flow of Iranian crude oil abroad. On Thursday, authorities in Gibraltar stopped an oil tanker believed to be carrying Iranian crude to Syria. While Gibraltar said it made the seizure with British assistance over EU sanctions on Syria, the timing likely will not go unnoticed by officials in Tehran.

Spain’s claim that the seizure came at the request of the U.S. undoubtedly will get attention as well.

As Rouhani warned in December: “If someday, the United States decides to block Iran’s oil, no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf.”