Family
Page: 11
FILE PHOTO: Frans Timmermans, the newly elected Party of European Socialists President, speaks during the Party of European Socialists annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, December 8, 2018. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes/File Photo
April 17, 2019
By Peter Maushagen
STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) – Britain should use the next few months to “cool down and rethink” its decision to leave the European Union, the socialist candidate to head the next European Commission, Frans Timmermans, said on Wednesday.
Last week EU leaders gave Britain an extension of its departure date until Oct. 31, with the possibility of leaving sooner if parliament ratifies a divorce deal Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated with the EU. Lawmakers have already rejected the deal three times.
“I absolutely hope that the UK might stay in the EU,” Timmermans, now the Commission’s first vice president, said in a television debate with his main rival, Manfred Weber of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP).
“I hope this period of extension will be used for Britain to calm down and rethink things a bit, perhaps for politicians to be more responsible with the promises they make, and then look at the issue again later this year,” the Dutchman said.
“Who knows what might change in the meantime?” he said.
Timmermans was expressing a sentiment shared by some in the EU, notably the chairman of EU leaders, Donald Tusk, that Britain could still change its mind and stay in the EU.
LABOUR TO TIMMERMANS’ RESCUE?
Polls show that enough Britons may have had a change of heart about Brexit since the 2016 referendum, in which they voted to leave the bloc by 52 to 48 percent. But May and her government remain strongly opposed to holding another vote.
Timmermans hopes to replace the EPP’s Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission, the most powerful of EU institutions. He is running on a ticket from the EU’s second biggest political family, the socialists.
Britain is likely to still be a member of the EU at the time of the European Parliament elections on May 23-26, which means it would take part in the vote. Britain’s opposition Labour Party, which backs a second referendum, could help Timmermans’ socialists win more seats in the 751-seat European assembly.
Weber does not stand to benefit in the same way from British participation in the EU elections because no UK parties belong to the EPP, currently the largest grouping in the parliament.
“I have a problem that they (Britain) are now participating in the EU elections, are deciding about the future of our union,” Weber said during the TV debate with Timmermans.
“That is not easy to understand. I respect the outcome, and if they are part of the EU, they have the right to vote – don’t get me wrong,” he added.
The EU political family with most seats in the European Parliament expects its candidate for Commission president to land the job, although the decision formally lies with EU leaders.
Latest polls – which assume UK participation in the elections – show the EPP winning 178 seats and the socialists getting 144 seats.
(Reporting By Peter Maushagen, Writing by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Source: OANN
There must be consequences for people entering the United States illegally, or there will continue to be an increase in people trying to cross the border, Sen. Ron Johnson said Wednesday, while agreeing with Attorney General William Barr that illegal immigrants must remain in jail while their deportation cases are being heard.
“I was down at the border Monday night and yesterday,” the Wisconsin Republican told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “What we are seeing and what we’re witnessing what people need to understand the human traffickers are using our law enforcement, border, and law enforcement officers as just part of their process of funneling people into the United States for long-term residency.”
Meanwhile, only about 15% of those claiming asylum have a valid asylum claim, Johnson said, and a higher standard must be made so their claims can be assessed.
Smugglers are using U.S. law and “beating us at our own system, and they have been for some time,” he added.
“The people just turn themselves in,” said Johnson. “They are completely relaxed. They have no fear. They realize they are only a couple of days away from being processed and being sent to all corners of America.”
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals law sparked the attitude, said Johnson, because since 2012, “we’re approaching 900,000 unaccompanied children and people in family units having been let into the country and staying long term. Nobody knows where they went. We have no real accounting where these people are. The numbers are growing.”
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO: United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney details the “UCP Fight Back Strategy” against foreign anti-oil special interests, in front of the Trans Mountain Edmonton Terminal in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Candace Elliott/File Photo
April 17, 2019
By Julie Gordon
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s already shaky bid to persuade Canadians to fight climate change will get even tougher after the election on Tuesday of conservative Jason Kenney as premier of the energy-rich province of Alberta.
Kenney and his United Conservative Party easily trounced left-leaning incumbent Premier Rachel Notley of the New Democratic Party in the provincial vote, where climate actions were made the scapegoat for Alberta’s economic woes.
The province’s economy has struggled to recover since oil prices plummeted in 2014 and spurred an exodus of major energy firms from Alberta.
Kenney, who opposes much of Trudeau’s green agenda, had pledged to repeal a provincial carbon tax that Notley introduced. Such a move would automatically trigger a federal carbon tax in Alberta that is aimed at provinces that do not have their own plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Alberta will become the fifth out of Canada’s 10 provinces to oppose a carbon tax, indicating the scale of the challenge for Trudeau’s Liberals ahead of the October general election. Three provinces are suing the federal government over the levy.
“The carbon tax is all economic pain and no environmental gain. (Albertans) want to scrap the carbon tax cash grab,” Kenney told cheering supporters late on Tuesday.
In Alberta, Canada’s most traditionally conservative province, the Liberals face an uphill battle to hold on to their three seats. Kenney’s antagonism, particularly on climate matters and pipeline construction, is unlikely to help.
Trudeau, who was leading in polls at the start of the year, is trailing his Conservative Party rival Andrew Scheer because of a scandal over his alleged interference in a corporate corruption case.
“Even losing three seats in Alberta is really a big problem,” said Ipsos pollster Darrell Bricker.
Notley has been an occasional Trudeau ally, and she introduced Alberta’s own carbon tax in 2015 as part of a wide-ranging effort to make the province’s oil and gas sector more environment-friendly.
CARBON CLASH
Despite the challenges, Trudeau has no intention of changing his mind.
“There are premiers right across the country right now that have gotten elected … and have made it very, very clear they do not think doing anything to fight climate change is a priority. And I disagree with them,” he told a town hall on Tuesday.
In Ontario, the most populous of the provinces, Premier Doug Ford killed a provincial cap-and-trade system after his election last year, forcing Trudeau’s government to fully impose its carbon tax on April 1.
Prices at the pump jumped immediately, which could hurt Trudeau’s chances in auto-dependant suburban swing ridings around Toronto. The Liberals need to win as many seats as they can in the vote-rich province.
“Ontario has another strong partner that will fight for Canadian families against the job-killing federal carbon tax!” Ford tweeted late on Tuesday, referring to Kenney’s win.
The provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick, which have conservative governments, have not implemented their own emission plans and are now paying the federal tax.
Federal Conservative leader Scheer has pledged to kill the carbon tax if elected, though he has yet to outline a climate plan of his own.
“I think it’s really unfortunate,” Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment minister, told Reuters of the push to kill the federal carbon levy. “It seems to be part of a movement by this generation of conservative politicians to not make decisions based on science, evidence and facts.”
McKenna noted that Canada’s carbon tax effort was being closely watched around the world as momentum builds in other nations to tackle climate change.
And support is growing at home as well. An Angus Reid poll in November showed that a majority of Canadians, 54 percent, supported the carbon tax.
This result was bolstered by the Trudeau government’s pledge that most revenues from the tax would be returned to consumers in the form of a rebate worth hundreds of dollars a year for a typical family.
Kenney, meanwhile, told the rally that Albertans took the challenge of climate change seriously, adding without elaborating, “we are world leaders in innovating to reduce emissions.”
(Additional reporting by Nia Williams in Calgary, Alberta and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; editing by David Ljunggren)
Source: OANN
Transgender woman Zoella Zayce, who fled Brunei in anticipation of escalation of sharia law, is pictured at her home in Vancouver, B.C., Canada April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Mark Goodnow
April 17, 2019
By Evan Duggan
VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Zoella Zayce displays no photos of her family in her basement apartment in Vancouver, thousands of miles from where she left them in Brunei. The 19-year-old refugee claimant is a transgender woman, something she never told the family she describes as conservative.
Back home, family and friends sometimes asked if she was gay. It was an alarming question in the Southeast Asian country, which this month introduced new Islamic laws to punish homosexuality, adultery and rape with the death penalty, including stoning.
The laws, elements of which were first adopted in 2014, have been rolled out in the country of 400,000, stirring international outrage.
“I just didn’t feel safe with my family,” said Zayce, who knew from childhood that she was transgender. At 11 or 12, she remembers being forced to visit a cleric who performed a ritual she described as an exorcism or cleansing. “I was traumatized.”
In 2014, she heard about two people fined and jailed for crossdressing: “I knew I had to leave very soon.”
Zayce arrived in Canada late last year, and now awaits the results of her asylum application, which could come as soon as November.
She chose Canada because it was far from Brunei. She thought it would be too expensive for her family or the authorities to come after her. Canada also had the reputation as an open society with strong protections for human rights.
“(Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau was very accepting of people fleeing their countries so that was one of the major things as well,” she said.
She works full time at an office doing data entry, and on the side as a math tutor.
“It’s been very busy for me and I’m glad I can support myself and don’t have to rely on the government,” she said.
She hopes to find a boyfriend and to eventually study computer science.
Zayce hopes for a secular Brunei in which the Sultan would abdicate and make way for democracy and more freedom.
Brunei has defended its right to implement the laws. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, 72, who has ruled the oil-rich country for 51 years, is one the wealthiest people in the world.
Brunei’s embassy in Ottawa was not immediately available for comment.
The international community could help by applying trade sanctions against Brunei or scuttling the royal family’s investments around the world, Zayce said.
But mostly, she is concerned with making her own voice heard, even though it means she may never be able to return to her country.
“I just want to let the world know that if I do get sent back to Brunei, I wouldn’t mind dying back there,” she said, starting to cry. “If I do go back, I would have at least lived a good life … on my own terms.”
(Reporting by Evan Duggan; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Source: OANN
Time Magazine released its annual “100 Most Influential People” list on Wednesday. It is divided into five categories, with Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez receiving a place in the “leaders” section along with President Donald Trump
Ocasio-Cortez’s profile was written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a 2020 contender for the Democratic presidential nomination and a fellow member of the progressive wing of the party, according to The Hill.
In the profile, Warren describes how Ocasio-Cortez managed to rebound from a tragic and trying period in 2008, when her father died from lung cancer during the same time as the financial crisis.
“Her commitment to putting power in the hands of the people is forged in fire,” Warren writes. “Coming from a family in crisis and graduating from school with a mountain of debt, she fought back against a rigged system and emerged as a fearless leader in a movement committed to demonstrating what an economy, a planet and a government that works for everyone should look like.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie praised Trump’s efforts at trying to reach a deal with North Korea, writing in his profile of the president that “Trump deserves great credit for daring to try to personally persuade Chairman Kim to join the family of nations. This approach holds the possibility for history–making changes on the Korean Peninsula to make us all safer.”
Also on the leaders list is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with Hillary Clinton describing her in a profile as “living proof that when it comes to getting the job done, more often than not, it takes a woman.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller, Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also made the list.
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO: The logo of TikTok application is seen on a screen in this picture illustration taken February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui/Illustration/File Photo
April 17, 2019
By Aditya Kalra and Sankalp Phartiyal
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – An Indian ban on downloading TikTok, one of the world’s most popular mobile applications, has heightened industry worries that technology companies could now face increased scrutiny and regulatory challenges in one of their most important markets.
TikTok, which allows users to create and share videos with special effects, has become a sensation in India, where it has been downloaded by nearly 300 million users so far, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, out of more than 1 billion installs globally.
Its runaway popularity has attracted criticism from some politicians, however, in a largely conservative society that can have a low boiling point for even moderately racey content.
In the case of TikTok, 15-second dance clips and memes dominate the platform, although some videos do show youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-syncing and grooving to popular tunes. Local media have also reported several accidental deaths when users attempted to make videos with knives and guns.
The IT minister of Tamil Nadu state, M. Manikandan, said in February that “young girls and everybody is behaving very badly” on TikTok.
On Wednesday, TikTok vanished from Google and Apple’s app stores in India. The rare takedown of such a popular app came after the Madras High Court said the app encouraged pornography and asked the government to ban it. The federal IT ministry then issued a follow-up directive to Google and Apple.
Industry executives, technology lawyers and free-speech activists interviewed by Reuters on Wednesday said the ban was a major concern.
“It does unnerve me,” said a senior executive working for a social media company in New Delhi. “For the industry, it sets a worrying precedent in India.”
A TikTok spokesman said on Wednesday that it had faith in the judicial system and was “optimistic about an outcome that would be well received by” its millions of users in India. The state court will next hear the case on April 24.
Google told Reuters late on Tuesday it does not comment on individual apps but adheres to local laws. Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
CRITICAL MARKET
TikTok is not the first social media company to run into trouble in India.
Facebook and its messenger app WhatsApp, which count India as their biggest market, have been under pressure from authorities to better tackle fake news and monitor content on their platforms.
Global video streaming giant Netflix was dragged into a legal battle last year following a complaint that one of its fictional series insulted a former Indian prime minister.
But industry executives said the ruling against TikTok was particularly worrisome, given that it originated from a public interest complaint brought by an individual in Tamil Nadu – opening their digital content to judicial scrutiny that could potentially derail their India strategy overnight.
“It shows a level of uncertainty which is not great for investors, for private equity firms and for venture capital,” said Apar Gupta, executive director at advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation.
India is a critical market for social media and mobile digital content companies as the country is witnessing a sharp surge in use of smartphones. An estimated half-a-billion Indians now have access to the Internet.
Singapore-based Bigo, which has a live video streaming app, has also been expanding in India. TikTok’s owner Bytedance Technology Co, one of the world’s most valuable start-ups, also runs another social app named Helo, which allows users to share content in local languages.
Bytedance has more than 250 employees in India, with plans to expand further, one of its court filings showed. It had about two dozen India job openings listed on LinkedIn as of Wednesday.
SEXUAL PREDATORS
Such is the TikTok craze that a Reuters photographer recently saw more than a dozen youngsters shooting TikTok videos on their smartphones at a popular Mumbai promenade. While some danced as they lip-synced to songs, others used teddy bears as props.
The Tamil Nadu court, which ruled against TikTok, said inappropriate content was its dangerous aspect and that the app could expose children to sexual predators.
The ban does not apply to use of the TikTok app if it has already been downloaded.
The Chinese company unsuccessfully argued at the Supreme Court last week that a ban “amounts to curtailing of the (free speech) rights of the citizens of India”.
A “very minuscule” proportion of TikTok’s videos were considered inappropriate or obscene, the company said in its Supreme Court filing, adding that it was primarily an entertainment platform.
That argument cut no ice with the app’s critics, however.
Hindu nationalist group Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, which is close to India’s ruling party and had previously criticized the app’s content, on Wednesday welcomed the ban, saying TikTok was “against Indian culture and morality”.
It also struck a chord in some family living rooms in India.
“From small kids to old ladies, it is spoiling the minds of everyone,” said S. Nithyajothi, a homemaker from the southern city of Madurai. “I strictly ask anyone coming to my house to not talk about TikTok, it is addictive and it is unnecessary.”
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Sankalp Phartiyal; Additional reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan and Danish Siddique; Editing by Martin Howell and Alex Richardson)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis attends a parliamentary session during a no-confidence vote for the government he leads, in Prague, Czech Republic, November 23, 2018. REUTERS/David W Cerny/File Photo
April 17, 2019
PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech police said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Andrej Babis and others should stand trial for alleged fraud involving the handling of a 2 million euro European Union subsidy – charges that could see him jailed for up to 10 years.
Babis, a billionaire media and chemicals entrepreneur, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and told the state CTK news agency on Wednesday that the case was part of a political plot against him. “It has been politicized,” he said.
His junior coalition partners – the center-left Social Democrats who have threatened to pull out of the government in the past over the accusations – said that they would wait for the state attorney’s decision.
“The investigation by the police has been concluded and … there is a recommendation to indict all those charged by the police,” the spokesman for the Prague district state attorney’s office said. Babis was among those charged, the spokesman added.
In the Czech legal system, police bring initial charges. They then investigate and present findings to a state attorney who decides whether to go to court, ask police to investigate further, or halt the proceedings.
Thousands of opposition supporters and other activists have taken to the streets protesting against Babis since the charges emerged in 2017.
But the case has not dented Babis’ overall popularity ahead of the European Parliament elections in May. His centrist ANO party, a member of that parliament’s ALDE faction, leads in polls with a double-digit margin.
Elections for the Czech parliament are not due until 2021.
Police have said they are looking into accusations that Babis hid his ownership of a farm and conference center, called Capi hnizdo (Stork Nest), so that it could qualify for an EU subsidy meant for small businesses.
Babis has said it was owned by his family members when the subsidy was awarded and only later folded into his Agrofert group of companies.
The European Union has said its OLAF anti-fraud unit has also been looking into the case.
(Reporting by Robert Muller, Editing by Michael Kahn and Andrew Heavens)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir addresses a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Khartoum, Sudan, April 5, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdalla/File Photo
April 17, 2019
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s deposed president Omar al-Bashir was moved to Kobar prison in the capital Khartoum late on Tuesday, two family sources said.
Sudanese sources had told Reuters that Bashir was being held under guard in a presidential residence following his removal by the military on April 11.
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Yousef Saba; editing by John Stonestreet)
Source: OANN
A newly released prisoner, part of over 8,000 inmates granted amnesty by Myanmar’s President Win Myint to mark Myanmar’s new year, hugs his family outside Insein prison in Yangon, Myanmar April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Ann Wang
April 17, 2019
By Thu Thu Aung
YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar began releasing more than 9,000 prisoners from jails on Wednesday, after the president announced an amnesty on the first day of the traditional New Year.
President Win Myint said 9,353 prisoners, including 16 foreigners, had been pardoned “as a gesture of marking the Myanmar New Year, for the peace and pleasure of the people, and taking into consideration humanitarian concerns”.
Authorities were continuing to scrutinize remaining prisoners “who should be pardoned”, he said in a statement posted on his Facebook page.
Such releases from prisons across the country are regularly ordered to mark the holiday.
Several prisons had begun releasing inmates by early afternoon, with two political prisoners among them, said Aung Myo Kyaw from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-profit human rights group.
A total of 364 political prisoners are behind bars or facing trial, according to AAPP, including people accused of criticizing the army and ethnic minority activists jailed after protesting against war between government forces and minority insurgents.
Two Reuters reporters jailed for breaking the Official Secrets Act were not among those being pardoned, a senior official at Insein prison, the colonial-era jail on the outskirts of the commercial capital of Yangon where they are being held, told Reuters.
(Reporting by Thu Thu Aung; Writing by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Source: OANN
The Trump administration wants to open two new tent facilities to temporarily detain up to 1,000 parents and children near the southern border, as advocates sharply criticize the conditions inside the tents already used to hold migrants.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a notice to potential contractors that it wants to house 500 people in each camp in El Paso, Texas, and in the South Texas city of Donna, which has a border crossing with Mexico.
Each facility would consist of one large tent that could be divided into sections by gender and between families and children traveling alone, according to the notice. Detainees would sleep on mats. There would also be laundry facilities, showers, and an “additional fenced-in area” for “outside exercise/recreation.”
The notice says the facilities could open in the next two weeks and operate through year end, with a cost that could reach $37 million.
But the agency has said its resources are strained by the sharp rise in the numbers of parents and children crossing the border and requesting asylum. It made 53,000 apprehensions in March of parents and children traveling together, most of whom say they are fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. Many ultimately request asylum under U.S. and international law.
In a statement Tuesday, CBP said it urgently needed additional space for detention and processing.
“CBP is committed to finding solutions that address the current border security and humanitarian crisis at the southwest border in a way that safeguards those in our custody in a humane and dignified manner,” the statement said.
The Border Patrol has started directly releasing parents and children instead of referring them to immigration authorities for potential long-term detention, but families still sometimes wait several days to be processed by the agency and released.
The Border Patrol processing center in McAllen is routinely over capacity . Kevin McAleenan, the new acting homeland security secretary, was scheduled to visit McAllen Tuesday and Wednesday.
In El Paso, hundreds of people are detained in tents set up at the center of a parking lot next to a patrol station. People detained there have complained of prolonged exposure to cold. The Border Patrol limits them to one warm layer of clothing, confiscates coats, and issues a Mylar blanket to each detainee, citing health and safety concerns.
U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragan, a California Democrat, visited the tents earlier this month. She said she had seen a mother with her 4-month-old child who had been there for five or more days, in conditions she said were “unhealthy.”
Border Patrol officials have declined to allow the media inside the tents in El Paso.
Land near the bridge in Donna was used last year as a camp by active-duty soldiers when they were ordered to South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
The Border Patrol also established a tent facility at Donna to hold migrants in December 2016, in the last weeks of the administration of former President Barack Obama, in response to a previous surge of migrants from Central America.
Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, said she had been allowed to visit the tent facility in 2016. She said that facility had been “open and clean,” but noted she visited before it began detaining people.
“Detention is never a good idea for any family,” Pimentel said. “I believe families are victims of a lot of abuse, and we just add to that abuse by the way we respond to handle and process them.”
Source: NewsMax America
MAGA One Radio