International
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FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy waves to supporters following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi
April 24, 2019
KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s president-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday called on the government and state energy company Naftogaz to hold talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on lowering household gas prices from May 1.
The IMF, which is helping Ukraine with a multi-billion dollar loan program, has said it wants to see gas prices rise to their market level.
Zelenskiy said in a statement on Facebook he wanted a planned gas price rise cancelled and for prices to be lowered instead.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Matthias Williams)
Source: OANN
An artisanal gold miner holds a gold nugget at an unlicensed mine in Gaoua, Burkina Faso, February 13, 2018. Picture taken February 13, 2018. REUTERS/Luc Gnago
April 24, 2019
By Ryan McNeill and Zandi Shabalaba David Lewis
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Billions of dollars’ worth of gold is being smuggled out of Africa every year through the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East – a gateway to markets in Europe, the United States and beyond – a Reuters analysis has found.
Customs data shows that the UAE imported $15.1 billion worth of gold from Africa in 2016, more than any other country and up from $1.3 billion in 2006. The total weight was 446 tonnes, in varying degrees of purity – up from 67 tonnes in 2006.
Much of the gold was not recorded in the exports of African states. Five trade economists interviewed by Reuters said this indicates large amounts of gold are leaving Africa with no taxes being paid to the states that produce them.
Previous reports and studies have highlighted the black-market trade in gold mined by people, including children, who have no ties to big business, and dig or pan for it with little official oversight. No-one can put an exact figure on the total value that is leaving Africa. But the Reuters analysis gives an estimate of the scale.
Reuters assessed the volume of the illicit trade by comparing total imports into the UAE with the exports declared by African states. Industrial mining firms in Africa told Reuters they did not send their gold to the UAE – indicating that its gold imports from Africa come from other, informal sources.
Informal methods of gold production, known in the industry as “artisanal” or small-scale mining, are growing globally. They have provided a livelihood to millions of Africans and help some make more money than they could dream of from traditional trades. But the methods leak chemicals into rocks, soil and rivers. And African governments such as Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia complain that gold is now being illegally produced and smuggled out of their countries on a vast scale, sometimes by criminal operations, and often at a high human and environmental cost.
Artisanal mining began as small-time ventures. But the “romantic” era of individual mining has given way to “large-scale and dangerous” operations run by foreign-controlled criminal syndicates, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo told a mining conference in February. Ghana is Africa’s second-largest gold producer.
Not everyone in the chain is breaking the law. Miners, some of them working legally, typically sell the gold to middlemen. The middlemen either fly the gold out directly or trade it across Africa’s porous borders, obscuring its origins before couriers carry it out of the continent, often in hand luggage.
For example, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a major gold producer but one whose official exports amount to a fraction of its estimated production: Most is smuggled into neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. “It is of course worrisome for us but we have very little leverage to stop it,” said Thierry Boliki, director of the CEEC, the Congolese government body that is meant to register, value and tax high-value minerals like gold.
The customs data provided by governments to Comtrade, a United Nations database, shows the UAE has been a prime destination for gold from many African states for some years. In 2015, China – the world’s biggest gold consumer – imported more gold from Africa than the UAE. But during 2016, the latest year for which data is available, the UAE imported almost double the value taken by China. With African gold imports worth $8.5 billion that year, China came a distant second. Switzerland, the world’s gold refining hub, came third with $7.5 billion worth.
Most of the gold is traded in Dubai, home to the UAE’s gold industry.
The UAE reported gold imports from 46 African countries for 2016. Of those countries, 25 did not provide Comtrade with data on their gold exports to the UAE. But the UAE said it had imported a total of $7.4 billion worth of gold from them.
In addition, the UAE imported much more gold from most of the other 21 countries than those countries said they had exported. In all, it said it imported gold worth $3.9 billion – about 67 tonnes – more than those countries said they sent out.
“There is a lot of gold leaving Africa without being captured in our records,” said Frank Mugyenyi, a senior adviser on industrial development at the African Union who set up the organization’s minerals unit. “UAE is cashing in on the unregulated environment in Africa.”
The Dubai Customs Authority referred Reuters’ queries to the UAE foreign ministry, which did not respond. The UAE government media office referred Reuters to the UAE federal customs authority, which also did not respond.
Not all the discrepancies in the data analyzed by Reuters necessarily point to African-mined gold being smuggled out through the UAE. Small differences could result from shipping costs and taxes being declared differently, a time-lag between a cargo leaving and arriving, or simply mistakes. And gold analysts say some of the trade, especially from Egypt and Libya, could include gold that has been recycled.
But in 11 cases, the per-kilo value that the UAE declared importing is significantly higher than that recorded by the exporting country. This, said Leonce Ndikumana, an economist who has studied capital flows in Africa, is a “classic case of export under-invoicing” to reduce taxes.
Matthew Salomon, an American economist who has researched the use of trade statistics to identify illicit financial flows, said the issue deserves scrutiny. “Persistent discrepancies in the trade of particular goods and between particular countries … can identify significant risks of illicit activity,” he said.
POLLUTION, CONFLICT AND BANDITS
Over the past decade, high demand for gold has made it attractive for informal miners to use digging equipment and toxic chemicals to boost the yield. Contaminated water is returned to rivers, slowly poisoning the people who need the water to live.
Small-scale miners have long used mercury – easy to buy at around $10 for a thumb-sized vial – to extract flecks of gold from ore, before sluicing it away. Mercury’s toxic effects include damage to kidneys, heart, liver, spleen and lungs, and neurological disorders, such as tremors and muscle weakness. Cyanide and nitric acid are also being used in the process, according to researchers and miners in Ghana.
Industrial mining companies have also been responsible for pollution, ranging from cyanide spills to respiratory problems linked to dust produced by mining operations. But almost a dozen states including DRC, Uganda, Chad, Niger, Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Mali and Sudan have complained in the past year about the harms of unauthorized mining.
Burkina Faso has banned small-scale mining in some areas where al Qaeda-linked Islamists are active, and earlier this month Nigeria’s government suspended mining in the restive northwestern state of Zamfara, saying intelligence reports established what it called “a strong and glaring nexus” between the activities of armed bandits and illicit miners.
Strong prices have fueled the boom. Today, gold trades at over $40,000 per kilo, which is below a peak from 2012 but still four times the level of two decades ago.
Western investors want gold so they can diversify their portfolios; India and China want it for jewelry. But most Western companies – and the banks that finance them – avoid handling non-industrial African gold directly. They are unwilling to risk using metal that may have been mined to fund conflict or that may have involved human rights abuses in, for instance, DRC or Sudan. Various Uganda-based traders have been sanctioned for handling gold smuggled out of DRC.
DESTINATION DUBAI
In other states, including the UAE, these concerns have been less of a problem. Over the last decade, gold from Africa has become increasingly important for Dubai. From 2006 to 2016, the share of African gold in UAE’s reported gold imports increased from 18 percent to nearly 50 percent, Comtrade data showed.
The UAE’s main commodity marketplace, the Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre (DMCC), calls itself on its website “your gateway to global trade.” Trading in gold accounts for nearly one-fifth of UAE’s GDP.
However, no big industrial companies reached by Reuters – including AngloGold Ashanti, Sibanye-Stillwater and Gold Fields – say they send gold there. Reuters contacted 23 mining companies with African operations, the smallest of which produced around 2.5 tonnes in 2018: 21 of them said they did not send metal to Dubai for refining, the other two did not respond.
While the big South African miners have local refining capacity, the main reason others gave is that no UAE refineries are accredited by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the standard-setter for the industry in Western markets.
The LBMA is “not comfortable dealing with the region” because of concerns about weaknesses in customs, cash transactions and hand-carried gold, its chief technical officer Neil Harby told Reuters. Investigators and people in the gold industry say the ease with which smugglers can carry gold in their hand-luggage on planes leaving Africa helps gold flow out unrecorded. And limited regulation in UAE means informally mined gold can be legally imported, tax-free.
Gold can be imported to Dubai with little documentation, African traders told Reuters.
A DMCC spokesman said it has a robust regulatory framework that includes strict responsible sourcing rules. These are aligned with the international benchmark for responsible sourcing laid out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Sanjeev Dutta, head of commodities at DMCC, said in January that the center is building strategic relationships with most gold-producing countries on the African continent, “and we are very confident of how that production is done and how responsible” it is. Over the past 12 months, he said, DMCC has firmed up a standard for refineries, called Dubai Good Delivery, which he said is very strict on responsible sourcing and sustainability. “We track right from responsible sourcing to sustainable development, things like human rights etc.,” he said. “We demand export certificates.”
A “very limited” number of refineries accept gold that has been imported as hand luggage, Dutta said, but gave no figures.
GOLD TO GO
Some African miners are swapping their pickaxes and shovels for diggers and crushers – increasing production volumes exponentially. Regulation remains scant, and accidents are frequent. In one week this February, three accidents at illegal mining operations in Zimbabwe, Guinea and Liberia claimed the lives of more than 100 people.
Often, miners must surrender a cut of their output, as commission, to the people who control a pit, let out the equipment, or buy and sell the gold. NGOs such as Global Witness and Human Rights Watch have documented child labor, corruption and links to conflict at some of these mines. At one mine in Zimbabwe visited by Reuters, people said they had to hand over some of their find before they would even be allowed out of the pit.
Reuters presented its analysis to 14 African governments. Of them, five said it reflected an existing concern about gold being smuggled out of their countries that they are trying to address. One said they did not think gold smuggling was a problem for them. The rest declined to comment or did not respond.
Governments across Africa are trying to work out how to manage a sector that, whatever its risks, provides a livelihood for many of their citizens, and which could be harnessed as a source of revenues.
Some, including Ivory Coast, are taking gradual steps to regulate their informal mining operations. Ghana and Zambia have sent security forces into mining areas to halt operations so miners can be registered and regulations put in place. Ghana, concerned that a rush of mainly Chinese-led ventures is harming the environment, has arrested hundreds of Chinese miners and expelled thousands in the past six years.
At the end of last month, Ghana temporarily banned the import of excavator equipment to try to stem a surge in illegal mining using heavy machinery.
In Sudan, one of the continent’s biggest producers, the government has unveiled a $3 billion plan for private banks to work with the central bank to buy gold from small-scale miners, offering prices that would make it less attractive to sell on the black market.
A Tanzanian parliamentary report estimated that 90 percent of annual production of informally mined gold is smuggled out of the country: The government wants the central bank to buy this up. In March, President John Magufuli launched a plan to establish hubs where the trade would be formalized by offering access to financing and regulated markets.
In Burkina Faso, Oumarou Idani, minister of mines, believes his country is leaking gold to UAE on a massive scale. Of the 9.5 tonnes of gold the government estimates informal miners dig up each year, just 200 to 400 kg are declared to the authorities, he said.
Much of the gold is smuggled from landlocked Burkina Faso to its Atlantic coast neighbor Togo, according to the minister. In Togo, virtually no taxes are imposed on gold.
Togo’s director of mining development and controls, Nestor Kossi Adjehoun, said informal mining is “an area that we have not properly figured out.” For now, he said, Togo saw no reason to suspect gold was being smuggled through the country.
“I understand that Dubai is the destination for this gold,” his Burkina Faso neighbor, Minister Idani, told Reuters in an interview last year. “But since (the trade) is fraudulent, I have no details.”
(Additional reporting by John Ndiso in Nairobi, Tim Cocks in Ouagadougou, Ed McAllister in Dakar, Chris Mfula in Lusaka, Giulia Paravicini in Kinshasa, MacDonald Dzirutwe in Battlefields, Zimbabwe, John Zodzi in Lome, Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala in Dodoma, Maha El Dahan in Dubai, and Peter Hobson in London; Edited by Sara Ledwith, Alexandra Zavis and Richard Woods)
Source: OANN
Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong, commander of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, speaks at a welcome reception for the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the China’s navy in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, April 22, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS
April 24, 2019
By Ben Blanchard
QINGDAO, China (Reuters) – Freedom of navigation should not be used to infringe upon the rights of other countries, China’s navy chief Shen Jinlong said on Wednesday, taking a dig at the United States and its allies who have sailed close to disputed South China Sea islets.
The United States has frequently sent warships near to Chinese-occupied features in the South China Sea, where China has been reclaiming land for runways and ports. Some U.S. allies, including Britain, have followed suit.
China regards the patrols by the United States and its allies as a provocation, as it views almost all of the South China Sea as its territory, although Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei and the Philippines all have competing claims.
Speaking at a forum in the eastern city of Qingdao, following a major naval parade marking 70 years since the founding of the Chinese navy, Shen said everyone needed to follow the rules and “safeguard good order”.
“Respect for the rules is the cornerstone of maritime good order,” said Shen, who is close to President Xi Jinping.
“Freedom of navigation is a concept widely recognized by the international community. However it should not be used as an excuse to infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of littoral states,” he added, without naming the United States directly.
The United States has sent only a low level delegation to the Chinese navy anniversary events. And unlike its close allies Australia, Japan and South Korea, the United States did not send a ship to take part in Tuesday’s naval parade reviewed by Xi himself.
“The U.S. government seeks a bilateral relationship that is results-oriented and focused on risk reduction,” Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman, said in comments sent to Reuters, responding to a question on U.S. participation at the event.
“The U.S. Navy will continue to pursue its primary goal of constructive, risk-reduction focused discourse with the PLAN,” he said, referring to the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
Shen said that China was continuing to advance talks on the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, which Beijing has been having with Southeast Asian states for the past few years.
“We are committed to making the South China Sea a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation,” he added, speaking to an audience of both senior Chinese and foreign navy officers, but without giving details.
The navy has been a key beneficiary of Xi’s ambitious military modernization plan, which has seen China develop aircraft carriers, advanced new warships and nuclear submarines, and stealth jets for the air force.
“We adhere to non-conflict and non-confrontation and strive to be a stabilizer for maritime peace,” Shen said.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Pumpjacks are seen against the setting sun at the Daqing oil field in Heilongjiang province, China December 7, 2018. Picture taken December 7, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer
April 24, 2019
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices inched lower on Wednesday on signs that global markets remain adequately supplied despite a jump to 2019 highs this week on Washington’s push for tighter sanctions against Iran.
Brent crude futures were at $74.24 per barrel at 0058 GMT, down 27 cents, or 0.4 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $66.02 per barrel, down 28 cents, or 0.4 percent, from their previous settlement.
Crude futures rose to 2019 highs earlier in the week after the United States said on Monday it would end all exemptions for sanctions against Iran, demanding countries halt oil imports from Tehran from May or face punitive action from Washington.
U.S. sanctions against oil exporter Iran were introduced in November 2018, but Washington allowed its largest buyers limited imports of crude for another half-year as an adjustment period.
With Iranian oil exports likely declining sharply from May as most countries bow to U.S. pressure, global crude markets are expected to tighten in the short-run, Goldman Sachs and Barclays bank said this week.
Despite this, analysts said global oil markets remained adequately supplied thanks to ample spare capacity from the Middle East dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russian and also the United States.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), a watchdog for oil consuming countries, said in a statement on Tuesday that markets are “adequately supplied” and that “global spare production capacity remains at comfortable levels.”
The biggest source of new oil supply comes from the United States, where crude oil production has already risen by more than 2 million barrels per day (bpd) since early 2018 to a record of more than 12 million bpd early this year, making America the world’s biggest oil producer ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia.
“Total oil supplies from the United States are expected to grow by 1.6 million bpd this year,” the IEA said.
Commercial inventories in the United States are also high.
U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 6.9 million barrels in the week to April 19 to 459.6 million, data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute showed on Tuesday.
(GRAPHIC: U.S. crude oil production & exports link: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ULQiTd).
(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; editing by Richard Pullin)
Source: OANN
Kenji Saito cooks at his ramen noodle shop in Tokyo, Japan April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-hoon
April 24, 2019
By Linda Sieg and Kwiyeon Ha
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Heisei era, which began when Emperor Akihito inherited the throne on Jan. 7, 1989, and ends when he abdicates on April 30, saw economic stagnation, disasters and technological change.
Generations of Japanese lived through those decades. Their differing views and experiences will shape the legacy of the Heisei years.
WARTIME EXPERIENCES
For decades, Haruyo Nihei kept her wartime memories locked away: mothers and infants burnt alive by incendiary bombs; herself struggling under corpses of fleeing victims; her sister’s body covered with maggot-infested burns.
But in 2002, almost six decades after World War Two ended and 13 years after Akihito took the throne, she decided to speak out. The trigger: a visit to a new museum about the March 10, 1945, U.S. firebombing that killed an estimated 100,000 people in Tokyo.
Nihei, now 82, still hopes that by recounting her experience as an eight-year-old in the final days of the conflict, she can convey the horrors of war to young Japanese who know only peace.
“Children today … don’t know anything about war and that’s wonderful. But if they don’t know about how Japan fought a war some 70 years ago, we may follow a mistaken path again,” Nihei told Reuters before speaking to students at the museum.
Preventing Japan from forgetting the tragedy of war has been a consistent priority of Akihito, in the name of whose father, Hirohito, Japanese troops fought World War Two.
Nihei said she admired Akihito’s efforts, including trips to overseas battle sites such as Saipan in 2005 to pray for war dead from Japan and other countries.
“When I saw the image of the emperor and empress (bowing at a seaside cliff) on Saipan, I felt they were truly sorry for the sins the Emperor Showa had committed,” she said, referring to Hirohito by his posthumous name. “I was moved.”
But she worries the wartime past has little resonance for today’s Japanese youth.
“I want them to study about the past properly and link that to the future,” she said.
BURST BUBBLE
For Kenji Saito, Heisei was a time of shocking change and liberating opportunity.
Saito, a former computer systems engineer, was on a business trip in November 1997 when he got a phone call.
“Don’t you work for Yamaichi?” a relative asked.
Media had reported Yamaichi Securities, Japan’s oldest and fourth-largest brokerage, was headed for collapse under the weight of losses hidden for years after the “bubble economy” of soaring asset prices burst.
The image of Yamaichi’s then-president Shohei Nozawa apologizing and crying as he begged for jobs for the firm’s nearly 8,000 employees became a symbol of the financial turmoil that ushered in Japan’s “lost decade” of stagnation.
The Heisei era also saw the unraveling of a lifetime employment system that was once a pillar of the country’s post-war rise.
“No one ever thought Yamaichi would collapse,” said Saito, who had joined the firm as a 22-year-old college graduate.
After the brokerage failed, he worked for a computer systems company run by his former boss. By 2005, he’d had enough of the corporate rat race and left to start a ramen shop that has since expanded to 10 restaurants.
The economic stagnation of much of the era has left a gloomy taste for many, but Saito said he felt liberated.
“I think for myself and can act on my own,” he said. “For me, the Heisei years were good.”
Still, he worries too many Japanese lack entrepreneurial spirit. “People want stability. To put it negatively, they lack the spirit to challenge.”
FUTURE ANGST
A massive natural disaster, technological change, and anxiety about the future are what university student Yuri Harada thinks of when she ponders the Heisei era.
Harada was 11 when a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit northeast Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima.
“Even in Tokyo, the shaking was strong and students panicked,” said Harada, 19 and a student at Waseda University. She walked three hours to get home because trains had stopped and later saw the devastation on TV. “It was really shocking.”
In elementary school, Harada longed for a smartphone, just beginning to spread in Japan. At first, her parents said it was too costly, but by the time she was in junior high, the devices were ubiquitous.
“I feel as if the advance of technology corresponded with my growing up,” she said.
Japan is in the midst of a historic labor shortage, but Harada recalled the “employment ice age” her elders suffered through after the economic bubble burst. She is concerned a potential downturn could wreck the job market again.
“Frankly … I worry whether this sellers’ market will persist,” she said.
Longer-term, she worries whether Japan’s social stability will crumble.
Japan this month introduced a visa program to let in more blue-collar workers, a big step in the immigration-shy country.
“If we don’t do this properly, we could follow the same path” as Western countries gripped by anger over immigration, said Harada, who has studied abroad and majors in international relations.
Such fears cloud her hopes for the new “Reiwa” imperial era, which begins on May 1.
“I’d like to be optimistic, but I can’t,” she said.
(Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Source: OANN
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he greets supporters on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport, as he arrives to spend Easter weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club, Florida, U.S., April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Al Drago
April 24, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he is opposed to current and former White House aides testifying to congressional committees on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report, according to the Washington Post.
In an interview with the newspaper, Trump said the White House cooperated with Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and did not need to comply with congressional committees, which are probing possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said, according to the Post.
(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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FILE PHOTO: A combination of file photos shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending a wreath laying ceremony at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi, Vietnam March 2, 2019 and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin looking during a joint news conference with South African President Jacob Zuma after their meeting at the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Krasnodar region, Russia, May 16, 2013. REUTERS/Jorge Silva/Pool/Maxim Shipenkov/Pool/File Photo
April 24, 2019
By Josh Smith
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time this week at a symbolic summit hoping to project himself as a serious world player but likely to come away without a relief from crushing sanctions he seeks.
After his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump ended without an agreement two months ago, Kim’s meeting with Putin serves as a reminder to Washington that he has other options in the region backing his leadership.
But while Kim is likely to seek more assistance from one of his country’s two main backers, Russia will be limited in what it can provide and the summit will focus more on demonstrating camaraderie than new investment or aid, analysts said.
“When Kim meets Putin, he is going to ask for economic assistance and unilateral sanctions relaxation. Moscow is unlikely to grant his wishes,” said Artyom Lukin, a professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.
That school’s campus is seen to be the summit venue, according to South Korean media which reported the presence of Kim’s top aides there making preparations for the event.
“Being a veto-holding U.N. Security Council member, Moscow can hardly afford to undermine its authority even for the sake of friendship with Kim,” Lukin said.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
While Russia says it fully enforces the sanctions that it voted to impose, it has joined China in calling for loosening punishment for North Korea in recognition of steps taken in limiting its weapons testing.
“Steps by the DPRK toward gradual disarmament should be followed by the easing of sanctions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a Security Council meeting late last year, using the initials of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Washington has accused Russia of “cheating” on sanctions and said it has evidence of “consistent and wide-ranging Russian violations”.
In February, Reuters reported a Russian tanker violated international trade sanctions by transferring fuel to a North Korean vessel at sea at least four times between October 2017 and May 2018.
One Russian lawmaker told Interfax news agency last week that North Korea had asked Moscow to allow its laborers to continue to work in Russia despite sanctions requiring their expulsion by the end of this year.
“One particularly sore area for Kim is the issue of North Korean laborers working in Russia,” said Anthony Rinna, a specialist in Korea-Russia relations at Sino-NK, a website that analyses the region.
“Kim will probably be seeking some wiggle-room from Russia, although Moscow will be hard-pressed to accommodate Kim given its desire to portray a responsible image in the world.”
The United States has said it believed Pyongyang was earning more than $500 million a year from nearly 100,000 workers abroad, including 30,000 in Russia.
According to unpublished reports by Moscow to the United Nations Security Council, Russia sent home nearly two-thirds of its North Korean workers during 2018.
The report, reviewed by Reuters, said in 2018 the number of North Koreans with work permits in Russia fell to about 11,500.
LONG TIES
Russia-North Korea relations withered after the Soviet demise, with the loss of support from Moscow often cited as one factor that lead to a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans.
Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, worked to renew ties after Putin first became president in 1999. He visited Russia three times before his sudden death in 2011.
Russia could agreed on some limited projects like a vehicle bridge connecting the two countries across the Tumangan River, or provide more humanitarian aid, Lukin said.
Earlier this year, Russia sent more than 2,000 tons of wheat to North Korea through the World Food Programme. Russian lawmakers have suggested Moscow could send as much as 50,000 tons of wheat to North Korea.
According to the United Nations, Russia has continued to sell significant amounts of oil to North Korea, though still officially under sanctions caps.
North Korea’s state media said in March officials met in Moscow to sign an agreement “to boost high-level contact and exchange in the political field (and) actively promote cooperation in the fields of economy and humanitarianism.”
While Moscow is unlikely to risk its authority at the United Nations by overtly breaching sanctions, Putin could promise not to support any additional sanctions, Lukin said.
“Kim can expect a friendly reception here and probably some chance of getting political and economic support from Putin.”
(Reporting by Josh Smith, additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow.; Editing by Jack Kim and Lincoln Feast.)
Source: OANN
Mohib Ullah, a leader of Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, talks on the phone in Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh April 7, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
April 24, 2019
By Simon Lewis, Poppy McPherson and Ruma Paul
KUTUPALONG REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh (Reuters) – It was after Mohib Ullah scored his first political victories that the death threats began in earnest. On a recent morning, the Rohingya refugee leaned back on a plastic chair in the Bangladesh camp where he lives, and translated the latest warning, sent over the WhatsApp messaging app.
“Mohib Ullah is a virus of the community,” he read aloud, with a wry chuckle. “Kill him wherever he is found.”
The 44-year-old leads the largest of several community groups to emerge since more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar after a military crackdown in August 2017.
In the refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district a nascent civil society is emerging among the Rohingya, who spent decades under apartheid-like restrictions in Myanmar.
Some campaigners are seeking justice for alleged atrocities in Myanmar, a small cadre of women are raising their voices for the first time, and others are simply working to improve life in the new city of tarpaulins and bamboo that, after the latest influx, is home to more than 900,000 people.
Mohib Ullah himself was invited to Geneva last month, where he told the United Nations Human Rights Council the Rohingya want a say over their own future.
But the political awakening has been accompanied by a surge in violence, with militants and religious conservatives also vying for power, more than a dozen refugees told Reuters. They described increasing fear in the camps, where armed men have stormed shelters at night, kidnapped critics and warned women against breaking conservative Islamic norms.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, which sparked the 2017 crisis with attacks on security posts, is resurgent in the camps, refugees say, alongside several other armed groups. The group is also known as Harakah al-Yaqin – the movement of faith.
“In the daytime, the al-Yaqin guys become normal people,” said one young woman, who like other refugees requested anonymity to speak about the group without fear of reprisals. “They mix with everyone else. But at night it’s like they have a kind of magical power.”
DIALOGUE, AND THREATS
Reuters conducted dozens of interviews with UN staff, diplomats, Bangladeshi officials and researchers about the forces competing for influence in the world’s largest refugee settlement.
While some are hopeful the stateless Rohingya are beginning to find a political voice, there are also fears that a turn to violence threatens to make solving the refugee crisis through dialogue impossible and could bring more instability.
“Refugee camps in many parts of the world are becoming recruitment grounds for terrorists,” said Mozammel Haque, the head of Bangladesh’s cabinet committee on law and order. “God forbid, if something like that happens, this will not only affect Bangladesh but the whole region.”
Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay did not answer calls seeking comment. Zaw Htay said during a press conference in January that Myanmar had complained to Bangladesh over what he said were ARSA bases inside Bangladesh.
The frontline in the struggle for the Rohingyas’ future are the bamboo huts where refugees take shelter from the heat and dust of the camp to voice their views. In the makeshift office of his group, the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, or ARSPH, Mohib Ullah convenes an open meeting each morning.
“We couldn’t gather more than five people in Myanmar, so when we have this kind of huge gathering it makes us very happy,” said 57-year-old Abdul Fayez, one of several dozen refugees gathered cross-legged on the floor at a recent meeting.
ARSPH made its name documenting alleged atrocities the Rohingya suffered in Myanmar. Mohib Ullah went from hut to hut to build a tally of killings, rape and arson that has been shared with international investigators. [nL4N1V846E]
Last year it won a victory with a campaign for the refugees to have more say in the process of issuing identity cards, calling a general strike in the camps in November that forced Bangladeshi officials and UN staff to meet ARSPH leaders.
It now says its main goal is to give the Rohingya a voice in international talks on their future.
But not everyone agrees with ARSPH’s approach. Hardliners in the camps argue for a more assertive stance in talks on the terms under which the refugees might return to Myanmar.
“We are flexible, we want to negotiate,” said a senior leader of ARSPH, who requested anonymity. “But we fear we may be harmed because of this.” ARSA was among Mohib Ullah and ARSPH’s antagonists, the leader said.
Mohib Ullah was involved in local politics back in Myanmar, drawing accusations from opponents that he worked too closely with the hated government. “If I die, I’m fine. I will give my life,” Mohib Ullah told Reuters.
NIGHT TERRORS
Bangladesh security forces patrol the perimeter of the camps to stop refugees slipping out. But, especially at night, the warren-like interior is run by violent men, refugees told Reuters.
In at least some parts of the camps, those men claim affiliation to ARSA, said more than half a dozen refugees. UN officials and NGO workers monitoring the group’s activities say it is unclear how many of those men are under orders from the group’s leadership. But some of them have asked wealthier refugees and shopkeepers to pay regular taxes, saying the money will be used to fight back in Myanmar, refugees said.
One refugee, who volunteers as an aid worker in the camps, told Reuters he had witnessed a kidnapping in January by men he believed to be from ARSA.
Men with wooden sticks moved swiftly into an area of the camps known as Jamtoli and took away a man who refused to attend one of the group’s meetings, he said. “They just carried him off like a goat to the slaughter.”
Reuters was unable to corroborate the incident or find out what happened to the man, but five refugees from the same area said men they knew had been involved in ARSA attacks inside Myanmar were now involved in kidnappings in Jamtoli.
Reuters was unable to reach ARSA for comment.
Researchers for Fortify Rights have also gathered testimony that ARSA had abducted at least five Rohingya refugees in recent months, the campaign group said on March 14.
A posting from a Twitter account previously used by the group called the Fortify Rights report “shallow, shoddy, and not aptly verified” and denied allegations that ARSA was involved in criminal activity.
Police have recorded an escalation in violence in the camps in recent months, said Iqbal Hossain, additional superintendent of police in Cox’s Bazar.
“So far we have not found any link to any militant groups,” said Hossain, adding there were just 992 officers policing the camps.
In response to Reuters’ questions about reports of ARSA involvement in the violence, the UN refugee agency cited police reports that found most violence and threats in the camps were carried out by “criminal elements or related to personal vendettas”.
Two UN officials and several researchers working regularly in the camps told Reuters ARSA was behind at least some of the violence, however, citing sources among the refugees.
“YOU DIDN’T LISTEN”
ARSA launched three attacks across the border in Myanmar early this year, according to state media there, and in February vowed to continues its armed campaign.
ARSA propaganda portrays the group as ethnic freedom fighters and does not emphasize a religious agenda. But some refugees and a report by an international NGO seen by Reuters say its members, together with Islamic leaders, have promoted ultra-conservative religious practices.
Four women told Reuters they had received threats for going out to work for aid groups in the camps, where many have begun doing paid work for the first time in their lives.
Three said men from ARSA, backed up by religious leaders, issued the threats. Fortify Rights also said it had gathered testimony linking ARSA to the threats against women working. ARSA on Twitter denied that, insisting it “has no activities/objectives except for defending Rohingyas’ legitimate rights”.
UN officials and aid workers discussed the threats at a series of meetings of the “protection sector working group” in Cox’s Bazar, according to minutes.
“There is a complex combination of factors that have contributed to the threats and restrictions on women in refugee camps, which we are all seeking to address,” the UN refugee agency said.
Mohammed Kamruzzaman, an education sector specialist at Bangladeshi aid group BRAC, told Reuters that 150 of its female teachers had stopped coming to work in late January after receiving or hearing about the “violent threats”.
One woman in her late 30s told Reuters she had received a phone call in late January telling her she must immediately quit her job at BRAC. Two nights later a group of about 10 men, dressed in black and wearing masks barged into her shelter.
“They said, ‘We told you not to go out and work, you didn’t listen’,” she said. “One of them beat me with a stick on my back.”
Another young woman, who was also threatened, summed up the divide in the camps.
“We are just doing something good for our community,” she said. “Some people support them, but many feel like us. They put superglue over our mouths.”
(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Poppy McPherson and Ruma Paul; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: GCHQ Director Jeremy Fleming delivers a speech as he meets with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth during her visit at the Watergate House to mark the centenary of the GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) in London, Britain, February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/Pool
April 23, 2019
GLASGOW, Scotland (Reuters) – The head of Britain’s GCHQ spy agency on Wednesday will call on businesses and the finance sector to work with intelligence officials to help secure the internet and protect customers online.
In extracts of a speech to be given at a cyber security conference in Scotland, GCHQ head Jeremy Fleming said the signals intelligence agency would cooperate closely with manufacturers, internet service providers, online platforms and banks to “take the burden of cyber security away from the individual.”
The latest incarnation of the internet has enabled innovation and technological breakthroughs, Fleming said, but also brought “new and unprecedented challenges for policymakers as we seek to protect our citizens, judicial systems, businesses – and even societal norms.”
Western governments including Britain are pushing businesses and the public to take more precautions online and guard against threats posed by cyber criminals and nation state hackers.
Fleming will speak at the CYBERUK conference, hosted by GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in Glasgow, Scotland. The conference will also host a public panel discussion by senior officials from countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group: Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
“Cyber attacks do not respect international boundaries, and many of the threats and vulnerabilities we face are shared around the globe,” said NCSC head Ciaran Martin. “Each nation has sovereignty to defend itself as it sees best fit, but it’s vital that we work closely with our allies.”
(Reporting by Jack Stubbs and Michael Holden; Editing by David Gregorio)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo shows Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked on the tarmac at the Boeing Factory in Renton, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson
April 23, 2019
By Tracy Rucinski and Eric M. Johnson
CHICAGO/SEATTLE (Reuters) – Boeing Co has told some 737 MAX owners it is targeting U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approval of its software fix as early as the third week of May and the ungrounding of the aircraft around mid-July, two sources told Reuters.
The dates are part of a provisional timeline that Boeing has shared in meetings with airline customers as it explains an upgrade to software that played a role in two fatal crashes and led to the worldwide grounding of its MAX 737 jetliner in March.
However, Boeing has not yet submitted its completed software package to the FAA for approval, two other sources said.
None of the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said they knew for sure how long the re-certification process will take.
A Boeing spokeswoman said the company is focused on the safe return to service of the MAX and its engagement with global regulators and customers.
Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said last week the company had made the final test flight with the new MAX software before a final certification flight, indicating that the company believed it was making progress toward regulatory approval.
On April 1, the FAA said that once it received Boeing’s completed software package it would run a rigorous safety review before approving the software for installation.
The agency also plans to work with other international regulators on MAX certification in their countries and regions before lifting the flying suspension in the United States, with Boeing prepared to address any concerns, one source said.
Aside from the software certification, international regulators must also decide on new pilot training.
This process is separate from an FAA-led international review panel, which the agency has said may not be completed before the MAX flying suspension is lifted.
The two largest U.S. MAX owners, Southwest Airlines Co and American Airlines Group Inc, removed the aircraft from their flying schedules into August but have said they could use their MAX jets as spares if they are ungrounded sooner.
United Airlines, with 14 MAX jets, said last week that it expected the aircraft to return to service this summer, with deliveries resuming before the end of the year.
Boeing halted MAX deliveries to customers after the grounding in mid-March and said earlier this month that it would cut 737 production to 42 airplanes per month from 52.
One industry source said that as of last week, Boeing planned to keep the lower production rate in place for two months, meaning it aims to resume a rate of 52 aircraft in July but the timeline could shift.
Global airlines have had to cancel thousands of flights and use spare aircraft to cover routes that were previously flown with the fuel-efficient MAX.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Tom Brown)
Source: OANN
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