U.N. agencies have welcomed Colombia’s decision to grant citizenship to children born in the country to Venezuelan parents who were forced to flee their homeland to escape the political repression and economic hardship of President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
The U.N. refugee agency, International Organization for Migration and U.N. children’s fund have hailed Colombia’s action as a major step in combating statelessness. The measure, which was announced by the Colombian government earlier this week, will confer citizenship upon 24,000 children born in Colombia to Venezuelan parents since August 2016.
Without this decision, the agencies note, these children would have great difficulty acquiring Colombian citizenship as many families are unable to obtain the necessary documentation. Also, they note registering the child at the Venezuelan consulate in Colombia is not possible as services are unavailable.
Measure good for two years
The UNHCR reports this exceptional and temporary administrative measure will be valid for two years. During this time, the Colombian authorities will provide documentary proof of Colombian nationality of children born to Venezuelan parents.
UNHCR spokesman Charlie Yaxley says the measure will guarantee and protect the birth rights of these children and provide them with a viable future.
“Stateless people can face a lifetime of exclusion and discrimination, often denied access to education, health care, and job opportunities,” Yaxley said. “Colombia’s decision is hugely positive for these children and their families. Worldwide, statelessness affects millions of people, leaving them without the basic rights and official recognition that most of us take for granted.”
The UNHCR says some 3.9 million stateless people are reported in 78 countries, although it believes the true number is much higher.
Millions have left Venezuela
The agency reports more than 4 million Venezuelans have left their country, making this one of the biggest displacement crises in the world. Colombia is hosting 1.4 million of them.
The three U.N. agencies are pooling their resources to financially support the Colombian government’s implementation of the new measure. They are encouraging other countries in the region to follow Colombia’s example by taking measures that guarantee the rights and protection of migrant children and their families.
Most people in Guatemalan farming towns like San Martin Jilotepeque have a relative or two living in the United States, giving them sympathy for the plight of migrants. But they now find themselves fearing an influx of Salvadoran or Honduran migrants after their government signed a “third safe country” agreement with Washington.
Such migration fears, poverty and corruption provide the backdrop to Guatemala’s presidential runoff vote Sunday, which is generating little enthusiasm among a population embittered after witnessing a succession of presidents accused of graft and other crimes, and the expulsion of a U.N. commission that was fighting the impunity.
“I no longer believe them,” grumbled Efrain Morales, 49, as he listened to final campaign pitches from the two candidates: former first lady Sandra Torres and Alejandro Giammattei, the top vote-getters in the first round election June 16.
Recent polls show the conservative Giammattei with a modest lead in a race between two unpopular candidates. Giammattei received only 14 percent support while the center-left Torres received about 26 percent in a first round of voting with 19 candidates. Election authorities had barred some of the more popular candidates from running.
“In my town people are migrating. The young people are leaving at 15, 16 years old. Even if you try here, it’s impossible, there’s no work,” said Morales, an illiterate farmer, describing a situation in which there is so little hope in poor and isolated towns that the only logical decision is to migrate.
What is unique about this election is that migration to Guatemala itself has also become an issue. President Jimmy Morales on July 6 signed a pact with the U.S. that would require migrants, who are largely Salvadorans and Hondurans, to request asylum in Guatemala if they cross through the country — as they must if travelling land routes — before reaching the U.S. border.
While the government suggests the asylum seekers could find temporary agricultural work in Guatemala, it is hard to see why they would want such low-paid jobs.
But still the fear of other migrants persists.
Hector Hernandez, the mayor of San Martin Jilotepeque, recently spoke to the residents of the township’s dozen or so hamlets over a loudspeaker, telling them not to rent rooms to foreigners.
“I don’t want any of you letting unknown people in, renting them rooms or houses, renting is forbidden,” Hernandez said. “They want to come here to live, there are a lot of Salvadorans and Nicaraguans; they are all over the place.”
Hernandez argued the foreigners don’t come to escape poverty, but rather to rob and extort money. Then he made a dark reference to the area’s history of brutal mob justice.
“Here in San Martin, any outsider who comes here to rob, he will be burned,” Hernandez said.
It is hard to see why such an impoverished community would attract thieves. Efrain Morales admitted he has never seen a Salvadoran or Nicaraguan around these parts.
To other townsfolk, it is migration from their own country that is the issue.
But despite the importance of migration to the lives of San Martin Jilotepeque residents and the unpopularity of Morales’ deal with Washington, Torres and Giammattei have barely mentioned the issue.
Congresswoman Madeleine Figueroa, of Torres’ National Union of Hope party, says the town will get a new road if Torres is elected.
But Maria Morales, no relation to Efrain, has a hard time paying attention to the campaign promise. She’s far more concerned about her daughter Flory Chapin and her granddaughter Hilda, 2.
Chapin, a single mother, left her two other children with Morales before heading north because she couldn’t make ends meet in Guatemala.
“She called me last Monday, she said, `Mom, today is the day. I’m still on the Mexican side, but I am going to cross [the border] and turn myself in to Immigration,”’ Morales said. “Since then, I haven’t heard anything.”
San Martin Jilotepeque, like other towns in Guatemala, depends to a large extent on remittances, the money sent home by migrants living in the United States.
Two other town residents left for the U.S. with their children, and within two weeks they were in the U.S. That motivated Flory Chapin to try, her mother said.
“When my daughter saw that they got there, she left to try.” Now, Morales has nothing but doubts. “I’m worried, because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
More than 200 U.S. mayors demanded Thursday that the Senate return from its summer recess to approve gun control legislation in the aftermath of two mass shootings last weekend that killed 31 people in Texas and Ohio.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors, representing 214 cities with both Republican and Democratic leaders, told Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer that it was urgent for the Senate to approve the measures already passed by the House of Representatives in February.
That legislation calls for background checks for all gun purchasers and would extend the waiting period for gun transactions from three to 10 days when instant checks raise questions about would-be buyers.
Schumer has also urged Senate approval, but McConnell has blocked a vote because he opposes the measures.
“Already in 2019, there have been over 250 mass shootings,” the mayors said in a letter to the lawmakers. They said the “tragic events” in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, Texas, and Midwest city of Dayton, Ohio, “are just the latest reminders that our nation can no longer wait for our federal government to take the actions necessary to prevent people who should not have access to firearms from being able to purchase them.”
U.S. President Donald Trump, who visited Wednesday with survivors of the two shootings, first responders and health care workers in both Dayton and El Paso, said there is a “great appetite for background checks.” But he also voiced the same sentiment a year ago after 17 students and teachers were gunned down at a Florida high school before backing off in the face of opposition by the country’s top gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Aug. 7, 2019.
The NRA voiced its opposition to Trump again this week, The Washington Post reported, and told the U.S. leader that background checks would not be popular among his core base of political supporters, many of them gun owners in the country’s heartland.
Trump also supports “red flag” legislation that would allow local authorities across the U.S., after a judicial review, to confiscate guns of those believed to be a danger to themselves or others. But the U.S. leader said he sees “no political appetite” for a ban on the sale of assault weapons like those the gunmen deployed in the country’s latest carnage.
Trump largely stayed out of public sight during the visits to Dayton and El Paso, where some supporters gathered on the streets, but protesters also carried signs attacking his anti-immigrant views and lack of action on gun control.
In Dayton, police killed the attacker, a 24-year-old community college student, within 30 seconds of the start of his barrage of 41 shots with an assault rifle that killed nine, including his sister, and wounded 27. In El Paso, authorities have charged a 21-year-old man with targeting Hispanics in a hail of gunfire that killed 22 and injured two dozen.
Trump critics say his rhetoric against migrants helped foment the El Paso massacre. But he has dismissed the attacks, while criticizing those who have disparaged his immigration views.
The U.S. leader suggested that Beto O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso who has often attacked Trump as he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination to run against him in 2020, “should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!”
Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!
While Trump visited with survivors at an El Paso hospital, video footage shows him comparing the size of the crowd he drew at a rally in the city in February compared to a gathering where O’Rourke appeared the same night.
“That was some crowd,” Trump said of his event. “We had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot, and they said his crowd was wonderful.”
Thousands marched Wednesday in Caracas in support of President Nicolas Maduro, two days after the United States imposed the toughest sanctions yet on Venezuela.
National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s second most powerful leader, called the latest sanctions “a new aggression amongst the madness of genocides that govern the United States.”
Others at Wednesday’s rally accused President Donald Trump of wanting to “get his hands” on Venezuela.
Reporters in Caracas said most of those marching were government workers and militia members.
The Trump administration has banned all U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the Maduro government as part of U.S. pressure to drive him from power.
The U.S. was the first of more than 50 countries to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president.
Guaido declared himself Venezuelan leader in January, using his constitutional authority as the National Assembly president to declare Maduro’s
re-election last year illegitimate because of fraud.
Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are Maduro’s top defenders.
Guaido’s popular uprising against Maduro earlier this year appears to have lost much of its steam, but the U.S. is still determined to see Maduro go and says military action is still on the table.
The collapse of world energy prices, corruption and failed socialist policies have wrecked the oil-rich Venezuelan economy. Basic food staples and fuel are in severely short supply, and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country.
Maduro has refused to consider early elections and has used violence against anti-government protesters.
A 5.9-magnitude earthquake rattled Taiwan on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The quake struck at 5:28 a.m. (21:28 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in northeastern Yilan county. Taiwan’s central weather bureau put its magnitude at 6.0.
High rises swayed in the capital Taipei, waking people up from their sleep.
Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by quakes.
In April, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the island, disrupting traffic and injuring 17 people.
Taiwan’s worst tremor in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed about 2,400 people.
TOPEKA, KANSAS — Kansas plans to impose what some tax experts said Wednesday would be the nation’s most aggressive policy for collecting state and local taxes on online sales, possibly inviting a legal battle.
The state Department of Revenue issued a notice last week saying any “remote seller” doing business with Kansas residents must register with the department, collect state and local sales taxes, and forward the revenues to the state, starting Oct. 1. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year allowing states to collect sales taxes on Internet sales.
Most states now have policies to collect such taxes, but almost all set minimum annual sales or transaction thresholds to exempt small businesses, according to groups tracking tax laws. Kansas is the first to attempt to collect the taxes without exempting any businesses, they said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature included provisions on taxing Internet sales in two tax-cutting bills this year, but Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed both measures, saying they would destabilize the state’s finances. The Department of Revenue is imposing its new policy under an existing tax law that applied to out-of-state businesses but wasn’t being enforced because past court decisions prevented it.
‘Insane’
“I think they’re insane,” said Diane Yetter, founder of the Sales Tax Institute in Chicago. Later, she added, “I just think Kansas is setting itself up for a lawsuit — and embarrassment, truthfully.”
Kansas Revenue Secretary Mark Burghart, a veteran tax attorney himself, said during an interview that the department is obligated to enforce existing tax laws consistently. He said it’s not fair to Kansas businesses to require them to collect sales taxes from consumers and not require out-of-state businesses to do the same after the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year.
Burghart also said he does not feel the department has the authority to exempt some small, out-of-state businesses from collecting sales taxes. Legislators must set the thresholds, he said.
“We have to move forward with implementation of the law as it is in place,” he said.
Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican who is a frequent Kelly critic and is running for the U.S. Senate, termed the department’s policy an “abuse of power.” Other top Republicans were less harsh but said Wednesday that they worried about the risk of lawsuits — and lawmakers are likely to take up the issue again next year.
FILE – A journalist looks at a computer screen with webpages arranged to show Cyber Monday deals by various online retailers, Nov. 26, 2018, in New York.
Budget upside
Legislators also have felt pressure to collect more taxes from online sales to prevent local businesses from facing a competitive disadvantage. There’s also the potential budget upside: The department believes the state will collect between $20 million and $40 million a year in additional tax revenues.
Wagle asked Attorney General Derek Schmidt, also a Republican, to weigh in on the policy’s legality. His spokesman Wednesday would say only, “We are aware of the situation.”
Yetter and other tax policy experts said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t constitute permission to tax all remote sales from out-of-state businesses.
“They’re pushing a lot of envelopes in their approach,” said Jared Walczak, director of state tax policy for the conservative Tax Foundation, who deems Kansas’ policy the “most aggressive” in the nation.
The high court overturned a previous ruling that states could not collect sales taxes unless a business had a physical presence within their borders, allowing tax collections if businesses had an economic presence. It upheld a South Dakota law requiring businesses to collect the tax if they had $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions in the state within a year.
Constitutional issue
The decision suggests that states still must exempt some businesses to avoid putting an undue burden on interstate commerce in violation of the U.S. Constitution, said George Isaacson, a Lewiston, Maine, attorney representing the businesses challenging the South Dakota law. He said Kansas’ policy represents a “blatant disregard” of that.
“These are small mom-and-pop type operations that are now going to be subject to this collection obligation and would be least able to mount a legal challenge,” Isaacson said.
Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez became Puerto Rico’s new governor Wednesday, just the second woman to hold the office, after weeks of political turmoil and hours after the island’s Supreme Court declared Pedro Pierluisi’s swearing-in a week ago unconstitutional.
Accompanied by her husband, Judge Jorge Diaz, and her daughter, Vazquez took the oath of office in the early evening at the Surpeme Court before leaving without making any public comment.
“Puerto Rico needs assurance and stability,” she said earlier in a statement. “Our actions will be aimed toward that end and it will always come first.”
The high court’s unanimous decision, which could not be appealed, settled the dispute over who will lead the U.S. territory after its political establishment was knocked off balance by big street protests spawned by anger over corruption, mismanagement of funds and a leaked obscenity-laced chat that forced the previous governor and several top aides to resign.
But it was also expected to unleash a new wave of demonstrations because many Puerto Ricans have said they don’t want Vazquez as governor.
“It is concluded that the swearing in as governor by Hon. Pedro R. Pierluisi Urrutia, named secretary of state in recess, is unconstitutional,” the court said in a brief statement.
Pedro Pierluisi, sworn in as Puerto Rico’s governor last week, speaks during a press conference at the government mansion La Fortaleza in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Aug. 6, 2019.
Pierluisi said that he had stepped forward to help islanders “in the best good faith and desire to contribute to the future of our homeland,” but that he would respect the court’s ruling.
“I must step aside and support the Justice Secretary of Puerto Rico, the Honorable Wanda Vazquez Garced,” he said in a statement before she was sworn in.
People began cheering in some parts of San Juan after the ruling was announced, and Puerto Ricans were expected to gather later outside the governor’s seaside mansion in the capital’s colonial district — some to celebrate the court’s decision and others to protest the incoming governor.
In the early afternoon, someone yelled through a loudspeaker near the residence: “Pierluisi out! The constitution of Puerto Rico should be respected!”
“It was the correct decision,” said Xiomary Morales, a waitress and student who works a block away, adding that those in power “are used to doing what they want.”
Emotionally exhausted
Puerto Ricans are physically and emotionally exhausted and want an end to the political turmoil, she said. “They should just hold fresh elections, hit restart like a PlayStation game.”
But Tita Caraballo, a retired nurse from the inland eastern city of Gurabo, disagreed with the court.
“I think they are playing with the people and, I don’t know, maybe they have someone they want and that is why they are doing this,” Caraballo said.
Pierluisi was appointed secretary of state by then-Gov. Ricardo Rossello while legislators were in recess, and only the House approved his nomination. Pierluisi was then sworn in as governor Friday after Rossello formally resigned in response to the protests.
Puerto Rico’s Senate sued to challenge Pierluisi’s legitimacy as governor, arguing that its approval was also necessary, and the Supreme Court decided in favor of the Senate.
On Monday, the Senate decided not to hold a confirmation vote on Pierluisi. The body’s president, Thomas Rivera Schatz, said Pierluisi had only five of 15 required votes. The same day the Supreme court announced it would hear the case.
The Senate had also asked the court to declare unconstitutional a portion of a 2005 law saying a secretary of state need not be approved by both House and Senate if they have to step in as governor. Puerto Rico’s constitution says a secretary of state has to be approved by both chambers.
Law’s clause ruled unconstitutional
The court agreed that the law’s clause was unconstitutional.
“Today this Tribunal speaks with a single voice, loud and clear,” Justice Roberto Feliberti Cintron said in his written opinion. “The constitutional norms do not allow for absurdities and legal technicalities to contravene our Democratic System of Government.”
In a separate opinion, Justice Erick Kolthoff Caraballo said Puerto Rico has suffered upheaval “like never in its modern history” and “the People need calm and security that things will soon return to order.”
Rivera Schatz praised the court ruling in a triumphant statement.
“With absolute LEGITIMACY, we will seek TRUE PEACE and STABILITY,” he said.
Six of the court’s nine judges were appointed by governors from the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, to which both Pierluisi and Rivera Schatz belong.
Vazquez, a 59-year-old former prosecutor, is to serve out the remainder of Rossello’s term, with the next election scheduled for 2020.
New governor has limited experience
Vazquez became justice secretary in January 2017 and has limited experience leading government agencies. She previously worked as a district attorney for two decades at Puerto Rico’s justice department, handling domestic and sexual abuse cases, and in 2010 was appointed director of the Office for Women’s Rights.
Some critics say that as justice secretary that she was not aggressive enough in pursuing corruption investigations involving members of her New Progressive Party and that she did not prioritize gender violence cases.
William Gonzalez Roman, a retiree also from Gurabo, wasn’t bullish on the idea of Vazquez as governor.
“We will see. You have to give everyone a chance, right?” Gonzalez said. “Let’s see what decisions (she makes), but I tell you that job is big with a lot of responsibility.”
Last November, the Office of Government Ethics said it had received a complaint about possible ethical violations involving Vazquez, who was accused of intervening in a case involving a suspect charged with stealing government property at a home where Vazquez’s daughter lived.
Vazquez appeared in court to face charges including two violations of a government ethics law. In December a judge found there was no evidence to arrest her.
Weeks of protest
Rossello’s resignation followed nearly two weeks of protests after the public emergence of the chat in which he and 11 other men including government officials mocked women, gay people and victims of Hurricane Maria, among others. More than two dozen officials resigned in the wake of the leak, including former Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin.
“NOW is when that detestable group from the chat that lied, mocked, machinated, conspired, violated the law and betrayed Puerto Rico is truly ended and will leave government,” Rivera Schatz, the Senate president, said Wednesday.
China is the world’s second-largest economy, and its rapid growth is closing the gap with that of the United States, the globe’s leading economy.
China’s Communist rulers began market reforms in 1978, shifting from a centrally planned economy to a more market-based economy. That unleashed an explosion of growth, with gross domestic product reportedly expanding at an average of nearly 10% for a number of years — the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history. The surge helped 850 million people lift themselves out of poverty, according to the World Bank.
While China’s 1.4 billion people have made impressive economic and development gains, the country’s market reforms are judged “incomplete” by economists. Its income per person remains that of a developing nation, and less than one-quarter of the average for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.
China’s rapid growth brought challenges, including income inequality between urban and rural areas, environmental problems such as air pollution, and external imbalances that spark friction with trading partners, including the United States. China also faces challenges related to an aging population.
China’s government has set 6.5% annual expansion as its growth target. That would be very fast for most nations, but slow by recent Chinese standards.
The International Monetary Fund predicts 6.2% economic growth for China in 2019.
Ayaz Gul in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
As Kashmir remained locked down for a second straight day, India’s parliament approved scrapping the special status that gave Kashmir significant autonomy, and passed a bill to split the state.
Plunged in a communications blackout and a virtual shutdown, it has been difficult to ascertain the reaction local residents to the radical steps.
Curfew-like restrictions continued on Tuesday. Troops patrolled deserted streets with barbed wire barricades in the capital, Srinagar, while the internet, mobile and landlines remained suspended to stem protests in the region wracked by a violent separatist struggle for three decades.
The measures passed by an overwhelming majority in the lower house of parliament are being seen as a message that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a tough stance on Kashmir and with rival Pakistan, with whom India has a long-running dispute over control of the Himalayan region.
After the vote, Modi called it a “momentous occasion in our parliamentary democracy.” In a tweet he said, “Together we are, together we shall rise, and together we will fulfill the dreams of 130 crore Indians!”
The steps fulfill a long-standing pledge of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to end the constitutional provision that allowed Kashmir to have its own constitution and draft its own laws on all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications.
Supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) light firecrackers and celebrate the government revoking Kashmir’s special status, in Lucknow, India, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019.
Kashmir also will be split into two federally administered territories, effectively tightening New Delhi’s grip on the region. One will comprise of the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and Hindu-majority Jammu, and the second of Buddhist-majority Ladakh. All Indian laws will now apply in Kashmir.
Barring the main opposition Congress Party and a handful of regional parties, the BJP has won wide support for overturning Kashmir’s autonomous status.
Defending the radical moves, Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament the special status granted to Kashmir was responsible for fomenting terrorism in the region, and revoking it would break down the wall created with the rest of India. He said it did not mean that India had given up its claim to Pakistani Kashmir.
The most significant difference now is that with Kashmir placed on par with the rest of the country, outsiders can buy land and live in the region, which was banned earlier. The government says this would open up the area to investment and spur development.
Divided support
But opinion remains sharply divided on whether these steps will help New Delhi meet its goal of integrating Kashmir with the rest of the country and ending an armed rebellion, or whether it will exacerbate tensions in the region where anti-Indian sentiment runs deep.
Congress Party leader Shashi Tharoor warned that it would give a “fresh lease of life to terrorism” and would make Kashmir, where Muslim insurgents have been waging a separatist struggle, more vulnerable to militant groups like Islamic State.
An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, Aug. 2, 2019. An Indian soldier was killed during a gunbattle with rebels in Kashmir on Friday as residents panicked over reports of India’s deployment of…
Several political commentators say Kashmiris will view the steps as a ploy to take away their special “identity.”
“India will now come across as the hard Indian state instead of the soft Indian state,” said independent political analyst Neerja Chowdhury, pointing out that previous governments had always tried a “carrot and stick” policy. She says the measure could deepen alienation among Kashmiris.
In New Delhi, most newspapers carried banner headlines on what most hailed as a “bold” move, but also warned that it carried risks and said it was a politically and communally contentious step.
“India’s decision is sure to spark unrest in Kashmir, and especially in the Kashmir Valley, once the Indians end their lockdown there,” said Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based expert on South Asian affairs. He told VOA the move “could even spark a new phase of insurgency, that is if India gives insurgents enough space to operate.”
The word “historic” has reverberated in parliament during the two-day debate, but in different contexts. Ruling party benches have said they have corrected a “historic” injustice done to Kashmir, while the opposition Congress Party has slammed it as a “historic blunder.”
The move has infuriated pro-India parties in Kashmir, who call it a betrayal of trust. Three Kashmiri political leaders under detention in a government guest house have warned the step will backfire and deepen anger among Kashmiris.
The Buddhist enclave of Ladakh cheered India’s move to break it away from Jammu and Kashmir state, a change that could spur tourism and help New Delhi counter China’s influence in the contested western Himalayas.
Beijing, though, criticized the announcement, made on Monday by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a wider policy shift that also ended Jammu and Kashmir’s right to set its own laws. In a statement on Tuesday, China said the decision was unacceptable and undermined its territorial sovereignty.
Ladakh is an arid, mountainous area of around 59,146 square kilometers (22,836 square miles), much of it uninhabitable, that only has 274,000 residents. The rest of Jammu and Kashmir is roughly 163,090 square kilometres (62,969 square miles) with a population of some 12.2 million.
China and India still claim vast swaths of each other’s territory along their 3,500 km (2,173 mile) Himalayan border.
FILE – The sun sets in Leh, the largest town in the region of Ladakh, nestled high in the Indian Himalayas, India, Sept. 26, 2016.
The Asian rivals had a two-month standoff at the Doklam plateau in another part of the remote Himalayan region in 2017.
“The fact that India took this move … can be seen as one way that India is trying to counter growing Chinese influence in the region,” said Sameer Patil, a Mumbai-based fellow in international security studies at the Gateway House think-tank.
In a statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China contests the inclusion of what it regards as its territory on the Indian side of the western section of the China-India border.
“India’s unilateral amendment to its domestic law, continues to damage China’s territorial sovereignty. This is unacceptable,” Hua said.
In response to a question about Hua’s statement, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said on Tuesday the Ladakh decision was an internal matter.
“India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise,” said Kumar, without directly mentioning China.
Patil from Gateway House said monks he interviewed in Ladakh told him China-endorsed monks had been extending loans and donations to Buddhist monasteries in the area in an apparent bid to win influence.
Reuters was not able to contact any monks in Ladakh.
“Our Own Destiny”
By announcing it would turn Ladakh into its own administrative district, the Indian government fulfilled a decades-long demand from political leaders there.
Ladakh locals were tired of being hurt or ignored because of the many years of turmoil in the Kashmir Valley resulting from separatist militant activity and the Indian military’s moves to crush them.
Local politicians and analysts expect the change to bring Ladakh out of the shadow of Kashmir, which has long been a flashpoint with Pakistan. It could also help the area pocket more government funding as it seeks to build up its roads and facilities to lure tourists.
“We are very happy that we are separated from Kashmir. Now we can be the owners of our own destiny,” Tsering Samphel, a veteran politician from the Congress party in Ladakh, said on Tuesday. He added the area felt dwarfed by Jammu and Kashmir – which is a majority Muslim area – and that the regions had little in common culturally.
In Ladakh’s city of Leh on Monday, members of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party danced in the streets and distributed sweets, Reuters partner ANI reported.
Ladakh will be governed by a centrally-appointed lieutenant governor, handing New Delhi stronger oversight over the area.
However, while Ladakh will become a Union Territory, it will not have its own legislature – a sore point for some locals.
“Hopefully we will be getting that also, slowly,” said Samphel, 71, adding that local politicians would put that demand to New Delhi.
FILE – A Maitreya Buddha is seen at Thiskey Monastery near the town of Leh in Ladakh, India, Sept. 26, 2016.
Ladakh’s economy, traditionally dependent on farming, has benefited from tourists visiting ancient monasteries and trekking up mountain peaks.
P. C. Thakur, general manager of The Zen Ladakh hotel in Leh, hopes that dissociating from Jammu and Kashmir will further attract visitors. He expects the hotel’s occupancy to jump by up to 7 percentage points from an average of around 80-85% currently.
Small-satellite launch firm Rocket Lab announced on Tuesday a plan to recover the core booster of its Electron rocket using a helicopter, a bold cost-saving concept that, if successful, would make it the second company after Elon Musk’s SpaceX to reuse an orbital-class rocket booster.
“Electron is going reusable,” Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said during a presentation in Utah, showing an animation of the rocket sending a payload into a shallow orbit before speeding back through Earth’s atmosphere. “Launch frequency is the absolute key here.”
The Auckland, New Zealand-based company is one of a growing cadre of launch companies looking to slash the cost of sending shoebox-sized satellites to low Earth orbit, building smaller rockets and reinventing traditional production lines to meet a growing payload demand.
Electron, which has flown seven missions so far, can send up to 496 pounds (225 kg) into space for roughly $7 million.
Medium-class launchers such as Los Angeles-based Relativity Space can send up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into space for $10 million while Cedar Park, Texas-based firm Firefly can do it for $15 million.
FILE – A SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., June 25, 2019.
Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which reignites its engines to land steadily back on Earth “propulsively” after much larger missions costing around $62 million, Rocket Lab’s Electron will deploy a series of parachutes to slow its fall through what Beck called “the wall” – the violently fast and burning hot reentry process the booster endures shooting back through Earth’s atmosphere.
A helicopter will then hook the booster’s parachute in mid-air as it descends over the ocean and tow it back to a boat for recovery, Beck said.
“The grand goal here is, if we can capture the vehicle in wonderful condition, in theory we should be able to put it back on the pad, recharge the batteries up, and go again,” Beck said.
Some launch companies, such as Boeing-Lockheed venture United Launch Alliance which flies its Atlas V rocket, are skeptical of the economic case for reusing first-stage boosters propulsively, arguing that the fuel spent landing the rocket through the dense atmosphere and back on Earth would be better used to launch heavier payloads.
Beck said propulsive recoveries like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 “don’t scale well” with Electron’s smaller build, anyway. A spokeswoman would not say how much money Rocket Lab expects to save from its foray into hardware reusability, but said “cost reductions could flow from this in time.”
Advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday in an effort to block a rule published last month that expands the number of migrants who can be subject to a sped-up deportation process without oversight by an immigration judge.
The rule, published in the Federal Register on July 23, broadened the practice of “expedited removal” to apply to anyone arrested anywhere nationwide who entered the United States illegally and cannot prove they have lived continuously in the country for at least two years.
Previously, only migrants caught within 100 miles of a U.S. border and who had been in the country for 14 days or less were subject to the fast-track process.
Under expedited removal, migrants are not entitled to a review of their cases in front of an immigration judge or access to an attorney.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Council on behalf of three immigration rights groups, claims the government did not go through the proper procedures in issuing the rule and says it violates due process and U.S. immigration laws.
The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the filing.
President Donald Trump has struggled to stem an increase of mostly Central American families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, leading to overcrowded detention facilities and a political battle over immigration that is inflaming tensions in the country.
In El Paso, Texas, last weekend a gunman killed 22 people after apparently posting an anti-immigrant manifesto online.
Nearly 300,000 of the approximately 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally could be quickly deported under the new rule, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
“Hundreds of thousands of people living anywhere in the U.S. are at risk of being separated from their families and expelled from the country without any recourse,” Anand Balakrishnan, an attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.
The government has said increasing rapid deportations would free up detention space and ease strains on immigration courts, which face a backlog of more than 900,000 cases.
People in rapid deportation proceedings are detained for 11.4 days on average, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. People in regular proceedings are held for 51.5 days and are released into the United States for the months or years it takes to resolve their cases.
