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The town of Minden, West Virginia looks like many small American towns, yet it is unique in that it is one of the most toxic places in the United States. Here, between 1970s and mid-1980s, the Shaffer Equipment Company used harmful chemicals to build electrical equipment. Those chemicals have been banned since 1979, but traces still remain. Daria Dieguts went there to find out more and filed this report narrated by Anna Rice.
From: MeNeedIt
President Donald Trump emphasized corruption, not politics, is the motivation to ask foreign governments to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. But text messages suggest that U.S. diplomats were encouraging Ukraine’s president to investigate Biden in exchange for a meeting he was seeking with Trump. VOA’s Steve Redisch reports.Trump Denies Political Motives for Ukraine Investigations; Diplomats’ Texts Concerning
From: MeNeedIt
A U.N. human rights expert has expressed concern over the working conditions of North Korean workers abroad in response to VOA’s report that uncovered North Korea’s illicit labor activities in Senegal.
“It’s quite revealing about this situation of the system that exists in North Korea regarding workers abroad,” Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said during an interview with VOA Korean Service Thursday.
Quintana said the VOA report reflects that “the system remains as it was conceived since the outset.”
Human rights groups have often accused North Korea of sending its citizens to foreign countries for forced labor to sustain its economy since the inception of the regime. The country is known to violate international labor practices when sending workers abroad, putting them to work under harsh conditions.
The VOA report revealed that approximately 30 North Korean workers were laboring under poor conditions at various construction sites in the Senegalese capital of Dakar in September. The North Koreans were doing construction work for private Senegalese companies such as Patisen in violation of international sanctions.
The workers were paid about $120 a month after having to remit a significant portion of their salary to the North Korean government, according to documents reviewed by VOA. Typically, North Korean government takes approximately 70% of workers’ salaries.
The workers were subject to heavy surveillance by North Korean authorities while working and off duty. They had limited communications with locals, internet access, and ability to travel, according to the VOA report.
Quintana said poor labor conditions of overseas North Korean workers are “the responsibility of North Korean government.”
Quintana continued, “The best way to address this issue is to engage with those countries who hosted these workers and to engage those private actors and companies who also have a responsibility.”
The U.N. expert said he recognizes the importance of international sanctions placed on North Korea in an attempt to prevent the country from sending its workers abroad to earn hard currency that could be used for its nuclear weapons program.
At the same time, Quintana believes it is equally important to find ways to protect the rights of North Korean workers who want to work abroad and to create acceptable labor conditions.
Acknowledging that the North Korean system of overseas workers has shortcomings, Quintana said, “We also know that the families of these North Korean workers benefit a lot from the income, even the low income that they receive working abroad.
“So this is something we need to bear in mind when we address the issue of overseas workers,” he continued.
Quintana said he plans to reach out to Senegalese authorities and urge them to comply with basic labor standards.
The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution in August 2017 banning member states from forming joint entities with North Korea in their territories and hiring North Korean workers, in an effort to curb North Korea’s nuclear weapons program
A month later, the Security Council passed another resolution asking members to close any existing North Korean entities in their territories. Then in December of that year, the council urged members to return all North Korean workers home by December 2019.
From: MeNeedIt
The flu season has started in the Northern Hemisphere. Although it’s still very early in the season, two deaths have been reported. One was a child, the other an adult with a chronic illness, but seemingly healthy people can also die from the flu.
Those most likely to die from the flu are the very young and the very old. But seemingly healthy people die as well.
Jen Ludwin was one of those seemingly healthy people when she caught the virus. She was young — 23 years old with no underlying conditions.
“I figured, ‘You know what, I’ll spend seven days in bed and just fight it off and I’d be OK.’ But I was totally wrong,” she said.
Ludwin’s organs to begin to fail.
“I was already in septic shock, and that my organs were starting to fail,” she said. “On top of that I had ARDS, which is a respiratory distress syndrome, and then DIC, which caused me to bleed internally and clot in my extremities. And all of those complications together led to gangrene in my limbs, and so I became an amputee.”
Dr. Eric Adkins at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center says when a virus attacks the body, it’s like an all-out war.
“The body’s response to infection is basically a big inflammatory response that can cause all kinds of problems in the various organs,” he said.
A clue in a protein
It’s a mystery why otherwise healthy people have severe complications from the flu. But researchers at Ohio State University College of Medicine uncovered a clue. Jacob Yount specializes in the study of microbial infection at Ohio State. He says the researchers found a link between a heart complication as a result of getting the flu and a protein that’s critical to fighting it.
“We make this protein and it inhibits viruses from entering our cells,” he said.
But, Yount says, some people have a genetic mutation that blocks the production of that protein, and without it, the flu is more likely to infect the heart and lead to heart failure.
“It can actually block the electrical current that’s traveling through the heart,” he said.
The study found that the mice without this gene were more likely to have heart complications after being infected with the flu virus. Adkins says this finding may help doctors care for flu patients in the future.
“If you know that they’re missing the gene ahead of time, then you may tailor your medical therapy differently,” he said.
Millions affected
The researchers say that millions of people worldwide are likely to have this genetic mutation, including about one-fifth of those of Chinese descent.
Now that scientists understand what might be causing the problem, they are searching for treatments that might prevent or reverse these heart complications in the future. Right now, though, the best protection is getting a flu shot
From: MeNeedIt
Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi promised to listen to people’s grievances in a televised address after three days of deadly protest in Baghdad and several other cities. Hundreds of protesters rallied in the capital for a third consecutive day Thursday, defying a curfew, to call for jobs, improved services and an end to widespread corruption. About 30 people have been killed so far and hundreds others have been injured in clashes between the police and protesters. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the authorities authorities have extended a curfew in several southern cities as the death toll rises.
From: MeNeedIt
When considering what lies ahead in the impeachment inquiry targeting President Donald Trump, a famous movie line comes to mind. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
That line was uttered by legendary Hollywood actress Bette Davis in the 1950 film, “All About Eve.” But it would seem to fit the times when it comes to where the president and opposition Democrats are headed in the weeks to come.
Emotions and tensions are running high in Washington as the impeachment inquiry targeting Trump gains momentum. And many political experts believe this latest battle over the Trump presidency is likely to sharpen the longstanding political divide within the country just as the 2020 presidential campaign gets underway in earnest.
Combative stance
Trump has appeared to be in battle mode in recent days as the prospect of impeachment looms. On Thursday, in front of reporters outside the White House, he openly urged Ukraine and China to start investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2019
It was a phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on July 25, however, that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry being pushed by congressional Democrats. In a summary of the call released by the president, Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens, even though neither Trump nor his allies have produced any public evidence of wrongdoing.
Trump’s mood has grown increasingly combative in recent days as more details emerge about the call.
“People have said to me, how does he handle it?” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “Because it is all a fraud, and because of that, and because I know that I am right and because I am doing a great job for the American people, I am very, very happy living the way I am living.”
Trump has also ramped up his attacks on the news media.
“Much of it is corrupt. You have corrupt media in this country and it truly is the enemy of the people,” he said.
Democratic pressure
Congressional Democrats remain focused on Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader and his appeal for help in trying to find political dirt on Democratic rival Joe Biden. For months, Biden has consistently beaten Trump in head-to-head matchups in polls.
Democrat Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has become the face of the impeachment inquiry and told reporters Wednesday that Democrats were determined to quickly move ahead with their inquiry.
“To try to effectively coerce a foreign leader that is completely dependent on our country for military, economic, diplomatic and other support to intervene in our election to help his campaign. It is hard to imagine a more corrupt course of conduct,” Schiff said.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and described the phone exchange as a “perfect call.”
But legal expert Paul Schiff Berman of the George Washington University Law School said the allegations are serious.
“The entire purpose and content of the call as released by the White House is only to further the president’s personal, political efforts to hurt one of his political opponents, and that is an abuse of power and authority that goes beyond anything I think we have ever seen,” Schiff Berman told VOA.
Impeachable conduct?
As the House moves ahead with its inquiry, Vanderbilt University expert Thomas Schwarz said lawmakers will eventually have to consider whether Trump’s behavior is serious enough to warrant removal from office.
“I think the real question will be whether it rises to the level of an impeachable offense. It might be helpful in the investigation if they can find a pattern of this type of behavior in his other interactions with foreign leaders.”
Even if Democrats eventually move to impeach Trump in the House, they would face long odds on actually removing him from office because Republicans control the Senate. In a Senate impeachment trial, 67 of the 100 senators would have to find the president guilty in order to remove him from office.
Pushing polarization
The impeachment battle is already hardening feelings about Trump among both supporters and opponents.
Even as polls indicate growing support for impeachment, many of the same surveys show Trump’s base rallying to his support even more strongly than before.
And the longer the inquiry goes on, the more likely it is that it will further fray a nation already politically fractured, according to veteran analyst William Galston at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“So the polarization is both increasing and deepening and there is no getting around the fact that we are in for months of conflict around this issue,” Galston told VOA. “It will pour gasoline on an already raging fire, I am afraid.”
On the campaign trail
The impeachment inquiry is also dominating the Democrat’s presidential primary race. On the campaign trail in Nevada, Joe Biden had a direct message for the president. You are not going to destroy me and you are not going to destroy my family.”
What happens with the impeachment effort will have a big impact on the 2020 campaign.
“The next five to eight weeks is probably going to tell us a lot more about the 2020 presidential election than the last three years have,” Brookings analyst John Hudak told a panel discussion on impeachment earlier in the week.
Trump is no stranger to political battles, and the one coming up over impeachment could be the defining moment of his presidency.
From: MeNeedIt
In recent days, anti-government protests have engulfed Baghdad and some other cities in Iraq. Security forces have opened fire, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. A curfew has been imposed in the capital and the internet has been cut off in several regions. The United States has urged authorities to exercise restraint. As the country stands on the brink of descending once more into violence, there are fears of a return to sectarian conflict. Henry Ridgwell reports from a recent London conference on the uncertain future of Iraq.
From: MeNeedIt
By the late 19th century, slavery was over, but the American South was still rife with discrimination and injustice for rural African American sharecroppers.
“They could only shop at one store, the country store, where prices were high,” says Louis Hyman, an economic historian and assistant professor at Cornell University.
“It often was the case that the landlord also owned the store, and their lives were ruled by credit. They basically could only shop at that store because their accounts would not be reconciled until the cotton crop came in. Because of that, they didn’t really have cash, and they really didn’t have an alternative way to get credit.”
Enter Sears, the department store chain founded by Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck in 1893, which had a catalog that offered black sharecroppers an alternative. Sears let customers buy on credit, which gave African Americans the option to bypass the local country store, where black customers had to wait until the white customers were served.
“They couldn’t buy the same clothes as white people. They couldn’t buy the same food as white people…This was part of the sort of everyday white supremacy of Jim Crow,” Hyman says. “And so, the Sears catalog allowed them a way to buy clothes that were nicer than were available in that country store, to buy food that the white people ate… It offered them a choice where they didn’t have to feel second-class in their shopping lives.”
The Jim Crow laws, which were in effect from the 1880s to the 1960s, were state and local mandates that enforced racial segregation in the American South. The most common types of these laws outlawed intermarriage and required businesses and public institutions to separate their black and white patrons.
Sears, the department store founder, was not motivated by social justice. As a businessman, he was in it for the money. Once Sears realized that African Americans were using the catalog to avoid discrimination at the hands of white supremacists, he took steps to make sure they could continue to shop the catalog.
Sears set up systems that gave black patrons the option to go directly to the postal carrier, completely bypassing the country store, which in some cases, was also the post office.
Rumors spread that Sears and Roebuck were black, presumably to convince white shoppers that they shouldn’t shop at Sears. Sears and Roebuck published pictures to prove they were white.
“It’s easy to think of Jim Crow as just taking away the vote from African Americans, but it was part of an everyday kind of experience of difference that legitimates a kind of hierarchy,” Hyman says, adding that African Americans have always had a less equal access to the market.
“This is what racial segregation is all about. You see that today. Where are the food deserts? In cities. Why don’t black people have access to the same kinds of stores that white suburbanites do? And a lot of the experience of black people is an experience of monopoly, not being able to get to a bank, having to rely on a check-cashing place, not being able to get to that slightly better-paying job because they’re isolated in terms of transportation or neighborhood.”
Last October, Hyman tweeted about the Sears catalog’s role in battling white supremacy. The thread went viral on Twitter and was seen by millions. Actor LeVar Burton was among those who retweeted it.
“I think the reason it connected with people is that people still shop while black, they still get trailed through stores,” Hyman says. “We still have this daily experience of not being welcome and being forced to feel second-class.”
Hyman says it’s not a coincidence that the Sears catalog began to decline after the end of the Jim Crow era. Some on the Twitter thread suggested that Amazon shopping can play a similar role for African American customers today as the Sears catalog did more than a century ago.
From: MeNeedIt
Majorities of Americans across racial lines say white people are treated more fairly than black people by the police, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
But the poll finds a disconnect between white Americans who identify disparate treatment of people of color by the police, but who don’t see police violence as a serious problem — a contrast on display this week as many black Americans welcomed the guilty verdict against former Dallas officer Amber Guyger as a singular victory, rather than proof of changing attitudes.
About 7 in 10 black Americans, and about half of Hispanics, call police violence against the public very serious, compared with about a quarter of white Americans. Roughly another third of white Americans call it a moderately serious problem.
The dynamic has played out in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2014 with the fatal shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by white, former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson.
Raising awareness
The work of activists around the issue of policing in communities of color has helped to raise awareness, said poll respondent Warren Miller, a 62-year-old Realtor living in Fairview, Michigan, who said his black friends helped him realize that white people are treated more fairly by police.
But Miller, who is white, also said he doesn’t believe police violence against the public is a serious problem. Asked why, he laughed nervously before responding: “In northern Michigan, we don’t have as many problems, the city issues. It’s small town America, where everybody knows everybody. That could’ve influenced part of my perception as well,” he said.
Myth of equal justice
“White folks are trying to grapple with the difference between what they want to and need to believe about their country, and what their eyes increasingly are telling them is true,” said anti-racist author and educator Tim Wise, adding that for many black and brown Americans, the notion that racism is systemic and not limited to individual instances is easier to accept “because it’s their lived experience.”
“For white folks, there’s a need to hold on to the myth that America is an equal justice kind of place,” said Wise, who is white. “People of color have never had to, nor have they ever been able to, buy into the fiction of liberty and justice for all.”
Overall, about a third of Americans think police violence against the public is a very serious problem in the U.S., though another third call it moderately serious. By comparison, close to half say violence against police is very serious.
Misconception about blacks
But the poll also finds 55% of Americans say they think police in most communities are more likely to use deadly force against a black person compared with a white person.
“I think there’s a misconception that black citizens are inherently more dangerous or more likely to react violently to a police encounter,” said Gabe Wood, 49, of Wilmington, North Carolina.
The Democrat, who is white, cited “a laundry list of issues that go back a long time” like stereotypes about different races and the threats they present.
“I do think in some areas of the country and some parts of towns, I think police officers are quicker to resort to deadly force because of a perceived and sometimes unreal threat,” Wood said.
Guyger’s trial was the latest in a string of high-profile cases in recent years in cities including Baltimore, Cleveland and Minneapolis, as well as Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and North Charleston, South Carolina, to highlight the issue of disparate policing in communities of color.
Reforms put on hold
Those cases and others prompted Justice Department efforts to reform local police departments under former President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder. Such efforts have stalled under President Donald Trump, who has embraced law enforcement. His administration in 2017 labeled Black Lives Matter as “black identity extremists.”
Guyger, a 31-year-old white former officer, was convicted Tuesday of murder in the killing of 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean after apparently entering his home by mistake and concluding that he was an intruder. She was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison.
Some observers cited the rare circumstances of the case as a factor in the rare outcome, as officer-involved shootings of unarmed black people are sometimes prosecuted, but often result in acquittals.
Others will point to the guilty verdict as evidence of progress, said Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler.
“People’s understandings about the police are going to be based on their own experiences with the police,” Butler said. “The more typical case is when the officer is on-duty and the victim is not as sympathetic, and the officer is seen by many white folks as ‘just trying to do his job.’ We’re still a long way from equal justice under the law.”
The AP-NORC poll of 1,286 adults was conducted Sept. 20-23 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone.
From: MeNeedIt
Melinda Gates has pledged $1 billion to promote gender equality in the United States.
In an article published in Time Wednesday, Gates wrote, “It’s frustrating — even heartbreaking — to confront evidence of the many ways our country continues to hold women back.”
Gender equality has long been an issue of interest for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Pivotal Ventures, the investment and incubation company she founded in 2015.
“For most of our history, women’s absence from positions of power and influence wasn’t newsworthy; it was normal,” she wrote. “The fact we’re now talking about these inequities is itself a sign of progress.”
She said Pivotal Ventures will use the money to work with organizations and policymakers to achieve three targets: breaking down barriers women face on the job, helping women move up faster in leadership positions and holding companies accountable for fostering gender equality. The goal is to make a significant impact within 10 years.
Gates wrote that in 2018, “there were more men named James running Fortune 500 companies than there were women. This year, only one CEO on that list of 500 is a woman of color.”
She said her reaction to facts like that “is a complicated mix of outrage and optimism.”
Gates hopes her commitment will push others into action.
“$1 billion is a lot of money, but I also recognize that it’s only a small fraction of what’s necessary,” she wrote. “That’s why I hope the financial commitment I’m making today is seen as both a vote of confidence in the experts and advocates who are already working on these issues — and an invitation for others to join the cause and make commitments of their own. Equality can’t wait, and no one in a position to act should either.”
From: MeNeedIt
As political tensions flare back home, Hong Kong students on U.S. college campuses say they have been ostracized and in some cases threatened by fellow students from mainland China, and they suspect they are being watched from afar by Beijing.
Some say they see the hand of the Chinese government working in ways that threaten academic freedom.
“Even though many Chinese students are studying right here, sometimes they are all being monitored. They’re not really free of their minds and expression in this country,” said Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law, a 26-year-old graduate student in Asian studies at Yale University.
Law said he was told by a fellow student that other Chinese at the Ivy League school are avoiding contact with him for fear it will be reported back to the Chinese Embassy and they or their families back home will face consequences.
“There will be staring, spotting me and discussing among themselves, and pointing at me in an unfriendly manner,” said Law, whose continuing political work has included visits to Washington to meet with members of Congress.
Chinese students in US
Hong Kong has been beset with huge pro-democracy demonstrations since June that have triggered clashes with riot police in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory and stirred fears of a violent crackdown from Beijing.
More than 360,000 students from mainland China attended U.S. colleges and universities in the 2017-18 school year, compared with about 7,000 from Hong Kong, according to the Institute of International Education.
At Emerson College in Boston, student Frances Hui, of Hong Kong, faced threatening language from classmates from mainland China after she published a column in the student newspaper headlined “I am from Hong Kong, not China.”
She said she was unnerved by comments online by people who said they had seen her on campus and described her as short, which made her feel as if she were under surveillance. And she panicked when an Emerson student posted her column on Facebook along with a comment that any opponents of China “must be executed.”
Hui, 20, said she alerted the Emerson administration.
Emerson spokeswoman Sofiya Cabalquinto said the college supports “the rights of our students’ voicing their opinions and doing so free from threats.” She said the college put a plan in place to address Hui’s concerns, but she would not say whether disciplinary action was taken against the student who made the online post.
Death threats
Law gained prominence as a student protest leader before winning election to Hong Kong’s legislature in 2016 but was later expelled as a member and jailed for several months for his activism.
He said he started getting death threats of unknown origin online soon after he arrived in August, including warnings that people with guns would go looking for him at Yale and suggestions that Chinese students in the U.S. assault him. He said he was also subjected to insults echoing a Chinese Communist Party campaign labeling him a criminal.
He reported the threats to police and the Yale administration. He said the harassment has subsided since Yale police began monitoring the online threats.
He said he hasn’t faced anything so overt from Yale students, although he said people have circulated his information in a group for Chinese students at Yale on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, and urged people to say “hi” to him — a gesture he saw as vaguely threatening.
A Yale spokeswoman, Karen Peart, said only that the university police department takes appropriate action whenever a campus community member faces an unsafe situation.
Beijing watching
A report this year by Human Rights Watch said Chinese students at times remain silent in their classrooms out of fear their comments will be reported to Chinese authorities by other students. The organization described the monitoring as one of several ways the Chinese government undermines academic freedom on foreign campuses.
“Schools need to get very clear about these problems and they need to get policies to respond to them,” said Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch’s China director.
At universities in Australia and New Zealand, students on either side of the political divide have built up and torn down displays advocating autonomy for Hong Kong.
And there have been signs of tensions at other U.S. campuses, including Georgetown University in Washington, which has seen dueling chalk messages on the Hong Kong protests, and Columbia University in New York, where Hong Kong democracy advocates were greeted last month by protesters holding China’s flag at a lecture hall where they were giving a talk.
From: MeNeedIt