Governments and international organizations around the world have condemned last week’s bombing of a migrant detention center in Libya that killed more than fifty civilians and wounded at least 130.  The horrific incident, however, has not deterred desperate migrants who still want to make the dangerous trip to Europe.  VOA’s Heather Murdock is in Tripoli with this report.

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From: MeNeedIt

The widely-publicized case of Baiq Nuril Maknun, the 41-year-old school bookkeeper sentenced to six months in prison for recording sexually-suggestive phone calls she received from the principal at her school, has gained traction after the Indonesian government indicated a willingness to grant her amnesty – which would eliminate any traces of wrongdoing from her part.

After a meeting in Jakarta with Nuril and her counsel on Monday, Indonesia’s Law and Human Rights Minister, Yasonna Laoly, told reporters an amnesty could be announced after Indonesia’s newly-elected president, Joko Widodo, through the state secretariat, discusses the legal proceedings with the House of Representatives. One of Nuril’s lawyers, Joko Jumadi, confirmed to VOA that they will meet with the House of Representatives Wednesday.
 
“I think it sounds to me like a green light,” he said. “We are optimistic. We have to be.”

Several law experts were also invited to the meeting, one of whom was Bivitri Susanti who confirmed to VOA that the president was indicated to have favored amnesty. Last week, Joko told reporters in Manado, a city on Sulawesi island, that though he would not intervene with the Supreme Court ruling, he advised that Nuril and her counsel apply for amnesty.

Talk of granting Nuril amnesty followed a controversial rejection of Nuril’s appeal from Indonesia’s Supreme Court last week – one that upheld her prison stay and a $35,000 (500 million rupiahs) fine.

Case history

Nuril’s case began in 2012, when Muslim (who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name), the newly-minted principal of her school in Mataram, called her repeatedly. In the phone calls, he used sexually inappropriate language and even went as far as to tell her about his own affair with his own treasurer. As word spread suggesting Nuril and Muslim had indeed embarked on an affair, Nuril determined to disprove the rumor to her colleagues by recording the call.
 
Learning of the recordings, Muslim reported Nuril to the police, citing a clause in Indonesia’s controversial electronic information and transactions law that presides over defamation. Deemed innocent by the local court (though she still went to prison during the investigation) in 2017, the prosecutors took it up with the Supreme Court who later convicted Nuril of defamation in 2018 and sentenced her to a six-month jail time.

Her case has sparked outrage from activists and rights organizations. An online crowd-funding campaign has also been set up to help with Nuril’s fine (she would have to serve an additional three months in prison if she fails to pay the fine).

“From the very beginning, law enforcers have sided with versions of the story from the principal,” Usman Hamid, head of the Indonesia chapter of Amnesty International, told VOA. “They should be protecting Nuril as a victim, not brand her as a [convict].”

Nuril’s case reignited discussions on sexual assault cases. Joko, Nuril’s lawyer, told VOA that the Supreme Court ruling against his client set a “terrible precedent for future reports from sexual assault victims.” Her case came after Indonesia was embroiled in the discourse around the passing of the anti-sexual violence bill, which faced opposition from religious groups.

Amnesty v. clemency

Another potential legal means for Nuril is through clemency, though law expert Bivitri said that it would be unlikely. “Clemency is usually provided to people embroiled in extraordinary cases, say people sentenced to death or for life,” she said.
 
Amnesty, she said, would be the best way forward. “If the president grants Nuril amnesty, then it could prove that the government protects its citizens while honoring the judicial proceedings.” She added that amnesty would erase her criminal record. In contrast, the granting of clemency would mean that Nuril agreed that she was in the wrong and that she would ask for the leniency of her punishment.

“We don’t see any criminal wrongdoing here from her part,” Usman of Amnesty International said.

Indonesia’s former presidents have previously granted amnesty. In 1959, then president Sukarno granted amnesty and abolition to the people involved in the rebel group D.I/T.I.I. Kahar Muzzakar in South Sulawesi. In 2005, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono granted amnesty to the separatist movement in Aceh, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka.

“Joko could use this argument: for the sake of peace and humanity,” Usman said, before adding that history shows that amnesty has also been granted to individuals.

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From: MeNeedIt

Sri Lanka’s government announced Tuesday it will reduce ground handling charges for airlines and slash aviation fuel prices and embarkation fees to help the country’s vital tourism industry recover after Easter suicide bombings killed more than 250 people.

Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said the decision will lead to an increase in flights to Sri Lanka and a reduction in ticket prices, which will attract more tourists to the Indian Ocean island nation, famed for its pristine beaches.

Seven suicide bombers from a local Muslim group, National Thowheed Jammath, attacked three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, killing 258 people, including 45 foreigners mainly from China, India, the U.S. and Britain.
 
Tourist arrivals declined 57% in June from a year earlier, dealing a severe blow to the tourism industry, the country’s third-largest foreign currency earner after remittances from overseas workers and textile and garment exports.

The cuts in charges and fees will be in place for six months, said Johanne Jayaratne, head of the government’s tourism development agency.

About 2.3 million tourists visited Sri Lanka in 2018, when 29 airlines offered 300 flights per week. After the April 21 attacks, 41 fights per week were canceled, amounting to a loss of 8,000 passenger seats. Several airlines have reinstated their normal schedules since then, but others have not.

Dimuthu Tennakoon, chairman of the Board of Airline Representatives, said the government decision will encourage airlines to increase their capacity and offer attractive fares.
 
“That will definitely happen with this reduction because fuel and ground handling contribute a significant percentage of the total cost element of any airline,” he said.

Tourism accounts for 4.9% of Sri Lanka’s GDP. Around half a million Sri Lankans depend directly on tourism and 2 million indirectly.
 
The government currently predicts $3.7 billion in revenue from tourism this year, down from an initial forecast of $5 billion.

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From: MeNeedIt

Greece’s new Cabinet was sworn in Tuesday, two days after conservative party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis won early elections on pledges to make the country more business-friendly, cut taxes and negotiate an easing of draconian budget conditions agreed as part of the country’s rescue program.

 The new Cabinet relies heavily on experienced politicians who have served in previous governments, but also includes non-politician technocrats considered experts in their fields.
 

Mitsotakis appointed Christos Staikouras to the crucial post of finance minister. Staikouras is an economist and engineer who had served as deputy minister in a previous government.
 
The new foreign minister is Nikos Dendias, who held previous Cabinet positions in the ministries of development, defense and public order.
 
A former public order minister under a previous socialist government, Michalis Chrisohoidis, takes the reins of the ministry once again as one of Mitsotakis’ non-parliamentary appointees.
 
The new appointees headed to their ministries for official handovers after the swearing-in ceremony at the presidential mansion in central Athens.
 
Mitsotakis had barely announced his Cabinet selection Monday evening when Greece’s creditors bluntly rejected his calls to ease bailout conditions. Finance ministers from the 19 European Union countries that use the euro currency, who met in Brussels, insisted key targets must be adhered to.
 
“Commitments are commitments, and if we break them, credibility is the first thing to fall apart. That brings about a lack of confidence and investment,” Eurogroup president Mario Centeno said after the meeting.
 
Greece was dependent for years on successive international bailouts that provided rescue loans from other European Union countries and the International Monetary Fund in return for deep reforms to the country’s economy that included steep tax hikes and major spending cuts.
 
Unemployment and poverty levels soared in the country. Greece’s third and final international bailout ended last year, but the country’s economy is still under strict supervision by its creditors.

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From: MeNeedIt

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is among the least popular since the country’s return to democracy three decades ago, but his rating in a poll released on Monday showed his numbers stabilizing.

The Datafolha polling institute found that 33% of respondents said Bolsonaro was doing a “great or good” job. That is technically tied with the 32% in an April Datafolha poll.

Those who think Bolsonaro is doing a “bad or awful” job rose to 33% from 30% in the April poll.

The latest polls show Bolsonaro technically tied with former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso as the leader with the least support at this point in his first term. Thirty-four percent of those asked by Datafolha in June 1995 thought Cardoso was doing “good or great.”

The poll of 2,086 people across Brazil on July 4-5 has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Bolsonaro easily won last year’s election over leftist rival Fernando Haddad, who stepped in to take the top place on the Workers Party ticket after a graft conviction prevented imprisoned former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from running. Datafolha polls last year showed Lula far more popular than Bolsonaro – even after he had been imprisoned.

Lula’s conviction has come under scrutiny since the publication of leaked messages last month by news website The Intercept Brasil showed former federal judge and current Justice Minister Sergio Moro stepping over ethical, and possibly legal, lines by coaching the prosecution in Lula’s trial.

Moro, who presided over the case and found Lula guilty, has alternatively argued that the leaked messages show no improper behavior to questioning their authenticity, is facing withering criticism.

On Monday, Moro’s press office said he would take the week of July 15-19 off for “personal” reasons, and later added he was spending time with his family. Moro’s wife and children do not live with him in the capital. July is winter recess for schools in Brazil.

In August the Supreme Court is expected to weigh an appeal from Lula’s legal team, demanding his release from jail.

Lula has been convicted in a second graft trial and faces at least eight more.

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From: MeNeedIt

Democrats in the early presidential contest states of Iowa and Nevada will be able to cast their votes over the telephone instead of showing up at their states’ traditional neighborhood caucus meetings next February, according to plans unveiled by the state parties.

The tele-caucus systems, the result of a mandate from the Democratic National Committee, are aimed at opening the local-level political gatherings to more people, especially evening shift-workers and people with disabilities, whom critics of the caucuses have long said are blocked from the process.

The changes are expected to boost voter participation across the board, presenting a new opportunity for the Democratic Party’s 2020 candidates to drive up support in the crucial early voting states.

“This is a no-excuse option” for participation, said Shelby Wiltz, the Nevada Democrats’ caucus director.

Party officials don’t have an estimate of how many voters will take advantage of the call-in option. But in Iowa, some recent polls show as many as 20% of Democrats will participate virtually. In Nevada, most voters tend to cast ballots early during regular elections, and party officials expect many will take advantage of the early presidential vote.

While rolling out a new voting system holds the promise of more voter participation, it also comes with potential risk for confusion or technical troubles. But the party is moving forward to try and address long-standing criticism that the caucuses are exclusionary and favor some candidates over others.

Increasing criticism

The Iowa caucuses, a series of party-run, local-level organizing meetings that adopted a presidential preference element more than 50 years ago, have come under increasing criticism in the past decade for their fixed evening time and place. Such rules effectively barred participation in the first-in-the-country nominating contest, for instance, for parents unable to find child care or older voters hesitant to venture out in the dead of winter.

Hillary Clinton and her supporters complained that Iowa’s process “disenfranchised” those unable to attend after she finished a disappointing third place in the 2008 caucuses.

In 2016, backers of Sen. Bernie Sanders cried foul over the Iowa results when Clinton won a razor-thin margin, 49.9% to 49.6%, despite some irregularities in reporting results. The dispute, replicated in part in Nevada, was a key factor in the push from groups on the left to overhaul the nominating process heading into 2020.

Nevada, the third state in the Democrats’ nominating contest sequence, has only been an early caucus state since 2008, and the process still remains relatively new to many residents.

Rural benefits

By opting for a dial-in program, the systems can reach people in Iowa’s and Nevada’s vast rural stretches where broadband internet coverage may be spotty. Iowa since 2014 has offered a smaller-scale tele-caucus, allowing out-of-state members of the military and Iowans living abroad to call in to live neighborhood caucus meetings and participate over the phone.

“One, we are a rural state. And let’s be honest, outside of Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada is a rural state. Everyone is connected by phone,” Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price said.

The DNC’s mandate has been a challenge for party operatives who sought to maintain security while also maintaining the spirit of the caucuses, which are chiefly local, party-building activities aimed at electing delegates to party conventions. Officials say by avoiding an internet-based program, they are reducing the risk of hacking, a key concern in an era of renewed concern about election tampering.

While Nevada Democrats said accessibility, not security, drove them to opt for a phone-in system, Iowa Democrats said they felt a lower-tech option was safer.

“With this system, it’s easier than making sure thousands of computers across the state are not filled with malware and not being hacked,” Price said.

Security concerns

Yet officials acknowledge that relying on phone systems does raise security concerns.

“Are they unhackable? Certainly not,” said Jeremy Epstein, a voting systems expert with ACM, the largest international association of computer science professionals. “None of these technologies are really bullet proof.”

The state parties presented their plans late last month to the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. Committee members applauded the work and gave conditional approval but asked for more information about the security and functionality of the systems.

“We are working with every state party that is integrating these tools so they can make their voting process secure and successful. We look forward to working with Democrats in these states to address the committee’s questions,” DNC spokesman David Bergstein said in a statement.

Both state parties plan to require Democratic voters to register online in advance of their virtual caucus, verifying their identity with a “multi-factor authentication.” Voters will receive a PIN that they’ll have to enter when they call in to participate.

Iowans who register on time will have six times to choose from to participate by phone, including the in-person caucus night, Feb. 3. Nevadans who register for the virtual caucus can participate on Feb. 16 or 17. Unlike Iowa, Nevada is also offering four days of in-person early caucusing to give people more options.

Wiltz said security experts with the DNC will be vetting the systems later this year to test for vulnerabilities to breaches or hacking.

“This isn’t something that we’re taking lightly. We understand our responsibility,” Wiltz said.

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From: MeNeedIt

First lady Melania Trump is visiting West Virginia to learn how a city at the center of the nation’s opioid epidemic is grappling with the crisis.

Trump on Monday participated in a roundtable discussion on opioids with federal, state and local officials in Huntington, West Virginia. Federal statistics show West Virginia has the highest opioid overdose rate in the U.S.

During the roughly hour-long meeting, Trump heard about how police, schools and health care centers in the area are fighting the opioid scourge. Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said it’s a grim task, and added that his city would still have to deal with the epidemic for at least the next 40 years even if all heroin sales were to abruptly stop.

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From: MeNeedIt

Religious publishers say President Donald Trump’s most recent proposed tariffs on Chinese imports could result in a Bible shortage.

That’s because millions of Bibles are printed in China each year. Stan Jantz, president and CEO of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, says more than half of worldwide Bible production takes place in China. 
 
Critics of a proposed tariff say it would make the Bible more expensive for consumers. It would also hurt the efforts of Christian organizations that give away Bibles as part of their ministry.

The proposed 25% tariff would apply to all books, but critics say it would disproportionately affect Bibles and children’s books. Both tend to have specialized printing requirements that Chinese printers are set up to meet, while many domestic printers are not. 

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From: MeNeedIt

Elizabeth Warren raised $19.1 million in the second quarter, her campaign said Monday, cementing her status in the top tier of Democratic presidential contenders and a leading voice of the party’s liberal base.

The Massachusetts senator’s second-quarter contributions leave her behind only Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor who reported nearly $25 million in donations, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who tallied $21.5 million since his candidacy began in late April.

Perhaps most notably, Warren’s donations exceeded those reported by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her closest rival, who is also vying for liberal voters and is the only other candidate who has joined her in swearing off high-dollar fundraisers.

Warren’s success underscores the threat she poses to both Sanders and California Sen. Kamala Harris, whose $12 million second-quarter fundraising got a major boost in the final days of last month from her performance in the first Democratic debate. While Sanders appeals to progressives seeking an ambitious Democratic agenda, Warren has staked a claim to his base with her now-trademark policy plans. And as Harris seeks a foothold with black voters as the primary’s lone black female candidate, Warren is making headway of her own with black women.

“To sum it up: We raised more money than any other 100% grassroots-funded campaign,” said Roger Lau, Warren’s campaign manager. “That’s big.”

Warren more than tripled the $6 million she raised in the first three months of 2019 , when she silenced some skeptics of her long-term fundraising viability following her decision to rely on grassroots rather than high-dollar donations. The campaign’s $19.1 million came from more than 384,000 contributors giving more than 683,000 donations.

That’s less than the nearly 1 million individual donations Sanders’ campaign reported, but comparable with the 725,000 online donations that President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign reported during the second quarter.

Warren’s extensive organizing apparatus, particularly in early voting primary states, remains both a formidable asset — and a significant cost — as the campaign prepares to report $19.7 million in cash on hand. Her operation currently counts more than 300 paid staff members, 60% of whom are in the four early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, according to the campaign.

While a staffing footprint of that size is likely to spark questions about Warren’s high spending rate among some of her presidential rivals, her team has already underlined its confidence that the campaign will have enough resources for the long term.

“Overall, the Warren operation has a six-figure number of people who own a piece of the campaign and an eight-figure amount of money to go execute the plan. So, game on,” Warren adviser Joe Rospars tweeted after her first-quarter fundraising tally emerged.

Warren has an energetic output of policy proposals on everything from education to climate change, a signature of her 2020 efforts that has helped her push past a rocky start in the primary. That fast pace isn’t likely to change as the Democratic campaign nears an expected winnowing from about two dozen candidates.

This week alone, Warren is scheduled to hold a town hall in Milwaukee after joining a half-dozen other Democratic presidential hopefuls at a gathering hosted by the League of United Latin American Citizens. She’ll then head to Philadelphia for Netroots Nation, an annual conference for progressive activists.

“In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll keep growing our movement across the country and Elizabeth will keep rolling out new plans to level the playing field for working people,” Lau wrote in an email to supporters.

Warren was already a guaranteed presence in this fall’s Democratic primary debates, which require at least 130,000 donors as well as minimum polling performance according to rules set by the Democratic National Committee. She’ll likely be joined on that stage in the fall by a rival whose showing she praised after last month’s first debate: former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, who reported on Monday that he had met the higher donor threshold needed to qualify.

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From: MeNeedIt

The first Democratic presidential debate for the 2020 elections brought a decades-old civil rights issue back into the public spotlight: whether to bus children to racially integrate schools.

One of the most defining moments of the debate came when U.S. Senator Kamala Harris challenged former Vice President Joe Biden’s record for not supporting the type of busing that she experienced as a black schoolgirl in California.

The exchange garnered headlines and brought the topic of busing, which had been a national issue in the 1970s but had largely fallen out of the public conversation, back into the spotlight.

What is busing?

Busing was a tool that many U.S. communities used to overcome racial segregation in public schools.

Following the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, legal racial segregation in schools was outlawed across the United States. However, because of demographic trends and housing policies, many U.S. neighborhoods remained segregated, and as a result schools were effectively segregated because students attended schools in neighborhoods where they lived. 

In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, courts ruled that local jurisdictions were not doing enough to promote desegregation in schools and began mandating busing to address the problem. Federal agencies oversaw and enforced busing efforts, including collecting data about the race of students and withholding money from noncompliant schools.

Who was bused?

Both black students took buses to majority-white schools and white students to majority-black schools in court-ordered busing.

However, Brett Gadsden, the author of a book about desegregation efforts in Delaware, “Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism,” said, “African American students disproportionally shouldered the burden” of efforts to desegregate schools.

Gadsden, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, said black students were forced to travel longer distances and for many more years than white students.

Why was it controversial?

Busing proved to be intensely controversial nationwide. Supporters argued busing was necessary to integrate schools and to give black and white students equal access to resources and opportunities.

Critics argued that busing was dangerous and costly, and many parents did not want their children to have to travel great distances to get to school. 

While much of the opposition to busing came from whites, the black community was also divided about its merits. 

Gadsden said black critics cited the burden their children had to shoulder in terms of distance traveled and time spent on buses. They also complained that historically black schools were closed, and black administrators and teachers lost their jobs as a result of busing policies, while similar demands were not made of white schools, Gadsden said. 

In Boston, anti-busing protests turned violent in 1974, with demonstrators throwing bricks and bottles at school buses.

Political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said in a Twitter post following the Democratic debate that busing was so unpopular in the 1970s that Democrats running for office often had a choice to “be a profile in courage and lose, or oppose busing in whole or in part & win to fight another day on stronger ground.”

Biden’s stance

During the 1970s when Biden was a freshman U.S. senator representing Delaware, he worked with conservative senators to oppose federally mandated busing. 

In a 1975 interview with a Delaware newspaper that was first resurfaced by The Washington Post, Biden said, “I do not buy the concept, popular in the ’60s, which said, ‘We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race.’”

During the Democratic debate, Biden defended his position against mandated busing in the 1970s, arguing that he did not oppose voluntary busing by communities, only federal mandates. “I did not oppose busing in America; what I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education,” he said.

Harris responded by saying the federal government needed to be able to step in and mandate busing in some areas because “there was a failure of states to integrate public schools in America.”

Schools today

While some communities still champion voluntary busing measures, most busing efforts ended by the turn of the century. Local and national court rulings in the 1990s said many communities had succeeded in improving the integration of their schools and allowed busing programs to end. 

The Civil Rights Project at UCLA said in a May report  to mark the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation in schools is again on the rise and has been growing “unchecked” for nearly three decades, “placing the promise of Brown at grave risk.”

The report said white students, on average, attend a school in which 69% of the students are white, Latino students attend schools in which 55% of the students are Latino, and black students attend schools with a combined black and Latino enrollment averaging 67%. 

Gadsden agreed there is “a lot of segregation in schools now” but said there is little political will to go back to the era of busing. “Federal courts now are not particularly sympathetic to challenges to school segregation,” he said, also noting there is no great appetite in the U.S. Congress to introduce measures to advance school desegregation.  

After the debate, Harris told reporters that “busing is a tool among many that should be considered.” however, when pressed on whether she supported federally mandated busing today, she said she would not unless society became as opposed to integration as it was in the 1970s.

Some critics say Harris’ position on busing today is not that much different from Biden’s.

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From: MeNeedIt

A 50-member delegation of Afghan elites is in Qatar for peace talks with Taliban leaders, with the hopes of ending the 18-year-long conflict in Afghanistan.

The two-day summit, facilitated by Germany and Qatar, is an “historic opportunity for all of them to bridge trust deficit, which will help pave the way for direct peace negotiations between Afghan government and the Taliban,” said Asadullah Zaeri, a spokesman of the country’s High Peace Council.

The delegation includes politicians, top members of the council, representatives of women’s groups and senior journalists, he said.

Although both sides have emphasized that members of Afghan government are attending in their personal capacity, not representing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government, their presence makes this conference different from the intra-Afghan conference in Moscow in April. At that gathering, the Taliban refused to sit at the table with anyone from the administration of President Ghani – an administration they insist is a “puppet” of the United States.

Ghani termed that conference a failure.

However, the United States seems to have succeeded in its efforts to get the Taliban to show flexibility.

“The Intra-Afghan Conference for Peace in #Doha has been a long time coming. It’s great to see senior government, civil society, women, and Taliban representatives at one table together,” tweeted U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The conference organizers are hoping this first step would pave way for a bigger breakthrough in future.

“A partial success is for people to continue to talk. A great success would be for them to come up with a framework that could lead into direct negotiations, Afghan-Afghan, and hopefully catch up with the speed in which the talks between the Taliban and the United States are progressing,” said Sultan Barakat, the director of the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at Doha Institute, who has been closely involved in organizing the event.
 
The Afghan meeting comes as the U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who’s already holding talks with the Taliban, is nearing an agreement over a timeframe for the U.S. and NATO troop withdrawal from the country.

 Both sides claim the talks are progressing well.

“The last 6 days of talks have been the most productive session to date,” tweeted Khalilzad on Saturday. The two sides will resume on the 9th after this intra-Afghan interaction which Khalilzad called “a critical milestone.”

A Taliban spokesman said in a future conference, the insurgent group may be willing to talk to top level Ghani administration officials.

“If someone is coming in his or her personal capacity and expressing his or her views on how to bring about peace in Afghanistan, we have not put any restriction on that,” said Suhail Shaheen when asked whether the Taliban could sit with government ministers or top-level officials.  

Afghan High Peace Council member Jamaluddin Badar said government representatives may be in Doha in their personal capacity but they “seemed to be giving the government’s point of view.”

He felt positive about the discussions held till late Sunday afternoon. The Taliban, he said, seemed to be willing to address some critical concerns of most Afghans, such as how to protect the gains made since the ouster of the insurgent group in 2001, particularly in terms of institution building and human rights.

“We might have disagreements with the Taliban on how to interpret those rights, but I don’t think they will be strong enough to lead to fighting,” he said. The Taliban, he added, have even been talking about the need to reduce violence against women.

He was not the only one who expressed optimism about the discussions with the Taliban.

“I think their attitude has changed tremendously. Last night they sat with women and we chatted. They tried to show that they are willing to talk to women,” said Asila Wardak, a women’s rights activist attending the conference.

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From: MeNeedIt

“We don’t need to eat,” said a young man held in a Libyan detention center five days after the compound was bombed killing more than 50 people and injuring at least 130.  “We didn’t touch the food. We need to be out of Libya.”  
 
The hunger strike in the detention center was on its third day Sunday, according to the protester communicating with VOA via phone and social media. He sent pictures of detainees holding signs like “We are in the grave” and “Save us from the next bomb. We are survivors, but still we are targeted.”

News and additional photographs of the protest came from other detainees communicating with hidden mobile phones.
 
The airstrikes hit the detention center late Tuesday, after international organizations warned both sides of Libya’s ongoing war that civilians were held at that location, which has been targeted before. Amnesty International says there is evidence the detention center is located near weapons’ storage, but Tripoli authorities say there is no legitimate military target in the area.

Officials say about 600 people were inside the detention center when the airstrikes hit a nearby garage, and then the center itself. Some survivors reported breaking open the doors of the detention center to escape, others escaped the bombing after guards let them out. Still others reported shots fired in the chaos.  
 
Five days later, migrants were still sleeping outside in the yard on Sunday, according to detainees, with part of the center destroyed and other parts appearing to be about to collapse.

The United Nations announced it would start evacuations over the weekend, but some protesters said moving to another detention center would only prolong the danger.

“If they are taking us to another detention center, we won’t go,” the protester told VOA on the phone. “We want to get out of this country or stay here.”

Escalating war
 
To wind up in a Libyan detention center, migrants travel from across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia in hopes of crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.  
 
Many people die on the trip to Libya alone and nearly 700 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in 2019 trying to cross to Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration.
 
Thousands of survivors remain detained in Libya, hoping to try to cross to Europe and unwilling to return to the wars, violence and dire poverty they fled.  But as the war for Tripoli intensifies, some say Libya is as dangerous as the countries they fled.
 
“Sudan, Libya… they are the same,” said one woman outside the detention center only hours after last week’s bombing.  She had fled war and genocide in Sudan, only to find herself detained, impoverished and terrified in Libya, she said.

Libyan forces have been battling for the capital since early April, when Khalifa Haftar, the de-facto leader of eastern Libya declared he would reunite the divided country by force and marched on Tripoli in the west. Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord, which runs western Libya, have been defending the city since. Neither side appears to be backing down.
 
Nearly 1,000 people have been killed and 5,000 wounded, according to the World Health Organization, and more than 100,000 have fled their homes.
 
Protesters outside the detention center on Sunday secretly sent out pictures and videos, calling on the international community to rescue them and allow them to apply for asylum in safer countries.
 
“Doctors Without Borders came with medicine, but we don’t want medicine,” said the protester communicating with VOA via phone and social media. “The UNHCR evacuated some people but we don’t want to evacuate to another detention center.  
 
“We want to go to a safe country, or we will stay here.”

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From: MeNeedIt