Javier Perez de Cuellar, the two-term United Nations secretary-general who brokered a historic cease-fire between Iran and Iraq in 1988 and who in later life came out of retirement to help re-establish democracy in his Peruvian homeland, has died. He was 100.

His son, Francisco Perez de Cuellar, said his father died Wednesday at home of natural causes. Current U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Peruvian diplomat a “personal inspiration.”

“Mr. Perez de Cuellar’s life spanned not only a century but also the entire history of the United Nations, dating back to his participation in the first meeting of the General Assembly in 1946,” said Guterres in a statement late Wednesday.

Perez de Cuellar’s death ends a long diplomatic career that brought him full circle from his first posting as secretary at the Peruvian embassy in Paris in 1944 to his later job as Peru’s ambassador to France.

When he began his tenure as U.N. secretary-general on Jan. 1, 1982, he was a little-known Peruvian who was a compromise candidate at a time when the United Nations was held in low esteem.

Serving as U.N. undersecretary-general for special political affairs, he emerged as the dark horse candidate in December 1981 after a six-week election deadlock between U.N. chief Kurt Waldheim and Tanzanian Foreign Minister Salim Ahmed Salim.

Once elected, he quickly made his mark.

Shaking the UN house

Disturbed by the United Nations’ dwindling effectiveness, he sought to revitalize the world body’s faulty peacekeeping machinery.

His first step was to “shake the house” with a highly critical report in which he warned: “We are perilously near to a new international anarchy.”

With the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and with conflicts raging in Afghanistan and Cambodia and between Iran and Iraq, he complained to the General Assembly that U.N. resolutions “are increasingly defied or ignored by those that feel themselves strong enough to do so.”

During his decade as U.N. chief, Perez de Cuellar would earn a reputation more for diligent, quiet diplomacy than charisma.

“He has an amiable look about him that people mistake for through and through softness,” said an aide, who described him as tough and courageous.

Quiet diplomacy

Faced early in his first term with a threatened U.S. cutoff of funds in the event of Israel’s ouster, he worked behind the scenes to stop Arab efforts to deprive the Jewish state of its General Assembly seat. There was muted criticism from the Arab camp that he had given the Americans the right of way in the Middle East.

In dealing with human rights issues, he chose the path of “discreet diplomacy.” He refrained from publicly rebuking Poland for refusing to allow his special representative into the country to investigate allegations of human rights violations during the Warsaw regime’s 1982 crackdown on the Solidarity trade union movement.

He came back for a second term after a groundswell of support for his candidacy, including a conversation with President Ronald Reagan, who — in the words of the U.N. chief’s spokesman — expressed “his personal support for the secretary-general.”

“Just about all the Western countries have told him they’d like to see him stay on,” a Western diplomatic source said at the time. “There is no visible alternative.”

Unlike his predecessor, Kurt Waldheim who was regarded as a “workaholic” and who spent long hours in his office, Perez de Cuellar liked to get away from it all. 

“He is very jealous of his own privacy,” a close aide said.

“When I can, I read everything but United Nations documents,” Perez de Cuellar confided to a reporter. Once on a flight to Moscow, an aide observed that “in the midst of it all, the secretary-general had time for splendid literature.”

Trilingual, Perez de Cuellar read French, English and Spanish literature.

Lebanon hostages

Perez de Cuellar spent much of his second term working behind the scenes on the hostage issue, resulting in the release of Westerners held in Lebanon, including the last and longest held American hostage, journalist Terry Anderson, who was freed Dec. 4, 1991.

All told, Perez de Cuellar’s diplomacy helped bring an end to fighting in Cambodia and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

Shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 1992, he walked out of U.N. headquarters to his waiting limousine, no longer the secretary-general, but having attained his final goal after hours of tough negotiations: a peace pact between the Salvadoran government and leftist rebels.

“Mr. Perez de Cuellar played a crucial role in a number of diplomatic successes, including the independence of Namibia, an end to the Iran-Iraq War, the release of American hostages held in Lebanon, the peace accord in Cambodia and, in his very last days in office, a historic peace agreement in El Salvador,” Guterres said.

Became diplomat 1944

Javier Perez de Cuellar was born in Lima on Jan. 19, 1920. His father a “modest businessman,” was an accomplished amateur pianist, according to the former secretary-general. The family traced its roots to the Spanish town of Cuellar, north of Segovia.

In Peru, the family belonged to the educated rather than the landowning class.

He received a law degree from Lima’s Catholic University in 1943 and joined the Peruvian diplomatic service a year later. He would go on to postings in France, Britain, Bolivia and Brazil before returning to Lima in 1961, where he served in a number of high-level ministry posts.

He was ambassador to Switzerland and then became Peru’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union while concurrently accredited to Poland. Other assignments included the post of secretary-general of the Peruvian Foreign Ministry and chief delegate to the United Nations.

After leaving the U.N., Perez de Cuellar made an unsuccessful bid for Peru’s presidency in 1995 against the authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori, whose 10-year autocratic regime crumbled in November 2000 amid corruption scandals.

At the age of 80, Perez de Cuellar emerged from retirement in Paris and returned to Peru to take on the mantle of foreign minister and cabinet chief for provisional President Valentin Paniagua.

His impeccable democratic credentials lent credibility to an interim government whose mandate was to deliver free and fair elections. Eight months later, newly elected President Alejandro Toledo asked him to serve as Ambassador to France.

Between foreign assignments, he was professor of diplomatic law at the Academia Diplomatica del Peru and of international relations at the Peruvian Academy for Air Warfare.

At UN in 1975

Transferring to the United Nations in 1975, he was appointed by Waldheim as the secretary-general’s special representative in Cyprus. During his two years on the divided island he helped to promote intercommunal peace talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

After a brief stint as Peru’s ambassador to Venezuela, he returned to the United Nations in 1979 as undersecretary-general for special political affairs. In that capacity, he undertook delicate diplomatic missions to Indochina and Afghanistan.

Perez de Cuellar resigned his U.N. post in May 1981, just before the election campaign for U.N. secretary-general heated up, and returned to the Peruvian diplomatic service.

President Fernando Belaunde Terry recommended Perez de Cuellar for nomination as U.N. secretary-general.

Perez de Cuellar married the former Marcela Temple. He had a son, Francisco, and a daughter, Cristina, by a previous marriage.

His funeral will be Friday.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, the top US military officer, answered questions from lawmakers after the United States conducted its first strike against the Taliban since the start of a reduction in violence agreement. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the details.

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After Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden dominated in Super Tuesday contests, President Donald Trump and his allies are intensifying their attacks on the former vice president and ramping up efforts to convince Bernie Sanders’ supporters that he’s being robbed of the nomination. The story from White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara.

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European Union interior ministers held emergency talks Wednesday on how to respond to asylum-seekers massing on Turkey’s borders, hoping to cross into their territory. That’s after Turkey retreated last week from a deal with the EU to keep them within its borders.

There’s no chance of a repeat of the migrant crisis five years ago that saw about 1 million people seeking asylum in Europe. At least not yet. Migrants now hoping to cross into Greece and Bulgaria from Turkey number in the thousands only. Most appear to be from Afghanistan and other countries, rather than the 3.6 million Syrian refugees Turkey now hosts.

The message sounding from European Union interior ministers at Wednesday’s meeting in Brussels was solidarity among members, and in more diplomatic wording, that the EU would not be blackmailed by Turkey.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said France wanted a complete and rightful application of a 2016 deal with Turkey that saw the EU agreeing to pay about $6.7 billion in aid to Ankara for keeping Syrian refugees within its borders.

The EU is pledging more than $780 million in assistance to Greece to deal with this new migrant issue, along with beefed-up border control. Visiting Greece’s border with Turkey Tuesday with other EU officials, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Greece a shield for the rest of Europe.

“Turkey is not an enemy, and people are not just means to reach a goal. We would all do well to remember both in the days to come,” von der Leyen said.

Turkey says the Europeans have been slow to pay the aid, and the money is going to international agencies rather than to its government. This standoff is happening as Turkey has closed its own frontier to people fleeing escalating fighting in Syria’s Idlib region just across its border.

EU foreign ministers will discuss the migrant issue Thursday and Friday.

Meanwhile, critics fault the Europeans for essentially outsourcing their migrant problems to Turkey, but also to Africa. And despite the talk of unity, they say the EU is still sharply divided over migration.

Hanne Beirens, director of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute think tank, says EU members once considered the 2016 deal with Turkey a temporary measure.

“But nearly four years onward, we have not reached any EU agreement on how (unintelligible) … common European asylum system, or how we will share responsibility when it comes for newcomers who ask for asylum,” Beirens said. 

So, it seems now an old crisis is coming back to haunt Europe.

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The United States on Wednesday recognized 12 women from around the globe with International Women of Courage awards for their leadership in advocating for human rights, democracy, gender equality and women’s empowerment. One of the honorees is Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh, who exposed the existence of a Muslim detention camp in China’s Xinjiang region.  VOA’s State Department correspondent Nike Ching has the report.

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The Supreme Court is taking up the first major abortion case of the Trump era, an election year look at a Louisiana dispute that could reveal how willing the more conservative court is to roll back abortion rights.
   
The outcome could have huge consequences at a time when several states have passed laws, being challenged in the courts that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks.
   
The justices on Wednesday are examining a Louisiana law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. A federal judge found that just one of Louisiana’s three abortion clinics would remain open if the law is allowed to take effect.
   
It is similar to one in Texas that the Supreme Court struck down in 2016. Since then, though, Donald Trump was elected president and he appointed two justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who have shifted the court to the right. Even with those two additions to the court, Chief Justice John Roberts almost certainly holds the deciding vote.
   
When the justices temporarily blocked the Louisiana law from taking effect a year ago, Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices to put it on hold. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were among the four conservatives who would have allowed the law to take effect.
   
Those preliminary votes do not bind the justices when they undertake a thorough review of an issue, but they often signal how a case will come out.
   
Roberts has generally voted to uphold abortion restrictions in more than 14 years as chief justice, including in the Texas case four years ago.
   
It is for now unclear whether Roberts’ outlook on the Louisiana case has been affected by his new role as the court’s swing justice since Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, his concern about the court being perceived as a partisan institution and his respect for a prior decision of the court, even one he disagreed with.
   
The chief justice asked an intriguing question about precedent Tuesday, wondering whether a 10-year-old decision would help determine the outcome of a case about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Do you think that recent precedent should have a binding effect on how the Court addresses this case?” Roberts asked.
   
Louisiana, the Trump administration and anti-abortion groups have all firmly answered that question with a resounding, “No.”
   
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the Louisiana and Texas laws are not identical. “Louisiana abortion providers have a record of non-compliance with basic safety regulations, and now they want a special exemption from generally accepted medical standards that apply to similar surgical procedures in our state,” Landry said.
   
The Trump administration also argued in court papers that the high court could overrule the Texas case if necessary.
   
Julie Rikelman, the Center for Reproductive Rights lawyer who will argue the case on behalf of a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana, said a trial judge found that abortions in Louisiana are safe and that the law provided no health benefits to women.
   
“This is a law that restricts a constitutional right for no good reason,” Rikelman said.
   
The court also has agreed to review whether abortion providers have the right to go into court to represent the interests of women seeking abortions. A ruling in favor of the state’s argument that the providers lack the right to sue in these circumstances, known as third-party standing, would be a devastating blow to abortion rights advocates since doctors and clinics, not individual women who want abortions, file most challenges to abortion restrictions.
   
A decision is expected by late June.

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Imagine wearing a device that allows you to communicate your thoughts directly to a machine.  Researchers and companies have been working on this type of technology and coming out with devices that can read your brain signals.  One such company with roots in the Harvard Innovation Lab is working on the integration between the human mind and machines.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
 

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Singapore was hit a month ago with a surge in novel coronavirus cases that originated in China but capped the spread. Malaysia and Thailand watched beach tourists drain away as Chinese were required to avoid travel. Factory slowdowns in China caused by workers staying home to dodge the disease cut demand for Indonesian commodities.

Nevertheless, analysts in Southeast Asia expect the region of 654 million to weather this outbreak. The outcome matters because the flow of tourists, capital and raw materials into Southeast Asia is more contingent on China than is the case elsewhere.

Vietnam and the Philippines expect more capital from foreign investors fatigued by risks in China, for example. Southeast Asian governments are cutting interest rates and approving economic stimulus for companies shaken by loss of business. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations is working toward a massive trade liberalization deal with China and Japan to stoke commerce.

“Obviously there’s going to be impact, but again we have the China-plus-one here,” said Ralf Matthaes, founder of the Infocus Mekong Research consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, referring to investors with plants in China hoping to diversify into a second country.

“There’s lots of people who are moving their factories here, so I think all [the coronavirus] does is emphasize that you’ve got to further decentralize your manufacturing bases,” Matthaes said.

Southeast Asian manufacturers may diversify sources of supply, too, said Tham Siew Yean, professor emeritus at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. “But this will impact costs since alternative sources, where available are more expensive,” she said.

Several Southeast Asian countries hope interest rate cuts will stimulate corporate lending.

Indonesia, a coal, gas and rubber supplier, dropped rates to 4.75% last month against the risk of falling commodity prices. Chinese manufacturers usually buy those raw materials but orders slowed when many workers stayed home last month after the Lunar New Year.

Thailand lowered its rate to 1% last month because of its “large exposure” to Chinese tourism and reliance on Chinese auto manufacturing, Moody’s Analytics said in a February 26 research note. Malaysia could cut rates as well as consumer demand falls, the note says.

Singapore has reported the region’s biggest single-country outbreak, 98 cases, but media reports credit the city-state for getting its caseload contained. Singapore also raised government spending by 7%, despite a budget deficit, across two relief packages totaling $4 billion.

Malaysia and Indonesia came out with their own stimulus packages to combat impacts from the disease officially called  Covid-19.

The Philippine economy will probably grow at least 6% this year because of rate cuts and infrastructure spending due to last through 2022, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank. The Asian Development Bank had forecast last year that the archipelago’s GDP would rise 6.2%.

New roads, airports and power generation projects, worth $180 billion, are expected to make the Philippines more attractive to manufacturers. 

“If we play our cards right by doing more infrastructure spending and hasten the pace, we can still grow at 6%,” Ravelas said.

Responses such as these preceded a meeting Monday among senior ASEAN officials. Their economic ministers had been scheduled to meet this month in Las Vegas, but has been postponed.

US, ASEAN Postpone March Summit Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

US, 10 nations from the Southeast Asian bloc had been eyeing summit to boost ties at time when analysts say China continues to expand its influence in Southeast Asia while driving a wedge between Washington, regional allies

ASEAN said last year that it would sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and possibly India at this year’s session. The deal would cut tariffs, a boon to exporters.

“This will widen integration and as one of the largest international grouping it will provide a strong signal for the support of international trade despite the negative impact on trade from the COVID.” Tham said.

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Imagine wearing a device that allows you to communicate your thoughts directly to a machine.  Researchers and companies have been working on this type of technology and coming out with devices that can read your brain signals.  One such company with roots in the Harvard Innovation Lab is working on the integration between the human mind and machines.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details

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The publisher of John Bolton’s highly anticipated memoir has pushed back the release date from March 17 to mid-May.

Simon & Schuster cited the ongoing government security review of the former national security adviser’s “The Room Where It Happened.”

The new date is May 12, the publisher said in a news release.

“The new date reflects the fact that the government review of the work is ongoing,” Simon & Schuster said.

The Associated Press reported last November that Bolton had reached a $2 million deal with Simon & Schuster. The book focuses on Bolton’s contentious time in the Trump administration. It is expected to contain allegations that President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden. The issue was at the center of the impeachment process. In February, the Senate acquitted Trump.

Trump has denied the allegations.

Bolton was widely criticized for not sharing details from his book during the hearings. He had stated his willingness to testify, but Senate Republicans rejected calls to hear from any additional witnesses.

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The United Nations has canceled hundreds of human rights events because of coronavirus concerns in accord with the Swiss government’s decision to ban all public gatherings of more than 1,000 people.

In announcing the decision, the president of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, tells delegates she has received an urgent letter from the U.N. director-general in Geneva, spelling out measures that have to be taken in light of the coronavirus situation.

 “The director-general specified that that would entail canceling all side events and encouraging representatives to refrain from traveling to Geneva for the rest of the session,” said Tichy-Fisslberger.  “She also suggested that those special procedure mandate holders who are not already in Geneva could be encouraged to participate in the session via video conferencing.” 

Late last week, Swiss authorities took the unprecedented step of prohibiting large public events in response to a growing number of coronavirus cases. As a consequence, events such as the International Motor Show, which attracts a half-million people and Swiss watch exhibits, which draw enthusiastic crowds of thousands of people, have been canceled.

Human Rights spokesman Rolando Gomez says 200 side events will be canceled until the end of this council session on March 20.  He says that is an unfortunate, but responsible measure to take in order to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.  

He tells VOA the meetings generally attract on average 4,000 to 6,000 participants during the course of the session. He says those side events are very important.

“I should point out just as a technical note they are not official council side events,” said Gomez. “They take place in parallel and they are important as they inform the discussions in the formal proceedings. Of course, those lobbying efforts will continue unabated, which are important.”  

Side events are organized by non-governmental organizations and states.  The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also has spent a lot of time and effort in organizing several gatherings aimed at exploring particular aspects of human rights that demand a more comprehensive hearing and analysis. They will not be held.  

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A Mexican scientist pleaded not guilty Tuesday to U.S. charges that he spied for Russia in Miami.

The plea was entered in a brief hearing by Ronald Gainor, attorney for 35-year-old Hector Cabrera Fuentes. Cabrera stood nearby in chains and a tan jail outfit but did not speak.

Cabrera also has now been formally indicted on a charge of acting as a Russian agent without registering as required with the U.S. attorney general. He is not charged with espionage, but this allegation still carries a potential prison sentence of 10 years.

According to an FBI affidavit, a Russian government official tasked Cabrera with tracking down a vehicle owned by a U.S. government informant in the Miami area. The job was simply to take a photo of its license plate.

The FBI says Cabrera and his Mexican wife went to a condominium complex on Valentine’s Day to take the photo and were recorded by surveillance video. They attracted the notice of security by driving directly behind another car through a gate.

It’s not clear exactly what the Russians were seeking, but the FBI affidavit says the informant had previously provided information about Russian intelligence operations and implications for U.S. national security.

After he was detained Feb. 16 at Miami International Airport, Cabrera told the FBI he has two wives — the Mexican one and a Russian one. The Russian woman and her two daughters were living in Germany but returned to Moscow last spring to attend to some administrative matters. Then, the Russian government wouldn’t let them leave, the affidavit says.

That prompted Cabrera in May 2019 to visit his family in Moscow, where he was approached by a Russian official whom he had met previously at professional events and exchanges. Cabrera told the FBI he believed the official was an intelligence officer and that person gave him the job of photographing the Miami informant’s license plate.

Cabrera, a microbiologist who has held several prestigious posts, is originally from El Espinal in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Cabrera had been working as an associate professor at the medical school jointly run by Duke University and the National University of Singapore, and was working in Singapore. He said at a previous hearing that his contract there has been terminated.

Before Cabrera’s license plate mission, the FBI says the Russian official asked him to rent an apartment in the same complex as the informant but not in his real name. Cabrera paid an associate $20,000 to do so in late 2019. It’s not clear if anything was done in connection with that unit.

Cabrera is being held without bail. No trial date has been set.

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