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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is signalling that he won’t soften his Brexit stance now that he has a majority in Parliament, seeking to rule out any extension of an end-of 2020 deadline to strike a trade deal with the European Union.
Johnson’s office says the government will insert a clause in its Withdrawal Agreement Bill to rule out extending trade negotiations with the EU beyond next year. That could mean Britain leaving without a deal at the start of 2021, a prospect that alarms many U.K. businesses.
The pound plunged Tuesday on the news, falling 1% to less than $1.32.
U.K. lawmakers are meeting in Parliament Tuesday for the first time since last week’s general election, and the bill is due to get its first vote in the House of Commons on Friday.
It implements a divorce agreement struck between Britain and the EU. It will see the U.K. leave the 28-nation bloc on Jan. 31 and enter a transition period until the end of 2020 while a new trade deal is negotiated. During the transition period, Britain will effectively remain member of the EU, though without voting rights.
The withdrawal agreement allows for the transition to be extended until the end of 2022. Johnson has said repeatedly he won’t use the extra time, although trade experts say striking a new deal in only 11 months will be challenging.
Inserting a legal clause into domestic law ruling out an extension would underscore Johnson’s commitment to leave the EU in full by the end of next year, though it would not prevent his government changing its mind later.
Sam Lowe of think tank the Center for European Reform said Johnson likely believed a “firm deadline” would help speed up negotiations. But he told the BBC the government “could easily introduce a later bill saying ‘actually we could extend it.'”
“It’s a firmer deadline, but of course there is still some flexibility,” Lowe said.
Opposition politicians said the move would cause more uncertainty for businesses, who are still unsure what Britain’s trade relationship with the EU will be, three-and-a-half years after the U.K. voted to leave the bloc.
Johnson’s Conservatives won an 80-strong majority in Parliament in last week’s general election. The majority gives Johnson the ability to overcome opposition to his Brexit plans and implement his legislative agenda — unlike predecessor Theresa May, who led a minority administration.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham met with leaders in Pakistan Monday to discuss “a broader” bilateral relationship, with particular focus on economic cooperation and peace-building efforts in Afghanistan, official said.
In his meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan, Graham, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, hailed Pakistan’s consistent support in the Afghan peace process, Khan’s office said. Officials quoted the U.S. senator as commending Pakistan’s unilateral installation of a fence to secure its long and traditionally porous border with Afghanistan.
While underscoring the importance of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan for his country, Khan reiterated that Pakistan would continue to play its facilitating role in the Afghan peace and reconciliation process.
Graham also visited Pakistan in January, paving the way for a meeting between Khan and Trump at the White House in July.
Senator Graham later traveled to the neighboring city of Rawalpindi and met with Pakistan’s military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, at the army headquarters there. The discussions focused on regional security and the Afghan peace process, said an army spokesman.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have long been marred by mistrust and suspicion. They stem from allegations that leaders and fighters of the Afghan Taliban use sanctuaries on Pakistani soil to orchestrate and sustain insurgent activities in Afghanistan with the covert support of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence, or ISI. Islamabad denies the accusations.
Islamabad maintains close contacts with the Afghan Taliban and takes credit for bringing the insurgents to the negotiating table with the U.S. to help find a political settlement to the Afghan war, which has become America’s longest overseas military engagement.
Taliban leaders’ families reside among nearly three million Afghan refugees Pakistan is still hosting on its soil.
Senator Graham flew to Afghanistan after concluding his meetings in Islamabad. While speaking to reporters in Kabul, he stressed that Pakistan could still do more to accelerate the chance for Afghan peace.
“We all know that if Pakistan applied more pressure on the Taliban it would be enormously helpful to resolving the conflict here” the U.S. senator told reporters in the Afghan capital.
Trump had suspended the U.S.-Taliban dialogue in September and resumed the process a week ago. But the dialogue was again paused by Washington last Thursday after an insurgent attack on the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan that killed two Afghan civilians and wounded scores of others.
The U.S. has been trying to seal a deal with the Taliban that would bind the insurgents to prevent Afghan soil from being used for terrorist attacks against other countries. The proposed deal would also require the Taliban to reduce violence and engage in intra-Afghan negotiations to end decades of hostilities in the country.
In return the U.S. and NATO allies would commit to a phased withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan. The insurgent group wants to conclude a troop drawdown agreement with Washington in the presence of international guarantors before entering into Afghan-Taliban peace talks.
Senegal is failing to prevent the abuse of thousands of students at the West African country’s Quranic schools, says Human Rights Watch, despite government promises to stop the exploitation. The rights group analyzed the Senegalese government’s efforts to address abuses over the last two years and found them to be insufficient and ineffective.
Modou – not his real name – was just six years old when he says the abuse started.
After his parents died, the now 12-year-old boy says his uncle sent him to study and live at a Quranic school, where teachers forced him and other students to beg in the streets.
Modou, 12, whose name has been changed to protect his privacy, describes the abuse he endured at his old Koranic school, Dec. 12, 2019, in Dakar, Senegal. (Annika Hammerschlag/VOA)
If they didn’t return with adequate money and food, they were restrained for months at a time, he says.
Pointing to the scars on his legs, Modou says if he misbehaved or didn’t recite the Koran properly, the teachers beat him and locked him in chains.
He says when he was beaten, he’d think of his mother and how, if she were still here, this would have never happened. But eventually, says Modou, he accepted it and told himself it would pass.
Modou, 12, whose name has been changed to protect his privacy, points to the scars he has from being chained at his old Koranic school, Dec. 12, 2019, in Dakar, Senegal. (Annika Hammerschlag/VOA)
Modou is one of 100,000 Quranic students, known as talibés, who are being exploited and abused in Senegal, says Human Rights Watch in a report released Monday.
And the government, according to the rights group, is doing little to stop it.
The report titled “Senegal: Failure to End Abuses in Quranic Schools,” says students at some schools who refuse to beg are subject to harsh, physical punishments and often suffer from malnutrition and untreated illness.
Human Rights Watch found that some children have even died from neglect.
The number of teachers arrested for abuse has increased in recent years, but according to Human Rights Watch’s Lauren Seibert, charges are often dropped due to the social influence of Koranic teachers.
Talibés who were abused by their teachers learn the Koran from teacher Ya Seyda Fatoumata Diof at a shelter Dec. 12, 2019, in Dakar, Senegal. (Annika Hammerschlag/VOA)
“There were a dozen or so cases like this in the past couple years where you can clearly see that the final charge and or the corresponding sentence were reduced,” Seibert said.
Quranic schools are unregulated in Senegal so anyone looking to make money can open a religious school and profit from exploiting their students, says Human Rights Watch.
Modou was able to escape and find help at Empire des Enfants, a shelter in Dakar that cares for talibé runaways.
Talibés who were abused by their teachers play soccer at their shelter, Dec. 12, 2019, in Dakar, Senegal. (Annika Hammerschlag/VOA)
Program coordinator Alassane Diagne says the children often arrive filthy, tired and sick.
He asks why does this problem persist? It’s because there are people who profit from this disorder, says Diagne. They don’t need authorization to open their Quranic school, he says, no one is going to verify their credentials, and the government lacks the will to fix it. If you ask, they’ll say it’s because they don’t have the resources, says Diagne, adding that he disagrees. They know where to find the means to fund the things that serve their interests, he says, so, it’s a matter of will.
But not all Quranic school students are mistreated.
Quranic teacher Mouhamed Niass says his nearly 200 students are well cared for at his school in a Dakar suburb and that it is up to the state to stop abuse. The state should also provide funding to religious schools, says Niass, so children aren’t forced to beg.
Mouhamed Niass, who runs a Koranic school in a Dakar suburb, poses for a photo, Dec. 13, 2019, in Dakar, Senegal. (Annika Hammerschlag/VOA)
He says the children need mats, they need mattresses, they need shelter. They need to be supported like the children at the public schools. It’s unfortunate that the state doesn’t do it. It causes problems. The schools need support in order to support the children, because they’re the children of Senegal.
Thierno Diop, an inspector with Senegal’s ministry of education, says the ministry doesn’t inspect religious schools, known as daaras, because it’s not authorized to do so.
He says this problem goes above the education inspectors. The inspections are meant to investigate the regulated schools, says Diop, but the daaras, which are constantly moving from one location to the next, can’t be controlled. It’s because of the bad will of the state that the talibé are still in the streets, he says. If the state wanted to stop it, adds Diop, they could do it.
Talibés who were abused by their teachers play with Alassane Diagne, a coordinator at their shelter, Dec. 12, 2019, in Dakar, Senegal. (Annika Hammerschlag/VOA)
A few towns in Senegal have seen some success, says Human Rights Watch’s Seibert, with mayors not only enforcing bans on begging but also shutting down religious schools that were deemed unsafe.
But enforcement at the local level is rare, she says.
A 2013 bill would have created a regulatory system for Quranic schools by establishing so-called “modern daaras” that teach secular subjects in addition to religious ones.
But the bill has yet to be passed into law.
And until the national government steps up, the majority of talibés, including Modou, will have to rely on a few, private shelters to protect them from those willing to do them harm.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 16 signed amendments to the Administrative Violations Code that allow hefty fines for violating the controversial law on “foreign agents,” which critics say is used to muzzle dissent and discourage the free exchange of ideas and a free press.
According to the changes, individuals who violate the law more than twice in a 12-month period will have to pay a fine of up to 10,000 rubles ($159) for the first violation, and up to 100,000 rubles ($1,590) or 15 days in jail for repeat violations.
Organizations will be obliged to pay a penalty of up to 1 million rubles ($15,900) for the first violation, and up to 5 million rubles ($79,500) for subsequent violations of the law.
The amendments were approved by lawmakers earlier this month.
Two weeks earlier, Putin signed into law a bill that gives authorities the power to label reporters who work for organizations officially listed as foreign agents as foreign agents themselves.
The tag will be applied to individuals who collaborate with foreign media outlets and receive financial or other material support from them.
Russia passed the original foreign agent law — which requires all NGOs receiving foreign funding to register — in 2012 following a major wave of anti-government protests. Putin blamed Western influence and money for those protests.
Critics of the law say it stigmatizes organizations with the designation and would do the same to journalists if they are labeled as foreign agents.
RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said on December 4 that the law ratchets up pressure on hundreds of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) correspondents in Russia who provide one of the few remaining alternatives to Kremlin-controlled news.
Last month, Russia’s Justice Ministry listed RFE/RL’s Sever.Realii website as a “foreign agent,” saying the decision was based on conclusions made by the parliamentary committee on an investigation into meddling in the country’s internal affairs.
In December 2017, the Justice Ministry listed Current Time TV, several RFE/RL services and projects, such as its Russian Service, Tatar-Bashkir Service, Sibir.Realii, Idel.Realii, Factograph, Kavkaz Realii, and Krym.Realii, as well as the Voice of America, as “foreign mass media performing the functions of a foreign agent.”
Russian officials have said the law is a “symmetrical response” after Russia’s state-funded channel RT — which U.S. authorities accuse of spreading propaganda — was required to register its U.S. operating unit under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
U.S. officials have said the action is not symmetrical, arguing that the U.S. and Russian laws differ and that Russia uses its “foreign agent” legislation to silence dissent and discourage the free exchange of ideas.
Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based rights group, in 2017 called the law “devastating” for local NGOs, saying more than a dozen had been forced to close their doors.
Sharing the cockpit of a helicopter on sizzling tarmac, French and British air force chiefs vowed to pursue the joint fight against jihadists in the heart of the Sahel even as the shadow of Brexit looms over their countries.
“We’ve got a long, fabulous history of working alongside each other, and I don’t expect anything to change anytime soon,” Royal Air Force (RAF) Chief of Air Staff Mike Wigston told AFP on a visit to the city of Gao with French counterpart Philippe Lavigne.
“If anything, we are going to work stronger together,” he said.
Backed by 100 British personnel, France has a 4,500-strong Sahel force supporting national armies struggling with a seven-year-old jihadist revolt.
Thousands of civilians have been killed, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
The two generals this weekend visited Mali, Niger and Chad, which with Burkina Faso and Mauritania form the so-called G5 Sahel, an anti-terror force.
Wigston said Mali and its neighbors were “the front line of instability.”
The priority of the Sahel deployment “is to stamp out the violent extremism which is making people’s lives a misery,” he said.
“But there is a wider security issue here which affects Europe and the potential for this instability and the conflict in this region to spill into Europe… so we are also here to protect Europe.”
What next?
Britain is set to leave the European Union by January 31 following a general election that gave the pro-Brexit Conservative party a large majority.
France sent troops into Mali in 2013 to help drive back Islamist insurgents who had seized the north of the country.
But attacks have continued since then, and the conflict has since spread to the country’s center as well as to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
France’s Operation Barkhane remains in place to train and support poorly equipped local forces, but at a hefty cost that France’s EU allies have only partially eased.
Britain and France signed a defense cooperation pact in London in 2010 — and both sides have repeatedly said it will not be affected by Brexit.
FILE – A Royal Air Force Chinook flies over London during the Service of Commemoration – Afghanistan, at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, March 13, 2015.
Since July 2018, London has contributed three heavy-lift Chinook helicopters to France’s Sahel fight. They have clocked up some 1,600 hours of flying time to date, transporting about 11,000 personnel and 800 tonnes of freight.
The twin-rotor helicopters can haul nearly four tonnes of supplies and more than 30 troops at a time — a vital contribution in a region where road access to frontline troops is long and dangerous, with a high risk of mines and militia attacks.
The helicopter support “allows us to devote ourselves to air combat missions while our British comrades provide logistics, refuelling and troop transport,” said Loic, who heads France’s Barkhane air combat group in Mali.
In line with French military security protocol, the colonel can be identified only by his first name.
Without the British help, he said, “we would be forced to assign other helicopters or resort to slower, riskier, road convoys.”
‘With or without Brexit’
Fighters on the ground say the Chinooks have been invaluable.
French President Emmanuel Macron pays his respect in front of the flag-draped coffins of the thirteen French soldiers killed in Mali, during a ceremony at the Hotel National des Invalides in Paris, Dec. 2, 2019.
They were deployed to help out last month when two French army helicopters crashed in Mali, killing all 13 on board and bringing to 41 the number of French troops killed in the Sahel region since 2013.
“For us, it would be a real plus if this [Chinook] capacity remained beyond the summer of 2020,” the current deadline for the British deployment, Colonel Loic said.
For his part, Wigston said: “I absolutely understand how vital this asset is to Barkhane, I will transmit (the message) to the political authorities in London.”
Aside from Barkhane, London has announced the deployment of 250 troops to the Sahel for three years from 2020 as part of the United Nations’ MINUSMA peacekeeping force in Mali.
Lavigne insisted that broader military cooperation would continue “with or without Brexit”.
“Our air forces are quite similar, they have the same operating capacities and expertise, and tomorrow we will continue to work together to bring security,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump, facing impeachment this week, sparred Monday with House Democrats who accused him of “multiple federal crimes” in the abuse of the presidency.
“The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics!” Trump contended on Twitter. “The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!”
READ THE TRANSCRIPTS! The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics! The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!
With the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives likely to impeach him Wednesday, Trump retweeted comments from Republican supporters ridiculing the allegations against him. Trump, the 45th U.S. president, would be the third American leader to be impeached in the 243-year history of the country, although his conviction by the Republican-majority Senate at a trial next month and removal from office remains highly unlikely. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News last week there was “zero chance” the president would be removed from office.
Trump’s Twitter broadsides came as the House Judiciary Committee early Monday released a 658-page report detailing the allegations against him in two articles of impeachment. One accuses the president of abuse of power by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden. The other charges him with obstruction of Congress by refusing to turn over thousands of documents to impeachment investigators and blocking key aides from testifying.
“Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal,” the panel’s Democrats contended. They described Trump’s behavior as “both constitutional and criminal in character,” including bribery and wire fraud. They argued that the president “betrayed the people of this nation” and should be removed from office.
Full House to Vote on Trump Impeachment This Week video player.
WATCH: Full House to vote on Trump impeachment this week
“He has abused his power in soliciting and pressuring a vulnerable foreign nation to corrupt the next United States presidential election by sabotaging a political opponent and endorsing a debunked conspiracy theory promoted by our adversary, Russia,” the report said. “President Trump has done all this for his own personal gain, rather than for any legitimate reason, and has compromised our national security and democratic system in the process. After he was caught, President Trump defiantly insisted his conduct was ‘perfect.'”
The report contended that Trump covered up his “own repeated misconduct” and sought to “nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives.”
“If President Trump is left unchecked, we will send an alarming message to future presidents,” the report stated. “In word and deed, President Trump has sought to write the Impeachment Clause out of the Constitution.”
Trump’s White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham attacked the Democrats’ arguments against Trump, saying, “Thankfully the people of this country continue to see the partisan sham that this is.”
The war of words between the White House and House Democrats came as the lead Senate Democrat, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, wrote to McConnell that Democrats want to hear testimony from four key Trump administration officials at Trump’s trial who did not testify in the House inquiry controlled by Democrats.
Schumer said on Sunday the Senate should subpoena acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, top Mulvaney aide Robert Blair, as well as former National Security Adviser John Bolton and budget official Michael Duffey.
McConnell, however, has said he will coordinate Trump’s defense with the president’s lawyers and the parameters of a Senate trial have yet to be decided.
McConnell has raised the prospect of a short trial with no witnesses called, ending with a Senate vote on Trump’s fate after House impeachment managers present their case against Trump and the president’s lawyers lay out his defense.
Trump has said he is agreeable to a short trial with no witnesses, but at other times has said he wants to hear testimony from the unnamed government whistleblower who first raised concerns about his late July request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and from his son, Hunter Biden, about his work for a Ukrainian natural gas company. The whistleblower is reported to be a former White House aide who now works at the Central Intelligence Agency.
A McConnell spokesman said the Republican leader would be meeting with Schumer to work out how to conduct Trump’s impeachment trial.
Schumer also proposed in the letter the amount of time House members and White House lawyers would have for opening arguments, how much time senators would have to question them, and the amount of time allotted for witness testimony, closing arguments and deliberations before the 100-member Senate delivers its verdict.
“We believe this proposal…will allow for a trial in which all of the facts can be considered fully and fairly, and in which final votes can be taken within a reasonable period of time, without any unnecessary delay,” Schumer wrote.
Trump spokeswoman Grisham called it “laughable” that Schumer, often a Trump antagonist, is calling for a fair trial.
The full House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on two articles of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee. It is likely that Donald Trump will become the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, with a Senate trial expected next year. Democrats have accused him of abusing the power of the presidency by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers and of blocking Congress to investigate. Trump and his supporters insist he did nothing wrong. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
Leaders of the G5 Sahel nations held summit talks in Niamey Sunday, after the death last week of 71 Niger soldiers in a jihadist attack, calling for closer cooperation and international support in the battle against the Islamist threat.
Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the regional G5 group, called for a minute’s silence for the victims of Tuesday’s attack at a military camp in Inates, near the Mali border.
“These endless attacks carried out by terrorist groups in our region remind us not only of the gravity of the situation, but also the urgency for us to work more closely together,” said Kabore.
“The terrorist threat against the Sahel countries is getting worse,” said Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou, the host of the summit.
The attacks were aimed not just at military targets but increasingly “civilian populations, notably traditional local leaders”.
Earlier four of the five Sahel leaders paid homage at the graves of 71 Niger military personnel killed. Kabore and Issoufou attended along with Mali’s Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, Chad’s Idriss Deby Itno for the short ceremony at an air base in Niamey.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the assault, in which hundreds of jihadists attacked a camp near the border with Mali with shells and mortars.
The Imam of the Great Mosque of Niamey, Cheikh Djabir Ismaël (C), stands in front of the bodies of military personnel during a funeral prayer at the Niamey Airforce Base in Niamey, Niger, Dec 13, 2019.
The attack in Inates in the western Tillaberi region was the deadliest on Niger’s military since Islamist militant violence began to spill over from neighboring Mali in 2015, and dealt a blow to efforts to roll back jihadism in the Sahel.
At Sunday’s ceremony, a large panel painted in the red, white and green of the Niger flag bore the inscription; “rest in peace, worthy and valiant sons of the nation. The Fatherland will be eternally grateful”.
The G5 leaders announced on Saturday they would hold the extraordinary summit in Niger to show solidarity and to “consult” after the large-scale attack. The meeting had originally been due to take place in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou.
Niger has been observing three days of national mourning from Friday to Sunday.
Militant violence has spread across the vast Sahel region, especially in Burkina Faso and Niger, having started when armed Islamists revolted in northern Mali in 2012.
In the last four months, the insurgency has claimed the lives of more than 230 soldiers in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Last month, 13 French troops were killed in a helicopter collision while hunting jihadists in northern Mali.
Thousands of civilians have also died and more than a million have been forced to flee their homes since the jihadist revolt began.
Analysts note an escalation in the jihadists’ operational tactics, which seem to have become bolder and more complex in recent months.
From hit-and-run raids by a small group of Kalashnikov-armed guerrillas, the jihadists are now carrying out operations that involve hundreds of fighters, armed with mortars and using vehicles for suicide attacks.
Ranged against them are the impoverished armies of Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, plus a 4,500-man French force in the Sahel and the 13,000-man UN force in Mali, MINUSMA.
Tuesday’s attack prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to postpone a meeting scheduled for next week in the southwestern French town of Pau, where he and five presidents from the Sahel were due to discuss security in the region.
The talks will now take place early next year.
The Sahel region of Africa lies to the south of the Sahara Desert and stretches across the breadth of the African continent.
Human remains discovered last month at a farm outside the city of Guadalajara have been confirmed as belonging to at least 50 people, authorities in Mexico’s west-central state of Jalisco reported.
Jalisco state prosecutors said recovery work at the farm in Tlajomulco de Zuniga, which began Nov. 22 after the initial discovery, concluded Friday as experts determined there was no more evidence to be gathered from the scene.
The office said in a Saturday statement that there was a “preliminary” indication that the remains corresponded to 50 individuals.
Prosecutors said they had identified 13 people so far — 12 male and one female, all of whom were previously listed as missing.
The state forensic sciences institute will seek to determine the sex of the rest and cause of death.
The investigation continues, with the goal of identifying more victims as well as “those responsible for this crime which gravely harms society,” the statement said.
The state is home to Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s bloodiest and most ruthless drug cartels.
In July, Jalisco prosecutors announced 21 bodies had been found in excavations in the yard of a house near Guadalajara. In May, authorities discovered the remains of at least 34 people at two separate properties in the state.
Such clandestine burial sites are frequently used by criminals to dispose of bodies.
At least 40,000 people have disappeared since Mexico’s drug war began in 2006.
Libya’s U.N.-supported government is held hostage by “armed and terrorist militias” in the capital, Tripoli, Egypt’s leader said Sunday.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in televised comments that the Government of National Accord “is not able to have a free and real will because they have been taken hostage by armed and terrorist militias there.”
The GNA is backed by Egypt’s regional rivals Turkey and Qatar and Egypt’s relations with the two countries have been strained since 2013. That’s when Sissi, as defense minister, led the military overthrow of elected but divisive Islamist President Muhammad Morsi amid mass protests against his brief rule. Morsi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Tripoli-based government is supported by a Libyan affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood group, which Cairo designated as a terrorist organization in 2013. Turkey and Qatar are also staunch backers of the Brotherhood.
Sissi said the Libyan conflict has posed a threat to Egypt’s national security because militants and weapons spill over the border into Egypt. He said it had been a priority for Egypt to directly interfere in Libya “but did not take this step to maintain the relationship and brotherhood with the Libyan people.”
There was no immediate comment from the Tripoli authorities.
Last week, the Egyptian president said a comprehensive political solution for the Libyan conflict would be achieved in the coming months that would put an end to a “terrorist hotbed that pushes militants and weapons to (Libya’s) neighboring countries including Egypt.”
Libya descended into chaos after the 2011 civil war that ousted and killed long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The turmoil that followed Gadhafi’s death enabled the rise of Islamic militants. The country was divided into two parts, a weak U.N.-supported administration in Tripoli and a rival government in the east aligned with the self-styled Libyan National Army, led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, who has modeled himself after Sissi, has for months been fighting an array of militias allied with the Tripoli authorities to wrest control of the capital. He is backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
On Saturday, Egypt’s parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Al said Egypt recognizes the Libyan legislature as “the sole legitimate body representing the Libyan people,” according to the MENA news agency. He said the Egyptian parliament backs Haftar’s forces in their “fighting against terrorism.”
Libya’s parliament is affiliated with the government based in the country’s east and has opposed the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli.
Abdel-Al did not say whether the government of Sissi decided to rescind its recognition of the Tripoli-based government. Multiple calls to the country’s presidency and Foreign Ministry went unanswered.
The Libyan commander Thursday declared a “final” and decisive battle for Tripoli, unleashing heavy clashes on the southern reaches of the city in the past two days against the Tripoli-based militias.
Sissi’s comments came amid heightened tensions with Turkey after a controversial maritime border agreement it signed last month with Libya’s U.N.-based government.
Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, which lie between the two geographically, have denounced the deal as being contrary to international law, and Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador last week over the issue.
Juni Martoyo says she has no interest in sending her third child to study in the United States, although her two other children are at universities in Virginia and New Hampshire.
One of her main concerns is security, as mass shootings in public places, including schools or universities, have become more frequent.
“Secondly, English language is not interesting anymore,” Martoyo from Blitar, East Java, said in a phone interview with VOA. “However, safety is the main reason. Mandarin language is now more attractive.”
Like many parents in Indonesia, Martoyo said she is looking for universities for her child in countries other than the United States.
Security and safety reasons contribute to the overall declining number of foreign students in the United States. Other reasons include the bureaucracy in obtaining permits, a decrease in scholarships because of budget cuts, and inconveniences caused by trade war and immigration limitations.
According to the Open Doors report released Nov. 18 by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the U.S. State Department, the numbers of new student enrollments from South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Iran, England and Turkey showed decreases from 0.3% to 16.5%.
The number of Indonesian students enrolling in colleges or universities in the United States decreased by 3.4%, the IIE reported.
Where are those students headed?
Anondho Wijanarko, secretary of Directorate General Resources and Higher Education with the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, told VOA that the Overseas Postgraduate Scholarship (BPPLN) awarded by the Indonesian government to its students is more likely to be distributed at colleges and universities in Europe. It is easier to get an acceptance letter to those universities, which gets the visa process started, than U.S. schools.
However, Wijanarko did not have an exact number comparing Indonesian college students studying in Europe with students studying in other countries.
Offsetting the declining number of some international students at American universities were increases to U.S. schools in the number of students from Taiwan, China (up 1.7%), India (up 2.9%) and Brazil (up 9.8%), the IIE report showed. Students from China (369,548) and India (202,014) to the U.S. comprise more than half of the more than 1 million international students in the United States.
However, the overall growth in the number of international students in American universities during the 2018-2019 year is only 0.05%, which is the lowest growth in 10 years.
Iran’s telecommunications minister announced on Sunday that the country has defused a second cyberattack in less than a week, this time “aimed at spying on government intelligence.”
Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said in a short Twitter post that the alleged attack was “identified and defused by a cybersecurity shield,” and that the ”spying servers were identified and the hackers were also tracked.” He did not elaborate.
Last Wednesday, Jahromi told the official IRNA news agency that a “massive” and “governmental” cyberattack also targeted Iran’s electronic infrastructure. He provided no specifics on the purported attack except to say it was also defused and that a report would be released.
On Tuesday, the minister dismissed reports of hacking operations targeting Iranian banks, including local media reports that accounts of millions of customers of Iranian banks were hacked.
This is not the first time Iran says it has defused a cyberattack, though it has disconnected much of its infrastructure from the internet after the Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the country’s nuclear sites in the late 2000s.
In June, Washington officials said that U.S. military cyber forces launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems as President Donald Trump backed away from plans for a more conventional military strike in response to Iran’s downing of a U.S. surveillance drone in the strategic Persian Gulf.
Tensions have escalated between the U.S. and Iran ever since President Donald Trump withdrew America last year from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and began a policy of “maximum pressure.” Iran has since been hit by multiple rounds of sanctions.
