Post-Harvey Problems Plague Texas As Funerals For Dead Begin

Donald Charles throws out a bag of damaged items from his parent's home as his sister, Cindy Charles, examines a salvaged guitar Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017, in Houston. A native of Trinidad, their mother was on vacation back to the island, and has yet to be able to get back to Houston. Thousands of people have been displaced by torrential rains and catastrophic flooding since Harvey slammed into Southeast Texas last Friday.


HOUSTON, TEXAS (AP, SEPTEMBER 02, 2017) — One week after Harvey roared into the Gulf Coast, a Texas city struggled with no drinking water, fires kept erupting at a stricken chemical plant and funerals began for some of those who drowned in the floodwaters.

In Beaumont, Texas, home to almost 120,000, people waited in a line that stretched for more than a mile to get bottled water after the municipal system failed earlier this week. The second fire in two days broke out at the flooded Arkema plant in Crosby. Thick black smoke and towering orange flames shot up Friday after two trailers of highly unstable compounds blew up.

And in Houston, friends and family gathered Friday evening to remember 42-year-old Benito Juarez Cavazos, one of 42 people whose deaths are attributed to Harvey. Cavazos came to Texas illegally from Mexico 28 years ago and was in the process of getting his green card.

"It's very unfortunate that right when he finally had hopes of being able to maybe go to Mexico soon to go see his family, it all went downhill," his cousin, Maria Cavazos, said. "Sadly, he's going back to Mexico, but in an unfortunate way."

President Donald Trump departed Saturday from Washington for his second visit to the devastated region. He will be in Houston and Lake Charles, Louisiana, to survey damage. The White House said he would to talk to people affected by the disaster and meet with volunteers. Those elements were missing from his first visit on Tuesday.

Earlier Friday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced that ongoing releases of water from two reservoirs could keep thousands of homes flooded for up to 15 days. Residents of the still-flooded western part of Houston were asked to evacuate due to the releases from two reservoirs protecting downtown. The releases were expected to keep some homes flooded that had been filled with water earlier in the week. Homes that are not currently flooded probably will not be affected, officials said.

Some of the affected houses have several feet (meters) of water in them, and the water reaches to the rooftops of others, district meteorologist Jeff Lindner said. Turner pleaded for more high-water vehicles and more search-and-rescue equipment as the nation's fourth-largest city continued looking for any survivors or corpses that might have somehow escaped notice in flood-ravaged neighborhoods.

Search teams quickly worked their way down streets, sometimes not even knocking on doors if there were obvious signs that all was well — organized debris piles or full cans of trash on the curb, for instance, or neighbors confirming that the residents had evacuated.

Authorities considered it an initial search, though they did not say what subsequent searches would entail or when they would commence. Turner also asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide more workers to process applications from thousands of people seeking government help. The mayor said he will request a preliminary aid package of $75 million for debris removal alone.

The storm had lost most of its tropical characteristics but remained a source of heavy rain that threatened to cause flooding as far north as Indiana. National Weather Service meteorologists expect Harvey to break up and merge with other weather systems over the Ohio Valley late Saturday or Sunday.

An estimated 156,000 dwellings were damaged by flooding in Harris County, or more than 10 percent of all structures in the county database, according to the flood control district for the county, which includes Houston.

Figures from the Texas Department of Public Safety indicated that nearly 87,000 homes had major or minor damage and at least 6,800 were destroyed. Harvey initially came ashore Aug. 25 as a Category 4 hurricane, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days. The storm brought five straight days of rain totaling close to 52 inches (1.3 meters) in one location, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.

Far out over the Atlantic, Hurricane Irma was following a course that could bring it near the eastern Caribbean Sea by early next week. The Category 2 storm was moving northwest at nearly 13 mph (20 kph). No coastal watches or warnings were in effect.

Amy reported from Beaumont, Texas. Associated Press writers Johnny Clark in Beaumont, Texas; Brian Melley in Houston; Paul Weber and Will Weissert in Austin; Diana Heidgerd, David Warren, Jamie Stengle, Emily Schmall and Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas; Michael Kunzelman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Tammy Webber in Chicago contributed to this report.

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Why Is A Nigerian King Visiting A West Palm Disaster Relief Nonprofit?

BY TONY DORIS

THE PALM BEACH POST

SEPTEMBER 01, 2017

Samuel Nnee, king of Nigeria’s Kpite people, right, with Peter Medee, professor at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria, visited West Palm Beach’s Pathfinders Task Force, seeking help to coordinate massive oil spill clean-up on the Nigerian coast. (Tony Doris / The Palm Beach Post)

WEST PALM BEACH (THE PALM BEACH POST)-- Wednesday was a typical day at 514 14th St., an old warehouse on a sunburned dead end two blocks off North Dixie Highway, just shy of the railroad tracks.

The west side of the building houses a landscaping company, which puts food on the table when Scott Lewis and his nonprofit Pathfinders Task Force or its for-profit sister company, Disaster Solutions, aren’t out saving the world. In the eastern section, Pathfinders task force members prepped for deployment to Houston, where they’ll provide logistics support to the Hurricane Harvey recovery effort.

Upstairs, meanwhile, Lewis huddled with a Nigerian king in tribal garb, looking for relief from a massive Shell oil spill in the Gulf of Guinea. “Do you want to meet him?” offered Matt Campbell, Pathfinders task force leader, wiping sweat from his brow as he took a break from assembling radios and reflective vests for the Houston trip.

The nonprofit’s role will be to assemble and manage volunteers to go door to door in newly dried-out areas of the city to identify residents with special needs, such as diabetes meds or other prescription drugs, “or grandma’s oxygen tanks,” he said.

Then they’ll locate the needed supplies and deliver them, he said. “We’ll find the people who need it and the people who have it and marry the two.”

The only way to find these people is to knock on doors. “It’s not life-saving but life support” for people who’d be in trouble if they didn’t get what they needed within 24-48 hours, Campbell said.

He likened their mission, which will take one to three weeks, to taking patients “out of the emergency room and into the recovery ward.” Once the power comes back on, the eight-member Pathfinder crew will beat a path home.

He estimated that for every 10 doors the volunteers knock on, one person will have special needs. Others will sign up to volunteer.

That’s the idea — to grow the team of volunteers, from 10 to 50, 200, 500. Pathfinders has proprietary software, called Virtual Badge, that it will use to track and manage the team without relying on the Internet.

They’ve undertaken similar missions for years, from work on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to coordinating recovery efforts involving multiple agencies in the Bahamas, after 2016’s hit from Hurricane Matthew.

Samuel Nnee, paramount leader of the Kpite community in Nigeria, visited the unassuming offices Wednesday to plan for an upcoming clean-up of decades of oil spills that have contaminated much of Nigeria’s southern coastline and have had a significant impact on agriculture, fishing and health. The king’s people learned of the team’s work during the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, according to Campbell.

Shell is expected to disperse about $1 billion for the cleanup in the next three to six months and the king was consulting with Lewis about how Disaster Solutions might take a role in managing the project, Campbell said. The for-profit company would handle that work, because it deals more with years-old spills than with an immediate humanitarian crisis, he said.

Russian Officials Pledge Tough, Measured Answer To US Order

Russian cadets walk past the U.S. consulate in St.Petersburg, Russia, Friday, Sept. 1, 2017. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Moscow has yet to study the United States' decision to shut its consulate in San Francisco before considering possible retaliation.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian vowed Friday to respond to a U.S. order to shut the Russian Consulate in San Francisco and offices in Washington and New York, but also indicated that Moscow was not inclined to raise the stakes in the diplomatic tit-for-tat between the two countries.

The Trump administration said the order issued Thursday was in retaliation for the Kremlin's "unwarranted and detrimental" demand last month that the U.S. substantially reduce the size of its diplomatic staff in Russia.

"The United States is prepared to take further action as necessary and as warranted," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. Still, Nauert said Washington hoped both countries could now move toward "improved relations" and "increased cooperation."

The U.S. gave Russia 48 hours to comply with the order for the San Francisco consulate and the East Coast offices. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Moscow would reply with firmness, but needs time to study Washington's directive and to decide on a response.

"We will have a tough response to the things that come totally out of the blue to hurt us and are driven solely by the desire to spoil our relations with the United States," Lavrov said in a televised meeting with students at Russia's top diplomacy school.

Other top Russian officials also urged caution. President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told Russian news agencies later Friday that the Kremlin "regrets" the latest U.S. move and needs to "think carefully about how we could respond."

Ushakov also left room for Russia to refrain from retaliation. "On the other hand, one does not want to go into a frenzy because someone has to be reasonable and stop," he said. The closures on both U.S. coasts marked perhaps the most drastic diplomatic measure by the United States against Russia since 1986, near the end of the Cold War, when the nuclear-armed powers expelled dozens of each other's diplomats.

American officials argued that Russia had no cause for retribution now, noting that Moscow's ordering of U.S. diplomatic cuts last month was premised on bringing the two countries' diplomatic presences into "parity."

Both countries now maintain three consulates in each other's territory and ostensibly similar numbers of diplomats. Exact numbers are difficult to independently verify. Several hours after the U.S. announcement, new Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov arrived in Washington to start his posting.

At the airport, Antonov cited a maxim of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin as he urged caution and professionalism. "We don't need hysterical impulses," Russian news agencies quoted Antonov as saying.

In assessing Washington's directive, Russian officials and lawmakers said Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump might be getting tough on Russia against his will. The new package of sanctions against Russia that Congress adopted last month not only hits Russia, but is designed to "tie Trump's hands, not let him use his constitutional powers to the full to make foreign policy," Lavrov said.

Nationalist party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who publicly cheered Trump's election, called the flurry of U.S. sanctions against Russia "an illness that will go away." "It's an illness because (they) are not leaving President Trump alone to run the country and keep coming up with tricks to draw a wedge between America and Russia," Zhirinovsky said in a video statement that did specify who might be creating such obstacles for Trump.

By Saturday, the Russians must close their consulate in San Francisco and an official residence there. Though Russia can keep its New York consulate and Washington embassy, trade missions housed in satellite offices in both of those cities must shut down, a senior Trump administration official said. The official briefed reporters on a conference call on condition of anonymity.

American counterintelligence officials have long kept a watchful eye on Russia's outpost in San Francisco, concerned that people posted to the consulate as diplomats were engaged in espionage. The U.S. late last year kicked out several Russians posted there, calling it a response to election interference.

The forced closures are the latest in an intensifying exchange of diplomatic broadsides. In December, President Barack Obama kicked out dozens of Russian officials, closed two Russian recreational compounds. Russian President Vladimir Putin withheld from retaliating. The next month, Trump took office after campaigning on promises to improve U.S.-Russia ties.

But earlier this month, Trump begrudgingly signed into law stepped-up sanctions on Russia that Congress pushed to prevent him from easing up on Moscow. The Kremlin retaliated by telling the U.S. to cut its embassy and consulate staff down to 455 personnel, from a level hundreds higher.

The U.S. never confirmed how many diplomatic staff it had in the country at the time. As of Thursday, the U.S. has complied with the order to reduce staff to 455, officials said. The reductions are having consequences for Russia. The U.S. last month temporarily suspended non-immigrant visa processing for Russians seeking to visit the United States and resumed it on Friday at a "much-reduced rate." The U.S. will process visas only at the embassy in Moscow, meaning Russians can no longer apply at U.S. consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

Even before the cuts at the U.S. mission were announced, typical waiting time for visa applicants in Russia to be interviewed was longer than a month. Nadezhda Sianule planned to attend her daughter's wedding in the United States in mid-September and got an appointment in July to be interviewed on Thursday. Now these plans are in disarray.

"I came yesterday and they said that I'm not on the list. They said that the old lists have been canceled," Sianule said outside the U.S. Embassy Friday morning. Despite the exchange of penalties, there have been narrow signs of U.S.-Russian cooperation that have transcended the worsening ties. In July, Trump and Putin signed off on a deal with Jordan for a cease-fire in southwest Syria. The U.S. says the truce has largely held.

Lederman reported from Washington, D.C. Vladimir Isachenkov, Jim Heintz and Ahmad El-Katib in Moscow and Garance Burke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Immigrants Battle Deportation Fears In Harvey's Aftermath

Houston police officer Jeff Banks, right, points out directions with U.S. Border Patrol Agent Steven Blackburn, left, during a search a rescue operation in a neighborhood inundated by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Houston, Texas, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017. John Morris, the Border Patrol’s chief of staff in South Texas, said the agency had 35 boats in the city’s flooded neighborhoods on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017, and had rescued about 450 people since Monday. “The agents and the assets that are here in Houston as part of the recovery effort are absolutely 100 percent only here for rescue and safety,” Morris said. “There is no enforcement activity being undertaken while we’re doing this safety mission.”

HOUSTON (ASSOCIATED PRESS, SEPTEMBER 01, 2017) — Alain Cisneros walked past thousands of cots filled with storm victims at the Houston convention center holding up a poster with the words, "Do you have questions?" written in Spanish in bold black letters.

He pulled up a chair next to a woman from Honduras and tried to deliver a reassuring message as the 23-year-old recounted in an exhausted voice how waters rose to her chest in her Houston apartment, forcing her to wade to safety with her three young children.

Ricxy Sanchez listened to Cisneros' assurances that although she is in the country illegally she shouldn't worry about being deported if she asks for help and that she should consider applying for disaster relief. With almost everything she owns destroyed in the storm, she's thinking about moving back to violence-ravaged Honduras.

"Stay here to suffer with our children?" Sanchez asked, shaking her head. The encounter illustrates the complexity of responding to a disaster on the magnitude of Harvey in a city where an estimated 600,000 residents are in the country illegally and immigrants have been on edge amid stepped-up immigration enforcement under the new White House. Authorities have gone out of their way to tell jittery immigrants that they will not be arrested for seeking help, and outreach workers like Cisneros have been delivering that message in person at shelters like the George R. Brown Convention Center and on social media and Spanish-language media outlets.

The Harvey victims Cisneros met at the shelter shared the same concerns as almost everyone else: When can they return home? When can they start earning money again? How will they replace their belongings? The ones in the country illegally had deeper fears of deportation amid the chaos of having their homes wiped out.

"We basically lost everything," Sanchez said, drinking from a Styrofoam cup half-filled with black coffee. "Everything." Sanchez, who arrived a year ago from Honduras, told Cisneros she has been raising her three young children — ages 5, 2 and 1 — alone on wages cleaning houses since being abandoned by their physically abusive father two months ago. She recently skipped a date in immigration court, but Cisneros suggested seeking legal status under protections for victims of domestic violence.

Then the 38-year-old Cisneros, himself an immigrant from Mexico who has lived in Houston since coming to the United States 20 years ago, said goodbye to her with a favorite line. "Don't stay here with your arms crossed" he said.

Houston is one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in the country: Only Los Angeles and New York have a larger population of immigrants in the country illegally. The percentage of Latinos and Asians in the Houston area nearly doubled in 20 years, according to a 2015 report by the Migration Policy Institute, which also found the percentage of immigrants who are U.S. citizens to be well below the national average. The city has the third-largest population of Mexicans, Vietnamese and Hondurans, with large pockets of Pakistanis, Nigerians, Filipinos and Indians.

A sharp increase in immigration arrests under President Donald Trump and Texas' tough law against cities that don't cooperate with federal immigration authorities — which was largely put on hold Wednesday by a federal judge — created an uneasy climate before Harvey struck. The Houston office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made about 10,000 arrests this year, second-highest in the country after Dallas.

Immigration advocates applauded Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner's comments on Monday that he would represent anyone arrested on immigration violations after seeking help. "It was a big deal," said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of Immigrant Families and Students in the Struggle, an advocacy group known by its Spanish acronym FIEL. "People hear from us and say, 'Well, you guys are going to tell us that to keep us calm.' When they hear it from an official, they say, 'OK, now we believe it.'"

Some were unnerved, at least initially, when the Border Patrol brought boats from stations on the Rio Grande to help in the Houston rescue effort. An Associated Press photographer who joined three uniformed Border Patrol agents and two Houston police officers on a flat-bottom boat on Wednesday got no takers as they navigated receding waters and passed a commercial area that had store signs in Spanish. People there politely waved off the agents.

John Morris, the Border Patrol's chief of staff in South Texas, said the agency had 35 boats in the city's flooded neighborhoods on Thursday and had rescued about 450 people since Monday. "The agents and the assets that are here in Houston as part of the recovery effort are absolutely 100 percent only here for rescue and safety," Morris said. "There is no enforcement activity being undertaken while we're doing this safety mission."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has dispatched about 200 employees for search and rescue, also said it was "not conducting immigration enforcement operations in the affected area." Groups like FIEL have made it their mission to help immigrants who are fearful of immigration authorities. Its staff has been working around the clock since last week in its office on the second floor of a two-story building in immigrant-heavy southwest Houston, and has dispatched outreach workers like Cisneros, who has also counseled immigrants following Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Ike in 2008.

After driving on a near-empty freeway to the convention center, Cisneros found 35-year-old Adabella Fonseca resting on a cot with her 10-month old daughter while her husband was out inspecting damage to their trailer home. She fled Saturday when the water reached her chest; her husband stayed until it was neck-deep.

Fonseca, whose parents brought her to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a year old, said she had wanted to avoid the convention center because she feared immigration authorities. Now she was scared to leave.

Cisneros clasped her hand, told her not to be afraid, and promised support. Before leaving, he asked how she felt. "Better," she said, managing a faint smile.

Associated Press photographer Matthew Otero contributed to this report.

Texas Ban On 'Sanctuary Cities' Temporarily Blocked By Judge

BY PAUL J. WEBER

ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUGUST 31, 2017

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during a press briefing the State of Texas Emergency Command Center at Department of Public Safety headquarters in Austin, Texas. A federal judge late Wednesday temporarily blocked most of Texas’ tough new “sanctuary cities” law that would have let police officers ask people during routine stops whether they’re in the U.S. legally and threatened sheriffs will jail time for not cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Abbott, who signed the law in May, said Texas would appeal immediately and expressed confidence that the state would eventually prevail. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File)

AUSTIN, TEXAS (AP) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked most of Texas' tough new "sanctuary cities" law that would have let police officers ask people during routine stops whether they're in the U.S. legally and threatened sheriffs with jail time for not cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

The law, known as Senate Bill 4, had been cheered by President Donald Trump's administration and was set to take effect Friday. It was widely viewed as the toughest immigration measure in the nation since Arizona passed what critics called a "Show Me Your Papers" law in 2010, which was later partially struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling late Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio was handed down as anxieties about immigration enforcement in Texas have again flared in the wake of Tropical Storm Harvey. Houston officials have sought to assure families fleeing the rising floodwaters in the nation's fourth-largest city that shelters would not ask for their immigration status.

Houston police Chief Art Acevedo, an outspoken critic of the law, got word of the decision while standing inside a downtown convention center where about 10,000 people have sought shelter. He high-fived another officer.

"We needed a break. That's a break for us," said Acevedo, whose department has conducted thousands of high-water rescues and lost one officer who died in floodwaters as he tried to drive to work. The measure sailed through the Republican-controlled Legislature despite months of protests and opposition from business groups, which worried that it could cause a labor-force shortage and send a negative economic message. Leading the lawsuit were Texas' largest cities— including Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin — in a state where the Hispanic population has grown at a pace three times that of whites since 2010.

Garcia wrote in his 94-page ruling that Texas' law was pre-empted by existing federal statute and therefore unconstitutional. The judge noted that when it was being considered in public legislative hearings, only eight people testified in favor of it while 1,600 "showed up to oppose it." He also wrote there "is overwhelming evidence by local officials, including local law enforcement, that SB 4 will erode public trust and make many communities and neighborhoods less safe" while adding that "localities will suffer adverse economic consequences which, in turn, will harm the state of Texas."

"The court cannot and does not second guess the Legislature," Garcia wrote. "However, the state may not exercise its authority in a manner that violates the United States Constitution." Garcia's order suspends the law's most contentious language while suggesting that even parts of the law that can go forward won't withstand further legal challenges.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed the law in May, said Texas would appeal immediately and expressed confidence that the state would eventually prevail. He also again took a swipe at the elected Democratic sheriff of Travis County, Sally Hernandez, who had announced on the day of Trump's inauguration that her Austin jails would no longer automatically honor all detainer requests made by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

"Today's decision makes Texas' communities less safe. Because of this ruling, gang members and dangerous criminals, like those who have been released by the Travis County Sheriff, will be set free to prey upon our communities," Abbott said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which has made "sanctuary cities" a new priority under the Trump administration, had joined Texas is defending the law in court. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has threatened to pull federal money from jurisdictions that hinder communication between local police and immigration authorities and has praised Texas' law.

The law had sought to fine law enforcement authorities who fail to honor federal requests to hold people jailed on offenses that aren't immigration related for possible deportation. It also would have ensured that police chiefs, sheriffs and constables could face removal from office and even criminal charges for failing to comply with such federal "detainer" requests.

Opponents of the law told Garcia that his ruling could determine if other states pursue copycat measures, while the Texas attorney general's office argued that the new law had fewer teeth than the Arizona measure.

Since January, the bill has elevated political tensions in Texas, and it boiled over in May when Republican state Rep. Matt Rinaldi told Democrats he had called federal immigration agents to report protesters in the Capitol who he said were holding signs that said they were not legal citizens. A Democrat whose district is near the U.S.-Mexico border admitted confronting and pushing Rinaldi, who has acknowledged telling him that he would "shoot him in self-defense."

Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant in Houston contributed to this report.

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

Sinopec Probed ByThe U.S. Over Nigeria Payments

BY HUGO MILLER AND TOM SCHOENBERG

BLOOMBERG, AUGUST 30, 2017

U.S. authorities are investigating China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. over allegations that the state-controlled oil producer paid Nigerian officials about $100 million worth of bribes to resolve a business dispute, according to people familiar with the probe.

Investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Departmentare looking into allegations that outside lawyers acting as middlemen for the company, known as Sinopec, funneled illicit payments from its Swiss unit to the Nigerians through banks in New York and California, said the two people, who didn’t want to be named discussing an active investigation.

The alleged payments were intended to resolve a $4 billion dispute between the Chinese oil company’s Addax Petroleum unit in Geneva and the Nigerian government over drilling and other capital costs, tax breaks and a division of royalties between Addax and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the people said.

The U.S. probes are in their early stages, and no action is imminent, one of the people said. The SEC is handling its inquiry through its Los Angeles office, and the Justice Department investigation is being led by the U.S. attorney’s office in that city, the person said. At least one Washington-based prosecutor from the Justice Department unit that investigates potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has traveled to Los Angeles to conduct interviews, the people said.

Sinopec’s American depositary receipts dropped 1.2 percent on the news and were up 1 percent to $75.84 at 1:45 p.m. in New York.

Spokesmen for the SEC and the Justice Department declined to comment. A Sinopec spokesman at the company’s Beijing headquarters also declined to comment.
Swiss Probe

Sinopec, the world’s biggest oil refiner, is one of the largest foreign state-owned enterprises to be investigated by U.S. prosecutors. The probes renew scrutiny of a matter that the Swiss had closed after a short inquiry. In July, Swiss authorities required Sinopec to pay 31 million Swiss francs ($32 million) in damages after admitting to organizational deficiencies.

The matter springs from Sinopec’s biggest acquisition. The Chinese company boughtAddax in 2009 for about $7.8 billion to build a corporate presence in Geneva, a commodity-trading hub, and to expand its oil production in Africa.

Addax operated in Nigeria under a deal with the government. From 2001, Addax benefited from a Side Letter agreement that granted it tax breaks and reimbursements for capital costs, according to a person familiar with details of the contract. Around 2014, Nigerian authorities decided that the Side Letter should no longer apply and demanded that Addax repay about $3 billion of past benefits, the person said.

By the end of that year, according to the person, Addax had filed a lawsuit against the government to protest that decision. It also sought reimbursement of at least $1 billion, contending that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had taken more than its share of crude allotments -- a practice known as “overlifting.”
Deloitte’s Disclosure

Allegations of bribery surfaced in January of this year after Deloitte said in a public filing that it had resigned as Addax’s auditor because it couldn’t obtain “satisfactory explanations” for $80 million paid to an engineering company for Nigerian construction projects in 2015. Deloitte said that amount appeared excessive for the work performed “and their purpose and timing raise issues which have not been resolved.”

On May 25, 2015, shortly after many of those payments were made, Addax and the Nigerian government reached a settlement that was approved by the Nigerian High Court, the person familiar with the matter said. Sahara Reporters, a news organization in Nigeria, reported that former President Goodluck Jonathan, with just three days left in office, approved the settlement at the urging of Attorney General Mohammed Bello Adoke.

The agreement validated the original terms of the Side Letter, effectively nullifying Nigeria’s demand that Addax repay $3 billion, the person said. It’s unclear if there’s any other litigation pending between Addax and Nigeria.

The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, Jonathan’s successor, left the original terms of the Side Letter intact but planned to revoke its terms effective Jan. 1, 2016, according to a person familiar with the deal. That would deny Addax at least $1 billion in future benefits and end reimbursement claims.

Flagged Payments

Deloitte had also flagged in its filing additional Addax payments from 2015 exceeding $20 million, made to “legal advisers” in Nigeria and the U.S from bank accounts in Nigeria and the Isle of Man, a British crown dependency. The auditing firm said it had “received a number of whistle-blowing allegations from within and outside Addax, some of which allege that such payments have been made to bribe foreign government officials and that certain amounts have been embezzled by certain members of management within Addax Petroleum Group.”

An official in Buhari’s office directed inquiries to the NNPC and the Justice Ministry. Spokesmen for the NNPC and Nigeria’s Justice Ministry didn’t respond to multiple messages seeking comment.

The case burst open in February when Geneva prosecutor Yves Bertossa began a probe into Deloitte’s allegations. Swiss law enforcement officials raided the Geneva offices of Addax in March. Addax CEO Zhang Yi and Chief Legal Officer Guus Klusener were jailed under preventative detention, as allowed under Swiss law. They were released three weeks later, a spokesman for the Geneva prosecutor said.

Barely four months later, Bertossa closed the probe. Neither the company nor its executives were charged. Bertossa criticized the company for what he called sloppy accounting, but said that no criminal intent could be established. He also said that Addax had taken steps to overhaul its staffing and anti-corruption processes.

Saverio Lembo, a lawyer for Zhang, declined to comment. Klusener’s lawyer, Vincent Spira, didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Nigerian Lawyer

U.S. authorities are looking into whether payments handled by an unidentified Nigerian lawyer who is a member of the California bar were used to pay some of the alleged bribes, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. The lawyer was hired to advise Addax executives on the terms of the settlement with the Nigerian government, the person said.

It’s unclear what effect a U.S. probe might have on the rest of Sinopec’s U.S. operations. The company’s shares began trading in Hong Kong, London and New York in 2000. Sinopec also rents an oil terminal in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

A month after the Swiss probe ended, Sinopec announced on Aug. 8 that it would shut down Addax’s operations in Geneva along with offices in Aberdeen, Scotland, and Houston by the end of this year.

— With assistance by Aibing Guo, Matt Robinson, Elisha Bala-Gbogbo, and Sophie Mongalvy

Media Rights Activists Ask Buhari To Stop Military Spying On Nigerians Online

BY SAMUEL OGUNDIPE

PREMIUM TIMES, NIGERIA

AUGUST 30, 2017

BUHARI VIA PREMIUM TIMES

Media rights defenders on Wednesday cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari against repressive actions that could have grave implications for Nigeria’s democracy.

In a statement to PREMIUM TIMES, Lanre Arogundade, Edetaen Ojo and Akin Akingbulu, all veteran journalists, said Mr. Buhari should order the military to scrap its spying operation against Nigerians on social media.

The activists expressed concern that the operation could provide “enormous opportunities for abuse of power and the violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms of Nigerians by the military.”

The defence spokesperson, John Enenche, said in a television interview last week that the military had commenced expansive monitoring of Nigerians on social media for speeches that could be deemed as hateful or anti-government.

“We have our strategic media centres that monitor the social media to be able to sieve out and react to all the ones that will be anti-government, be anti-military, (and) be anti-security,” Mr. Enenche, a major general, said.

His comments followed Mr. Buhari’s concerns about the emerging aggressive tones on social media.

“I was distressed to notice that some of the comments, especially in the social media have crossed our national red lines by daring to question our collective existence as a nation,” the president in a nationwide address August 21.

“This is a step too far,” he added.

The announcement alarmed many Nigerians and several civic groups have condemned it as repressive.

It is yet unclear if the president has taken or plans to take any steps about the complaints. His spokespersons, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, did not respond to PREMIUM TIMES requests for their principal’s position Wednesday afternoon.

But Messrs. Arogundade, Ojo and Akingbulu, who wrote under the think-tank, Partnership for Media and Democracy, said the grave implications of the spying exercise cannot be brushed aside.

According to the trio, the tracking could lead to the following seven infractions:

The violation of the right of freedom of expression as constitutionally guaranteed for Nigerians and as protected by important international instruments and charters especially the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to mention a few;

The undermining of the right of the public to know about the activities of the government including the security agencies which in a democracy are subordinate to civil authorities;
The non-guarantee of the safety of media professionals, especially online journalists and those covering the activities of the military;

The incapacitation of the media to carry out the obligation to monitor governance and hold the government accountable to the people as stipulated in section 22 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended;

The infringement of the right of opposition political parties to take the ruling parties at the Federal, State and Local levels to task on their policies, programs and performance;
The breach of the right of the electorate to hold elected politicians accountable for their campaign or electoral promises; and

The encroachment of the right of the civil society, unions, pro-democracy activists, etc to express dissent over government policies they may consider injurious to their collective and/or individual interests.

Consequently, they asked the military to immediately dismantle all facilities it had established for the purpose of spying on Nigerians on social media.

US Disrupts Evacuation Of IS Militants In Syria

In this photo released by Lebanon's official government photographer Dalati Nohra, Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun, right, and Spanish Defense Minister Yacoub Sarraf, left, listen to Lebanese President Michel Aoun, speaking to journalists at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017. Aoun declared victory against the Islamic State group Wednesday in a live statement praising the Lebanese army for carrying out the operation that ended with the deal to evacuate IS fighters and their families in return for information about nine troops who were kidnapped by IS in August 2014. (Dalati Nohra via AP)

BEIRUT, LEBANON (ASSOCIATED PRESS, AUGUST 30, 2017) — The U.S.-led coalition said Wednesday it carried out airstrikes to disrupt a convoy of Islamic State militants being evacuated from the Lebanon-Syria border to an IS-held area in eastern Syria near Iraq, without targeting the evacuees themselves.

Coalition aircraft struck a small bridge and cratered a road to hinder the convoy's progress. The coalition also struck a separate group of IS militants traveling to meet the convoy, according to Col. Ryan Dillon, a coalition spokesman.

U.S. officials have criticized the transfer of hundreds of militants and civilians who are bound for an IS-held area near the Iraqi border, saying the extremists should be killed on the battlefield. The evacuation came as part of a controversial deal brokered by the Lebanese Hezbollah group to clear IS from an area along the Lebanon-Syria border.

The coalition is reluctant to strike the actual convoy of evacuees because the fighters have wives and children traveling with them, said a U.S. official, who wasn't authorized to discuss military details and requested anonymity. Although Hezbollah members are believed to be the ones escorting the convoy, the Syrian government's involvement creates further risk for the U.S. if the coalition were to hit it.

The coalition nevertheless said in a statement that it is not bound by the evacuation agreement. There are about 300 militants and almost as many family members on buses being evacuated under the deal.

"We are monitoring their location in real time," Dillon said, adding that the coalition "will not rule out strikes against IS fighters being moved." He added that any strike will be in accordance with "the law of armed conflict and if we are able to do so and can discriminate and discern the difference between fighters and civilians."

Syrian opposition activists said the convoy, which left the Lebanon-Syria border on Tuesday, is still in government-held territory in eastern Syria. The evacuation agreement, the first such publicized deal, had already angered many Iraqis, who accused Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah of dumping the militants on the Iraqi border rather than eradicating them.

The top U.S. envoy for the international coalition against IS, Brett McGurk, tweeted Wednesday that IS "terrorists should be killed on the battlefield, not bused across #Syria to the Iraqi border without #Iraq's consent." McGurk added that the anti-IS coalition will help ensure that "these terrorists can never" enter Iraq.

Lebanese troops launched an attack against IS on Aug. 18, while Syrian troops and Hezbollah fighters launched a simultaneous offensive from the Syrian side of the border. The militants agreed to a cease-fire over the weekend once they had been squeezed into a small area along the frontier.

Lebanon has defended the agreement, in which the militants are said to have revealed the location of the remains of nine Lebanese soldiers who were captured in 2014. The remains of several people have been uncovered in the border area, and DNA tests are underway to determine whether they belong to the missing soldiers. Lebanese officials say they are almost sure the remains are of the soldiers.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun declared victory against IS on Wednesday and praised the Lebanese army for carrying out the operation. "Our only consolation is that we knew the fate of the soldiers," he said. "We wish they were celebrating with us."

Army commander Gen. Joseph Aoun, who is not related to the president, told reporters Wednesday that as the offensive against IS was underway, the Lebanese mediator called him to say that the extremists accepted a cease-fire in return for information about the fate of the soldiers.

"I had one of two choices. Either to go on with the battle and not know the fate of the soldiers or give in and know the fate of the soldiers," Aoun said. The Lebanese commander added that he cares most about the lives of his soldiers, and that one of the main achievements was to win the battle without taking further casualties.

In a separate incident, mines laid by the extremists killed at least nine people and wounded dozens who were fleeing IS-held areas in Syria's eastern Deir el-Zour province, according to an opposition monitoring group and state media.

State news agency SANA said 10 people were killed and 28 wounded when the vehicles they were traveling in drove over mines. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine people were killed and many others wounded in the Abu Khashab area on the northern edge of Deir el-Zour province, a main stronghold for IS.

In Syria, meanwhile, President Bashar Assad received Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari. State media gave no further details. Iran has been one of Assad's main backers since Syria's conflict began in March 2011.

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.

Amnesty Int’l Accuses Nigerian Authorities Of Detaining Hundreds Illegally

BY EJIOFOR ALIKE

THIS DAY                                                                                               

Osai Ojigbo Via This Day

Global rights group, Amnesty International, has accused the federal government of illegal detention of several Nigerians and raised concern that hundreds of people are being held in secret detention.

The organisation said in a statement on Tuesday that the enforced disappearance of persons, which is being perpetrated by the agencies of the federal government, is prohibited under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, to which Nigeria is a state party.

Amnesty’s statement, which marks the International Day of the Disappeared being celebrated today, noted that enforced disappearances are being used to instil fear into civilian population living in areas of the country wracked with conflict and insecurity.
The group’s media manager, Isa Sanusi, called on the government to release details on the fate and whereabouts of all those who have been disappeared.

“Many families of the victims of enforced disappearance spend painful years searching for justice, truth and reparation but are ignored or misled about the fate of their relatives. The authorities must do the right thing now by releasing all of them or disclosing information about their fate or whereabouts” the Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Osai Ojigho, said.

According to Amnesty International research, most enforced disappearances take place in the conflict-ridden North-east of Nigeria where young men are often seized by the military after being accused of affiliation to the armed group Boko Haram.

The organisation obtained details of men, women and children who are victims of enforced disappearance in other parts of Nigeria.
According to figures provided to Amnesty by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), at least 600 of their members’ whereabouts are not known since the clashes with the military in December 2015 in Zaria, Kaduna state.

The figures showed that more than 350 people are believed to have been unlawfully killed by the military between December 12 and 14, 2015.
Amnesty quoted the families of some of the victims who told the group about their painful ordeal of years in search for justice.
According to the group, one Malama Zainab Isa said her husband, Abdullahi Abbas, and their six children’s whereabout or fate is not known since the night of December 14, 2015, following the clashes in Zaria.

“He sells books at the Husainiyyah where the clashes took place. All six of our children were with him that day. Up to now we don’t know their fate. We don’t know whether the seven of them are alive or dead and no one is giving us any information that can ease our pain,” the group quoted the woman as saying.
Amnesty also quoted Ibrahim Aliyu, whose three brothers’ whereabouts or fate is not known since 2012 after arrest by state security services as saying that:

“Before my three brothers disappeared, we used to contribute money to support our extended family.
“Now without them, the burden is entirely on my shoulder. I have to do everything; take care of their families and provide for our mother. Our mother is now perpetually ill, because she thinks a lot about my brothers’ fate. Sometimes, I feel I can’t bear the pain anymore,” Aliyu added.

Commenting on the International Day of the Disappeared, Amnesty International called on the Nigerian authorities to investigate all cases of enforced disappearances and bring all those suspected of criminal responsibility to justice in fair trials before ordinary civilian courts without recourse to death penalty.
“In addition, the authorities must provide full reparation to victims and their families, including compensation, rehabilitation, restitution, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.”

“We call on authorities to investigate cases of enforced disappearance across Nigeria to end this crime under international law that makes the victims vulnerable to torture and other human rights violations. The families of the victims of enforced disappearance have already waited too long for answers. They deserve justice, truth and reparation now,” Ojigho added.

Why Nnamdi Kanu’s Bail Should Be Revoked – Nigerian Government

BY EVELYN OKAKWU

PREMIUM TIMES NIGERIA

Nnamdi Kanu Via Premium Times

The Nigerian government on Friday demanded the revocation of the bail granted the leader of the Indigenous People Of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, in April.

In a statement on Thursday signed by Salihu Isah, an aide to the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, the Nigerian government hinged its request on 11 grounds of arguments.

According to the statement, the Nigerian government accused Mr. Kanu of ‘totally violating’ the 12 main conditions he was demanded to comply with by Justice Binta Nyako at an Abuja Division of the Federal High Court on April 25.

Citing some of Mr. Kanu’s bail conditions, the prosecution said the defendant negated the conditions and acted in ways that allegedly have adverse effect on the nation’s security.

“Among other conditions for the bail of the 1st defendant are as follows: “That he should not be seen in a crowd exceeding 10 people.

“That he should not grant any press interviews, hold or attend any rallies;

“And that he should file in court medical updates of his health status every month.”

The government said that the bail conditions were perfected by the defendant/applicant which he is currently enjoying.

“Rather than observing all the conditions, the 1st defendant/respondent in flagrant disobedience to the court order flouted all conditions given by the court.

“The first defendant has in furtherance to the offence he was charged, inaugurated Biafra Security Service, ” the statement said.

“That the defendant held a rally at his residence in his hometown, Afara-UkwuIbeku in Umuahia, Abia State; the said rally with a CROWD exceeding 10 persons was captured in video published on the 1st June 2017 and circulated on YouTube.”

According to the statement, the defendant’s separatist comments have increased rather than reducing.

Some of the statements allegedly made after he was granted bail include the following:

“I was not born to be rich, politician or scientist but to restore Biafra. I did not say we are restructuring Nigeria or implementing Aburi but restoring Biafra. That is the total exit of Biafra from Nigeria thereby restoring the kingdom of God on earth… There will be no elections,” among others.

Mr. Kanu was first arrested in October 2015 and charged before a magistrate court by Nigeria’s government.

The case against him was later amended resulting in the current charge at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

Trump Administration Imposes Sweeping Sanctions On Venezuela

Vice President Mike Pence listens as Venezuelan exile Maria Eugenia Tovar speaks during a meeting with the exile community at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017, in Doral, Fla. Tovar is holding a photo of her daughter who was killed in Venezuela during a protest.

CARACAS, VENEZUELA (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday slapped sweeping financial sanctions on Venezuela, dramatically ratcheting up tensions between the two countries and making it harder for embattled President Nicolas Maduro to raise badly needed funds to prevent a debt default.

The sanctions Trump signed by executive order prohibit financial institutions from providing new money to the government or state oil company PDVSA. It would also restrict PDVSA's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, from sending dividends back to Venezuela as well as ban trading in two bonds the government recently issued to circumvent its increasing isolation from western financial markets.

"These measures are carefully calibrated to deny the Maduro dictatorship a critical source of financing to maintain its illegitimate rule, protect the United States financial system from complicity in Venezuela's corruption and in the impoverishment of the Venezuelan people, and allow for humanitarian assistance," the White House said in a statement.

A senior Trump administration official said additional sanctions would be imposed if Maduro doesn't reverse course and meet opposition demands that he roll back plans to rewrite the constitution, free dozens of political prisoners and hold fair and transparent elections.

In a call to brief reporters on the measures, the official said the United States has significant influence over Venezuela's economy but does not want to wield it in an irresponsible manner that could further burden the already-struggling Venezuelan people.

Reflecting those concerns and a strong lobby effort by the U.S. oil industry, Friday's action stopped short of cutting off U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil that are crucial both to Venezuela's economy and to Gulf refiners.

The sanctions follow through on Trump's threat last month that he would take strong economic actions if Maduro's increasingly authoritarian government went ahead with plans to create a constitutional assembly that is made up wholly of government loyalists. The opposition boycotted the vote to elect the body's 545 delegates.

Since the assembly was seated, it has voted by acclamation to oust the nation's outspoken chief prosecutor, take lawmaking powers from the opposition-controlled congress and create a "truth commission" that many fear will be used to target the government's political opponents. Several prominent opposition mayors have also been removed or ordered arrested by the government-stacked supreme court.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence signaled the move earlier Friday, tweeting that the U.S. "will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles." "The birthright of the Venezuelan people has always been and will always be libertad," he wrote, using the Spanish word for "freedom."

The sanctions are likely to worsen a crisis that has already seen Venezuela's oil-dependent economy shrink by about 35 percent since 2014 — more than the U.S. economy did during the Great Depression. Maduro, who is among some 30 senior officials already barred from the United States, seemed almost resigned to the possibility. He warned this week that the Trump administration was readying a "commercial, oil and financial blockade" in the mold of the one that has punished Cuba for decades. He said it would be meant to pave the way for a U.S. military intervention.

"The economic measures the U.S. government is preparing will worsen Venezuela's economic situation," he told foreign journalists Tuesday, vowing to protect the population from the worst effects of any sanctions.

There was no immediate government reaction Friday even as some leaders of the opposition expressed satisfaction. "Venezuela's increasing economic and political isolation has a sole culprit: Nicolas Maduro," recently ousted Caracas-area Mayor Ramon Muchacho said in a tweet from exile in Miami.

David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist who has spent decades researching Venezuela, said blanket sanctions that cut off the government's cash flow and hurt the population are likely to strengthen Maduro in the short-term.

"It will bolster his discourse that Venezuela is the target of an economic war," said Smilde, who supports Friday's more limited sanctions targeting future indebtedness. But with Venezuela's streets calmer than they have been for months, and the opposition reeling from its failure to prevent the constitutional assembly from going forward, action from an increasingly concerned international community represents the best chance of reining in Maduro, he added.

Maduro is already struggling to combat widespread shortages and triple-digit inflation as oil production has tumbled to its lowest level in more than two decades. Any economic sanctions, however mild, increase the risk of a default on Venezuela's ballooning debt.

The government and PDVSA have about $4 billion in debt payments coming due before the end of the year but only $9.7 billion in international reserves on hand, the vast majority consisting of gold ingots that are hard to trade immediately for cash.

Venezuela has taken desperate steps to remain current on its debt throughout the economic crisis, and the president has blamed his enemies for spreading rumors about any impending default.

Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez reported from Caracas and Joshua Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia.