South Korea Simulates Attack On North's Nuke Site After Test

People spend time on a riverside as a truck crosses the friendship bridge connecting China and North Korea in the Chinese border town of Dandong, opposite side of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, Monday, Sept. 4, 2017. The U.N. Security Council is holding its second emergency meeting in a week about North Korea on Monday after a powerful nuclear test explosion added another layer of urgency for diplomats wrestling with what to do about the North's persistent weapons programs.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — Following U.S. warnings to North Korea of a "massive military response," South Korea fired missiles into the sea to simulate an attack on the North's main nuclear test site on Monday, a day after North Korea detonated its largest-ever nuclear test explosion.

South Korea's Defense Ministry also said Monday that North Korea appeared to be planning a future missile launch, possibly of an ICBM, to show off its claimed ability to target the United States with nuclear weapons, though it was unclear when this might happen.

The heated words from the United States and the military maneuvers in South Korea are becoming familiar responses to North Korea's rapid, as-yet unchecked pursuit of a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles that can strike the United States. The most recent, and perhaps most dramatic, advance came Sunday in an underground test of what leader Kim Jong Un's government claimed was a hydrogen bomb, the North's sixth nuclear test since 2006.

The United Nations Security Council planned to hold its second emergency meeting about North Korea in a week on Monday to discuss responses to the test. In Seoul, Chang Kyung-soo, an official with South Korea's Defense Ministry, told lawmakers on Monday that it was seeing preparations in the North for an ICBM test but didn't provide details about how officials had reached that assessment. Chang also said the yield from the latest nuclear detonation appeared to be about 50 kilotons, which would mark a "significant increase" from North Korea's past nuclear tests.

In a series of tweets, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to halt all trade with countries doing business with North Korea, a warning to China, and faulted South Korea for what he called "talk of appeasement."

The heated words from the United States and the military maneuvers in South Korea are becoming familiar responses to North Korea's rapid, as-yet unchecked pursuit of a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles that can strike the United States. The most recent, and perhaps most dramatic, advance came Sunday in an underground test of what leader Kim Jong Un's government claimed was a hydrogen bomb, the North's sixth nuclear test since 2006.

The United Nations Security Council planned to hold its second emergency meeting about North Korea in a week on Monday to discuss responses to the test. In Seoul, Chang Kyung-soo, an official with South Korea's Defense Ministry, told lawmakers on Monday that it was seeing preparations in the North for an ICBM test but didn't provide details about how officials had reached that assessment. Chang also said the yield from the latest nuclear detonation appeared to be about 50 kilotons, which would mark a "significant increase" from North Korea's past nuclear tests.

In a series of tweets, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to halt all trade with countries doing business with North Korea, a warning to China, and faulted South Korea for what he called "talk of appeasement."

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, told reporters in Beijing on Monday that China regarded as "unacceptable a situation in which on the one hand we work to resolve this issue peacefully but on the other hand our own interests are subject to sanctions and jeopardized. This is neither objective nor fair."

South Korea's military said its live-fire exercise was meant to "strongly warn" North Korea. The drill involved F-15 fighter jets and the country's land-based "Hyunmoo" ballistic missiles firing into the Sea of Japan.

The target was set considering the distance to North Korea's test site and the exercise was aimed at practicing precision strikes and cutting off reinforcements, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Each new North Korean missile and nuclear test gives the country's scientists invaluable information that allows big jumps in capability. North Korea is thought to have a growing arsenal of nuclear bombs and has spent decades trying to perfect a multistage, long-range missile to eventually carry smaller versions of those bombs.

Both diplomacy and severe sanctions have failed to check the North's decades-long march to nuclear mastery. In Washington, Trump, asked by a reporter if he would attack North Korea, said, "We'll see." No U.S. military action appeared imminent, and the immediate focus appeared to be on ratcheting up economic penalties, which have had little effect thus far.

In brief remarks after a White House meeting with Trump and other national security officials, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that America does not seek the "total annihilation" of North Korea, but then added somberly, "We have many options to do so."

Mattis said the U.S. will answer any threat from the North with a "massive military response — a response both effective and overwhelming." Mattis also said the international community is unified in demanding the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that Kim should know Washington's commitment to Japan and South Korea is unshakeable.

The precise strength of North Korea's underground nuclear explosion has yet to be determined. South Korea's weather agency said the artificial earthquake caused by the explosion was five times to six times stronger than tremors generated by the North's previous five tests.

Sunday's detonation builds on recent North Korean advances that include test launches in July of two ICBMs. The North says its missile development is part of a defensive effort to build a viable nuclear deterrent that can target U.S. cities.

North Korea has made a stunning jump in progress in its nuclear and missile programs since Kim rose to power following his father's death in late 2011. The North followed its two tests of Hwasong-14 ICBMs, which, when perfected, could target large parts of the United States, by threatening to launch a salvo of Hwasong-12 intermediate range missiles toward the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam in August.

It flew a Hwasong-12 over northern Japan last week, the first such overflight by a missile potentially capable of carrying nuclear weapons, in a launch Kim described as a "meaningful prelude" to containing Guam, the home of major U.S. military facilities, and vowed to launch more ballistic missile tests targeting the Pacific.

Ahead of the North's test, photos released by the North Korean government showed Kim talking with his lieutenants as he observed a silver, peanut-shaped device that was purportedly a thermonuclear weapon destined for an ICBM. The images were taken without outside journalists present and could not be independently verified. What appeared to be the nose cone of a missile could also be seen in one photo, and another showed a diagram on the wall behind Kim of a bomb mounted inside a cone.

The Arms Control Association in the United States said the explosion appeared to produce a yield in excess of 100 kilotons of TNT equivalent, which it said strongly suggests North Korea tested a high-yield but compact nuclear weapon that could be launched on a missile of intermediate or intercontinental range.

Beyond the science of the blast, North Korea's accelerating push to field a nuclear weapon that can target all of the United States is creating political complications for the U.S. as it seeks to balance resolve with reassurance to allies that Washington will uphold its decades-long commitment to deter nuclear attack on South Korea and Japan.

That is why some questioned Trump's jab at South Korea. He tweeted that Seoul is finding that its "talk of appeasement" will not work. The North Koreans, he added, "only understand one thing," implying military force might be required. The U.S. has about 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea and is obliged by treaty to defend it in the event of war.

Trump also suggested putting more pressure on China, North Korea's patron for many decades and a vital U.S. trading partner, in hopes of persuading Beijing to exert more effective leverage on its neighbor. Trump tweeted that the U.S. is considering "stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea." Such a halt would be radical. The U.S. imports about $40 billion in goods a month from China, North Korea's main commercial partner.

Experts have questioned whether North Korea has gone too far down the nuclear road to continue pushing for a denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, an Obama administration policy goal still embraced by Trump's White House.

"Denuclearization is not a viable U.S. policy goal," said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security, but neither should the U.S. accept North Korea as a nuclear power, he said. "We should keep denuclearization as a long-term aspiration, but recognize privately that it's unachievable anytime soon."

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Catherine Lucey in Washington and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul contributed to this report.

Trump Expected To End Program For Young Immigrants

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump leave after attending services at St. John's Church in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017. The president last week named today a National Day of Prayer for victims of Hurricane Harvey.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce that he will end protections for young immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children, but with a six-month delay, people familiar with the plans said.

The delay in the formal dismantling of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, would be intended to give Congress time to decide whether it wants to address the status of the so-called Dreamers legislation, according to two people familiar with the president's thinking. But it was not immediately clear how the six-month delay would work in practice and what would happen to people who currently have work permits under the program, or whose permits expire during the six-month stretch.

It also was unclear exactly what would happen if Congress failed to pass a measure by the considered deadline, they said. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter ahead of a planned Tuesday announcement.

The president, who has been grappling with the issue for months, has been known to change his mind in the past and could still shift course. The plan was first reported by Politico Sunday evening. Trump has been wrestling for months with what to do with the Obama-era DACA program, which has given nearly 800,000 young immigrants a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work legally in the form of two-year, renewable work permits.

The expected move would come as the White House faces a Tuesday deadline set by Republican state officials threatening to sue the Trump administration if the president did not end the program. It also would come as Trump digs in on appeals to his base as he finds himself increasingly under fire, with his poll numbers at near-record lows.

Trump had been personally torn as late as last week over how to deal with what are undoubtedly the most sympathetic immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Many came to the U.S. as young children and have no memories of the countries they were born in.

During his campaign, Trump slammed DACA as illegal "amnesty" and vowed to eliminate the program the day he took office. But since his election, Trump has wavered on the issue, at one point telling The Associated Press that those covered could "rest easy."

Trump had been unusually candid as he wrestled with the decision in the early months of his administration. During a February press conference, he said the topic was "a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you. To me, it's one of the most difficult subjects I have."

"You have some absolutely incredible kids — I would say mostly," he said, adding: "I love these kids." All the while, his administration continued to process applications and renew DACA work permits, to the dismay of immigration hard-liners.

News of the president's expected decision drew strong reactions from advocates on both sides of the issue. "IF REPORTS ARE TRUE, Pres Trump better prepare for the civil rights fight of his admin. A clean DREAM Act is now a Nat Emergency #DefendDACA," tweeted New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat.

But Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who has called DACA unconstitutional, warned that a delay in dismantling it would amount to "Republican suicide." "Ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law. Delaying so R Leadership can push Amnesty is Republican suicide," he wrote.

It would be up to members of Congress to pass a measure to protect those who have been covered under the program. While there is considerable support for that among Democrats and moderate Republicans, Congress is already facing a packed fall agenda and has had a poor track record in recent years for passing immigration-related bills.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and a number of other legislators urged Trump last week to hold off on scrapping DACA to give them time to come up with a legislative fix. "These are kids who know no other country, who are brought here by their parents and don't know another home. And so I really do believe that there needs to be a legislative solution," Ryan told Wisconsin radio station WCLO.

The Obama administration created the DACA program in 2012 as a stopgap to protect some young immigrants from deportation as they pushed unsuccessfully for a broader immigration overhaul in Congress. The program protected people in the country illegally who could prove they arrived before they were 16, had been in the United States for several years and had not committed a crime while being here. It mimicked versions of the so-called DREAM Act, which would have provided legal status for young immigrants but was never passed by Congress.

As of July 31, 2015, more than 790,000 young immigrants had been approved under the program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The House under Democratic control passed a Dream Act in 2010 but it died in the Senate. Since Republicans retook control of the House in late 2010, it has taken an increasingly hard line on immigration. House Republicans refused to act on the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill in 2013. Two years later, a GOP border security bill languished because of objections from conservatives.

Many House Republicans represent highly conservative districts. The primary upset of the former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to a conservative challenger in 2014 in a campaign that cast him as soft on illegal immigration convinced many House Republicans that pro-immigrant stances could cost them politically.

So despite Ryan's personal commitment on the issue and his comments in favor of the young immigrants, action to protect them may be unlikely in the House — absent intense lobbying from Trump.

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Erica Werner contributed to this report.

Biafra: Crisis Looms In Igbo Land

BY UGOJI EGBUJO

VANGUARD, NIGERIA

Biafra Image Via BNW/Igbo Heritage Foundation

NIGERIA (VANGUARD, SEPTEMBER 02, 2017) -- It’s not alarmist. Crisis is looming in Igboland. The sore has been allowed to fester, for too long. Pus has accumulated. Massage and warm compresses won’t do now. A surgical knife must go in.

The government must act decisively, one way or the other. Prevarication can lead to a costly gangrene. The wound must be drained and cleaned, so that it can heal. The wound dressing must involve comprehensive political engagement of the southeast, and a restructuring of the federation.

We are on a slippery slope. Nnamdi Kanu was granted bail by a court. He is being tried for offences bordering on treason. He has flouted the bail conditions. He must have been emboldened by the enticing temerity of the Arewa youths. ShettimaYerima and his Arewa youths committed treason. They issued a quit notice to Igbos to leave the north,or face severe consequences by October 1. They did more than plagiarize Nnamdi Kanu’s hate files .They were not arrested. They were not charged. 

The Federal high court judge that granted Nnamdi Kanu bail wouldn’t rightly be concerned about effect of Arewa youth’s impunity on Nnamdi Kanu’s actions as no case has been brought before him. So despite the double standards, the court may have no option but to revoke his bail. The law is an ass. The federal government has found its missing courage, it has asked the court to revoke the bail. The federal government is not permanently timid. The judge has no decision to make. Well, Nigerian Judges can be creative, sometimes. If the bail is revoked, Nnamdi Kanu will have to abandon his tour of his Biafra, and return to a ‘zoological’ prison in Kuje. That is now almost inconceivable. Almost. 

This is where it gets complicated. If Nnamdi Kanu’s utterances can be relied on, he would not submit himself for incarceration. Then once again, the judge will have no options. A bench warrant will be issued against him. When a Bench warrant was issued against Tompolo, the Nigerian police didn’t find him. So the federal government may let the police not find Nnamdi Kanu. Tompolo was discreet though. He sought refuge in the creeks. He was out of view, until he came to bury his dad. Nnamdi has said he cannot go on exile. It’s beneath him to go out of circulation, into hiding. That would make him lily-liveried. He was sent by God.

 He has been touring Biafra. So he isn’t exactly a Tompolo, who claims no territory. Tompolo wasn’t seen. Yes he wasn’t seen destroying crude oil pipelines. Nnamdi Kanu has no pipelines to put out of use. He can’t touch the economy. He has no way of bringing the federal government to its knees, from the shadows without amputating his nose, turning Igbo land into a cauldron. IPOB is now a non violent organization. That’s their new image. 

So the Police may be forced to arrest an ubiquitous and garrulous Nnamdi Kanu. However, it is not compulsory, not inevitable. This is Nigeria. The police declared Shettima Yerima and Arewa youths wanted . Shettima sauntered from place to place, huffing and puffing. The Police chose not to see him. So the police may easily fail to see Nnamdi Kanu. The government has an alternative. It may send the Minister of Interior to say something absurd that exonerates Kanu. The Judge will understand. This is Nigeria. The Minister of Interior said that the Arewa Youths claimed they were misquoted. Heavens didn’t fall. Shettima later denied the minister and his tales. Shettima is ,obviously, not a coward. He boldly stated he was withdrawing the quit notice to honour Buhari. The ijaw youth council president is sure Shettima had state dinners. 

The government has other options. It can send an official to waffle about heating up the polity. Then it can explain the decision to trash the court warrant and let Kanu roam as politically sensible. That’s what cowards do. In fact it can ask the attorney General to reverse himself, and say that Kanu cannot be arrested. And he would blame it on security concerns. That’s what the chief law officer said about his impotence against the Arewa Youths who committed treason in broad daylight.

 The government can always chicken out. So the wound can fester a little more. They have been warned. Ango Abdullahi warned them about Shettima, they capitulated. So Ohaneze has warned the federal government. Nnamdi Kanu could be set to bask in his own impunity. The Judge would understand. Nnamdi’s criminal case could be effectively over. Nnamdi may not risk going to Abuja. He is sure no policeman would come to his Biafra to arrest him. He has warned Buhari. He said his non violent IPOB would slaughter any Policeman who comes to arrest him in Biafra. That’s is his idea of civil disobedience. The Die is cast.

 The federal government can’t arrest Nnamdi without crossing the red line of double standards. The federal government cannot leave Nnamdi and his daringness without conceding sovereignty. Igbo elders are quiet. Igbo youths are restless. Emotions have replaced reasons. The elders have taken refuge in timidity. They now speak in muffled tones. The politicians can be forgiven. Politics entails opportunism. Nnamdi Kanu,increasingly, looks like a king or a king maker.

The churches have a strong influence on Igbo politics. Igbo politicians go to churches to declare their candidacy and to lobby the clergy and their congregations. The churches play politics of denominations godlessly. But the church claims to be the light of the world. Igbo church leaders are quiet. 

In northeast the clerics kept low profile. The core north didn’t like President Jonathan. People refused to speak up. Boko haram was troubling Jonathan, and making the place ungovernable. That was exciting. Powerful figures maintained a conspiratorial silence. Yusuf and Shekau preached, told the people what they wanted to hear. They talked about poor governance and corruption. They told them that democracy was sinful, ‘zoological’. That it was designed to keep the ordinary people in perpetual servitude. Their followership grew. Boko haram metastasized.

 Some Igbo Bishops are frolicking openly with Nnamdi Kanu. Some others are relishing the prospects of a loathed President Buhari being taught some lessons. Biafra is always seductive. Igbos are emotional about it. It is sweet nostalgia of what nearly was. The promised land. Anyone who comes in the name of Biafra is welcome. 

The Buhari government didn’t help matters. The sense of alienation has never been greater. Politicians who lost in 2015 took their grief personal. They have tapped into a rich vein of frustration and political insensitivity. The economic circumstances have yielded many idle hands. It’s a perfect combustible mix. The murderous forays of herdsmen fueled already inflamed tempers. A crisis looms in the east. 

So no one cares to interrogate the minds peddling this secessionist idea. No one questions their methods vehemently . It’s enough that they mouth marginalization of Igbos and paint a colorful Biafra. It’s enough that Buhari is cast as a symbol of oppressive, anti-Igbo, Islamist, Hausa Fulani hegemony. Igbos are truly marginalized. The Bishops ought to be discerning. They claim spiritual insight. They can’t be as impressionable as the rabble. They can’t be as excitable as youths who didn’t experience the civil war. They cant afford to be enthralled by mere charm. Some of them actually now find Kanu intimidating.

 Kanu says Jesus is not God. The Bishops don’t care. He mocks Mary. The catholic priests are unperturbed. If they are perturbed ,then they are filled with the spirit of fear. God gave them the spirit of power. Kanu says New Testament is junk. The priests don’t treat that as heretical. The priests must announce their allegiance to Christ. It wouldn’t matter if Kanu were a self respecting atheist who didn’t defame and ridicule other peoples religious beliefs. Kanu can’t get away with duplicity. He says the worship of Jesus is Idolatry.

 It is good we don’t mix politics and religion. It is good we keep the state away from religion. But Kanu has not stopped announcing that God sent him. He said that God has decreed that there would be no election in Anambra state. We have spirit filled priests who claim they hear from God. Why can’t they confirm or condemn Kanu’s spiritual pronouncements?

 The IPOB spokesman claims Kanu is a Christian. Kanu denies that he is a Christian. Why is it difficult to know whom Kanu is? If you ask hard questions , you will be told its not about Kanu. But who decided there will be no elections in Igboland? Kanu hears from God, so he says. He may actually hear from God. Since he drops the name of God, Igbos must be told what God he worships. The role of a priest is not just to collect tithes and offerings. A priest owes the people and the society a duty to expose religious charlatanism and sorcery.

 When a man goes to Agwushi and collects prayers, and jumps over to adoration ground of father Ebube Muonso and collects more prayers, that’s syncretism. It could mean nothing. But it could be a window into a mind filled with confusion. Priests can’t sit astride and watch the people dance on the brink for lack of knowledge. Why is the church silent? Who is an anti Christ?

 Truth and reason have been battered on Aba highway. Igbo priests are passing by like the Rabbi who snubbed the man beaten by highway robbers. Where are the good Samaritans? Where are they? The church perhaps isn’t ready to dabble into politics . Igbo churches dabble into it only when telling members to vote a Catholic and against an Anglican or vice versa. 

Who really is an antichrist? A murderous Fulani Herdsman who kills some Christian farmers? Or a man who peddles damaging falsehoods about Jesus Christ and the Bible? If the church cannot speak for moral reasons, why can’t the church speak for prudential reasons? Why can’t it defend Christian theology against an onslaught from a charlatan? 

Nigeria, they say, is a zoo. Our leaders act with impunity. Then the messiah comes for the Igbos and no one is ready to hold him to account for his speeches and positions. Only a few are interested in interrogating his mind. What sort of freedom do Igbos dream of? A freedom that would excommunicate dissent and plurality of views? A freedom where every critic is a marked traitor? Ohaneze is timid. It may have actually become redundant. It sees the crowd that follows Kanu around and it is ready to embrace a little demagoguery, once in a while. Kanu has labeled Ohaneze leaders corrupt old men willing to sell their consciences and birthrights, for crumbs. Ohaneze excuses IPOB’s waywardness as understandable youthful exuberance. Ohaneze has no balls. So Ohaneze fudges and fudges. 

Ohaneze knows Igbos are marginalized. But Ohaneze knows that Kanu’s exuberance puts Igbo lives and property at great peril. Ohaneze knows that the overall interest of Igbos is best served by an equitable Nigeria and not secession. Ohaneze knows the time has come. But Ohaneze is cowardly, or impotent. Without a bold church, without foresighted courageous politicians, without a fearless Ohaneze, who can save Igbos? 

Political intolerance has been sown in Igbo land. There is this new song . A very rhythmic and danceable song by one Don Prince, aka Sampe. The sort of thing you hear in Pyongyang. It says Kanu is the leader, and there will be no elections henceforth in Igbo land. It says anyone who votes in Igboland would be sent to the north. The song has gone viral. The youths have become automatons. Anyone who raises a voice against Kanu and his IPOB is branded a traitor. In one of his glib talks on Radio Biafra he boasted that the names of traitors were being compiled. IPOB is that non violent group that once threatened to murder Obasanjo. A few days ago it openly threatened to kill any policeman who dared to re arrest Kanu. The elders wallow in denial. They dismiss the dissemination of hate and brigandage as youthful exuberance. They think Kanu would get Igbos an autonomous region, and then disappear. 

So they would take over and restore order. That’s the strategy. So the madness is a ploy. They whisper it, they nod their heads, smile knowing smiles, and wink. They are deluded. Some would say it has gone beyond Kanu. That’s true. The problem of Igbo marginalization was never about him. But no one should deny this frightening development. Nuisance can be fruitful. But nuisance can outlive its usefulness.

 It’s good that the governors of South East states have met with Kanu. 

The government has a political problem to solve. It has attended to it with arrogance , and sometimes with half-hearted condescension. Hesitancy and prevarication are no good options. The Federal Government has to be decisive. Military high handedness would be counter -productive. Constructive political engagement that enthrones law and order in the immediate term and equity, fairness and sense of belonging on the long term, must be commenced now. Any person who breaks the law and or threatens security of our country must face the law.

We're Still Fighting, More Than 150 Years After Appomattox

BY FELICIA FONSECA

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two of the 40 statues titled "Children of Whitney" by Woodrow Nash, in front of one of the slave cabins at the Whitney Plantation museum in Edgard, La. Owner John Cummings, an attorney and real estate investor, opened the site as a slavery museum, bucking a tradition of plantation tours that romanticize antebellum life and gloss over the slave trade.

BIRMINGHAM, AlABAMA. (AP) — When the Civil War was over, when the dead were buried and the union was reunited, it came time to tell tales and write history. In reunion gatherings and living rooms alike, differing versions of the causes of the conflict became as hardened as sunbaked Georgia clay.

More than a century and a half later, those dueling narratives are with us still. Did 620,000 die, as Northerners would have it, in a noble quest to save the union and end slavery — the nation's horrific original sin? Or was the "War Between the States" a gallant crusade to limit federal power, with slavery playing a lesser part, as Southerners insisted? Who was worthy of honor — Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, or Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee?

After all this time, it could be argued that it doesn't matter, but the blood that was shed over a statue of Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, is powerful evidence that it does. The national dispute over the fate of stone and bronze monuments begs this larger question: How does one country with two histories move forward?

The answer, some say, is by seizing a rare chance to build a shared history through small steps. "This is a moment to acknowledge the incredible change that we have seen among American people when they look at their past," said Peter Carmichael, a history professor at Gettysburg College. "They're not trying to sweep things under the rug. There are no saints and there are no sinners back in 1861. Everyone was to blame, except for the slaves."

Other countries have dealt more forthrightly with the aftermath of horrific violence or oppression. After apartheid's end, South African leaders formed the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation to promote national unity in the early 1990s. Rwanda's community courts investigated the slaughter of as many as 1 million people in 1994. Post-World War II Germany outlawed Nazism and its symbols.

Sanford Levinson, a University of Texas at Austin law professor, said such commissions generally focus on terrorist activity by nationalist governments, killings and torture immediately after they happen to hold oppressors accountable.

The United States could examine aspects of the Civil War, such as military prisons, the massacre of black soldiers or slavery itself, he said. But, "it would turn inevitably into historians testifying," he said. "There aren't concrete individuals who are going to come up and say 'yes, I did this and I really beg your apology.' All those people are dead."

Americans also would need to reach genuine consensus that the Civil War should be confronted, a willingness to dredge up repressed memories and someone to lead the effort, he said.

Academics and others told The Associated Press the road to avoiding a more divisive future may be lined with discussions rather than shouting matches; more complete history lessons; local, rather than state or national action; and a renewed focus on individuals who fought and were impacted by the war, including the deprivations they endured.

The drafting of men for the war, desertions in the Confederate and Union armies, political disagreements and dissent are among things not well represented in the memories of the conflict, especially not through monuments, said Stephen Rockenbach, history professor at Virginia State University. Americans can draw on primary sources, including writings of people who lived during that time period and their diaries to understand different viewpoints.

"The danger occurs when you only look at one aspect, one person, one battle, even one time frame," he said.

Historians often don't reach consensus on interpretations of the past and the general public can't be expected to, either, Rockenbach said.

"How then do we convey this huge experience that all kinds of Americans went through in meaningful way?" he said. "Statues do not do a very good job of doing that on their own."

Joe Zuniga, a 60-year-old school teacher in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, wants to see Confederate statues in museums or part of historical sites or battlefields so that visitors have the context they need to understand what happened.

"We are talking about history," said the self-described conservative. "We don't have to have it on top of a building overlooking the city with the idea of it being glorified. But, nonetheless, it is history. Whatever is in a person's heart can be there. It doesn't have to be replicated by granite or marble."

Carmichael, the Gettysburg College professor, said some of the problems of today could be addressed by doing a better job of explaining the war and how it affected a group that generally was ignored by both sides after Appomattox Courthouse: black Americans.

Rather than simply tearing down statues, interpretive markers should be used at Confederate monuments to show the systematic oppression of black people through lynching, the denial of voting rights, and segregation, he said. That way, Americans can understand that the system of slavery destroyed by the Civil War didn't create equality but instead ushered in Jim Crow laws.

Reconciliation won't happen in the immediate aftermath of Charlottesville, he said. The best change might be through local efforts where people who know each other can hash things out.

"The more it's done from far away, the more I think it's likely to provoke resentment and anger, and not lead to anything wonderfully productive," he said.

Civil War veterans reunited on battlefields for years after the fight. But today, organizations composed of descendants of the armies that battled from 1861 to 1865 have few dealings with each other or conversations on a broad level.

The head of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Mark Day, said opening a shared dialogue about the nation's history might be a good start.

"We're Americans. We have an ability to hold different opinions and share different opinions," said Day, the national commander. "I think it's a national thing that we maybe have to talk to each other."

Thomas V. Strain Jr. is Day's Southern equivalent, commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which is more than three times the size of the Union group with some 33,000 members. Strain doesn't mind talking to Union descendants — he recently attended a gathering of the Northern group — but he doesn't know that discussions will help.

People are more interested today in fighting battles with monuments as proxies than in figuring out what happened long ago, said Strain.

"Until society as a whole changes and we start seeing things for what they are, I don't think at any time we're going to be able to sit down and reconcile," said Strain, of Athens, Alabama.

The Southern descendants' group supports the preservation of Confederate monuments and members often espouse the traditional, Southern view of the war that minimizes the role of slavery in the conflict. But it didn't officially participate in the Aug. 12 demonstration in Charlottesville that ended in multiple injuries and the death of a woman who was killed when a car allegedly driven by a man aligned with white supremacists plowed into a crowd.

The group continues to memorialize its forbears; members were on hand for the dedication of a monument to unknown Confederate dead on private property in rural south Alabama on Aug. 24. The NAACP spoke out against the project, calling it a step backward.

Bernard Simelton, president of the civil rights group's Alabama chapter, said he's not interested in coming together to reach a consensus on Civil War history while Confederate monuments are still going up.

"The monuments have to come down before you can begin an honest conversation because as long as they are up and that flag is flying it leaves African Americans to say, 'You don't value our feelings, you don't understand our pain,'" Simelton said.

Strain said many on the pro-Confederate side just aren't willing to budge after seeing monuments and Confederate monuments removed. "I think we have to stand firm at this point," he said.

But others say something has to be resolved, and soon.

"In 1861 they came to the point they could no longer talk about their differences. It came to bloodshed," said long-haul trucker R.J. Yong, 37, of York, South Carolina. "I fear that we are coming to that point again."

Musician Bobby Horton, 66, has an unusual vantage point after a lifetime of studying and playing music of the Civil War. He was among the contributors to director Ken Burns' landmark 1990 miniseries, "The Civil War."

Both sides had their favorite tunes during the war, Horton said, and that division continued with post-war songs like "Oh, I'm a Good Ole Rebel," which included the line: "For this fair land of freedom I do not care a damn. I'm glad I (fought) against it, I only wished we'd won."

Yet a new type of music also came about after the war, Horton said: Songs that talked about reconciliation and coming together after years of fighting. One, titled "The Dawn of Peace," included the verse: "No more, no more shall war and strife be heard throughout the land."

Those songs, said Horton, "were mainly from soldiers."

The lesson for today might be for the nation to better educate itself about the shared tragedy of those who fought in the war, the slaves whose lives hung in the balance and the common people, he said. That way, perhaps, people could better see their commonalities.

"Right now it's 'them' and 'us.' And as long as it's 'them' and 'us,' it won't be 'us,'" Horton said.

Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona.

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.

Sign up for AP's daily newsletter showcasing our best all-formats reporting on Harvey and its aftermath: http://apne.ws/ahYQGtb .

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.