California Governor Agrees To Immigrant Protections

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, right, flanked by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Sacramento. Becerra filed a lawsuit Monday, Sept. 11, against the Trump administration over its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, that protects young immigrants from deportation who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or by parents who overstayed visas.

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. (AP, SEPT. 12, 2017) — California Gov. Jerry Brown and the state Senate leader said Monday they've agreed to changes in proposed legislation that would further restrict interactions between law enforcement officers and federal immigration agents.

The agreement came on the same day the state sued the Trump administration over its decision to end a program that shields young immigrants from deportation. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, agreed to changes demanded by Brown following fierce opposition from sheriffs and other law-enforcement officials.

The bill would still prohibit state and local police from asking about people's immigration status or enforcing federal immigration laws. However, following Monday's changes, it would preserve the ability of law officers to cooperate on federal task forces as long as the task force doesn't specifically work on immigration enforcement.

Police and jail officials would be able to notify U.S. immigration agents if they detain people with convictions for some 800 crimes, including serious felonies, battery, assault and sexual crimes. Immigration agents would still be allowed to interview immigrants in jail, and immigration agents would not be barred from accessing state databases.

"This bill protects public safety and people who come to California to work hard and make this state a better place," Brown said in a statement. Brown and de Leon reached their agreement in the last week of the legislative year. The Assembly and Senate must approve the measure by Friday or delay action until next year.

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement had no immediate comment. California already has some of the most protective laws in the country for immigrants detained by law enforcement. The state has limited the ability of police to detain immigrants for federal deportation agents since 2014, and requires jailers to inform inmates if agents are trying to detain immigrants.

Illinois recently passed even more protective legislation that bars law enforcement from detaining immigrants solely for deportation, said Shiu Ming Cheer, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

A handful of cities including Chicago and San Francisco, meanwhile, are refusing to cooperate with new federal requirements for tougher immigration enforcement, prompting the Trump administration to threaten to withhold funding.

Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, a critic of the initial state bill, said sheriffs would be discussing the latest version on a call Tuesday and declined to discuss the details. He noted that ICE generally seeks cooperation on people convicted of major crimes.

Immigrant rights groups held a noisy rally in the Capitol last week urging Brown and de Leon not to back off from the strict immigrant protections de Leon originally proposed in the wake of Donald Trump's election as president.

But the activists generally praised the compromise with Brown. "We hope that it will serve as a model for other states and encourage them to adopt similar protections," said Jenny Pasquarella, immigrant rights director for the American Civil Liberties Union of California. "This is where the dragnet is."

The legislative deal was announced the same day that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said he's filing a lawsuit over the Trump administration's decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

The lawsuit's legal arguments largely mirror those already filed in a lawsuit last week by 15 other states and the District of Columbia. Attorney generals for the states of Maine, Maryland and Minnesota joined California's lawsuit.

More than 200,000 of the 800,000 participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program live in California. The University of California has also filed a legal challenge to ending the program.

Also on Monday, Mexico Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said he and other Mexican diplomats are urging members of Congress to make the DACA program permanent and that he is not expecting an immediate influx of hundreds of thousands of young people back to Mexico.

Associated Press writers Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco, Amy Taxin in Orange County, Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento and Marine Villeneuve in Augusta, Maine, contributed reporting.

Why My Nigerian Father Never Said Goodbye

BY CAMILLA BALSHAW

THE GUARDIAN, LONDON

After Camilla Balshaw‘s father disappeared, she spent years trying to forget him. But then a meeting with a cousin she never knew existed led to a series of very odd phone calls – and a new understanding of her heritage

Camilla Balshaw: ‘Why would I want to find a man who had no hand in my upbringing and whose face I could barely remember?’ Photograph: Si Barber for the Guardian

I had been warned by my cousin about the strange telephone habits of Nigerians so, as I prepared to speak to my father for the first time in 30 years, I thought I was ready. But I wasn’t. The conversation lasted four minutes. Not the way I had expected to strike up a relationship with the man I had last seen when I was 10.

My memories of my father are sketchy. I have no photographs of him, but I remember he was tall and thin and always wore expensive cologne. He smoked, too, a forgotten brand now relegated to empty packets on eBay.

My parents had met in London in the early 60s. They were part of the new wave of arrivals from India, Pakistan, Africa and the Caribbean. London swelled with a Commonwealth population who came to work and build new lives.

My father had come to study engineering. He met my mother, a trainee nurse, and swept her off her feet. My grandmother simply couldn’t understand why she insisted on a relationship with a Nigerian and not a “nice Caribbean gentleman”.

My parents’ union became increasingly fraught thanks to my father’s somewhat laissez-faire attitude to his duties as a husband. He had come from a wealthy family in Nigeria. His mother, a formidable businesswoman, spoiled and indulged him. Once in England, he was easily intoxicated and seduced by the brights lights, parties, whiskey and, whisper it, probably, other women. Engineering was abandoned and, regardless of a growing family, he showed no sign of succumbing to domestic life. He took a series of meaningless jobs and continued his playboy lifestyle.

Years of unhappiness and bitterness festered and finally exploded into an acrimonious parting. My mother gained custody of me and my siblings. She became a single woman with three children and no financial help from my father. After a few visits to London to see him, and occasional shopping sprees to Marks & Spencer (the 70s Nigerian shopper’s paradise), he disappeared. We were told that he had probably gone back to Nigeria.

I never saw him again.

We were brought up with a daily mantra from our mother to “never, ever marry a Nigerian”. After all she had been through, you couldn’t blame her.

I suppressed my African heritage and fully embraced the Jamaican. My father was a waste of space. In the early 80s, I wanted limited association with Nigeria. Jamaica was cool. They had reggae, a killer cricket team and lovely sounding patois. Nigeria was too foreign and they wore strange headwraps and spoke in sing-song dialects that I couldn’t understand. Plus, I had a fierce loyalty to my mother. She had brought us up single-handedly and done a very fine job. Why would I want to find a man who had no hand in my upbringing and whose face I could barely remember?

As the years and decades passed, there was still no contact, until a phone call changed everything. It was a cousin. Cousin? I had no sense of a wider family of cousins, aunts or uncles.

This cousin told me he had managed to track me down on the orders of the family in Nigeria. He was a professor, lived in Oxfordshire and made frequent visits to Nigeria. He told me I had a father who was very much alive and a host of family members in Abuja who were desperate to contact me. Apparently, the search had started years ago. My father had tried the Salvation Army with no results. Familymembers had tried too, until, bingo, they had tracked me down through social media.

When I eventually met my cousin, he handed me a letter; it was from my father. It was simple and short. The word “sorry” dominated each paragraph. At first I did nothing. I didn’t reply. I didn’t tell my mother he had made contact, not at first. It felt disloyal. I left his letter in a drawer for months but continued to meet my UK cousin. He was full of stories of Nigeria, its rich history and our large family tree. I wanted to know more about them. They had beautiful names and I couldn’t blame them for my father’s mistakes.
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I wrote back to him. I saw it as an opportunity to let off steam and berate him for being a pretty lousy husband and father. He wrote again, apologetic, regretful and asked for forgiveness. Something thawed. I forgave him. We arranged a phone call.

At this point, my cousin in Oxfordshire gave me the warning about Nigerians and their telephone habits. My initial thought was: generators. I knew there were frequent blackouts and assumed this would affect our call as would the amount of credit on his phone.

Our first call came and there were no proclamations of long-lost love on either side. The conversation was incredibly formal. He asked about my health, my family’s health, my husband’s health. I asked about his health. He was 82 after all. Four minutes and the call was over.

What perplexed me most was the lack of questioning on his part and at the end of the call he said, “OK”, and the phone went down. He didn’t end the conversation with “goodbye”, which I thought incredibly rude.

We went through the same three-question telephone ritual a couple of times. I knew he had an interest in politics so I interspersed our chat with added comments on Theresa May and the weather. I asked questions. He didn’t. He would say, “OK” and midway through my own “goodbye” the phone went down firmly. We continued to call each other and on each occasion I was left with the receiver in my hand, incredulous at the brutal end of our conversation.

In one call, I mentioned I would visit him in Nigeria. It was a deviation from the three-question script. “When, when?” he said. I blurted out “April” without thinking. This was never going to work it was already early March. Why had I said April of all months?

I called a few days after this and told him April was out of the question and I hoped to visit in October.

“Thank God,” he said.

My father spoke Igbo, English, Yoruba and Hausa. I had learned from a phrasebook the Yoruba for “goodbye” “O da dor”. My intention on our next call was to impress him with my rudimentary attempt. I’d written him a letter too. It asked, “Why do you never say goodbye at the end of a call?”

I never got the chance to practise my Yoruba or get a reply to my letter. The phone call came in May. My father had died. A stroke. He was 83.

And then I got an invitation from another cousin to come over and meet all the family. They had been waiting, she told me. She put the phone down and didn’t say goodbye.

I made the trip to Nigeria and discovered Abuja – a green, wide-spaced, international, vibrant, youthful city, full of coffee shops (yes, Africa has them, too). I met a whole new family of aunts, cousins and uncles.

In Abuja, I learned that my name, which I had always thought was very English and not Nigerian-sounding at all, is quite a popular name. Its roots are in Arabic and it is spelt Kamilah or Kamilaat. My family were all solidly middle-class professionals with law degrees and architectural practices; one or two were presidents of oil companies, and a cousin held a seat in the Nigerian senate – quite an achievement for a woman.

They spoke fondly about my father, or Uncle as he was known by all the family. They told me he was a quiet, thoughtful presence, always elegantly dressed, who never forgot birthdays and smelled of cologne.

I asked one of my cousins about his phone habits. “My dad never said goodbye. Why was that?”

“Sometimes we don’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “Everything has been said already.”

And I suppose it had.

Clinton Book Relives Democrats' Agonizing Defeat

NEW YORK (AP, SEPTEMBER 09, 2017) — In a candid and pointed new book, Hillary Clinton relives her stunning defeat to Donald Trump, admitting to personal mistakes and defending campaign strategy even as her return to the stage refocuses attention on a race Democrats still can't believe they lost.

Clinton is unsparing in her criticism of Trump and also lays out some of the factors she believes contributed to her loss: interference from Russian hackers, accusations leveled at her by former FBI Director James Comey, a divisive primary battle with Bernie Sanders, even her gender. She also addresses common criticisms of her campaign, including the idea that she didn't have a compelling narrative for seeking the presidency and that she ignored Midwestern turf where Trump picked up enough white working-class voters to win several battleground states.

"Some critics have said that everything hinged on me not campaigning enough in the Midwest," Clinton writes in the book "What Happened." ''And I suppose it is possible that a few more trips to Saginaw or a few more ads on the air in Waukesha could have tipped a couple of thousand voters here or there."

"But let's set the record straight: we always knew that the industrial Midwest was crucial to our success, just as it had been for Democrats for decades, and contrary to the popular narrative, we didn't ignore those states," she wrote.

Clinton already is taking some criticism — complete with mockery from late-night television hosts — for planning book-tour stops in the Great Lakes and Midwestern states that ultimately cost her the election. But she writes that her campaign had more staff and spent more on advertising in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, two states she lost, than President Barack Obama did when he won them in 2012.

She acknowledges that "if there's one place where we were caught by surprise, it was Wisconsin," saying that polls showed her ahead until the end. But while she did not visit the state in the fall, she noted that her surrogates blanketed the state.

In Wisconsin, Democratic pollster Paul Maslin called it a "bitter irony" that Clinton is now trying to reach voters — or consumers — in states he believes her campaign mostly ignored. But he said it's ultimately a side show from a has-been.

"Let her do whatever she's going to do for whatever reason she's doing it, but it doesn't matter. There's just so much else happening every day with Trump," Maslin said. He said he hopes Clinton understands that "most Democrats are beyond" blaming her for November. "For her sake, I hope she can sell enough books, but if she thinks she's affecting the debate in any way, I think she's more delusional than anyone thought."

Clinton's anger is most sharply focused on Comey. She said that all of the theories about why she lost need "to be tested against the evidence that I was winning until October 28, when Jim Comey injected emails back into the election."

She called her use of a private email server while serving at the State Department "dumb" but accused Comey of tarnishing her image and called him "rash" for publicly re-opening the probe in the campaign's final days. She also owns up to other mistakes, saying her comment about putting coal miners out of business was the mistake "I regret the most" and that her paid speeches to Wall Street banks were bad "optics."

Many Democrats have viewed Clinton's return to the spotlight with trepidation, fearing it could trigger another round of infighting over the future of the party between her more centrist supporters and Sanders' progressives.

Michigan Democratic Chairman Brandon Dillon, whose state Clinton lost by about 10,000 votes, said Clinton's book can help Democrats try to "learn the right lessons from 2016." But he said Democrats and other activists on the left should avoid using Clinton's re-emergence to rehash 2016.

"There's a clear difference between all Democrats and any of the Republicans. That's what we should be focusing on," Dillon said. In a recent interview, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon argued that history will render a favorable verdict on Clinton and her approach to Trump.

"All of these things she tried to warn people about that were a theoretical concern, ... now it's real," said Fallon. "He's the president." In the book, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release date, Clinton is unsparing in her assessment of the president, calling him "a clear and present danger to the country and the world." She says she considered saying to Trump: "Back up, you creep. Get away from me" when he loomed over her shoulder during a general election debate.

But Clinton, who has a reputation for avoiding blame for her failures, said she takes "responsibility for all" of her campaign's mistakes. "You can blame the data, blame the message, blame anything you want -- but I was the candidate," she writes. "It was my campaign. Those were my decisions."

She also expressed frustration over what she felt was unfair media coverage. "What makes me such a lightning rod for fury? I'm really asking. I'm at a loss," she asks her readers, before concluding: "I think it's partly because I'm a woman."

Barrow reported from Atlanta.

Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Barrow at http://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP

Egypt Announces Discovery Of 3,500-Years Old Tomb In Luxor

Archaeologists work on mummies found in the New Kingdom tomb that belongs to a royal goldsmith in a burial shaft, in Luxor, Egypt, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. Egypt has announced the discovery in the southern city of Luxor of a pharaonic tomb belonging to a royal goldsmith who lived more than 3,500 years ago during the reign of the 18th dynasty.

LUXOR, EGYPT (AP, SEPTEMBER 09, 2017) — Egypt on Saturday announced the discovery in the southern city of Luxor of a pharaonic tomb belonging to a royal goldsmith who lived more than 3,500 years ago during the reign of the 18th dynasty.

The tomb, located on the west bank of the river Nile in a cemetery for noblemen and top officials, is a relatively modest discovery, but one that authorities has announced with a great deal of fanfare in a bid to boost the country's slowly recovering tourism industry.

"We want tomorrow's newspapers to speak about Egypt and make people want to come to Egypt," Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anani told reporters. El-Anani said the tomb was not in good condition, but it contains a statue of the goldsmith and his wife as well as a funerary mask. He said a shaft inside the tomb contained pottery as well as mummies and coffins belonging to ancient Egyptian people who lived during the 21st and 22nd dynasties.

The minister identified the goldsmith as Amunhat. The tomb was discovered by Egyptian archeologists, something that a senior official at the Antiquities Ministry hailed as evidence of their growing professionalism and expertise.

"We used to escort foreign archeologists as observers, but that's now in the past. We are the leaders now," said Mustafa Waziri, Luxor's chief archaeologist.

Appeals Court: Grandparents Not Part Of Trump's Travel Ban

Karen Shore holds up a sign outside of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The appeals court on Thursday, Sept. 7, rejected the Trump administration's limited view of who is allowed into the United States under the president's travel ban, saying grandparents, cousins and similarly close relations of people in the U.S. should not be prevented from coming to the country.

SEATTLE (AP) — Grandparents, cousins and similarly close relations of people in the United States should not be prevented from coming to the country under President Donald Trump's travel ban, a federal appeals court has ruled in another legal defeat for the administration on the contentious issue.

The decision Thursday from three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii, who found the administration's view of who should be allowed into the country under the ban is too strict.

The unanimous ruling also said refugees accepted by a resettlement agency should not be banned. "Stated simply, the government does not offer a persuasive explanation for why a mother-in-law is clearly a bona fide relationship, in the Supreme Court's prior reasoning, but a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or cousin is not," the 9th Circuit said.

The appeals panel wrote that under typical court rules, its ruling would not take effect for at least 52 days. But in this instance, the judges said, many refugees would be "gravely imperiled" by such a delay, so the decision will take effect in five days.

"Refugees' lives remain in vulnerable limbo during the pendency of the Supreme Court's stay," they wrote. "Refugees have only a narrow window of time to complete their travel, as certain security and medical checks expire and must then be reinitiated."

The Justice Department said it would appeal. "The Supreme Court has stepped in to correct these lower courts before, and we will now return to the Supreme Court to vindicate the executive branch's duty to protect the nation," the agency said in a statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court said in June that President Donald Trump's 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can be enforced pending arguments scheduled for October, partially overturning lower-court rulings. But the justices said it should not apply to visitors who have a "bona fide relationship" with people or organizations in the U.S., such as close family ties or a job offer.

That set the stage for much disagreement over what constitutes a bona fide relationship. The government interpreted such family relations to include immediate family members and in-laws, but not grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. The judge in Hawaii overruled that interpretation, expanding the definition of who can enter the country to the other categories of relatives.

He also overruled the government's assertion that refugees from those countries should be banned even if a resettlement agency in the U.S. had agreed to take them in. The administration argued that resettlement agencies have a relationship with the government, not with individual refugees. The appeals court rejected that, saying the Supreme Court was concerned with any harm the travel ban might impose on people or organizations in the U.S.

Resettlement agencies have spent time and money securing rental housing, buying furniture and performing other tasks that would be in vain if the refugees were blocked, the 9th Circuit said. They also would lose out on government funding for the resettlement services.

Lawyers for the government and the state of Hawaii, which challenged the travel ban, argued the case in Seattle last week. Deputy assistant attorney general Hashim Mooppan ran into tough questions as soon as he began arguing the government's case, with Judge Ronald Gould asking him from "what universe" the administration took its position that grandparents don't constitute a close family relationship.

Mooppan conceded that people can have a profound connection to their grandparents and other extended relatives, but from a legal perspective, the administration had to draw the line somewhere to have a workable ban based largely on definitions used in other aspects of immigration law, he said.

Hawaii is also one of 15 states that sued the Trump administration Wednesday over its plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects young immigrants from deportation. "Today's decision by the 9th Circuit keeps families together. It gives vetted refugees a second chance," state Attorney General Douglas Chin said in a statement. "The Trump administration keeps taking actions with no legal basis. We will keep fighting back."

Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala contributed from San Francisco.

Ryan Sees Compromise On Immigration After Trump Forces Issue

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, center, arrives for a meeting with House Republicans, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday he sees the possibility for compromise after President Donald Trump gave Congress six months to resolve the status of immigrants brought illegally to the country as children. And he called on Trump to work with the House to get there.

"If we have legislation coming through here that is worked with and supported by the president I'm very confident that our members will support that," Ryan said. Trump said Wednesday he has "no second thoughts" a day after announcing an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that former President Barack Obama created to give temporary work permits and deportation protections to qualifying immigrants brought illegally to this country as children.

Nearly 800,000 younger immigrants, known as "Dreamers," have now obtained the protections and are pleading desperately with Congress not to subject them to deportation. But Ryan made clear that any solution would also have to be paired with border security measures, a bid for conservative support that could alienate Democrats.

"I think there's a serious humane issue here that needs to be dealt with," Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the House Republican conference. "But it's only fitting and reasonable that we also deal with some of the root cause of this problem," Ryan said. "We're going to work with our members to find out where that compromise is."

Despite Ryan's optimistic words, the deep divisions among House Republicans that have stymied past efforts on immigration reform were already starkly on display as lawmakers entered and exited Wednesday's conference meeting. Ryan, who became speaker two years ago only after promising he wouldn't bring an immigration bill to the floor without majority support from Republicans, began the meeting promising them the issue would be addressed "deliberately."

Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a hardliner on immigration, rejected any move toward what he termed "amnesty" and criticized Trump for not ending the DACA program on Day One of his presidency as he had promised during the campaign.

"Why is this discussion taking place this way? Because he didn't want to make the decision boldly and distinctly," King said of Trump. "And instead it's kind of a King Solomon decision, cut the baby in half and throw both halves to Congress and let us fight over it."

What will actually happen in six months absent congressional action remained unclear. Trump himself took some of the sting from his threats with a tweet issued late Tuesday declaring that if Congress can't act to "legalize" DACA, "I will revisit this issue!"

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday that Trump was not committing to any course of action in six months, stressing that he wants Congress to act. "It is the Congress' role in our country to make the laws, including the immigration laws. Congress has promised to quote act on DACA. We'll see what that means," Conway said. She said if Congress does not act "then the president will perhaps revisit the issue. That's six months from now, let's see what happens."

Conway said that for Trump "DACA is one piece of larger immigration reform," which she said includes a border wall and other items. She added that if Congress wants to "get an earful" from constituents for the next six months "then they are welcome to sit back and wait for further executive action."

The debate confronts Congress four years after comprehensive immigration legislation passed the Senate only to die in the House. And if the six-month deadline holds it will arrive in March of next year, just as primary season gets under way ahead of the November 2018 midterm elections with control of the House at stake. It's an issue with devastating political potential for House Republicans, in particular. Many Republicans represent conservative districts that strongly embraced Trump's tough campaign rhetoric against illegal immigration.

These lawmakers would court voters' wrath, and potential primary challenges, if they flirted with anything that could be labeled amnesty — unless Trump himself sells his base on it first. Many advocates believe that legislation supporting Dreamers could pass the House now if Ryan brought it up, because it would garner overwhelming Democratic backing and some GOP support. But such a move by Ryan would risk conservative fury. Asked Wednesday whether he would stick with his past commitment not to bring up a bill unless the majority of Republicans in his conference support it, Ryan did not answer directly but bid for the president's involvement.

For their part, Democrats insisted they would persist on the issue by trying to attach legislation to other unrelated measures if it's not otherwise resolved. "I'd ask my friend the majority leader and Speaker Ryan to put a clean Dream Act on the floor of both chambers in September," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said.

Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.

Coalition Raises Alarm, Says AI Plots To Destabilize Nigeria With N10b

Ask FG To Expel Amnesty International

BY FRANK IKPEFAN

THE NATION

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

A pressure group, Coalition For Truth and Justice (CFTJ), on Monday informed Nigerians that Amnesty International ( AI ) had earmarked about N10 billion to settle “dormant terror NGOs and CSOs to champion the break up of the country.

The organisation also alleged that AI had been responsible for Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, militancy in the Niger-Delta and the separatist movement agitating for secession in the South East led by the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The National Coordinator of CFTJ, Charles Timothy, at a press briefing in Abuja, alleged that AI had intensified plots to destabilise Nigeria.

He therefore called on the Federal Government to expel AI from Nigeria “as they are backing separatists and extremists against the country’s legitimate authority and sovereignty.”

Timothy advised Nigerians and government to stop the final phase of destabilization from being fully activated.

He said, “We appeal to you, gentlemen of the press, to help amplify this message to the government and the populace because Nigeria and Nigerians cannot afford to be taken unawares by this latest destabilization plot.

“In its latest destabilisation plot, AI has started mobilising some questionable elements under the cover of civil society groups with millions of Naira in the last phase of its project to see to the final destabilisation of Nigeria. This last phase of operation is structured to unite and activate all the dormant terror NGOs and CSOs they have created and term their attack on the populace as “intellectual rebellion”, which is a cover to cause an uprising against the state. This must be taken seriously. This strategy has been employed several times in the past.

“A few CSOs run by true patriots that were approached to join the rebellion so that it can have a larger number have confided in us that as much N10 billion has been earmarked for this phase. In addition to paying for protest logistics, the funds would also be distributed to some senior lawyers in Lagos and Abuja to lead the uprising against the Nigerian state. This development was in response to Amnesty International losing faith in the ability of its assets to trigger the much-expected genocide which would allow it and its backers to label Nigeria as a failed state. On the strength of what we know, we would be lying to claim that all is well when we know that Nigeria is sitting on a primed bomb.”

Timothy said while Boko Haram insurgency in the North East of Nigeria, militancy in the Niger-Delta or the separatist movement by IPOB agitating for secession in the South East of the country were contemporary problems that urgently beg decisive responses, they were also mere symptoms, manifestations of the manipulations of agents of destabilization that are desperate to destroy Nigeria.

He said, “The core and forefront of this machination against the corporate existence of Nigeria is Amnesty International. It is on record that this so called international human rights non-governmental organization is at the root of Boko Haram, Niger-Delta militancy, secessionists in the South East and even unintended support for kidnappers, whose rights it fights for by claiming that their arrests and occasional death in exchange with security operatives are violations of certain rules.

“Several patriotic groups had taken on Amnesty International on over its role in these groups causing security incidents and breaches for the country. Its response has consistently been that of feigning ignorance, ignoring the indictment or out rightly blackmailing such accusers. It rides on its suppose international credential to ride roughshod on Nigerians whose country it is actively poisoning with the sole intention of destroying.

“The Arab Spring was launched on the heel of such CSO recruitment and training. This was why Egypt for instance clamped down on NGOs in the aftermath of the dislocations caused by Arab Spring. We are talking here about a government swept into power by the very Arab Spring going after the NGOs that collaborated with foreigners to upset the country. It always has to be about the sovereignty of the country and not the vested interests of a group of imperialists and unenlightened minions that do their biddings.

“The same scenario played out in Ukraine where CSOs and NGOs were used as a cover to hijack the legitimate grievances that the local population had about the affairs of their country. Again, even when the NGOs dominated protesters finally brought a new government into power the same government, knowing the treasonable roles they played, soon clamped down on them by introducing legislations that limit their influence.

“This is why we are issuing this timely warning that the Nigerian state must stop sacrificing the safety and wellbeing of citizens on the altar of political correctness. Amnesty International with the CSOs and NGOs it has recruited must not be allowed to push the country beyond the brink before the state decides to act.

“We therefore call on the government and the people to expel them as they are backing separatists and extremists against the country’s legitimate authority and sovereignty. Citizens and government must stop this final phase of destabilization from being fully activated. We appeal to you, gentlemen of the press, to help amplify this message to the government and the populace because Nigeria and Nigerians cannot afford to be taken unawares by this latest destabilisation plot.”

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.