GHANA: Parliament To Summon Nigerian High Commissioner

Nigerian High Commissioner to Ghana Ambassador Olufemi Michael Abikoye

BY MUSAH YAHAYA JAFARU

ACCRA (GRAPHIC) -- The Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament is to invite the Nigerian High Commissioner to Ghana for a discussion on the recent alleged crimes committed by Nigerians.

There have been reported cases of Nigerians engaged in criminal cases, including armed robbery and kidnappings in Ghana recently.

However, the High Commissioner,Ambassador Olufemi Michael Abikoye, had expressed reservation about the manner the Ghanaian media had reported the incidents.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Accra yesterday, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee, Mr Frank Annoh-Dompreh, and the Ranking Member on the Committee, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said there was so much that binds the two countries which should not be jeopardised.

It was in that respect that the MPs indicated that the High Commissioner would be invited on the matter to help resolve any misconceptions.

The MPs urged Ghanaians not to tag all Nigerians as criminals or attack them because of the recent alleged cases of crime involving Nigerians.

Friendly relations

Mr Annoh-Dompreh said the recent developments about the generalisation of Nigerians as criminals had the tendency to destroy the bilateral relations and repeat the deportation cases experienced in the 1970s and 1980s.

He said there were close to two million Ghanaians living in Nigeria and sending remittances to their families back in Ghana.

Equally, he said, there were several Nigerians also working in Ghana.

Therefore, Mr Annoh-Dompreh said "if somebody commits a crime, let us deal with the fellow. But if we begin to tag the people with their countries, it is not good," he said.

Mr Annoh-Dompreh, who is the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Nsawam-Adoagyiri, said the Nigerians helped Ghanaians in many ways and vice versa, and stressed that: "If we do not take caution and confusion erupts, the two countries will suffer."

He said crime did not have any nationality colours, and, therefore, cautioned the public to refrain from the generalisation of crime.

Concerns

For his part, Mr Ablakwa, who is the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for North Tongu, said the committee was getting increasingly concerned about the tone, the reportage and what was going on in the social media in connection with recent alleged crimes by some Nigerians.

"This is what leads to triggers that cause what we all do not want to see.

We do not want Ghana-Nigeria relations to be jeopardised. We do not want the start of any xenophobic attacks, no matter where it will start from, whether from Ghana or from Nigeria.

"There are about two million Ghanaians in Nigeria. There are about seven million Nigerians in Ghana.

These are huge numbers, you cannot downplay these numbers.

"We should also be guided by history. We know what happened in 1969, and what happened in 1993 under President Shehu Shagari when about one million Ghanaians living in Nigeria were deported, .

"We do not want to degenerate into that, we should be guided by our history.

It is not about who is more superior or who will tell it to another.

We should not engage in any provocation that will lead to an escalation. Then we all suffer", he said.

High Commissioner not happy

The High Commission, in a statement issued in Accra yesterday, expressed worry over what it called the general criminalisation of Nigerians in Ghana due to actions of “ an insignificant few” Nigerians.

The statement said since the last press release by the commission on April 16, 2019, on maltreatment of Nigerian nationals deported from Ghana to Nigeria, its attention had been drawn to the daily negative media reportage on Nigerians in Ghana, describing them as a bunch of criminals.

it said the Ghanaian Press seemed to have enjoyed a field day in demonising Nigeria, which for all intent and purposes, was seen as a fraternal brother to Ghana.

It mentioned the law-abiding Nigerians in Ghana to include “astute businessmen, bankers, insurance brokers, teeming students as well as investors that were daily trooping to Ghana.”

Partiality

“The High Commission does not and will never condone some misguided youth that have taken to criminality as a way of life regardless of nationality, creed or colour.

Nigerians or Ghanaians alike stand to be condemned in its totality and punished according to the municipal laws of the land if found guilty,” it said.

The statement described as terribly worrisome the use of the actions of what it termed as an insignificant few elements from Nigeria to criminalise and to unfairly or unreasonably canonise a brotherly country such as Nigeria as a country of criminals who had come to disturb the peace in Ghana.

It further observed as an unfortunate, a situation where five Ghanaians in the company of three Nigerians who allegedly kidnapped two Canadians in Kumasi, were referned to by most media as accomplices with the Nigerians being said to be the perpetrators.

SOURCE: GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS

UN: Nearly 71 Million Now Displaced By War, Violence At Home

In this Aug. 31, 2018 file photo, Venezuelan migrants line up for free bread and coffee, donated by a Colombian family from their car, at a gas station in Pamplona, Colombia. A record 71 million people have been displaced worldwide from war, persecution and other violence, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday, June 18, 2019, an increase of more than 2 million from last year and an overall total that would amount to the world's 20th most populous country. Amid runaway inflation and political turmoil at home, Venezuelans for the first time accounted for the largest number of new asylum-seekers in 2018, with more than 340,000, or more than one in five worldwide last year. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

BY JAMEY KEATON

GENEVA (AP) — A record 71 million people have been displaced worldwide by war, persecution and other violence, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday, an increase of more than 2 million from a year earlier — and an overall total that would amount to the world’s 20th most populous country.

The annual “Global Trends” report released by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees counts the number of the world’s refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people at the end of 2018.

The figures, coming on the eve of World Refugee Day on Thursday, are bound to add fuel to a debate at the intersection of international law, human rights and domestic politics, especially the movement in some countries, including the U.S., against immigrants and refugees.

Launching the report, the high commissioner, Filippo Grandi, had a message for U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders, calling it “damaging” to depict migrants and refugees as threats to jobs and security in host countries. Often, they are fleeing insecurity and danger themselves, he said.

The report also puts a statistical skeleton onto often-poignant individual stories of people struggling to survive by crossing rivers, deserts, seas, fences and other barriers, natural and man-made, to escape government oppression, gang killings, sexual abuse, militia murders and other such violence at home.

UNHCR said 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of last year, up from about 68.5 million in 2017 — and nearly a 65% increase from a decade ago. Among them, nearly three in five people — or more than 41 million — are displaced within their home countries.

“The global trends, once again unfortunately, go in what I would say is the wrong direction,” Grandi told reporters in Geneva. “There are new conflicts, new situations, producing refugees, adding themselves to the old ones. The old ones never get resolved.”

The phenomenon is growing in both size and duration. Some four-fifths of the “displacement situations” have lasted more than five years. After eight years of war in Syria, for instance, its people continue to make up the largest population of forcibly displaced people, at some 13 million.

Amid runaway inflation and political turmoil at home, Venezuelans for the first time accounted for the largest number of new asylum-seekers in 2018, totaling more than 340,000 — or more than one in five worldwide last year. Asylum-seekers receive international protection as they await acceptance or rejection of their requests for refugee status.

UNHCR said that its figures are “conservative” and that Venezuela masks a potentially longer-term trend.

Some 4 million people are known to have left the South American country in recent years. Many of those have traveled freely to Peru, Colombia and Brazil, but only about one-eighth have sought formal international protection, and the outflow continues, suggesting the strains on the welcoming countries could worsen.

Grandi predicted a continued “exodus” from Venezuela and appealed for donors to provide more development assistance to the region.

“Otherwise these countries will not bear the pressure anymore and then they have to resort to measures that will damage refugees,” he said. “We are in a very dangerous situation.”

The United States, meanwhile, remains the “largest supporter of refugees” in the world, Grandi said in an interview. The U.S. is the biggest single donor to UNHCR. He also credited local communities and advocacy groups in the United States for helping refugees and asylum-seekers in the country.

But the refugee agency chief noted long-term administrative shortcomings that have given the United States the world’s biggest backlog of asylum claims, at nearly 719,000. More than a quarter-million claims were added last year.

He also decried recent rhetoric that has been hostile to migrants and refugees.

“In America, just like in Europe actually and in other parts of the world, what we are witnessing is an identification of refugees — but not just refugees, migrants as well — with people that take away jobs, that threaten our security, our values,” Grandi said. “And I want to say to the U.S. administration — to the president — but also to the leaders around the world: This is damaging.”

He said many people leaving Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador through Mexico have faced violence by gangs and suffered from “the inability of these governments to protect their own citizens.”

At more than 1.5 million, Ethiopians comprised the largest population of newly displaced people — nearly all internally — last year, prompting the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council to decry a “forgotten crisis” in the east African country.

“We need a 180-degree shift in attitudes,” said NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland.” Wealthier nations must share the heavy-lifting, dig deep and support generous countries like Ethiopia to ease the human suffering of millions fleeing from conflict worldwide.”

The UNHCR report noted that, by far, the most refugees are taken in the developing world, not wealthy countries.

The figures marked the seventh consecutive year in which the numbers of forcibly displaced rose.

“Yet another year, another dreadful record has been beaten,” said Jon Cerezo of British charity Oxfam. “Behind these figures, people like you and me are making dangerous trips that they never wanted to make, because of threats to their safety and most basic rights.”

Dems Get Inside Trump Inner Circle With Hope Hicks Interview

In this Feb. 27, 2018 photo, then-White House Communications Director Hope Hicks arrives to meet behind closed doors with the House Intelligence Committee, at the Capitol in Washington. The House Judiciary Committee will interview Hicks behind closed doors on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, the first time lawmakers will hear from a person linked to the president’s inner circle since House Democrats launched investigations to review special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

BY MARY CLARK JALONICK

WASHINGTON (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The closed-door interview that House lawmakers have with Hope Hicks, a former communications director for President Donald Trump, marks the first time they are hearing from someone linked to his inner circle since the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Obtaining the testimony Wednesday from Hicks, a close and trusted former Trump aide, is a significant victory for Democrats, given that Trump has broadly stonewalled their investigations.

The House Judiciary Committee originally subpoenaed Hicks to give public testimony, but agreed to the private interview after negotiations. A transcript of the session will be released in the days afterward.

Still, it is unclear how much new information Hicks will provide.

She already cooperated extensively with Mueller's probe, and a White House lawyer who will be in the room for the interview is expected to try and block her from answering certain questions.

In a letter Tuesday to the committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote that Trump had directed Hicks not to answer questions "relating to the time of her service as a senior adviser to the president."

Cipollone said Hicks, as one of Trump's former senior advisers, is "absolutely immune" from compelled testimony with respect to her service to the president because of the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

The White House has similarly cited executive privilege with respect to many of the Democrats' demands, using the president's power to withhold information to protect the confidentiality of the Oval Office decision-making process.

Democrats say they disagree that Hicks' answers are covered by such immunity or privilege, especially since she has already cooperated with Mueller.

The committee has also subpoenaed Hicks for documents, but she has only partially complied. She agreed to provide some information from her work on Trump's campaign, according to the committee, but none from her time at the White House.

Testimony from witnesses such as Hicks is one step in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's methodical approach to investigating Trump.

More than 60 lawmakers in her caucus — including almost a dozen on the Judiciary Committee — have called for opening an impeachment inquiry, but she has said she wants committees to investigate first and come to a decision on impeachment later.

While Trump has continued to block their requests, Democrats have made some minor gains in recent weeks with Hicks' appearance and the Justice Department's agreeing to make some underlying evidence from Mueller's report available to committee members.

Hicks was present for many of the key moments reviewed in the Mueller report, and her name is one of the most frequently mentioned in the document. Hicks was a key witness for Mueller, delivering important information to the special counsel's office about multiple episodes involving the president. That includes the president's role in the drafting of a misleading and incomplete statement about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting at which Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. expected to receive dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Mueller wrote in his 448-page report released in April that there was not enough evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, but he said he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice. The report examined several situations in which Trump attempted to influence or curtail Mueller's investigation, including the drafting of that statement.

Democratic aides said they plan on asking Hicks about several of those episodes, including the drafting of the statement, efforts to remove Mueller from the investigation and the firing of FBI Director James Comey. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their plans for the closed-door meeting.

The aides said that lawmakers plan to ask about her knowledge of hush-money payments orchestrated by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump — the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal. Trump has denied the allegations. Cohen is now serving three years in prison partly for campaign violations related to the payments.

The Democrats plan to use some of Hicks' answers to those questions to inform a committee hearing to review Mueller's report on Thursday. It's the second in a series of hearings in which the committee is talking to expert witnesses about the report. The transcript will then be released, possibly as soon as this week, according to the aides.

Other Trump associates frequently mentioned in Mueller's report have refused to appear before the committee, including former White House Counsel Donald McGahn. McGahn's former chief of staff, Annie Donaldson, was also subpoenaed for documents and an interview and has declined to provide the documents, like Hicks and McGahn. It is unclear whether Donaldson will show up for a scheduled deposition next week.

Republicans have strongly criticized the investigations and say they are unnecessary after Mueller spent two years reviewing the same material and talking to the same witnesses.

Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the committee, said Hicks' appearance proves that Trump is not stonewalling Congress. And he said they could have probably heard from her sooner if they hadn't taken "a scorched-earth approach to pursuing information" with subpoenas.

UN Expert Urges Probe Of Saudi Prince Over Khashoggi Killing

In this Dec. 15, 2014 file photo, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a press conference in Manama, Bahrain. An independent U.N. human rights expert investigating the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is recommending an investigation into the possible role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, citing "credible evidence." (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)

BY JAMEY KEATOB, AYA BATRAWY

GENEVA (AP) — An independent U.N. report into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said Wednesday there is “credible evidence” to warrant further investigation into the possible role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and suggested sanctions on his personal assets.

The scathing probe is likely to further harden opinion against the crown prince in Washington and other Western capitals, where critics say an operation of this magnitude would have required the powerful prince’s knowledge and involvement.

The 33-year-old Saudi prince, who continues to have the support of his father, King Salman, denies any involvement in the killing, and the kingdom has blamed rogue Saudi agents for carrying out the operation. U.S. President Donald Trump has defended U.S.-Saudi ties in the face of international outcry after the Oct. 2 slaying.

The 101-page report released by Agnes Callamard stated that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible for Khashoggi’s killing.

Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince who wrote columns in The Washington Post, was killed, and believed to have been dismembered, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by Saudi agents. His remains have never been found. Before his death, he had been living in self-imposed exile following a crackdown on activists and anyone voicing dissent inside the kingdom.

Callamard said her investigation had “determined that there is credible evidence, warranting further investigation of high-level Saudi officials’ individual liability, including the Crown Prince’s.”

There was also “credible evidence pointing to the crime scenes (in Turkey) having been thoroughly, even forensically, cleaned.” The report said this indicates that the “Saudi investigation was not conducted in good faith, and that it may amount to obstructing justice.”

It added there was “no reason why sanctions should not be applied against the Crown Prince and his personal assets” — noting that sanctions regimes have been put in place in the past even before guilt was determined.

The report also offers a chilling minute-by-minute account of the events surrounding the killing based on audio shared by Turkish authorities, and cites sounds of a buzzing saw that could have been used to dismember Khashoggi’s body.

It noted the “extreme sensitivity” of considering the criminal responsibility of the crown prince and his former adviser Saud al-Qahtani. Neither men has been charged in the slaying.

“No conclusion is made as to guilt,” Callamard wrote of the two men. “The only conclusion made is that there is credible evidence meriting further investigation, by a proper authority, as to whether the threshold of criminal responsibility has been met.”

Still, she played down the focus on a single person, writing: “The search for justice and accountability is not singularly dependent on finding a ‘smoking gun’ or the person holding it.”

She wrote that her focus was mainly on identifying those who may have failed in or abused their positions of authority.

The report also identified by name 15 suspects, of which 11 are on trial in Saudi Arabia. Five of those on trial may face execution under Saudi law.

The kingdom had not disclosed the the names of those on trial and has kept trial proceedings largely secret.

The U.N. probe said the current trial of the 11 suspects in Saudi Arabia should be suspended because it fails to meet procedural and substantive standards. Callamard noted the trial is being held behind closed doors, and at least one of those identified as responsible for the planning and organizing of the execution of Khashoggi has not been charged.

While some diplomats have been allowed to attend some of the hearings, they were barred from disclosing their observations, she noted.

She added that she had received information about a “financial package” offered to Khashoggi’s children, “but it is questionable whether such package amounts to compensation under international human rights law.”

Callamard noted limitations on her inquiry, which began in January. She received no response to her request to travel to Saudi Arabia. She wrote that she had received only a total of 45 minutes of tapes recorded within the consulate around the time of the killing, while Turkish intelligence had referenced some 7 hours of recordings.

Based on “credible information”, Callamard concluded there was insufficient evidence to suggest that either Turkey or the United States knew, or ought to have known, of a real and imminent or foreseeable threat to Khashoggi’s life. There had been some speculation as the whether the CIA had known of a threat against Khashoggi and had failed to alert him, as is required by law.

The U.S. State Department has publicly designated 16 people for their roles in the killing of Khashoggi. Many U.S. lawmakers have criticized President Donald Trump for not condemning Saudi Arabia for the journalist’s killing.

Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Marijuana Use Doubles In US Pregnant Women To 1 In 14

This Nov. 27, 2015 file photo shows two marijuana buds displayed for a customer in Denver. A government report released on Tuesday, June 17, 2019 shows that pot use in pregnancy has doubled among U.S. women and is most common during the first trimester. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)


BY LINDSEY TANNER

CHICAGO (AP) — Pot use in pregnancy has doubled among U.S. women and is most common during the first trimester, government research shows.

Overall, 7% of pregnant women, or 1 in 14, said they used marijuana in the past month. That’s from a nationally representative health survey in 2016-17 and compares with a little over 3% in 2002-03.

Some studies have linked marijuana use during pregnancy with increased chances of premature birth and low birthweight. Animal studies have linked high doses early in pregnancy with fetal brain abnormalities, but whether typical use in humans poses similar risks is unknown, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“Because we don’t know exactly how harmful it is, it’s better to err on the side of caution,” said Volkow, one of the authors of the government study. Marijuana use during pregnancy “is not worth the risk,” she said Tuesday.

The study was presented at a medical meeting Tuesday and published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

First trimester use jumped from almost 6% to 12%. Many women may have used pot before they learned they were pregnant, or used it to ease morning sickness, although few women said a doctor had recommended it, Volkow said.

Among women who weren’t pregnant, the rate of marijuana use increased from almost 7% to nearly 12%, or 1 in 8.

The results are based on health surveys involving nearly half a million U.S. women who were questioned during a period when rising numbers of states legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. It’s legal in 10 states for both uses but remains illegal federally.

A separate study on marijuana use among pregnant Canadian women, published in the same journal, adds to evidence suggesting that pot use in pregnancy may lead to premature birth. A journal editorial notes that like similar previous studies, the Canadian research can’t rule out whether other factors that may have contributed.

The editorial warned against relying on imperfect data to make judgments about potential harms from marijuana use and said more rigorous research is needed. Volkow said U.S. government restrictions on marijuana research are “very much an issue” and have hampered efforts to answer fundamental questions about pot use.

Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

McConnell On Reparations For Slavery: Not A 'Good Idea'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined by his GOP leadership team, answers questions on Iran and the withdrawal of acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 18, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

BY LAURIE KELLMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday rejected reparations for slavery in part because it would be hard to know whom to pay.

The Kentucky Republican spoke to reporters on the eve of a rare House hearing on what compensation, if any, the U.S. might owe for the economic and other damage done by slavery. The session Wednesday before a Democratic-led subcommittee is Congress’ first on the issue in years.

Asked about reparations, McConnell responded: “I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea.”

“We tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation, elected an African American president,” Barack Obama, in 2008, McConnell said. “I don’t think we should be trying to figure out how to compensate for it. First of all, it would be hard to figure out whom to compensate.”

A review of public reports by The Associated Press suggests it’s the first time since McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1984 that he has discussed reparations for slavery in the U.S.

McConnell spoke a day before a Democratic-led House subcommittee was scheduled to hold a hearing on reparations, featuring testimony from actor Danny Glover and author Ta-Nehisi Coates, among others.

Wednesday is “Juneteenth,” a celebration of the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, with the news that the Civil War was over, and that all remaining slaves in Texas were free.

Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report.

The Rebalancing That U.S. Trade Policy Actually Needs

A container ship is unloaded at the Virginia International Gateway terminal in Norfolk, Va., May 10, 2019 (AP photo by Steve Helber).

\BY KIMBERLY ANN ELLIOT

President Donald Trump likes trade wars because he thinks they are “easy to win,” as he infamously put it, and because he thinks they will help improve the trade balance. Trump claims past American presidents have been weak, allowing other countries to take advantage of the United States in trade negotiations. As evidence, he points to the large American trade deficit. But any economist worth her salt will tell you that the deficit doesn’t reflect what Trump thinks it does. Instead, it simply reflects the propensity of Americans to spend more than they save and invest.

Trump is wrong about a lot of things when it comes to trade, including that the trade arrangements to which the United States is a party reflect poor negotiating skills. To the contrary, they overwhelmingly reflect U.S. negotiating preferences. But Trump does have a point that some of the negotiators’ priorities don’t reflect those of many Americans. Indeed, policymakers have manifestly failed to adopt the kinds of parallel policies that would compensate workers displaced by free trade agreements or provide the skills and resources needed to take advantage of globalization. That—not new tariffs—should be the focus of U.S. trade and economic policy going forward, which would entail some rebalancing to make it fairer and more inclusive.

In a new paper for the Center for Global Development, I explore three areas where American trade policy currently falls short: a tariff structure that discriminates against poor consumers at home and poor workers abroad; unilateral trade preference programs to promote development that have big gaps; and free trade agreements that have become increasingly tilted in favor of business interests.

First, while the U.S. market is quite open overall, the highest remaining tariffs—those that are well above the average of around 2 percent—discriminate against poor people. They fall mostly on food, clothing and footwear products that poor Americans disproportionately consume and that poorer countries disproportionately produce. Recent studies show that the additional tariffs imposed by Trump over the past 18 months have wiped out the benefits of the domestic tax cut for low- and middle-income households and have hit poor countries particularly hard.


The United States is the only rich country in the world that refuses to provide duty-free, quota-free market access for the world’s poorest countries.
Second, the United States, like other industrialized countries, has a Generalized System of Preferences program that is supposed to help poorer countries use trade as a tool of economic development. But the program does little to offset the discrimination against those countries’ exports because it mostly excludes the labor-intensive items facing the highest tariffs. Take the African Growth and Opportunity Act and special trade preferences the U.S. gives to Haiti. Both go further in reducing barriers to clothing imports, and they have been more effective in promoting exports from across Africa and from Haiti. But even those beneficiaries must contend with a list of unilaterally imposed eligibility conditions—such as providing high levels of protection for intellectual property owners—that reflect narrow U.S. interests, not development priorities. The United States is the only rich country in the world that refuses to provide duty-free, quota-free market access for all of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, almost 15 years after members of the World Trade Organization committed to doing so.

What’s more, the so-called “gold standard” template that American trade negotiators use for free trade agreements is basically the same for all of its trade partners, regardless of their level of economic development. The scope of U.S. free trade agreements has gone well beyond traditional market access issues meant to level the playing field for American business, to include high protections for international investors, intellectual property owners and other business interests. Developing country partners may get a bit more time to phase in certain obligations in U.S. trade agreements, for example high levels of patent protection for pharmaceuticals. But they must do so at the end of the period prescribed in the deal, no matter how relatively poor they may still be.

A range of American civil society groups, as well as developing countries themselves, express concerns that numerous provisions in U.S. trade agreements are tilting the balance in favor of business interests at the expense of consumers, workers and the environment. Critics have focused in particular on the special dispute settlement mechanism that allows foreign investors to take governments to binding arbitration and seek compensation for the impact of regulations, including those aimed at protecting public health or the environment. Other areas of concern include strong protections for intellectual property owners that can raise prices for drugs and agricultural inputs, as well as efforts to harmonize regulatory approaches in areas such as food safety.

It is true that U.S. negotiators have responded to complaints that the protections for workers’ rights and the environment are weaker than those for corporations. The language in those chapters of recent free trade agreements has gotten much stronger over the years and, at least on paper, the enforcement provisions are now the same for all parts of these agreements. Trade unions and environmental groups, however, argue that these provisions are largely unenforceable in practice. This is a major bone of contention between the White House and Democrats in the House of Representatives in the debate over ratification of NAFTA 2.0, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

While Trump is unquestionably an outlier in his approach to trade policy, concerns about America’s policy did not originate with him. The challenges to maintaining a relatively open U.S. market will not disappear when he leaves office. The first priority to begin restoring support for trade policy in the United States has to be an expansive domestic agenda focused on reducing inequality and strengthening American competitiveness. But there also needs to be a rebalancing of trade policy priorities to make free trade fairer, both at home and abroad.

Kimberly Ann Elliott is a visiting scholar at the George Washington University Institute for International Economic Policy, and a visiting fellow with the Center for Global Development.

SOURCE: WORLD POLITICS REVIEW

Maps Of Fallen Kingdom Shed Light On Atlantic Slave Trade

Image Credit: University of Colorado at Boulder via Phys-Org

BY CAY LEYTHAM-POWELL

Those who boarded slave ships from the Bight of Benin, or the Slave Coast of Africa, lost more than their homes—they lost their identities. New maps of a former kingdom made by a University of Colorado Boulder professor, though, may help shed some light on the centuries-old question of where they came from.

These 21 maps, including one that is animated, are the first of their kind to give boundaries to the kingdom of Oyo—which was located in present-day southwestern Nigeria, parts of Benin and Togo—right around the time of the kingdom's collapse.

Rather than serve as a definitive source, the hope is that these maps, published this week in the Journal of Global Slavery, along with data analysis by CU Boulder's Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis or LISA, will provide a degree of clarity for this turbulent time during the Atlantic Slave trade.

"I think having visualization really clarifies a lot of things. It's clarified a lot of my own research, so I can only imagine how it can clarify this particular period in history in a place that had a huge impact on the America's that people just don't get because there aren't maps," said Henry Lovejoy, the study's author and an assistant professor of history at CU Boulder.

At its peak, the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo was one of the largest and most influential West African states. It was established in roughly the 13th century, and is best known for its cavalries that would patrol the forested savannas. The kingdom had a dark side, though, that made it infamous and ultimately led in part to its demise: its role in the African slave trade.

The kingdom of Oyo began simply as the city of Oyo, and while it steadily grew on its own, the slave trade out of the Bight of Benin brought it wealth and prosperity, leading to even greater conquests of nearby peoples. During this period, an estimated 128,000 people were captured by these cavalries during these conflicts, enslaved and sent to the Americas—particularly Brazil and Cuba.

But the question remained: from where?

Present-day maps cannot be applied to pre-colonial Africa, and what other maps do exist are inconsistent or fragmented at best. Lovejoy decided to fix that through a Historical GIS (Geographic Information Systems) experiment.

He obtained geographic and historic data from established primary and secondary sources, like the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, and then imported that data into Quantum GIS, which is an open source version of the popular mapping software. He then used a plug-in to plot the creation and disappearances of towns surrounding and within Oyo when it was at its largest and to show the coming and goings of slave ships.

Using these techniques, Lovejoy was able to show the general uncertainty surrounding Africa's internal geography at this time, including the approximate ebb and flow of Africa's pre-colonial boundaries and the general human migrations at play due to the slave trade.

But using GIS this way doesn't come without some controversy.

"There's so much data that's missing, especially if you want to get down into the level of grains of sand or erosion," acknowledged Lovejoy. "So, it's really becoming its own sort of class of scholarship, I think, to look at the world in terms of these places that don't have a lot of information, but have very rich histories."

Lovejoy just cautions that these maps should be used only as approximations and not the end-all-be-all of maps for the Oyo kingdom. But it's a start.

Lovejoy plans to work with LISA to use these maps and the conflict data to start creating mathematical formulas and heat maps to estimate where people may have originated from. By doing this, he hopes to provide a better history and understanding of not just this region of West Africa, but also of the America's.

"I'm just working on this small quadrant of Africa, but we're dealing with 12 and a half million people. This is only 75,000," said Lovejoy. "We're getting all of these things in place; then it will be possible to sort of pull more people into the project, but I think people need to visualize it first, before they can understand what's starting to happen."

New Surge Of African Migrants Arriving At US Southern Border

Image via ABC News Radio

NEW YORK (ABC NEWS RADIO) — Amid the recent surge of migrants traveling to the U.S. from Central America, people from another part of the world have also been arriving at the southern border in large numbers.

Hundreds of migrants from central African countries, including the Republic of Congo, Angola and Cameroon, have been apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol in the past month. Federal officials in Texas reported more than 500 people from African countries were arrested in less than a week.

“Our Border Patrol agents are facing more unique challenges every day as the number of family units from different regions of the world continue to increase,” Del Rio Sector acting Chief Patrol Agent Randy Davis said in a statement.

The new arrivals have further strained U.S. authorities, as agents who mostly process large numbers of Central American migrants are now dealing with translating different languages while initiating the asylum process.

The latest arrest reports far exceed last year’s levels. For example, agents arrested 45 Eritreans, 33 Somalians and no one from the Republic of Congo or Angola at the southern border over the course of fiscal year 2018, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Looking back further, one Eritrean, one Cameroonian, one person from the Republic of Congo and one from Angola were arrested for crossing illegally in the last full budget year of the Obama administration, according to CBP.

The latest wave of apprehensions includes the largest single group of Africans ever seen by authorities at the southern border. Agents in Texas arrested a group of 116 people from Angola, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo after they crossed the Rio Grande River near Del Rio on May 31.

“Large groups present a unique challenge for the men and women of the Del Rio Sector,” regional chief Raul Ortiz said in a statement at the time. “This large group from Africa further demonstrates the complexity and severity of the border security and humanitarian crisis at our Southwest border.”

Two groups of more than 30 Africans, mostly from the Republic of Congo and Angola, crossed the Rio Grande days later in the Del Rio area.

CBP does not regularly provide the countries of origin for migrants legally arriving through border checkpoints. That number has stayed relatively consistent, despite surges of migrants in recent months.

However, independent researchers have documented that thousands of migrants have been forced to wait for weeks or months before being allowed to enter legally.

Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

Suspected Jihadists Raid Nigeria Military Base, Town

More than 40 people were injured in the triple suicide bombing in northeast Nigeria's Borno state that claimed 30 lives (AFP Photo/Audu Ali MARTE)

BY AFP

KANO, NIGERIA (AFP) - Suspected Boko Haram jihadists have overrun a military base and looted a nearby town in northeast Nigeria, security sources and residents said Tuesday, the latest such attack in the restive region.

The raids came a day after 30 people were killed on Sunday in a triple suicide bombing in the region that also bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram.

Boko Haram's decade-long campaign of violence has killed 27,000 people and displaced about two million in Nigeria.

Late on Monday assailants, arriving on nine armoured trucks, stormed into the military base outside the town of Gajiram, 80 kilometres (50 miles), north of the Borno state capital Maiduguri.

They were suspected to be from IS-affiliated Boko Haram faction known as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

"They dislodged troops from the base after a fight," a security source told AFP.

"We don't know the extent of damage and looting in the base. An assessment is being carried out".

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.

Residents said the Islamists drove into the town after sacking the base and looted shops, shooting into the air.

-- Residents flee --

Their presence forced residents to flee into the bush while others shut themselves in their homes.

"The gunmen drove into the town around 6pm (1700GMT) after overpowering soldiers in the base," Gajiram resident Mele Butari told AFP.

"They stayed for almost five hours. They broke into the shops and looted food supplies and provisions," he said.

"They didn't hurt anyone and they made no attempt to attack people who fled into the bush or hid indoors".

Soldiers were seen returning to the town from the bush Tuesday morning.

Traffic on the main road through Gajiram was suspended as soldiers assessed the damage in the base, said residents who returned to the town.

Gajiram lies on the highway linking Maiduguri and the garrison town of Monguno, 55 kilometres away.

Gajiram and the nearby base have been repeatedly attacked by the insurgents.

In June last year, ISWAP raided the same base, killing nine soldiers.

ISWAP has targeted dozens of military bases since last year, killing scores of soldiers.

Last week, several troops were killed in an ISWAP attack on a remote base in Kareto village, near the border with Niger, according to military sources.

Sunday's suicide bombings occurred in the town of Konduga, 38 kilometres from Maiduguri.

The attacks appeared to be the work of a Boko Haram faction loyal to longtime leader Abubakar Shekau.

Boko Haram violence has spilled over into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting formation of a regional military coalition to defeat the jihadist group.

Trump Threatens To Deport Millions Beginning Next Week

In this Thursday, June 13, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in Washington. In a tweet late Monday, June 17, 2019, Trump said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will begin removing millions of people who are in the country illegally. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

BY JILL COLVIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is threatening to remove millions of people living in the country illegally on the eve of formally announcing his re-election bid.

In a pair of tweets Monday night, Trump said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would next week “begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.”

“They will be removed as fast as they come in,” he wrote.

An administration official said the effort would focus on the more than 1 million people who have been issued final deportation orders by federal judges but remain at large in the country. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to explain the president’s tweets.


It is unusual for law enforcement agencies to announce raids before they take place. Some in Trump’s administration believe that decisive shows of force — like mass arrests — can serve as effective deterrents, sending a message to those considering making the journey to the U.S. that it’s not worth coming.

Trump has threatened a series of increasingly drastic actions as he has tried to stem the flow of Central American migrants crossing the southern border, which has risen dramatically on his watch. He recently dropped a threat to slap tariffs on Mexico after the country agreed to dispatch its national guard and step-up coordination and enforcement efforts.

A senior Mexican official said Monday that, three weeks ago, about 4,200 migrants were arriving at the U.S. border daily. Now that number has dropped to about 2,600.

Immigration was a central theme of Trump’s 2016 campaign and he is expected to hammer it as he tries to fire up his base heading into the 2020 campaign.

Trump will formally launch his re-election bid Tuesday night at a rally in Orlando, Florida — a state that is crucial to his path back to the White House.