Trump Approved Cyber-Strikes Against Iran’s Missile Systems

President Trump speaks to the media outside the White House on Tuesday. Image: Jim Lo Scalzo

BY ELLEN NAKASHIMA

WASHINGTON (THE WASHINGTON POST) -- President Trump approved an offensive cyber-strike that disabled Iranian c*omputer systems used to control rocket and missile launches, even as he backed away from a conventional military attack in response to its shoot-down Thursday of an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone, according to people familiar with the matter.

The cyber-strikes, launched Thursday night by personnel with U.S. Cyber Command, were in the works for weeks if not months, according to two of these people, who said the Pentagon proposed launching them after Iran’s alleged attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier this month.

The strike against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was coordinated with U.S. Central Command, the military organization with purview of activity throughout the Middle East, these people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation remains extremely sensitive.

-Though crippling to Iran’s military command and control systems, the operation did not involve a loss of life or civilian casualties — a contrast to conventional strikes, which the president said he called back Thursday because they would not be “proportionate.”

The administration on Saturday warned industry officials to be alert for cyberattacks originating from Iran.

The White House declined to comment, as did officials at U.S. Cyber Command. Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said: “As a matter of policy and for operational security, we do not discuss cyberspace operations, intelligence or planning.”

The cyber-strikes were first reported by Yahoo News.

“This operation imposes costs on the growing Iranian cyber threat, but also serves to defend the United States Navy and shipping operations in the Strait of Hormuz,” said Thomas Bossert, a former senior White House cybersecurity official in the Trump administration.

“Our U.S. military has long known that we could sink every IRGC vessel in the strait within 24 hours if necessary. And this is the modern version of what the U.S. Navy has to do to defend itself at sea and keep international shipping lanes free from Iranian disruption.”

Thursday’s strikes against the IRGC represented the first offensive show of force since Cyber Command was elevated to a full combatant command in May. It leveraged new authorities, granted by the president, that have streamlined the approval process for such measures. It is also a reflection of a new Cyber Command strategy — called “defending forward” — that its leader, Gen. Paul Nakasone, has defined as operating “against our enemies on their virtual territory.”

Cybercom launched an operation against Russia last fall to deny Internet “trolls” affiliated with the Internet Research Agency the ability to carry out political influence operations on U.S. social media platforms. But the operation against Iran was more disabling.

“This is not something they can put back together so easily,” said one person, who like others was not authorized to speak on the record.

The digital strike was an example, two people said, of what national security adviser John Bolton meant when he suggested recently that the United States is stepping up offensive cyber activity. “We’re now opening the aperture, broadening the areas we’re prepared to act in,” Bolton said at a Wall Street Journal conference.

The United States in April designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in response to its destabilizing behavior across the Middle East.

Iranian cyber forces have tried to hack U.S. naval ships and navigation capabilities in the Persian Gulf region for the past few years. The Strait of Hormuz is a strategically important sea lane through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes daily.

On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to U.S. industry that Iran has stepped up its cyber-targeting of critical industries — to include oil, gas and other energy sectors — and government agencies, and has the potential to disrupt or destroy systems.

“There’s no question that there’s been an increase in Iranian cyber activity,” said Christopher Krebs, director of DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “Iranian actors and their proxies are not just your garden variety run-of-the-mill data thieves. These are the guys that come in and they burn the house down.”

Krebs, in an interview, said, “We need everyone to take the current situation very seriously. Look at any potential incidents that you have and treat them as a worst-case scenario. This is not you waiting until you have a data breach . . . This is about losing control of your environment, about losing control of your computer.”

He said the “shift in geopolitical dynamics” factored into the agency’s warning.

The National Security Agency also urged industry to be vigilant. “In these times of heightened tensions, it is appropriate for everyone to be alert to signs of Iranian aggression in cyberspace and ensure appropriate defenses are in place,” NSA spokesman Greg Julian said in a statement Saturday.

Iran has unleashed destructive cyberattacks in the past. In 2012, it launched the Shamoon virus that nearly destroyed more than 30,000 business network computers at Saudi Aramco, a state-owned oil company, and erased backup copies of data. Saudi Arabia and Iran are fierce adversaries.

Private-sector analysts have documented a gradual increase in cyber activity by Iran and its proxies targeting U.S. industry since 2014. It has often come in the form of spearphishing attempts seeking access to computer systems in the energy sector.

“In the last year, the activity has sped up,’’ said Robert M. Lee, co-founder of cybersecurity firm Dragos, who conducted cyber operations for the NSA and Cybercom from 2011 to 2015. “In the last six months, we saw another hike. And last week, we saw additional activity.”

“The reality is we’ve been seeing more and more aggressive activity for quite some time,” he said. “It’s just getting worse.”

ellen.nakashima@washpost.com

Trump Postpones Nationwide Immigration Enforcement Sweep

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Saturday, June 22, 2019, before boarding Marine One for the trip to Camp David in Maryland. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

BY COLLEEN LONG, LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday delayed a nationwide immigration sweep to deport people living the United States illegally, including families, saying he would give lawmakers two weeks to work out solutions for the southern border.

The move came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump on Friday asking him to call off the raids. But three administration officials said scrapping the operation was not just about politics. They said Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders had expressed serious concerns that officers’ safety would be in jeopardy because too many details about the raids had been made public.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to speak about private discussions.

“At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “If not, Deportations start!”

The operation, which sparked outrage and concern among immigrant advocates, had been expected to begin Sunday and would target people with final orders of removal, including families whose immigration cases had been fast-tracked by judges.

The cancellation was another sign of the Trump administration’s difficulty managing the border crisis. The number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically under Trump, despite his tough rhetoric and hard-line policies. Balancing a White House eager to push major operational changes with the reality on the ground is a constant challenge for the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump gave the first public word of the planned sweep earlier this week, saying in a tweet that an operation was coming up and the agency would begin to remove “millions” of people who were in the United States illegally. Later, leaks to the media included sensitive law enforcement details, such as the day it was to begin, Sunday, plus specific cities and other operational details.

Pelosi called Trump on Friday night and the two spoke for about 12 minutes, according to a person familiar with the situation and not authorized to discuss it publicly. She asked him to call off the raids and he said he would consider the request, the person said.

It’s unclear what else was said during the call. But in a statement Saturday before the president’s decision was announced, Pelosi appealed to the same compassion Trump expressed in declining to strike Iran because of the potential for lost lives.

“The President spoke about the importance of avoiding the collateral damage of 150 lives in Iran. I would hope he would apply that same value to avoiding the collateral damage to tens of thousands of children who are frightened by his actions,” she said.

She called the raids “heartless.”

Pelosi responded to Trump’s announcement with her own tweet, saying: “Mr. President, delay is welcome. Time is needed for comprehensive immigration reform. Families belong together.”

Halting the flow of illegal immigration has been Trump’s signature campaign issue, but Congress has been unable to push his proposals into law with resistance from both Democrats and Republicans. Bipartisan talks over the immigration system have started and stalled but are again underway among some in the Senate.

Lawmakers are considering whether to give $4.6 billion in emergency funding to help border agencies struggling to manage a growing number of migrants crossing the border. The measure passed a Senate committee on a 30-1 vote. But the House is considering its own measure. Funding is running out and Congress is trying to approve legislation before the House and Senate recess next week.

Earlier Saturday, Trump hinted the operation was still on, saying the people ICE was looking for “have already been ordered to be deported.”

“This means that they have run from the law and run from the courts,” Trump said.

Coordinated enforcement operations take months to plan . Surprise is also an important element. ICE officers don’t have a search warrant and are working from files with addresses and must go to people’s home and ask to be let inside. Immigrants are not required to open their doors, and increasingly they don’t. Officers generally capture about 30% to 40% of targets.

The planned operation was heavily criticized by Democratic lawmakers as cruel, and many local mayors said they would refuse to cooperate with ICE. Immigrant advocates stepped up know-your-rights campaigns.

Another complication is that ICE needs travel paperwork from a home country to deport someone, so immigrants often end up detained at least temporarily waiting for a flight. ICE was reserving hotel rooms for families in the event the operation went off as planned Sunday.

The adult population of detainees was 53,141 as of June 8, though the agency is only budgeted for 45,000. There were 1,662 in family detention, also at capacity, and one of the family detention centers is currently housing single adults.

White House Unveils $50 Billion Palestinian Economic Plan

Hamas' chief Ismail Haniyeh attends a meeting with foreign reporters at al-Mat'haf hotel in Gaza City, Thursday, June 20, 2019. Hamas' chief says Israel is ignoring the terms of an indirect cease-fire agreement for the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

BY MATHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Saturday unveiled a $50 billion Palestinian investment and infrastructure proposal intended to be the economic engine to power its much-anticipated but still unreleased “deal of the century” Middle East peace plan.

The scheme, which calls for a mix of public and private financing and intends to create at least a million new jobs for Palestinians, was posted to the White House website ahead of a two-day conference in Bahrain that is being held amid heavy skepticism about its viability and outright opposition from the Palestinians. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday reiterated his rejection of the proposal and the conference.

The “Peace to Prosperity” workshop on Tuesday and Wednesday will also take place amid heightened regional tensions over Iran that threaten to overshadow its goals.

With no official participation from the two main protagonists, Israel and the Palestinians, and scant enthusiasm from others, continued uncertainty and strong doubts over the plan’s political vision and the distraction of potential U.S.-Iran conflict, expectations are decidedly low. President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner faces high hurdles in building support for the initiative.

The 10-year plan calls for projects worth $27.5 billion in the West Bank and Gaza, and $9.1 billion, $7.4 billion and $6.3 billion for Palestinians in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, respectively. Projects envisioned include those in the health care, education, power, water, high-tech, tourism, and agriculture sectors. It calls for the creation of a “master fund” to administer the finances and implementation of the projects that is says are akin to the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II.

The plan foresees more than doubling the Palestinian gross domestic product, reducing the Palestinian poverty rate by 50 percent and cutting the sky-high Palestinian unemployment rate to nearly single digits, according to the documents, which do not specify exactly how the projects will be funded.

It also calls for linking the West Bank and Gaza with a modern transportation network, including high-speed rail service. Such ideas have been floated in the past in previous peace proposals but have run into Israeli security concerns.

“Generations of Palestinians have lived under adversity and loss, but the next chapter can be defined by freedom and dignity,” the White House said, calling the plan “the most ambitious international effort for the Palestinian people to date.”

But an already tough sell that has vexed U.S. administrations for decades is made tougher not least because Trump and his aides have refused to endorse a two-state solution to the conflict that has long been seen as the only viable path to lasting peace. They have also suggested they are open to unilateral Israeli annexation of occupied territory in the West Bank. And, officials say there is no intention of discussing either issue or the most contentious parts of their proposal to end the long-running conflict.

Thus, the core political issues that are key to resolving the dispute, such as borders, the status of the holy city of Jerusalem, Israel’s security and the fate of Palestinian refugees, will not be raised. Such matters, U.S. officials have said, may have to wait until the fall, after Israeli elections, leaving numerous questions that potential investors almost certainly want answers to before making even tentative financial commitments.

Palestinian leaders, angered by what they and their supporters see as blatant U.S. bias toward Israel, want nothing to do with the workshop and will not participate. The Palestinians have called for mass demonstrations against the conference on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

“The plan cannot pass because it ends the Palestinian cause,” Abbas said on Saturday. “We are not going to attend this workshop, the reason is that the economic situation should not be discussed before a political situation, so long as there is no political situation, we do not deal with any economic situation.”

An economic adviser to Abbas said projects envisaged in the U.S. proposal could be considered, but only after the political question is agreed upon. “Yes, we need to build the infrastructure, the investment, the tourism sector ... but that cannot come before ending the Israeli occupation,” Mohammed Mustafa, head of Palestinian Investment Fund, told The Associated Press.

In Gaza, the rival Hamas militant group has also condemned the conference. “In one voice, we say no to the Manama workshop and the deal of the century,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said. He appealed to Bahrain’s king to “take a brave, strong, authentic Arab decision not to host this workshop” and called on Arab countries to cancel their planned participation.

Complicating the Bahrain meeting is the fact that it coincides with a pledging conference in New York for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, a 70-year-old institution that the Trump administration has defunded and wants to eliminate entirely. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, already provides health, education and other services to millions of Palestinians.

Its supporters suspect the administration purposely scheduled the Bahrain conference to conflict with its event, noting that Kushner’s peace plan partner Jason Greenblatt has publicly called for UNRWA’s dissolution. Greenblatt argued last month that the agency perpetuates Palestinian victimhood, abets anti-Israel sentiment and is an inefficient drain on funds that could be better directed.

Kushner’s plan includes large sums of money for Jordan and Lebanon, countries with large Palestinian refugee populations, in an apparent attempt to have them absorbed into these nations.

Regardless of American intent, the dueling meetings are likely to leave donors, particularly European nations, in an awkward position: torn between supporting an established international organization or a mystery concept being put together by a U.S. administration that has in two years reversed a half-century of American Middle East policy.

Since Trump took office, he has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv, downgraded the consulate devoted to Palestinian issues, shut down the Palestinian office in Washington and slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to the West Bank and Gaza.

Such steps have made Kushner’s prospects for success in Bahrain even slimmer, according to experts.

“This is trying to dangle some benefits to the Palestinians to accept terms they already rejected,” said Shibley Telhami, a Mideast scholar and the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland. “A lure to get the Palestinians to accept the unacceptable is not going to work. It’s impossible.”

Although Washington’s Gulf Arab allies are supportive of the plan, Israel’s immediate neighbors have been more reluctant to embrace it.

Jordan and Egypt, the only two Arab countries with peace deals with Israel, are sending mid-ranking officials from their finance ministries and not Cabinet ministers to Bahrain.

Jordanian foreign ministry spokesman Sufian al-Qudah reiterated Amman’s position that a two-state solution, with a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders and a capital in east Jerusalem, “is the only way to resolve the conflict and achieve security, stability and comprehensive peace in the region.”

Egypt supports the same conditions, the state-run news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez as saying.

Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed.

Augustine Nwagbara’s False Comparative History Of Ghana And Nigeria – Part 1

BY KWAME OKOAMPA-AHOOFE, JR.

About three days ago, one of my brothers-in-law, Mr. Eric Kwabena Baning, whatsapped to me a videoclip on which a black funerary jumpers-clad Nigerian “professor” of English – as of this press preparation, I have also learned that our subject is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos – claiming to be a faculty member of the country’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana, Legon, virulently accused the Ghanaian media of demonizing Nigerians resident in Ghana for heinous crimes – such as rapes, murders and kidnappings – committed by a few Ghanaian resident Nigerians. The “Professor,” Augustine Uzoma Nwagbara, made the foregoing comment at a gathering or rally heavily attended by Nigerians resident in Ghana.

You see, I put his title of “Professor” in quotation marks because Nigerians, generally, are globally notorious for craving for titles they do not have or deserve. For example, nearly every adult male in Nigeria with the equivalent of N 10 (10 Naira) in his wallet wants to be addressed as a “Chief.” Anyway, on the aforesaid videoclip, Prof. Nwagbara made the flagrantly scandalous claim that in nearly every human endeavor, including the continental African Liberation Struggle / Movement, it was the Nigerians who pointed the way to their “younger” relatively wet-eared Ghanaian leadership counterparts.

Maybe somebody ought to have enlightened the obnoxiously patronizing Prof. Nwagbara about the historical fact that when his own country’s flagship academy, the University of Ibadan was established in January 1948, by British colonial default, about 7 months before the University of Ghana was officially established, it was Ghana’s Dr. Robert (Kweku Atta) Gardner (1914-1994) – the maternal uncle of the recently deceased former United Nations’ Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi (Atta) Annan – who was invited to establish the first Adult-Education Department on both the campus of the University of Ibadan and Nigeria at large.

About 22 years ago, a former student of the great Nigerian novelist, Prof. Chinua Achebe, late, who had also been my African Literature professor at the City College of New York of the City University of New York (CCNY of CUNY), by the name of Ezenwa-Ohaeto, published a quite comprehensive biography of his former globally renowned professor, titled “Chinua Achebe: The Author of Things Fall Apart” (Indiana University P., 1997), in which Prof. Robert Gardner was erroneously described as one of the seminal or pioneering European professors of the then University College of Ibadan. I had to promptly rectify this egregious error in a review of the same book that was published in The New York Amsterdam News’ edition of October 1, 1998, during which period I was a freelance writer and the Book Review Editor of this famous and one of the oldest African-American weeklies here in the United States.

I make the foregoing observation to highlight the fact that Nigerian intellectuals and even their most erudite scholars tend to know much less about Ghanaian achievers and the political history of our country than vice-versa. Perhaps this may be the result of the subconscious or unintended arrogance of being the native of a relatively much bigger country. You see, years ago, a very brilliant classmate of mine from the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis by the name of Joseph Hughes – today, he is a bigtime attorney in the Michigan area – quizzed me about the geographical locations of several islands in the Caribbean and other parts of the world. When I could not come up with a single correct answer, Joe jovially accused me of having been severely afflicted with a deadly virus called “The Arrogance of the Denizens of Big Countries and Continents.”

What Mr. Hughes meant was that people who came from relatively big countries and continental landmasses, rather than islands or very small countries, tended to be subconsciously blinded to the fact that the little island nations were equally significant in the scheme of global political affairs and the general affairs of humanity. In his caustic tirade against the Ghanaian people and our media, Nigeria’s Prof. Nwagbara adopted a similar arrogant posture. You see, academically speaking, compared to Nigeria, Ghana is a giant of Shakespearean proportions. And on the latter count, of course, I am thinking of globally renowned and first-class and immortalized intellectuals and scholars like Professors Adum-Kwapong, the erudite classicist, first Ghanaian Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana and former Rector of the Tokyo-based United Nations’ University; Willie Abraham, philosopher, sometime Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, author of the seminal classic “The Mind of Africa,” and the first African to be inducted as a fellow of Oxford University’s All-Souls College; Ephraim Amu, the first African to compose chorale music in the standard four vocal pitches, and composer of “Yen Ara Asaase Ni” fame; Kwabena Nketia, the recently deceased foremost African musicologist of his generation…. The list goes on and on and on.

Indeed, there was a time, not quite 30 years ago, when The New York Times called the University of Ghana “The Harvard [University] of West Africa. The anti-Ghanaian rabble-rouser may need to use his sabbatical leave, or whatever academic status he was undeservedly enjoying prior to him getting, reportedly, fired by the administrators of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), to study the general academic and cultural history of Ghana in the modern or Euro-Western-dominated era and compare the same with that of Nigeria coevally. Trust me, Prof. Nwagbara would be deeply humbled by the findings that he comes up with.

SOURCE: MODERN GHANA

Mauritania Votes As 1st Peaceful Transfer Of Power Expected

In this Jan. 20, 2019, file photo, Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, center, attends the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, in Beirut, Lebanon. Mauritanians are going to the polls on Saturday, June 22, 2019, as his preferred successor faces five opposition candidates in the West African nation threatened by Islamic extremism. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

BY AHMED MOHAMED

NOUAKCHOTT, MAURITANIA (AP) — Mauritanians on Saturday went to the polls as the outgoing president’s preferred successor faced five opposition candidates in this West African nation threatened by Islamic extremism. It is expected to be the country’s first peaceful transfer of power.

One candidate of sub-Saharan African descent wants to improve race relations in a country where activists estimate tens of thousands of people still live in slavery despite the practice being banned by the government for decades.

Amnesty International has called on the next president to end rampant human rights abuses in this coastal Saharan nation of 4.5 million people.

“Anyone who dares to stand up against slavery, discrimination and other human rights violations and abuses is at risk of arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention and even torture,” said Kine Fatim Diop, a West Africa campaigner for the rights organization.

Mauritania has suffered five coups since independence from France in 1960 and has been led by military rulers for much of that time. President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz himself was head of the presidential guard when he seized power in a 2008 coup. He said he did so to prevent a return to repressive military rule.

He won a landslide election the following year in what opponents called a fraudulent “electoral coup.” Most opposition parties then boycotted the 2014 election in which Aziz won 82 percent of the vote according to official results.

The president is barred by the constitution from seeking another term. In respecting term limits instead of seeking to change the constitution he contrasts with several leaders elsewhere in Africa in recent years.

His successor of choice is former Defense Minister Mohamed Ould El Ghazouani, a retired general who served as chief of staff of Mauritania’s armed forces.

Ghazouani was chosen by the ruling majority as a presidential candidate after his retirement. He has campaigned on his security credentials and the outgoing president’s record on fighting Islamic extremists.

“Mauritania has to choose between Mohamed Ould El Ghazouani — who wants to strive toward security, development and progress — or vote for a return to insecurity, bad management and corruption where there is hate, racism and destruction of national unity,” the outgoing president said at a press conference marking the end of campaigning.

This moderate Islamic republic borders Mali, where jihadist rule forced tens of thousands to flee the country’s north to Mauritania in 2012. While the security situation has deteriorated in Mali even after the extremists were ousted from control, Mauritania has not seen the spillover in violence experienced by Mali’s other neighbors Niger and Burkina Faso.

Mauritania is a member of the G5 Sahel regional counterterrorism force , which was established in 2017 but has been plagued by funding problems.

The opposition candidates in this election include anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, who was elected to Parliament in September from his prison cell, where he was held on charges his supporters called politically motivated. He was released late last year after serving four months.

Mauritania was the last country to abolish slavery, doing so in 1981, but did not criminalize it until 2007. Late last year the United States ended trade benefits with Mauritania, saying the country is not making sufficient progress toward combating forced labor, including slavery.

The Mauritanian government, however, denies that slavery is widespread.

Candidate Kane Hamidou Baba of the “Living Together” coalition is representing parties backed by Mauritanians of sub-Saharan African descent.

Other candidates include Sidi Mohamed ould Boubacar, a two-time former prime minister who is supported by the opposition Islamist party; Mohamed ould Maouloud, candidate of the Opposition Coalition for Change and Mohamed Lemine El Mourteji Wafi, who hopes to draw the support of younger Mauritanians.

A runoff election will take place next month if no one receives a majority of votes on Saturday.

Associated Press writer Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal contributed.

Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

FG, Governors Threatening, Terrorising Judges, NBA Alleges

Paul Usoro. Image: Lawyard via The Guardian

BY ENO ABASI SUNDAY

ABUJA (THE GUARDIAN) -- The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has cried out that executive arms of government, both at the federal and state levels, have sustained their attacks on the judiciary all in a bid to get judges to do their biddings and skew justice in their favour.

The group has also deplored the pervasive insecurity that has enveloped the entire country, while the Federal Government and its entire security apparatchik appear blank and incapable of ensuring the protection of lives and property of Nigerians.

President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Paul Usoro, SAN, speaking at the body’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja on Thursday, expressed worry over the intimidation of judges by members of the executive arms and their agencies, stressing that judges now “operate under an oppressive and pervasive climate of fear and insecurity.”

According to him, “the independence of the judiciary, which we all understand to mean not only the independence of tenure and control of funds, but also the latitude to have an independent and uncontrolled mind to reach decisions and dispense justice fairly to all and sundry without fear or favour. Not many if anyone in this auditorium would doubt that our judges, from the lowest to the highest cadre, today operate under an oppressive and pervasive climate of fear and insecurity. Our judges are threatened, intimidated and blackmailed mostly by the executive arms of government and their agencies both at the federal and state levels. Ask any counsel of note who will be willing to honestly share his or her experience with you these days and you would be told that a significant consideration in planning the strategy for the prosecution of any case that the government, notably the Federal Government has an interest in, is the concern whether the presiding judge has the backbone and fibre not to be looking continually behind his or her shoulder to decipher how the government wishes the matter to be determined.”

Usoro, who narrated to his members, the kidnap and murder of their colleagues across the country said with the soaring rate of violent crimes and unabated bloodletting, which forced the United Kingdom to recently issue a travel advisory warning its citizens against travelling to 21 states, matters may get out of hand if urgent solutions are not put in place.

Insisting that no region or tribe is safe, he said, “Indeed, without security of lives and property, everything else grinds to a halt … Only those who are alive can enjoy medicare, educational facilities, infrastructure renewal, economic boom and all the other tangible and intangible benefits of a democratic society. And, by the way, not to be forgotten or diminished by our politicians in power is the fact that only those who are alive can vote in the next election; only those who are alive can trigger boom and prosperity in our economy; Only those who are alive can benefit from and applaud the government for the war against corruption. It is therefore in the interest of the government, as much as it is in the interest of the governed for lives and property to be secured and safe. We therefore demand from our governments at all levels, this basic minimum of their debt to us, to wit, security of lives and property in the land.”

Traffickers Recruited Nigerian Women For World Cup, 1,863 Still In Russia – US report

The UN said human trafficking in Nigeria was not always north towards Europe but also to the Gulf, Russia and southern Africa mainly for sexual and labour exploitation. Image: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP

BY OLALEYE ALUKO

ABUJA (PUNCH) -- Human traffickers under the guise of the 2018 World Cup recruited Nigerian women for jobs in Russia and later exploited them for sex work, the United States 2019 Trafficking in Persons report has said.

The report, published by the US Department of State on Thursday and obtained by our correspondent, noted that 1,863 Nigerians remained in Russia without travel documents.

The 2018 World Cup held in Russia between June 14 and July 15.

The 2019 TIP report, which presented a country-by-country situation report on human trafficking, said the Nigerian government failed to convict complicit government officials despite reports of officials committing a variety of trafficking offences each year.

According to the report, Nigerians who are trafficking victims are currently in at least 34 countries in four regions, with Nigerians being the most common trafficking victims in the European Union.

The US report partly read, “For the fifth consecutive year, the government did not convict any complicit government officials despite consistent reports of government officials committing a variety of trafficking offences each year. The government did not investigate, prosecute, or hold accountable any military or Civilian Joint Task Force members for exploiting Internally Displaced Persons in sex trafficking or past recruitment and use of child soldiers.

“The government also identified fewer trafficking victims and did not fully disburse the budget allocated to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons.

“Authorities identified Nigerian trafficking victims in at least 34 countries in four regions during the reporting period. Nigerian women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking within Nigeria and throughout Europe, including in Italy, Spain, Austria, and Russia.

“Following relaxed visa requirements for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, traffickers fraudulently recruited Nigerian women for jobs in Russia and later exploited them in sex trafficking; as of early 2019, 1,863 Nigerians remained in Russia without travel documents.”

The US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, in the report summary, said traffickers robbed a “staggering 24.9 million people of their freedom and basic human dignity which is roughly three times the population of New York City.”

The NAPTIP Director-General, Julie Okah-Donli, in her reaction, said the agency disagreed with the US report in certain aspects.

She said, “We are gratified but not satisfied that Nigeria was upgraded from Tier 2 Watch List which the country has occupied for two years. The report noted all the efforts made by NAPTIP and other duty bearing agencies to respond effectively to human trafficking but still insisted that the government of Nigeria does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.

“Looking though the report, it is clear that the efforts of the Nigerian government and NAPTIP in particular have not been given due credit.”


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What Was Cuba Seeking In Africa?

Fidel Castro. Image: Elliot Erwitt/Magnum Photos 

BY RAUL ANTONIO CAPOTE

One warm morning of October 1983, a group of young men gather in front of the Military Committee office in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, in the city of Havana. The reason for the presence of these young men, most of them still fresh-faced, is to leave for Angola as volunteers.

The aspiring internationalists combatants have been arriving to this place since the early hours of the morning. The waiting hours would pass by among jokes and stories and comments on the episodes of heroism and combats born from their juvenile imagination and their desire to match the deeds of their fathers and grandfathers.

As the opening hours approach, officials and employees start to arrive, amazed by the large crowd. One officer, who is also an official of this Committee, greets those waiting outside and asks them to form a line, to which the boys quickly comply by lining along the sidewalk.

The echoes of the heroic defense of Cangamba have been the spark, even though the details were still unknown, but the stories told about it surpass those of the legend of the 300 Spartans of the Battle of the Thermopylae.

CANGAMBA

From August 2 to August 10, 1983 all the positions defended by Cuban internationalist combatants and the People’s Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) in the town of Cangamba were surrounded and attacked.

The 32nd Brigade of Light Artillery (BIL) of the FAPLA and a group of Cuban advisors were deployed in this locality of the province of Moxico..

The number of FAPLA forces were 818 soldiers, many of them with very little combat training. Cuban internationalist advisors were 82. Once the attacks started in Cangamba on August 2, 1983, the Cuban headquarters sent reinforcements, which increased the number of Cubans in Cangamba to 184 troops. In total, there were 18 pieces of artillery and small-caliber mortars and 36 GRD-1P installations with little ammunition.

On the South African side, even though there was no artillery deployed in the territory, there were experts on artillery, intelligence and scorers for aviation, which could be estimated to be the size of a contingent. There were also small units of the Buffalo Battalion, which already had experience in joint actions with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which had over 3,000 troops.

The Cuban troops suffered 18 casualties and 27 wounded. FAPLA, on their part, had 60 casualties and 177 wounded. Shelters suffered damages or destruction in 85% of them. A total of 401 tails of grenade mortars were counted scattered all over the territory and around 1,300 fragments of projectile and GRAD-1P rockets. It is estimated that no less than 1,500 artillery projectiles hit the positions defended by the Cubans.

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
While the aspiring internationalists wait, they talk about Kifangondo and the bravery shown by Cubans and Angolans, the dramatic withdrawal of the enemy troops who, days before, described this venture as a piece of cake with the phrase “breakfast in Caxito, lunch in Cacuaco and dinner in Luanda,” but they only bit the dust of defeat instead.

Kifangondo, Cangamba and Cuito Cuanavale would go down in history as “unforgettable instances of Cubans’ patriotic sensitivity,” the success of Cuito Cuanavale, which would be a turning point in the history of Africa because it marks the end of the oprobious Apartheid regime, is still a few years away. These three combats fought by Cuban internationalists, volunteer soldiers from the country of Martí and Fidel, fill with pride the new generations that hope to contribute to “repay the debt with Africa.”

Teachers, medical doctors, builders, engineers and hundreds of thousands of Cubans have worked as internationalists in Africa. On May 23, 1963, a plane of Cubana de Aviación Airlines with 29 doctors, four dentists, 14 nurses and seven health technicians departed for Algeria.

This was the beginning of Cuba’s internationalist missions in Africa in the history of the Cuban Revolution, a collaboration that has never ceased over the years and that have contributed to save thousands of lives, to teach how to write and read, to build, to plant, to defend with their own blood the independence of the continent. In turn, over 34,000 Africans have graduated from middle-level technician and higher education in the last few decades and other thousands of young African people are currently studying in Cuba. 1

INTERNATIONALIST MILITARY MISSIONS
A Cuban military contingent integrated by 865 troops and their equipment, arrived in the African nation between October 21 and October 29, 1963 to help the budding People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, following the arrival of health professionals.

Cuba sent 746 troops to meet the request of the Syrian government in the wake of the failure of the offensive launched by Egypt and Syria on October 6, 1973; an attempt to recover the territories occupied by Israel during the Six Day War in June 1967. The Cuban troops composed the Tank Battalion, which later integrated the 47 Cuba-Syria Tank Brigade.

In Angola, Carlota Operation spanned from August 1975 to May 1991, when the last group of combatants left Angola. It was the response of the Cuban government to the request for assistance made by the historical leader of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) Agostinho Neto in the wake of the aggression of the South African Apartheid Regime and its internal and external allies to prevent Angola from earning its independence, overthrow MPLA and occupy the country.

In total, 337,033 military troops and around 50,000 civil collaborators took part in the mission in Angola. A Cuban military contingent was deployed in the territory of Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo, with the mission of supporting the Cuban troops defending Cabinda, Angola, if necessary.

“”The peoples of Cuba and Angola are brothers in all senses and for that reason we will always be by each other’s side (…) In the good times, in the bad times, and forever. We will carry with us the indestructible friendship of this great people and the remains of our fallen ones!”2.

Known under the code name of Operación Baraguá, it started in January 1978 with the internationalist military mission in Ethiopia, where the first military troops arrived to fight against the armed forces from Somalia, who first attacked on June 1977. The mission lasted until September 1989 and 41,730 military men took part in it.

In all these missions, 385,908 Cuban combatants took part, of which 2,398 lost their life in the fulfillment of their internationalist duties.

Cubans took nothing from Africa, which had been plundered over and over by the colonial powers. Cubans went to Africa at the request of their peoples to fulfill what we considered a sacred duty. The thousands of combatants who fought in Africa were not looking for personal gain or glory, they were moved by the desire to be useful, to fulfill their duty with the Revolution, to live up to the time they lived in.

THE GLORY OF WHAT WE HAVE LIVED
It may be hard to understand now, after all these years and in the light of the current times, that young men in the prime of their youth and vitality were willing to give their all, including their lives, for people living thousands of kilometers away from them, to abandon the safety of their houses to face homesickness, diseases, fatigue and death.

What made possible such acts of selflessness? Those young men, who have now become gray-haired were not present in the Sierra Maestra, in Playa Girón nor were they born during the days of the Missile Crises nor the Literacy Campaign. Those young men standing in line in front of the Military Committee office in Plaza de la Revolución and all over the country in 1983 and in the following years, are not fanatics or lambs following a doctrine, they are boys and girls born under the Revolution, moved by the deepest conviction that this is a duty; proud of those fighting and giving their lives in African lands and they just want to do as much. They do not want to be left behind.

This journalist is there too and he witnesses their tears, and he cries too, when they are rejected because they do not make it through the admission process. Logically, not all them can make the cut and there is not consolation for those left out, not even the promise of other missions, nor the call to fulfill their daily duty with the country. We all want to go meet history.

SOURCE: GRANMA

As Ebola Takes Hold In DRC, A Nigerian Doctor Reminds Us Of The Sacrifices Made In West Africa’s Crisis

Mcginger Ibeneme (Far Right). Image via Quartz Africa

BY YOMI KAZEEM

LAGOS (QUARTZ AFRICA) -- The frequent Ebola outbreaks across African countries over the past two decades often pose the most risk to the health workers tasked with containing them.

Back in 2014, during the continent’s worst ever outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, it took the joint effort of a coalition of health workers drawn from several countries, working with the African Union, to stop the outbreak. But they did so working under shoddy conditions, remembers Mcginger Ibeneme, a Nigerian doctor who spent six months between 2014 and 2015 in Sierra Leone as a front-line healthcare worker and shared his experiences in a Twitter thread.

“I found the African Union to be disorganized,” Ibeneme, 39, tells Quartz. “There were serious strategic problems from accommodation to feeding of doctors.”

With the 2014 outbreak being the first in West Africa, health workers in the region were often dealing with a deadly virus epidemic they had never been trained for. And just as governments and local health ministries were attempting to teach citizens best practices in a bid to control the spread of the disease, health workers like Ibeneme were often learning on the job—at a high risk.

Across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone—the three worst hit countries, the Ebola outbreak had a heavy human toll, resulting in nearly 30,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths. The outbreak also took its toll on the economies of those three countries jointly costing them an estimated $2.2 billion in GDP.
Personal risk

In Nigeria, the outbreak proved fatal for Stella Adadevoh, the doctor who is credited for literally giving up her life to stall the impact of the disease in Nigeria. While in charge of a Lagos clinic in August 2014, Adadevoh admitted a visiting Liberian government official who soon tested positive for Ebola. Despite the patient’s protests and reported diplomatic pressure to release him, Adadevoh heroically chose to quarantine and treat him and, in doing so, prevented what would likely have been a much larger and catastrophic outbreak in Africa’s most populous country. Ultimately, she got infected and died within weeks. A controversial movie was made about about her life in 2016.

At some point in Sierra Leone, Ibeneme feared his story would have a similar ending. After treating an American health worker who passed out and later tested positive for Ebola, Ibeneme thought he had been infected. But while the American was flown back to the United States for treatment, Ibeneme says he was never tested. He chose to quarantine himself for a 21-day period while fearing for his life.

Once their mission was accomplished and the Ebola outbreak successfully stopped, some of the health workers who worked under the African Union’s coalition were forgotten—until now. Four years after he returned to Nigeria, Ibeneme has received a medal of recognition from the African Union. But it did not come in an elaborate ceremony, or indeed a ceremony of any kind.

Instead, his medal was posted to a government office in Port Harcourt, the oil hub in southern Nigeria where Ibeneme went to pick it up this week. In photos shared on social media, Ibeneme says he is pictured with friends and colleagues pinning the medal on him, rather than African Union officials.

The treatment from the Nigerian government has not been much better, he says. “When we came to Nigeria, we were put in a hotel for six days and were told to expect national honors and a reception but nothing happened and so people left and went back to their lives,” he tells Quartz. While Ibeneme, now a practicing general practitioner at the Nnamdi Azikwe University Teaching Hospital, Anambra, a state in Nigeria’s southeast, says he’d be willing to be a part of another humanitarian medical mission, he reflects and insists “things could have been better” by the African Union.

As the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) grapples with its worst ever with over 2,000 cases, its health workers are facing even worse odds of survival in the line of duty. In addition to the risk of infection, the workers also face a wholly different prospect of death at the hands of armed rebel militias that dominate DRC’s infected northeast region.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there have been 174 attacks on health facilities or workers in DRC’s northeast in 2019 alone with one of those resulting in the high-profile killing of Dr Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, a prominent Cameroonian epidemiologist with WHO.

UN Expresses Concern Over Infants, Girls’ Rape In Nigeria

LAGOS (NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA) -- Mrs Patience Ekeoba, the National Programme Officer of United Nations Women in Nigeria on Friday expressed concern over the increasing incidences of rape of infants, girls and old women in Nigeria.

Ekeoba made the disclosure to the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on the sidelines of the EU-UN “Spotlight Initiative” to end all forms of violence against women and girls.

“Violence against women is high today. One in three women will be abused in their lifetime.

“On a daily basis, a lot of women and girls are being abused. There is harassment of women in workplaces, and schools are no longer safe for girls.

“There are increasing reports of infants, young girls, and women being raped or sexually abused. We are increasingly seeing different
dimensions to rape and abuses today,’’ she said.

Ekeoba said that the Spotlight Initiative was being supported by the EU and UN System, adding that about 250 million euros that had been released was for Africa for the initiative.

The UN Women Representative said that Nigeria had also requested some fund for implementing the initiative, which would run from this year to 2022.

Ekeoba said that Spotlight Initiative, composed of UN Women, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNESCO and UNDP, was meant to bring to attention to the issue of gender-based violence against women and girls.

“The Spotlight as the name implies is aimed at putting attention on issues of gender-based violence against women and girls.

“We have taken a holistic approach to programming to ensure that issues of laws are addressed. We want laws that will match
international standards.

“We want strong institutions that should be responding to gender-based violence. We are also looking at issues of prevention.

“We want to see how best to change people’s negative perceptions. We want to also make sure that we have relevant data to programme with,’’ she said.

Ekeoba said that the Spotlight Initiative Inception Workshop, which had been held in Sokoto and Cross River States before Lagos
State would hold on Monday next week in Adamawa State.

(NAN)

Global Airlines Reroute Fights After Iran Downs US Drone

This image released Friday, June 21, 2019 by the U.S. military's Central Command shows what it describes as the flight path and the site where Iran shot down a U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, June 20, 2019. Iran says it shot down the drone over Iranian territorial waters. Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down the drone amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over its collapsing nuclear deal with world powers. (U.S. Central Command via AP)

BY JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — Major airlines from around the world on Friday began rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz following Iran’s shooting down of a U.S. military surveillance drone there, as America warned commercial airliners could be mistakenly attacked.

The Federal Aviation Administration warned of a “potential for miscalculation or misidentification” in the region after an Iranian surface-to-air missile on Thursday brought down a U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737 jetliner and costing over $100 million. The U.S. said it made plans for limited strikes on Iran in response, but then called them off.

Australia’s Qantas, British Airways, Dutch carrier KLM, Emirates, Germany’s Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines said soon afterward that they will avoid the region as well.

The FAA previously warned of a risk in the region, but Friday’s warning threw into stark relief a danger that both the agency and analysts say is real after the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines flight over Ukraine in 2014. That could further imperil the bottom lines of Gulf long-haul carriers, which already have faced challenges under the Trump administration.

“The threat of a civil aircraft shootdown in southern Iran is real,” warned OPSGROUP, a company that provides guidance to global airlines.

The FAA made a similar warning in May to commercial airliners of the possibility of Iranian anti-aircraft gunners mistaking them for military aircraft, something dismissed by Tehran some 30 years after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the U.S. announcement.

The FAA said its warning would affect the area of the Tehran Flight Information Region, without elaborating. The FAA’s operations center referred questions to its press office, which did not immediately respond to queries from The Associated Press. However, that likely only extends some 12 miles off of the Iranian coast, aviation experts said.

There are “heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the region, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations and potential for miscalculation or misidentification,” the FAA said. “The risk to U.S. civil aviation is demonstrated by the Iranian surface-to-air missile shoot-down of a U.S. unmanned aircraft system on 19 June 2019 while it was operating in the vicinity of civil air routes above the Gulf of Oman.”

Qantas said it would reroute its London flights to avoid the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman. British Airways, KLM, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines said their flights would avoid the strait. Lufthansa said it would avoid both the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, as well as nearby land. However, it said it would continue its flights to Tehran.

The Persian Gulf is home to some of the world’s top long-haul carriers, who already have been battered by Trump’s travel bans targeting a group of predominantly Muslim countries, as well as an earlier ban on laptops in airplane cabins for Mideast carriers. Etihad, the Abu Dhabi-based long-haul carrier, said it had “contingency plans” in place, without elaborating.

“We will decide what further action is required after carefully evaluating the FAA directive to U.S. carriers,” the carrier told the AP.

Emirates, the long-haul carrier in Dubai near the Strait of Hormuz, said in a statement to AP that it was “rerouting all flights away from areas of possible conflict.” Its sister airline, the low-cost carrier FlyDubai, said it “adjusted some of the existing flight paths in the region as a precautionary measure.”

Qatar Airways did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Iran said the drone “violated” its territorial airspace, while the U.S. called the missile fire “an unprovoked attack” in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. OPSGROUP said the Iranian weapons system that shot down the drone was comparable to the Russian Buk system used in 2014 Malaysian Airlines shootdown in Ukraine.

“Any error in that system could cause it to find another target nearby - another reason not to be anywhere near this part of the Straits of Hormuz,” OPSGROUP said.

President Donald Trump initially tweeted that “Iran made a very big mistake!” He later appeared to play down the incident, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he had a feeling “a general or somebody” being “loose and stupid” made a mistake in shooting down the drone.

A U.S. official said the military made preparations Thursday night for limited strikes on Iran in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, but approval was abruptly withdrawn before the attacks were launched.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the targets would have included radars and missile batteries.

The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump had approved the strikes, but then called them off. The newspaper cited anonymous senior administration officials.

The White House on Thursday night declined requests for information about whether Trump changed his mind.

The incident immediately heightened the crisis already gripping the wider region, which is rooted in Trump withdrawing the U.S. a year ago from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal and imposing crippling new sanctions on Tehran. Recently, Iran quadrupled its production of low-enriched uranium to be on pace to break one of the deal’s terms by next week while threatening to raise enrichment closer to weapons-grade levels on July 7 if Europe doesn’t offer it a new deal.

Citing unspecified Iranian threats, the U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier to the Middle East and deployed additional troops alongside the tens of thousands already there. All this has raised fears that a miscalculation or further rise in tensions could push the U.S. and Iran into an open conflict, 40 years after Tehran’s Islamic Revolution.

“We do not have any intention for war with any country, but we are fully ready for war,” Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami said in a televised address Thursday.

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Deb Riechmann in Washington, David Rising in Berlin and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.