Nigerian Envoy To Tehran Summoned Over Sheikh Zakzaky’s Conditions

TEHRAN (TEHRAN TIMES) – The Foreign Ministry has summoned Nigeria’s envoy to Tehran to voice the Islamic Republic’s concerns over the conditions of top Shiite cleric and leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky.

“Recently, the Nigerian charge d'affaires was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and was informed about Iran’s concerns over Sheikh Zakzaky’s conditions in the African country,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said at his bi-weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday.

“The Nigerian charge d'affaires offered some explanations and he is supposed to convey our concerns to the Nigerian government,” he added.

The spokesman expressed the hope that the Foreign Ministry’s efforts would yield results and that the prominent cleric would recover soon.

Iran has spared no efforts through diplomatic and political ways to resolve the issue, he stressed.

According to the Tasnim news agency, Sheikh Zakzaky has been held in detention since December 2015 and was charged just in April 2018 with murder, culpable homicide, unlawful assembly, disruption of public peace and other accusations. He has pleaded not guilty.

In 2016, Nigeria’s federal high court ordered his unconditional release from jail following a trial, but the government has so far refused to set him free.

The top cleric, who is in his mid-sixties, lost his left eyesight in a raid which was carried out by the Nigerian army on his residence in the northern town of Zaria in December 2015.

During the raid, Zakzaky’s wife sustained serious wounds too and more than 300 of his followers and three of his sons were killed. Zakzaky, his wife, and a large number of the cleric’s followers have since been in custody.

On Friday, the UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) announced that it had received reports about Zakzaky’s health condition that it had further worsened.

The IHRC — which had sent a medical team to Nigeria in April to examine the health condition of Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife — has already said the specialist treatment they require can only be fully accessed outside the African country.

Separately, members of the IMN had also said last week that the cleric had been poisoned in prison and required urgent medical care abroad.

Iran Breaches Key Uranium Enrichment Iimit In Nuclear Deal

From left to right, spokesman for Iran's atomic agency Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran's government spokesman Ali Rabiei and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, attend a press briefing in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, July 7, 2019. The deputy foreign minister says that his nation considers the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to be a "valid document" and seeks its continuation. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

BY JON GAMBRELL

TEHRAN, IRAN (AP) — Iran on Monday began enriching uranium to 4.5%, just breaking the limit set by its nuclear deal with world powers, while it is still seeking a way for Europe to help it bypass U.S. sanctions amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The acknowledgement by the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to The Associated Press shows that the Islamic Republic trying to increase pressure on those still in the 2015 nuclear deal. It also comes just days after Iran acknowledged breaking the 300-kilogram (661-pound) limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile, another term of the accord.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Iran surpassed the enrichment threshold.

Experts warn that higher enrichment and a growing stockpile could begin to narrow the one-year window Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic weapon, something Iran denies it wants but the deal prevented. While the steps now taken by Iran remain quickly reversible, Europe so far has struggled to respond.

There are fears that a miscalculation in the crisis could explode into open conflict. President Donald Trump, who withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal over a year ago and re-imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran, nearly bombed the country last month after Tehran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. Even China, engaged in delicate trade negotiations with the White House, openly criticized America’s policy toward Iran.

“What I want to emphasize is that the maximum pressure the U.S. imposes on Iran is the root cause of the crisis in the Iranian nuclear issue,” said Geng Shuang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman. “It has been proven that unilateral bullying has become a worsening tumor and is creating more problems and greater crises on a global scale.”

On Sunday, Trump warned that “Iran better be careful.” He didn’t elaborate on what actions the U.S. might consider but told reporters: “Iran’s doing a lot of bad things.”

Under the deal, Iran has been closely monitored by inspectors from the IAEA, which on Monday verified “that Iran is enriching uranium above 3.67%.” The Vienna-based agency did not specify how much beyond the threshold Iran has gone.

Enriched uranium at the 3.67% level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. At the 4.5% level, it is enough to help power Iran’s Bushehr reactor, the country’s only nuclear power plant.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, confirmed the increased enrichment to the AP.

“At the moment our enrichment is at around 4.5%,” Kamalvandi said. He did not elaborate.

Kamalvandi separately hinted in a state TV interview broadcast Monday that Iran might consider going to 20% enrichment or higher as a third step, if the material is needed and the country still hasn’t gotten what it wants from Europe. That would worry nuclear nonproliferation experts because 20% is a short technical step away from reaching weapons-grade levels of 90%. Kamalvandi also suggested using new or more centrifuges, which are limited by the deal.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Iran appreciated the efforts of some nations to save the deal, but offered a jaded tone on whether Tehran trusted anyone in the negotiations.

“We have no hope nor trust in anyone, nor any country, but the door of diplomacy is open,” Mousavi said.

He also gave a sharp, yet unelaborated warning to Europe about another 60-day deadline that Iran set Sunday. That deadline is Sept. 5, though Iran’s senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri described it as being Sept. 7. The different dates could not be immediately reconciled.

“If the remaining countries in the deal, especially the Europeans, do not fulfill their commitments seriously, and not do anything more than talk, Iran’s third step will be harder, more steadfast and somehow stunning,” he said. The remaining signatories to the deal with Iran are Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia.

The U.S. is open to talks but will keep up pressure on Tehran and will “never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Vice President Mike Pence told a pro-Israel Christian organization in Washington

In his prepared remarks, he said that “America will not back down,” although Pence did not use that phrase when he delivered his speech. He did say that Iran should not “confuse American restraint with a lack of American resolve.”

The U.S. has sent thousands of troops, an aircraft carrier, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets to the Middle East. Mysterious oil tanker attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, attacks by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen on Saudi Arabia and Iran’s downing of a U.S. military drone have raised fears of a wider conflict engulfing the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and said they are trying to find a way by July 15 to resume international dialogue with Iran. It remains unclear what Europe can do, because Iran wants it to help Tehran sell its crude oil abroad.

U.S. sanctions have targeted Iran’s oil sales and top officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It’s also unclear what international company would risk U.S. sanctions to help Europe trade with Iran outside of the exceptions granted for food and medicine.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes Iran’s action would neither help preserve the agreement “nor secure tangible economic benefits for the Iranian people,” according to U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.

Mousavi said he didn’t know where an Iranian supertanker was heading when it was seized off the coast of Gibraltar. Authorities there said they seized the Grace 1 last week and confirmed Monday it was fully loaded with crude oil. Its suspected destination was a refinery in Syria that is under European Union sanctions.

Hard-liners in Iran have demanded a British oil tanker be seized in response. State TV said Britain’s ambassador to Tehran had been summoned Monday for a third time.

A lawmaker also has suggested that Iran charge ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, something Mousavi dismissed while insisting Iran’s right to patrol the waters off its coast.

“We are responsible for maritime protection of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. This is our region. This is our gulf,” he said, reiterating Iran’s longtime stance. “This is our innate duty to secure this region and sustain its security. Countries that claim from thousands of miles from here that they should guarantee the maritime security here are speaking exaggeratedly.”

Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami also offered his own warning to the British over the tanker’s seizure: “It won’t remain without a response.”

Associated Press producers Mohammad Nasiri and Mehdi Fattahi and writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran and Kiyoko Metzler in Vienna contributed.

Mexicans In US Routinely Confront Legal Abuse, Racial Profiling, ICE Targeting And Other Civil Rights Violations

The civil rights of 11.3 million Mexican nationals who live in the US are routinely violated, according to a comprehensive new report on U.S. immigration enforcement since 2009. AP Photo/Matt York

BY DAVID FITZGERALD, ANGELA Y. MCLEAN & GUSTAVO LOPEZ

Officially, the Constitution of the United States gives everyone on U.S. soil equal protection under the law – regardless of nationality or legal status.

But, as recent stories of the neglectful treatment of migrant children in government detention centers demonstrate, these civil rights are not always granted to immigrants.

We are scholars focused on U.S.-Mexico migration. Our report on the enforcement of U.S. immigration law under presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, presented in February to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, documented pervasive and systematic civil rights violations against Mexicans living in the United States.

Some of the abuses we documented – which include racial profiling, discriminatory treatment and due process violations – result from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies. Others began much earlier, under Obama or well before.

All paint a troubling picture about the rule of law in the United States and the challenges facing America’s largest immigrant group.

Discrimination and deportation

An estimated 11.3 million people born in Mexico now live in the United States – 3% of the total U.S. population.

About 5 million of them are unauthorized immigrants, meaning Mexicans make up just under half of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the country. The other 6.3 million Mexicans in the U.S. are either lawful permanent residents or dual nationals who are naturalized U.S. citizens.

Based on these figures, we found, Immigration and Customs Enforcement – or ICE, the agency that carries out the nation’s immigration laws – arrests Mexican immigrants at levels that are disproportionate to their share of the unauthorized immigrant population.

Roughly 70% of immigrants deported from the U.S. interior in 2015 were Mexican, the most recent year that such detailed deportation data are available.

Another 550,000 young Mexican American “Dreamers” – immigrants who were brought to the U.S. unlawfully as children – became subject to deportation when Trump in September 2017 rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gave them temporary protection from deportation.

Not all deportations violate immigrants’ civil rights. The Immigration and Nationality Actsays immigrants may be deported for violating a long list of criminal and administrative laws.

But evidence suggests that Mexicans and other Latinos are sometimes targeted for arrest based on their race or ethnicity.

In 2014, independent monitors at a Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in Arivaca, Arizona, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, found that vehicle occupants who appeared to be Latino were 26 times more likely to be asked to show identification than white-looking vehicle occupants, who are frequently waved through the checkpoint.

And in 2012, a U.S. Department of Justice investigation in Alamance County, North Carolina, found that the sheriff had instructed deputies to “go out there and get me some of those taco eaters” by targeting Latinos in traffic stops and other law enforcement activities.

The DOJ concluded that the county demonstrated an “egregious pattern of racial profiling” – a violation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees everyone equal protection under the law.

Family separation
Mexicans in the United States have seen their constitutional rights violated in other ways.

The most egregious example was the forced separation of families found to have crossed the border illegally.

Under this Trump administration policy, which began in April 2018, at least 2,654 migrant children – and perhaps thousands more – were taken from their parents and held in government custody while their parents were criminally prosecuted for crossing the border unlawfully.

Thirty of the children known to have been separated from their families were Mexican; the rest were from Central America. Poor record-keeping has made it difficult for all of them to be reunited with their families before their parents’ deportation.

Together, these actions violate the constitutional rights to legal due process, equal protection and, according to the Southern District of California, the right of parents to determine the care for their children.

“The liberty interest identified in the Fifth Amendment provides a right to family integrity or to familial association,” wrote Judge Dana M. Sabraw in a June 2018 ruling.

More routine civil rights violations happen to Mexicans in the U.S. every day, our report found.

Though children born in the U.S. are entitled by law to American citizenship regardless of their parents’ immigration status, hundreds of undocumented Mexican women in Texas have been denied birth certificates for their U.S.-born children since 2013, according to a lawsuit filed by parents. In 2016, Texas settled the lawsuit and agreed to expand the types of documents immigrants can use to prove their identity.

And in both Arizona and Texas, so-called “show me your papers” laws allow police to demand identification from anyone they have a “reasonable suspicion” may be undocumented, which may lead to discriminatory targeting of Latinos.

Once in government detention, surveys conducted in Mexico of recently deported immigrants show, Mexican deportees are often badly treated.

On average, in 2016 and 2017, about half of all recently deported Mexicans reported having no access to medical services or a bathroom while in government custody. One-third reported experiencing extreme heat or cold.

Mexicans are not alone in their negative experiences at border patrol facilities.

A recent report by the Office of Inspector General found unsafe and unsanitary conditions at several U.S. immigrant detention centers, and immigration lawyers found food shortages at some migrant children’s shelters.

A climate of fear

While Mexicans in the United States have faced biased law enforcement and discriminationfor many decades, their treatment appears to have worsened since President Trump took office in 2017 with an openly anti-Mexican agenda.

A survey of Mexicans recently deported from the United States found that the number of people who reported experiencing verbal abuse or physical assault during their time in the U.S. increased 47% between 2016 and 2017.

The number of hate crimes against Latinos reported to the FBI also rose 24% in 2017 compared to 2016 – increasing from 344 incidents to 427.

Mexico is concerned about its citizens in the United States.

In March, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard announced it would provide more consular services online to increase the reach of Mexico’s 50 brick-and-mortar consulates in the U.S. and provide more legal training to consulate officials.

To support Mexicans in the U.S. with deportation and other immigration cases, the Mexican government will also strengthen its official ties with U.S.-based legal aid providers.

In theory, Mexico shouldn’t have to scramble to defend the rights of its citizens in the U.S. because the U.S. Constitution would. But, in practice, the civil rights of immigrants are simply not always guaranteed.

SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION

‘I Still Get Tweets To Go Back In The Kitchen’ – The Enduring Power Of Sexism In Sports Media

Journalist Jemele Hill speaks on stage during the 2017 Hashtag Sports Conference in New York City. Steve Luciano/APImages for Hashtag Sports.
BY MICHAEL SERAZIO
The story of the 2019 U.S. women’s national soccer team is not yet written, but its opening chapter – a 13-0 drubbing of Thailand – has inspired American fans hoping for a championship repeat.

The U.S. women’s soccer team has long been the envy of the world. And yet, thanks to a scheduling “oversight,” should the squad make the Women’s World Cup final on July 7, they’ll have to complete for viewers with the Copa America and Gold Cup finals, which will be held on the same day.

In other words, two regional men’s soccer tournaments might upstage a signature worldwide women’s sporting event.

To me, this scheduling “oversight” is just a microcosm of the way women are treated in the world of sports. And it isn’t just relegated to the playing field.

In my new book, “The Power of Sports,” I draw upon dozens of interviews to look at the barriers female athletes and journalists face.

It’s worse than you think.

Lack of interest or lack of coverage?
Almost every single survey of sports media over the years – irrespective of the sport or outlet – finds female athletics wildly underrepresented relative to men’s.

For example, one 25-year-long study showed that local news outlets spend only 3% of their airtime covering women’s sports, with ESPN allocating a mere 2% of its coverage.

Not until the 1990s did women’s sports begin receiving – barely – more attention than sports involving horses and dogs. Of course, that didn’t prevent Serena Williams’ 2015 selection as Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsperson of the Year” from igniting a debate over whether Triple Crown thoroughbred American Pharaoh deserved the honor instead.

The typical rebuttal to the lack of coverage is an alleged lack of interest.

But this obscures the circular logic that bedevils women’s sports: The way in which sports media outlets market and cover games partly determines how much fan interest they’re able to gin up. In other words, ratings are often generated by hyping the games. When ratings go up, it justifies the use of those resources.

So when a WNBA game gets punted to an obscure cable channel and has a low production value, it sends a message about priorities to audiences.

Networks like to claim they’re just responding to market forces when they ignore these games. But it’s never been a level playing field: Women’s sports rarely receive the media attention lavished on men’s, so the comparison seems unfair.

When I asked ESPN’s executive vice president for programming and production about this problem, he shrugged. “Any media entity,” he said, “tend[s] to focus the majority of [its] coverage on the topics that are most interesting to your viewers, right?”

In other words, ESPN claims to be amoral on questions of gender equality. Its obligation is to simply give the audience what it thinks it wants.

All men, all the time

Meanwhile, sports media remains an overwhelmingly male field.

More than 90% of anchors, commentators and editors are men. Not until 2017 did a woman announce a men’s March Madness or Monday Night Football game.

Might this color the way female athletes are portrayed? One 2013 review highlighted some notable disparities. When talking and writing about female athletes, commentators tend to focus more on their emotions. They tend to downplay their physical prowess on the field and sexualize their bodies off the field.

Conditions aren’t much better for women working in the media.
Lesley Visser was a sportscaster across multiple networks for four decades. In the late 1970s, as a young reporter for The Boston Globe, she received – and ignored – a media credential stipulation that forbade “women or children in the press box.”

She assumed that waves of women would have followed her lead. But she can’t believe how little progress has been made.

“I go to the NFC Championship, and in the press box there are maybe three women out of 2,000 credentials,” she told me. “I think we’re at the same percentage as in the 1980s.”

Social media mobs swarm

The few that do break through can expect to be targeted on social media.

“I still get tweets to go back in the kitchen,” Tina Cervasio, a sports reporter for Fox’s New York affiliate, told me. “They’re worried about color of hair and how a woman looks. … If I was as fat and bald as [some male sportscasters], I would not have that job.”

Kim Jones of the NFL Network concurred. “I’ve gotten tweets that the only reason I have a job is because of my looks; I’ve also gotten plenty more tweets that, you know, I’m an unattractive reporter who shouldn’t be on television.”

This highlights the double bind that female sports journalists face: They feel the pressure to look good for the cameras. But then they’re also denigrated by some who say they only have their jobs because of that attractiveness. It’s tough to imagine a handsome male sportscaster having the same charge leveled against him.

And when mistakes get made – as any human is liable to do – the female sports reporter feels like she’s given less leeway than her male counterpart because he doesn’t have to prove that he really belongs there.

As former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill explained to me, whenever she makes an honest error,

“The immediate reaction from a still-too-large segment of the public is going to be, ‘That’s why women shouldn’t talk sports.’ Even though most guys that are in [my] position probably would make a similar mistake, but it’s never going to be about their competence. It’s never going to be about their gender, where it will be for me.”

In 2016, an award-winning public service announcement featured male fans reading actual tweets that had been directed at prominent female sportscasters.

“I hope you get raped again,” one read. Another: “One of the players should beat you to death with their hockey stick like the whore you are.”

One of those targeted on social media, Chicago sports talk radio host Julie DiCaro, weighed in poignantly this past April.

“It always seems to come down to this idea that men have a proprietary interest in sports that women don’t have,” she told The Chicago Tribune. “As if we aren’t the daughters of Title IX. As if some of my earliest memories aren’t sitting on my dad’s lap watching the Bears and Cubs. … Sports belong to all of us.”

They should. They just don’t – yet.

SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION

Iran To Raise Uranium Enrichment Beyond Nuclear Deal Limits

In this April 9, 2018, file photo, released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani listens to explanations on new nuclear achievements at a ceremony to mark "National Nuclear Day," in Tehran, Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged Monday, July 1, 2019, Iran had broken the limit set on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by the 2015 nuclear deal, marking its first major departure from the unraveling agreement a year after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the accord. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

BY JON GAMBRELL, NASSER KARIMI

TEHRAN, IRAN (AP) — Iran announced Sunday it will increase its uranium enrichment to an unspecified level beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, breaking another limit set under the accord and furthering heightening tensions between Tehran and the U.S.

Setting another unspecified 60-day deadline for the deal, Iran took further steps toward pressuring Europe while urging further diplomacy to save an agreement that President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. from a year ago.

Hopes for saving the faltering deal appear increasingly dim, however, as the Europeans have been unable to offer Iran any effective way around U.S. sanctions that block Tehran’s oil sales abroad and target its top officials. But Iran’s recent measures, while of concern to nuclear non-proliferation experts, could be easily reversible if Europeans offer Iran the sanctions relief it seeks.

Tensions began rising in May when the U.S. rushed thousands of additional troops, an aircraft carrier, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets to the Mideast.

Mysterious oil tanker blasts near the Strait of Hormuz, attacks by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen on Saudi Arabia and Iran shooting down a U.S. military drone have raised fears of a wider conflict engulfing a region crucial to global energy supplies.

In Sunday’s news conference, Iranian officials said the new level of uranium enrichment would be reached later in the day, but did not provide a percentage. Under the nuclear deal, the cap for enrichment was set at 3.67%, a percentage closely monitored by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog.

“Within hours, the technical tasks will be done and enrichment above 3.67% will begin,” Iran nuclear agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. “We predict that the IAEA measurements early tomorrow morning will show that we have gone beyond 3.67%.”

The IAEA said it was aware of Iran’s comments and “inspectors in Iran will report to our headquarters as soon as they verify the announced development.”

Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made remarks in a video Saturday about Iran’s need for 5% enrichment. Bushehr, Iran’s only nuclear power plant, is now running on imported fuel from Russia that’s enriched around 5%.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini outlining the steps it had taken, said Abbas Araghchi, a deputy foreign minister. Discussions with European powers are continuing and ministerial-level talks are planned later this month, he said.

“We will give another 60-day period, and then we will resume the reduction of our commitments,” Araghchi said, without elaborating.

On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron told his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in a phone call that he is trying to find a way by July 15 to resume the dialogue between Iran and Western partners.

Kamalvandi also stressed that Iran will continue to use only slower, first-generation IR-1 centrifuges to increase enrichment, as well as keep the number of centrifuges in use under the 5,060-limit set by the nuclear deal. Iran has the technical ability to build and operate advanced centrifuges that work faster, but is barred from doing so under the deal.

“For the enrichment we are using the same machines with some more pressure and some special technical work,” he said. “So we don’t have an increase in the number of centrifuges for this purpose.”

But Kamalvandi stressed that Iran is able to continue enrichment “at any speed, any amount and any level.”

“For the enrichment we are using the same machines with some more pressure and some special technical work,” he said. “So we don’t have an increase in the number of centrifuges for this purpose.”

Sunday’s announcement about uranium enrichment came a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal. Iran has repeatedly warned Europe in recent weeks that it would begin walking away from an accord neutered by a maximalist American campaign of sanctions.

The decision to ramp up uranium enrichment came less than a week after Iran acknowledged breaking the deal’s 300-kilogram (661-pound) limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile.

Experts warn higher enrichment and a growing stockpile narrow the one-year window Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic bomb, something Iran denies it wants but the deal prevented.

Enriched uranium at the 3.67% level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Iran denies it seeks nuclear weapons, but the nuclear deal sought to prevent that as a possibility by limiting enrichment and Iran’s stockpile of uranium.

International reaction came swiftly, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who long has described Iran and its nuclear program as a threat to his country. He called on world powers to impose “snapback sanctions” on Iran.

“It is a very, very dangerous step,” Netanyahu said. “I’m asking you, not to provoke but out of joint knowledge of history and what happens when aggressive totalitarian regimes can cross the threshold toward things that are very dangerous to us all. Take the steps that you promised. Enact the sanctions.”

Associated Press writers Kiyoko Metzler in Vienna and Aron Heller in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

BIAFRA: President Charles De Gaulle Press Conference

President Charles de Gaulle Press Conference September 9, 1968 i  Paris. Image: Reporters Associe/Gamma-Rapho

Comments made by the President of France in Paris on September 9, 1968, at a press conference answering a reporter's question on Africa's most blood soaked event, The Pogrom:

What is his view of the situation in Biafra?
What does he think should happen there?
What action does he refuse to take with regard to Biafra? Why?

President De Gaulle's exchange with a reporter:

Question:

The drama taking place in Biafra seems to grow more tragic every day. You have alluded several times to the Biafran problem. Mr. President, could you give us your point of view on this problem ?

De Gaulle:

I am not sure that the system of federation, which sometimes, in certain parts and from a certain angle replaces that of colonization, is always a very good and very practical system, particularly in Africa. But not only in Africa, for in fact it consists in arbitrarily joining together peoples who are sometimes very different or even opposed to each other and who, therefore, have no desire whatever to be joined. We see this in Canada, in Rhodesia, in Malaysia, in Cyprus, and we see it in Nigeria. Indeed, why should the Ibos, who are generally Christians, who live in the south in a certain way, who have their own language, why should they depend on another ethnic fraction of the Federation ? Since this is what one ends up with once the colonizer has withdrawn his authority. In an artificial federation, one ethnic element imposes its authority on the others.

Even before the present drama in Biafra, one could wonder how Nigeria would be able to live, in view of all the crises the Federation was experiencing. And now that this appalling, enormous drama has occurred, now that Biafra has proclaimed its independence and that, to subdue it, the Federation is resorting to war, blockade, extermination and famine, how can it be imagined that the peoples of the Federation, Igbos included, can resume life together?

France, in this affair, has done what was possible to help Biafra. She has not performed the act which, to her, would be decisive, of recognizing the Biafran Republic, because she regards the gestation of Africa as a matter for the Africans first and foremost. Already, in fact, some States of Eastern and Western Africa have recognized Biafra. Others appear to be moving in that direction. This means that, where France is concerned, the decision which has not been taken is not ruled out for the future. And indeed, one can imagine that the Federation itself, recognizing the impossibility of keeping on its present organization, may turn itself into some kind of union or confederation that would reconcile Biafra's right to self-determination with continuing ties between it and the whole of Nigeria.

Text courtesy of French Embassy in London via Kirk Green

House Freshmen Balance National Crises, Issues Back Home

In this Nov. 14, 2018 file photo, from l-r., Rep.-elect Angie Craig, D-Minn., Rep.-elect Kim Schrier, D-WA., Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY., Rep.-elect Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., Rep.-elect Abby Finkenauer, D-Iowa, and Rep.-elect Sharice Davids, D-KS., line up as they join other members of the freshman class of Congress for a group photo on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

BY LISA MASCARO, KALI ROBINSON

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iowa Rep. Abby Finkenauer spent her time back home meeting with small-business owners and veterans, marching in a parade and delivering gifts to fire stations. In their upstate New York districts, Rep. Antonio Delgado visited farms, including one that’s part of a pilot program for hiring veterans, and Rep. Andy Brindisi kicked off a summer lunch program for kids.

As the class of freshmen House lawmakers returned to their states for the Independence Day break, six months into their first terms, many were determined to push beyond President Donald Trump’s latest pronouncements from the White House — over the border crisis or the impeachment calls against him — to focus on local issues they say matter in their districts.

But the balance can be challenging, with wrenching national stories never far from view. For these new lawmakers, their ability to master attention to both could prove crucial as they gear up for what may be their toughest campaign yet, winning a second term in Congress.

“The folks I’m talking to just want a Washington that is working together to move things forward,” Finkenauer said by telephone in between stops in her sprawling district where many farmers are hard hit by Trump’s tariff war with China.

She is using her position as head of the House Small Business subcommittee on Rural Development, Agriculture, Trade and Entrepreneurship to shore up federal money for programs to help her constituents. It’s a role she said she would play regardless who was president. “Having a trade war over Twitter doesn’t work when people are struggling,” Finkenauer said.

Even as the first-term lawmakers fill their days closer to home, they’re never removed from the throughlines that dominate Washington. In recent days, protests over the dismal conditions of migrants being held at U.S.-Mexico border facilities erupted in several congressional districts as part of a campaign organized by MoveOn and other activist groups.

As Delgado visiting veterans’ health care facilities and family farms, protesters outraged over the border crisis gathered at his district office. Congress approved a $4.5 billion package last week that many liberal lawmakers said fell short of ensuring protections and standards of care for the migrants.

“I applaud the impassioned civic engagement, including those exercising their right to protest outside our Kingston office, in response to what’s happening to migrant families within our own borders,” Delgado said on Twitter. He welcomed as an “important first step” the upcoming congressional hearing to investigation a Customs and Border Patrol officers’ Facebook page that included derogatory comments about migrants.

“Congress must increase oversight & accountability of CBP in order to end this inhumane treatment of migrants & make sure our fellow human beings are never forced to endure such horrible conditions,” he wrote.

Democrats seized the House in 2018 after flipping 40 Republican-held seats, many of them in districts that Trump won in 2016 and will be contested again when the freshmen seek re-election in 2020. Trump will be on the ballot, and Republicans are trying to recruit strong challengers .

Private polling conducted for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee showed voters remain open to Democrats, but view them as too focused on impeachment . Instead, voters want to see lawmakers work across political lines to solve problems. Health care, a key issue that many Democrats focused on during the 2018 campaigns, remains a top priority.

But those goals often collide with the party’s left flank, which is pushing Congress to stand up to the White House by starting impeachment proceedings and improving the situation at the border. They argue that voters want lawmakers to be bold and fight for Democratic values.

It’s a disconnection that Republicans are eager to exploit as they try to portray the House Democrats as aligned with their liberal colleagues, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other newcomers.

“When they’re back home the socialist Democrats want to talk about anything except their real agenda of open borders, banning private health insurance and baselessly impeaching the president,” said Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Folks back home won’t be fooled.”

Brindisi said in an interview that he was driving to as many counties in upstate New York as possible to meet constituents. He had stopped at Boys and Girls Club to launch a summer lunch program and visited first responders in support of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. He and his wife also delivered books from the Library of Congress to libraries as part of an initiative he calls Brindisi Bookworms.

In his district, constituents worry about rising prescription drug costs, the opioid crisis, and damage from the flooding Lake Ontario, but aren’t as vocal about issues major national issues such as immigration or impeachment, Brindisi said.

“It’s really issues people wake up every morning worrying about,” Brindisi said. “My constituents are concerned about people working together in Washington.”

___

Follow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lisamascaro and https://twitter.com/kalidrobinson

Jackie Kay On Dual Identity And The Funny Side Of Life

Jackie Kay. Image via Daily Nation

BY GLORIA NWANIGA
Fairway Hotel in Kampala is silent on the rainy May evening that Jackie Kay, Scottish poet and novelist, stands to read her poetry.

The Uganda International Writers Conference has just ended, but most of the delegates are still here.

In fact, the crowd seems larger than it was during the day as Kay churns out anecdote after anecdote, explaining the inspiration behind each poem she reads.

There is the funny tale of the stranger on a train who stared at her then shouted, “Igbo nose”, way before Kay set out to seek her birth father, and another tale of how shrapnel was found in her grandfather’s arm long after the world war had ended.

POETRY COLLECTIONS
The verses Kay reads are derived from her numerous poetry collections like Bantam, Other Lovers and Life Mask.

The poems are sad, funny and warm, rich in metaphors and overflowing with love, laughter, identity questions and (not) belonging.

She transports the crowd as she switches accents sounding, now Nigerian, now Scottish, and then British.

Yet Kay’s warm and friendly demeanour camouflages something important, that she is a woman of many accolades: Scots Makar — Scottish poet laureate, acclaimed writer with more than 10 titles to her name, professor of creative writing and university chancellor.

Born in a mother-and-baby home in Edinburgh to a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother, Kay was immediately adopted by a couple in Glasgow, who loved her so much that she didn’t bother to find out her biological parents until many years later.

As a kid, she wanted to be an actress as she enjoyed acting, telling stories and making things up.

AUDITIONS

“I used to go to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama twice a week for children’s classes, they were free at the time. I’d then go for auditions but I never seemed to get a part. One day this woman said to me, 'You’re really good, dear. You’re just the wrong colour,' and I realised I wouldn’t get any part at all because they didn’t have parts then for kids of my colour.

I decided from then on that I had to write parts for kids of my colour. That was one of my first impulses to write.’’

This incident and other racist encounters contributed immensely to Kay’s decision to become a writer.

In a harsh world, Kay’s imagination became a sanctuary and survival tool. “I was beaten up a lot and so I would go home and write poems of revenge. I soon realised that inside my imagination, I was quite strong. My imagination was rich and it could transport me somewhere else. Suddenly, I didn’t have to be this kid that was beaten up and had mud shoved in their eyes.”

The unpleasant encounters also influenced the subject matter of her poems and Kay admits that even as a child, she used to tackle heavy subjects like racism, apartheid and poverty. Her first poem was published in a paper when she was only 12, and it was about poverty in Glasgow.

Clearly, growing up in a very political household that went on anti-apartheid matches and wrote Christmas cards to Mandela made her develop interest in the outside world. Inevitably, her first book of poetry, The Adoption Papers, deals with issues of identity, race, gender and sexuality.

WOMEN'S GOLF

In 2016, Kay was selected as the Scots Makar, an appointment that she terms a great honour and one that sees her write poems on all sorts of subjects, ranging from homelessness to refugees and even women’s golf.

This position also makes Kay travel around the country and the world in an effort to introduce more people to poetry and to create more opportunities for younger poets.

By the time she is done with her five-year term as Makar, Kay is expected to have created a new poetic map of Scotland — The Makar’s Map. This project is already underway and she is working on a very large anthology involving old, young, professional and even unprofessional poets to put together 500 different voices that give readers a sense of what Scotland is like.

How, then, does Kay ensure that her poetry speaks to everybody and maintains generational interest across all age groups? “If the word feels alive and authentic to me, if they surprise me and I don’t know what is going to happen next, then I have to trust it will surprise my readers too. If, however, my prose feels dead and dull and I feel like it hasn’t got that spark, it goes into the bin. I only publish what I’m happy with.”

HUMOUR

The reader of Kay’s work cannot miss to notice the humour interwoven into her verses. Even as mood, subject and settings shift to dark ones full of sombre moments, she still manages to effortlessly lace the experiences with humour. This, she says, is due to her belief that tragedy and comedy live very closely together.

“I think that often, when people are challenged like when suffering bereavement, sudden changes or heartbreaks, they need to step outside themselves in order to survive. One of the ways of stepping outside is to see the humour.

If they can find humour in a situation they’ll survive it better because humour is a survival tool that can be profound and deep. Interestingly, we require just as much depth to laugh and in our thinking processes as we do to cry.”

True to her word, the 57-year-old writer employs a great deal of humour in her 2010 memoir Red Dust Road. In the first chapter, she narrates about the first meeting with her Nigerian biological father in Abuja.

“I was invited to go to Nigeria as a writer by the British Council and I thought that once in Nigeria I should find him. Years earlier when I was pregnant with my son, I found my birth mother but it was a difficult experience that put me off trying to find my father. So while in Nigeria, I tried to find him. At first he denied he was my father and then when he realised I knew too much, he agreed to meet.”

PLASTIC BAG
Kay then goes on to describe how upon setting eyes on her, her father plucked his Bible from a plastic bag and started twirling, dancing and clapping his hands above his head singing, “Oh God almighty, Oh God almighty”. At that point, it occurred to her that her father was a religious fanatic who saw her as his past sin. Narrating the event to her adoptive mother made her see the humour in an experience she describes as traumatic, upsetting and emotional.

“Mother started laughing and kicking her legs, then I realised how funny it was. Later, when I actually started to write it, I too realised it was funny. Making that encounter funny allows my readers to feel more than if I employ a sort of self-pitying tone. I find it really important as a writer to leave enough space for my readers to come in with their emotions, worries, thoughts, concerns, memories, similar experiences and tragedies. Humour is the door that allows them to do that.”

If she was to have dinner with four dead writers, Kay says she would choose Audrey Lorde, the African-American poet who was a friend of hers and a great influence on her; and 19th century novelist George Eliot, because of Elliot’s philosophy and because Middlemarch is one of her favourite books. Lastly, she would pick the witty and wonderful Oscar Wilde and Robert Burns, who was also Scotland’s national poet.

Currently chancellor of the University of Salford and professor of creative writing at Newcastle University, Kay is not convinced that a degree in creative writing is necessary for one to write. Instead, she believes that what writers should do is to read a lot.

ROUTINE

“Creative writing classes can’t teach talent, they can teach you to be better, to develop writing practice and routine, editing and structure. They can also give you a lot of feedback, and that’s very important for a writer, but really, the basic business of writing is solitary and even if you’re going for creative writing classes, you still have to do the work on your own.”

On the writing life, Kay believes that every author ought to embrace the fact that writing is a very solitary profession with two sides — the public self and a private self. She believes that once writers becomes well known, they have to learn to deal with the public self that involves taking selfies and signing books, after which they must turn down the noise, go away to find themselves, focus and go back to the work.

In her parting shot on the importance of keeping old languages alive through poetry, Kay had this to say: “It’s very important that we keep our old languages alive through poetry because poetry is a button passed down through the ages and centuries, from one tongue to another tongue, from one time to another time.”

OLD TONGUES

Tongues change, idioms change and languages change, so it’s important as well to remember the old tongues.

I write some of my poems in old Scotts, some in current Glaswegian dialect, some in Standard English and some using Igbo expressions and Nigerian accents. I like to try and write multi-voiced poetry that give a range of voices that go into making me who I am but also to keep some of these languages alive.

I think small languages all over the world have been oppressed, stamped upon and sometimes wiped out altogether and then big languages come and take over, just like when an army occupies a country but if we allow our languages to be taken over then who are we?

How do we remember ourselves if we can’t remember our language?’’

SOURCE: DAILY NATION

From Libya To Texas, Tragedies Illustrate Plight Of Migrants

In this Monday, Aug. 29, 2016 file photo, migrants, most of them from Eritrea, jump into the water from a crowded wooden boat as they are helped by members of an NGO during a rescue operation at the Mediterranean sea, about 13 miles north of Sabratha, Libya. On Friday, July 5, 2019, Libya's interior minister, Fathi Bashagha, pleaded Friday for Europe "to address the problem in a radical way _ not to prevent migrants, but to provide jobs and investment in the migrants' places of origin, as well as in southern Libya ... so as to absorb these huge numbers willing and eager to migrate to Europe." (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

BY LORI HINNANT, JAMEY KEATEN

GENEVA (AP) — They are trapped in squalid detention centers on Libya’s front lines. They wash up on the banks of the Rio Grande. They sink without a trace — in the Mediterranean, in the Pacific or in waterways they can’t even name. A handful fall out of airplanes’ landing gear.

As their choices narrow on land and at sea, migrants are often seen as a political headache in the countries they hope to reach and ignored in the countries they flee. Most live in limbo, but recent tragedies have focused attention on the risks they face and the political constraints at the root of them.

A record 71 million people were forcibly displaced around the world in 2018, according to a report last month by the U.N. refugee agency, in places as diverse as Turkey, Uganda, Bangladesh and Peru. Many are still on the move in 2019, or trapped like thousands in detention in Libya, where an airstrike on Tuesday killed at least 44 migrants and refugees locked away in the Tripoli suburb of Tajoura.

Most of those in Tajoura and other Libyan detention centers have been intercepted by the Libyan coast guard, which has become the go-to border force for the European Union, which can’t get 28 governments to agree about migration. Despite the rhetoric about migration crises in Europe and the U.S., the top three countries taking in refugees are Turkey, Pakistan and Uganda. Germany comes in a distant fifth.

A 20-year-old who fled war in his homeland in sub-Saharan Africa two years ago survived the airstrikes, gunfire from militia members trying to keep migrants inside the compound, torture for ransom by traffickers and a sinking boat in the Mediterranean. He is now sleeping outside the Tajoura detention center along with hundreds of other migrants and awaiting a second chance to go to sea.

“I faced death in Libya many times before. I am ready to die again. I already lost my brothers in the war in my country,” he told The Associated Press. He didn’t want his name used because the militia fighters who shot at him are still guarding the compound.

Libya’s interior minister, Fathi Bashagha, pleaded Friday for Europe “to address the problem in a radical way — not to prevent migrants, but to provide jobs and investment in the migrants’ places of origin, as well as in southern Libya ... so as to absorb these huge numbers willing and eager to migrate to Europe.”

Within days of the airstrike, at least two boats filled with migrants sank off Libya’s coast, leaving around 140 people missing. Another group was picked up by a rescue ship and then barred from docking on the Italian island of Lampedusa, touching off the 21st standoff between Italy’s populist government and humanitarian groups. A pregnant woman watching a shipboard ultrasound of her baby smiled broadly, seemingly oblivious to the political furor on land and at sea.

A similar disconnect played out recently when the body of a stowaway on an inbound flight from Nairobi crashed to earth next to a man sunbathing on a Sunday afternoon in his London garden. The next day, mourners held a lavish burial in El Salvador for a man and his young daughter who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande into Texas.

Like during a 2015 wave of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghanis pouring into Europe, daily reminders of migrants’ plights are back on front pages.

The U.S.-Mexico border has become a flashpoint amid President Donald Trump’s ambitions to build a wall to keep out migrants. Many children caught crossing are stuck in squalid, unsanitary detention centers. Children have also been separated from parents in custody. Critics call such policies inhumane, heartless and “un-American.”

More broadly, advocates for the huddled masses on the move say not enough is being done in the migrants’ home, transit or destination countries. Only international cooperation can help resolve the agonies, they say — a tough sell at a time of rising go-it-alone, populist and nationalist sentiment in many places.

Filippo Grandi, head of U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, said his office has a “dialogue” going with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and “if there is any help that we can provide to the U.S. administration in dealing with this matter, we’re ready to do it.”

But he called for a regional discussion among countries like the United States — the destination for many — as well as transit country Mexico, and the troubled home countries for migrants and refugees such as El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, where gang killings and lawlessness are rife.

“I have been to Honduras, to Guatemala, to El Salvador,” he told reporters recently in Geneva. “The violence perpetrated by gangs, the inability of these governments to protect their own citizenship, cause part of these flows. So this needs to be addressed in the proper manner — without stigmatizing these people.”

___

Lori Hinnant reported from Paris. Maggie Michael in Cairo contributed to this report.

OPEC Output Hits New Low On Trump's Sanctions, Supply Pact: Reuters Survey

Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Khalid Al-Falih talks to journalists at the beginning of an OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria, July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

BY ALEX LAWLER

LONDON (REUTERS) - OPEC oil output sank to a new five-year low in June as a rise in Saudi supply did not offset losses in Iran and Venezuela due to U.S. sanctions and other outages elsewhere in the group, a Reuters survey found.

The 14-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 29.60 million barrels per day (bpd) last month, the survey showed, down 170,000 bpd from May’s revised figure and the lowest OPEC total since 2014, the survey showed.

The Reuters survey suggests that even though Saudi Arabia is raising output following pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to bring down prices, the kingdom is still voluntarily pumping less than an OPEC-led supply deal allows it to. OPEC renewed the supply pact at meetings this week.

Despite lower supplies, crude oil has fallen from a six-month high above $75 a barrel in April to below $63 on Friday, pressured by concern about slowing economic growth.

“The decision of OPEC+ at the beginning of the week to extend its production cuts has done nothing to change this,” Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank, said of this week’s drop in prices.

“A series of disappointing economic data from the United States, China and Europe has sparked new concerns about demand.”

OPEC, Russia and other non-members, known as OPEC+, agreed in December to reduce supply by 1.2 million bpd from Jan. 1 this year. OPEC’s share of the cut is 800,000 bpd, to be delivered by 11 members - all except Iran, Libya and Venezuela.

The producers at meetings this week in Vienna extended the deal until March 2020.

In June, the 11 OPEC members bound by the agreement achieved 156% of pledged cuts, the survey found, more than in May, due to lower production in Iraq, Kuwait and Angola. All three of the exempt producers also pumped less oil.

The United States reimposed sanctions on Iran in November after pulling out of a 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and six world powers. Aiming to cut Iran’s sales to zero, Washington this month ended sanctions waivers for importers of Iranian oil.

Iran’s crude exports have declined to less than 400,000 bpd from more than 2.5 million bpd in April 2018.

In Venezuela, supply fell slightly in June due to the impact of U.S. sanctions on state oil company PDVSA and a long-term decline in production, according to the survey.

Among countries pumping more, Saudi Arabia boosted supply by 100,000 bpd to 9.8 million bpd from May’s revised figure, the survey found. This is still below its OPEC quota of 10.311 bpd.

Output also rose in Nigeria - which last month overproduced its target by the largest margin.

June output was the lowest by OPEC since April 2014, excluding membership changes that have taken place since then, Reuters surveys show.

The Reuters survey aims to track supply to the market and is based on shipping data provided by external sources, Refinitiv Eikon flows data and information provided by sources at oil companies, OPEC and consulting firms.


Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal and Ahmad Ghaddar; Editing by Susan Fenton
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

US To Pursue Citizenship Question On Census But Path Unclear

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, walk on the tarmac upon arrival at Morristown Municipal Airport, in Morristown, N.J., Friday, July 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

BY MARK SHERMAN, JILL COLVIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Friday it will press its search for legal grounds to force the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, hours after President Donald Trump said he is “very seriously” considering an executive order to get the question on the form.

Trump said his administration is exploring a number of legal options, but the Justice Department did not say exactly what options remain now that the Supreme Court has barred the question at least temporarily.

The government has already begun the process of printing the census questionnaire without that question.

The administration’s focus on asking broadly about citizenship for the first time since 1950 reflects the enormous political stakes and potential costs in the once-a-decade population count that determines the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives for the next 10 years and the distribution of some $675 billion in federal spending. It also reflects Trump’s interest in reshaping how congressional districts are drawn.

“You need it for Congress, for districting,” he said Friday. “How many people are there? Are they citizens? Are they not citizens? You need it for many reasons.”

Districts now are based on the total population. Some Republicans want them based on the population of eligible voters, a change that could disadvantage Democrats by excluding immigrants. The Supreme Court has left open the issue of whether districts based only on the population of eligible voters is constitutional.

The Census Bureau’s own experts have said a citizenship question would discourage immigrants from participating in the survey and result in a less accurate census that would redistribute money and political power away from Democratic-led cities where immigrants tend to cluster to whiter, rural areas where Republicans do well.

Trump, speaking as he departed the White House for a weekend in New Jersey, said he might take executive action.

“It’s one of the ways that we’re thinking about doing it, very seriously,” he said.

An executive order would not, by itself, override court rulings blocking the inclusion of the citizenship question. But such an action from Trump would perhaps give administration lawyers a new basis to try to convince federal courts that the question could be included.

“Executive orders do not override decisions of the Supreme Court,” Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in a statement Friday. The organization is representing plaintiffs in the census lawsuit in Maryland.

Later Friday, Justice Department lawyers formally told U.S. District Judge George Hazel in Maryland the administration is not giving up the legal fight to add the citizenship question to the next census. But they also said it’s unclear how they will proceed, according to a court filing.

“They still say they don’t have clear instructions on what to do,” said Saenz, who took part in a conference call with the judge and lawyers for both sides in one of three lawsuits seeking to keep the question off the census. The other two are in New York and California.

Hazel had expressed mounting frustration with the mixed signals the administration was sending, first telling him on Tuesday that the question was off only to have Trump tweet the next day that the administration was “absolutely moving forward” with efforts to include the question.

Friday evening, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge in New York to permanently block the administration from adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census.

“The Trump administration repeatedly argued the census forms could not be altered after June 30. They’ve now changed their tune because the Supreme Court ruled against them. They can’t have it both ways,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s voting rights project.

Trump’s administration has faced numerous roadblocks to adding the question, like last week’s Supreme Court ruling that blocked its inclusion, at least for now. Both the Justice and Commerce departments indicated on Tuesday that they were moving forward with the census, minus the citizenship question.

But Trump has insisted otherwise, pushing his administration to come up with a way to include the controversial query. He suggested Friday officials might be able to add an addendum to the questionnaire with the question after it’s already printed.

In the Supreme Court’s decision last week, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four more liberal members in saying the administration’s current justification for the question “seems to have been contrived.”

The administration had pushed the Supreme Court to decide the case quickly, citing a July 1 deadline to begin printing the forms. The court made the rare move of taking up the case directly from a trial court in New York before an appeals court had weighed in. As recently as June 20, Solicitor General Noel Francisco reminded the justices of the need for a quick decision, writing that “for all practical purposes, the Census Bureau needs to finalize the 2020 questionnaire by June of this year.”

The Trump administration had said the question was being added to aid in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voters’ access to the ballot box.

But the question’s opponents say recently discovered evidence from the computer files of a Republican redistricting consultant who died last year shows that, far from helping minority voters, discrimination against Hispanics was behind the push for the citizenship question.

Hazel on Friday gave the plaintiffs in the Maryland claim until Aug. 19 to gather more evidence and take testimony from administration officials. If Hazel finds discrimination, that could be a separate basis for blocking the citizenship question.

Preparations for the $15.6 billion 2020 Census are intricately choreographed. More than 425,000 people have already started applying for the half million positions needed for the 2020 Census. The bureau also is in the middle of a test run, with 480,000 households sent questionnaire information, according to the bureau’s monthly status report from May.

The ongoing legal wrangling itself could hurt the census, said John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The group is a plaintiff in the Maryland case. “The government is trying to sow seeds of confusion in the public,” Yang said.

___

Associated Press writers Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland, and Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.