Day: June 29, 2024

On the “CBS News Weekend Roundup”, host Allison Keyes gets the details of the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign from CBS News White House Correspondent Linda Kenyon. We’ll have details on several Supreme Court rulings on cases this week – including one affecting abortion access. In the “Kaleidoscope with Allison Keyes” segment, a discussion about President Biden’s pardon of thousands of military veterans who were convicted of crimes under a now defunct military law that banned same sex relationships between 1951 and 2013.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

RealClearInvestigations’ Picks of the Week https://t.co/kACFi5g4Wv

— RealClearInvestigations (@RCInvestigates) June 29, 2024

Vladimir Putin hosts Hamas, Hezbollah representaives amid Gaza war – Israel News  The Jerusalem Post

Order intelligence agencies to stop contacting judges directly: LHC to PM office  Pakistan Today

I was CIA chief who took down Bin Laden – here’s why ISIS will make a comeback… we must act NOW or face ano…  The Sun

Reports of an Israeli Airstrike on a Motorcycle near the Town of Meiss Ej Jabal in Southern Lebanon.

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 29, 2024

NOGALES, Mexico — Ana Ruiz was dismayed seeing migrants from some countries released in the United States with orders to appear in immigration court while she and other Mexicans were deported on a one-hour bus ride to the nearest border crossing.

“They’re giving priority to other countries,” Ruiz, 35, said after a tearful phone call to family in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas at the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter. The shelter’s director says it is receiving about 100 deportees a day, more than double what it saw before President Joe Biden issued an executive order that suspends asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border when arrests for illegal crossings reach 2,500 a day.

The asylum halt, which took effect June 5 and has led to a 40% decline in arrests for illegal crossings, applies to all nationalities. But it falls hardest on those most susceptible to deportation — specifically, Mexicans and others Mexico agrees to take (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans). Lack of money for charter flights, sour diplomatic ties and other operational challenges make it more difficult to deport people to many countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the U.S. is working with countries around the world to try to get them to accept more of their deported citizens, citing challenges from diplomatic relations to the slowness in production of travel documents.

“The reality is that it is easier to remove individuals to certain countries than other countries,” he said in an interview Wednesday in Tucson, Arizona. “We do remove individuals to Senegal, we do remove individuals to Colombia, we do remove individuals to India. It can be more difficult.”

Mexicans accounted for 38% of border arrests in May, down from 85% in 2011 but still the highest nationality by far. The Border Patrol’s Tucson sector has been the busiest corridor for illegal crossings for much of the last year. Last month, nearly three of every four arrests there were of Mexicans, helping explain why the asylum ban has had more impact in Arizona. U.S. authorities say the seven-day average of daily arrests in the Tucson sector fell below 600 this week from just under 1,200 on June 2.

Border agents in Arizona have been severely tested since late 2022 by nationalities that are difficult to deport — first from Cuba and later Mauritania, Guinea and Senegal. Many cross near Lukeville, about a four-hour bus ride to a major processing center in Tucson.

Many Mexicans cross illegally much closer to Tucson in Nogales, Arizona, some by climbing over a wall with ladders made from material at a seatbelt plant on the Mexican side to try to disappear into homes and businesses within seconds. Others turn themselves in to border agents to claim asylum, entering through gaps in the wall that are being filled in. On Tuesday, a group of 49 predominantly Mexican migrants were waiting for agents.

Some are taken to the Border Patrol station in Nogales, where they can be held for six days if they express fear of being deported under the asylum halt and seek similar forms of protection that would allow them to remain but that have a much higher bar, such as the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Most are taken to a cluster of giant white tents near Tucson International Airport, which opened in April 2021 for unaccompanied children. It now has space for 1,000 people, including single adults and families, who sleep on foam mattresses or raised beds.

On Tuesday, about a dozen people who said they feared deportation sat on benches in a cavernous room to hear instructions on the screening interview, which includes a four-hour window to call attorneys or others to prepare. They were then directed to one of 16 soundproof phone booths.

The Tucson processing center didn’t even conduct screenings before Biden’s asylum halt. That resulted in more migrants being released with orders to appear in U.S. immigration court, a practice that has plummeted in recent weeks. The screenings by asylum officers take about 90 minutes by phone.

Many migrants who fail interviews are deported to Nogales, a sprawling city in the Mexican state of Sonora, and end up at San Juan Bosco, where a giant fan in a former chapel offers relief from blistering summer heat.

Francisco Loureiro, who runs the shelter in a hardscrabble hillside neighborhood, said word has gotten out among Mexicans that they will be deported if they surrender to agents to seek asylum and that more will try to avoid being captured. He said one deported migrant accepted a smuggler’s offer outside the shelter Tuesday to try to sneak across undetected.

Ruiz said she did not get a chance to explain to an asylum officer that she feared returning to Mexico because of cartel violence. “They were very direct, yes-or-no questions. You couldn’t explain why you were afraid,” she said.

Mayorkas said complaints about the screening predate Biden’s June order.

“I have confidence in our agents and officers that they are abiding by the guidelines, that our guidelines are strong,” he said.

Anahi Sandoval, 30, said she tried to avoid capture after crossing the border in Nogales and was abandoned by her smuggler in the desert. She said she fled Chiapas after she and her husband, who owned a doors-and-windows business, refused to be extorted by gangs; her husband was killed and she left her daughter with a relative.

“The Colombians get a pass but not the Mexicans,” said Sandoval, who failed her screening interview. “It makes me angry.”

Araceli Martinez, 32, said she fears returning home with her 14-year-old daughter to a physically abusive husband, but no one asked her and she didn’t know that she had to ask until she was on a bus to Mexico. Previously, Border Patrol agents had to ask migrants if they feared returning home. Under new rules, migrants must ask unprompted or express obvious signs of distress, such as crying.

Martinez was eager to spread a message to others: “People come thinking there is asylum, but there isn’t.”

boston — Top Chinese leaders will gather in Beijing next month for a key political meeting that will likely reveal details of China’s attempts to boost and reform its troubled economy.

The Third Plenum, originally expected to be held last autumn, will occur July 15-18. The party conclave will “examine issues related to comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization,” according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The announcement comes as China struggles to raise economic growth back to pre-pandemic levels, with consumption remaining low and troubles in the property sector persisting.

Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics show that property investment fell 10.1% in the first five months of 2024 from a year ago. New home prices have also been dropping for almost a year.

Meanwhile, consumption in the world’s second-largest economy remains persistently weak, with retail sales increasing only 2.3% in April. Some economists predict consumer confidence in China will remain low throughout 2024.

Some analysts say the significant delay in holding the key party conclave suggests a lack of consensus over how to address the long list of domestic economic challenges that China is facing.

“My best guess is that the Third Plenum will propose measures to address the housing market, the restructuring or re-profiling of local government debt, and weak household consumption,” Michael Pettis, an expert on the Chinese economy at Peking University, wrote in a report for business consultancy Global Source Partners.

Some experts say that instead of initiating a big structural reform to the Chinese economy, Chinese authorities will focus on boosting consumer and business confidence and rolling out some fiscal reform.

“The Chinese government will try to reassure foreign investors, build up confidence in the labor market, and roll out measures to tackle the fiscal crisis at the local level,” said Dexter Roberts, director of China affairs at the University of Montana’s Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center.

Ahead of the Third Plenum, Chinese state media have been highlighting the government’s efforts to boost domestic consumption.

Xinhua reported that a consumer goods trade-in program the government initiated in March had triggered a rise in sales of cars and home appliances, while another report talked about Beijing’s attempt to boost consumer demand in the tourism and automobile sectors.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also tried to reassure investors that China will always remain “open.”

“We will … form a more market-oriented, legal and international business environment,” he said during a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the government’s “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” which guide China’s foreign relations.

Some analysts say Beijing aims to implement the policy agenda that Xi set out for China during the 20th Party Congress in October 2022.

“I think the key theme is likely to be trying to [roll out] structural reforms that help China to become an industrial innovation superpower and boost productivity to combat lagging growth and increase sustainability,” Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at the New York-based Asia Society Policy Institute, told VOA by phone.

Apart from the domestic challenges, China is also facing mounting economic pressure posed by foreign countries. The United States has been coordinating with some of its allies, including Japan and the Netherlands, to restrict China’s access to advanced technologies, such as semiconductor chips.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and European Union have both imposed tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, while Canada is considering following suit.

To cope with this pressure, China has begun to emphasize letting scientific and technological innovation drive the economy.

During a major science and tech conference in Beijing on June 24, Xi said China needs to “strengthen top-level design and overall planning” and “expedite high-level sci-tech self-reliance” to help China become a leading country in science and technology by 2035.

“The country must further enhance its sense of urgency and intensify its efforts in sci-tech innovation, so as to secure a leading position in sci-tech competition and future development,” he said during the conference.

Some experts say Xi’s emphasis on science and technology innovation likely suggests the Chinese government will pour more funding into research and development, offer tax incentives for tech companies, and introduce policies during the Third Plenum aimed at fostering a robust innovation ecosystem.

“This will involve creating more favorable conditions for venture capital and private equity investments and improving access to financing for startups and innovative enterprises,” Lizzi Lee, a fellow on the Chinese economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, told VOA in a written response.

Apart from doubling down on the key role of innovation, Xi said China must further centralize the power of leading scientific and technological innovation in the Chinese Communist Party.

Lee said the Chinese government needs to ensure “innovation can thrive within the parameters set by the party” while fostering an environment where “bottom-up, grassroots innovations can emerge.”

Judging from the wide range of domestic and international challenges China faces, Thomas in New York said, one of Xi’s top priorities will be to strengthen his position in the Chinese Communist Party and further enhance his leadership of the country.

“I expect there’ll be further institutional reforms to more deeply embed the party and Xi’s leadership over the Chinese economy,” he told VOA. 

ABUJA, Nigeria — Yunusa Bawa spends a lot of time talking about the vaccine for the human papillomavirus that is responsible for nearly all cases of cervical cancer. But on most days, only two or three people allow their daughters to be vaccinated in the rural part of Nigeria where he works.

The challenge in Sabo community, on the outskirts of the capital of Abuja, is the unfounded rumor that the HPV vaccine will later keep young girls from giving birth.

“The rumor is too much,” said Bawa, 42.

As more African countries strive to administer more HPV vaccines, Bawa and other health workers tackle challenges that slow progress, particularly misinformation about the vaccine. The World Health Organization’s Africa office estimates that about 25% of the population still has doubts about it — reflecting concerns seen in some other parts of the world in early campaigns for the vaccine.

A common sexually transmitted virus, HPV can cause cervical cancer, certain other cancers and genital warts. In most cases, the virus doesn’t cause any problems, but some infections persist and eventually lead to cancer.

Across Africa, an average of 190 women died daily from cervical cancer in 2020, accounting for 23% of the deaths globally and making it the leading cancer killer among women in the WHO Africa region of 47 countries. Eighteen of the 20 countries with the highest rate of cervical cancer cases in the world are in Africa. Yet the region’s HPV vaccination rate has been low.

More than half of Africa’s 54 nations – 28 – have introduced the vaccine in their immunization programs, but only five have reached the 90% coverage that the continent hopes to achieve by 2030. Across the region, 33% of young girls have been vaccinated with HPV.

It’s a stark contrast to most European countries, where both girls and boys have been receiving HPV shots.

Part of why Africa has a high burden of cervical cancer is because of limited access to screening for women, said Emily Kobayashi, head of the HPV Program at the vaccines alliance Gavi.

“The elimination strategy is a long game … but we know that vaccination is the strongest pillar and one of the easiest to implement,” Kobayashi said.

But “it is one thing to introduce the vaccine, but if the vaccine remains in the fridge, it doesn’t prevent cervical cancer,” said Charles Shey Wiysonge, head of the vaccine-preventable diseases program in the WHO’s Africa region. He said information must be provided by people “who are trusted, people who are close to the communities.”

There is a long history of vaccine hesitancy in many African countries that is sometimes linked to a lack of trust in government, as one study published in the Nature science journal in May found, giving room for conspiracy theories and misinformation from social media influencers and religious leaders.

In Zimbabwe, where cervical cancer is the most frequent cancer among women, a group of mostly women known as Village Health Workers have been trained to raise awareness about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine in rural areas. But they fight a high level of hesitancy among religious sects that discourage followers from modern medicines, asking them to rely instead on prayers and “anointed” water and stones.

The women who eventually agree to be screened for cervical cancer do so in secret, said Zanele Ndlovu, one of the health workers on the outskirts of Bulawayo city.

For a deeply religious country like Zimbabwe, “the spiritual leaders have so much influence that a lot of our time is taken trying to educate people about the safety of vaccines, or that they are not ungodly,” Ndlovu said.

There are also success stories in Africa where authorities have achieved up to a 90% vaccination rate. One example is Ethiopia, which relies heavily on religious leaders, teachers and hotline workers.

In Rwanda, the first African country to implement a national HPV vaccination program in 2011, the coverage rate has reached 90%. Hesitancy is less of an issue due to vigorous awareness work that has relied on school-based campaigns and community outreach programs, said Dr. Theoneste Maniragaba, director of the cancer program at Rwanda Biomedical Center.

Mozambique has deployed school-based programs, a door-to-door approach and mobile outreach for girls in hard-to-reach areas that has helped it reach 80% coverage rate with the first of two doses. In Tanzania, where the HPV vaccine has been in use since at least 2018, authorities in April launched a campaign to target over 5 million girls and further raise coverage, which has reached 79% of girls with the first dose.

One of Africa’s largest HPV vaccination drives targeting girls recently kicked off in Nigeria, which has procured nearly 15 million doses with the help of the U.N. children’s agency. It will target girls ages 9–14 with single doses that the WHO’s African immunization advisory group has said is as effective as the regular two doses.

One challenge is explaining the HPV vaccination to girls ahead of the onset of sexual activity, especially in conservative societies, said Dr. Aisha Mustapha, a gynecologist in northern Kaduna state.

Mustapha has been successfully treated for cervical cancer. She said the experience helps in her meetings with religious leaders and in community outreach programs in Kaduna, where she leads the Medical Women Association of Nigeria.

They try to make the girls feel comfortable and understand why the vaccine is important, she said. That sometimes requires comic books and lots of singing.

“The (cervical) cancer … is no respecter of any identity,” she said. “The vaccine is available, it is free, it is safe and effective.”

BEIRUT — After more than eight months of low-scale conflict, Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are threatening all-out war.

The United States and the international community are lobbying for calm and hopeful for a diplomatic solution. They have not been successful so far and time for a political settlement could be expiring.

Should war break out, Israel would face a much more formidable foe in Lebanon than it faced in Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel last week that his group has new weapons and capabilities, and it has published surveillance drone footage taken deep inside northern Israel that showed the port of Haifa and other sites far from the Lebanon-Israel border.

A look at how Hezbollah became what many call the strongest non-state force in the region.

What is Hezbollah?

Founded in 1982 during Lebanon’s civil war, Hezbollah’s initial objective was ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. It achieved that in 2000.

Shiite Muslim Hezbollah is part of a collection of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the Axis of Resistance. It was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islamism.

In its early days the group attacked U.S. targets, causing Washington to designate it a terrorist organization.

“Iran’s support has helped Hezbollah consolidate its position as Lebanon’s most powerful political actor as well as the most-equipped military actor supported by Iran in the whole of the Middle East,” said Lina Khatib, the director of the SOAS Middle East Institute in London.

Hezbollah fighters ambushed an Israeli patrol in 2006 and took two Israeli soldiers hostage. Hezbollah and Israel fought a monthlong war that ended in a draw but Israeli bombardment wreaked widespread destruction in southern Lebanon.

Israel’s objective was eliminating Hezbollah but the Lebanese group came out stronger and became a key military and political power on Israel’s northern border.

Domestic opponents have criticized Hezbollah for maintaining its arsenal and for coming to dominate the government. Hezbollah’s reputation also suffered when it briefly seized a section of Beirut in May 2008 after the Lebanese government took measures against its private telecommunications network.

Hezbollah’s military capabilities have also surged, and it has played a key role in the Syrian civil war, keeping President Bashar al-Assad in power. And it has helped train Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, as well as Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

What are Hezbollah’s military capabilities?

Throughout its latest conflict with Israel, Hezbollah has gradually introduced new weapons to its arsenal, especially after Israel began its ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah in Gaza in early May.

While Hezbollah initially began launching Cornet anti-tank missiles and salvos of Katyusha rockets, it later started using rockets with heavy warheads, and eventually introduced explosive drones and surface-to-air missiles for the first time. Nasrallah said the drones are locally manufactured, with many at their disposal.

The group notably released the two videos of footage from drones over Haifa and other sites in northern Israel, showing critical civilian and military infrastructure in a move intended to showcase new access and capabilities and deter Israeli attack.

In a televised address last week, Nasrallah said that the group will continue resorting to this tactic.

“We now have new weapons. But I won’t say what they are,” he said. “When the decision is made, they will be seen on the front lines.”

How does Hezbollah compare to other Iranian-backed groups?

Hezbollah is the Arab world’s most significant paramilitary force with a robust internal structure as well as a sizeable arsenal. Israel sees it as its most direct threat, and estimates that it has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, including precision-guided missiles.

In recent years, Hezbollah sent forces to Syria to help fellow Iranian ally President Bashar Assad against armed opposition groups. It also supported the growth of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

Khatib of the SOAS Middle East Institute in London likened Hezbollah to a “big brother” of fledgling Iranian-backed groups that “do not enjoy the same level of infrastructure or discipline.”

Hezbollah is bound to Iran by doctrine. However, its relationship with Hamas, an offshoot of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood movement, is based on pragmatism.

In recent years, some Hamas officials, including its former second-in-command, Saleh al-Arouri, have since moved to Lebanon, where they have Hezbollah’s protection and a presence across Lebanon’s multiple Palestinian refugee camps. Arouri was killed in an Israeli drone strike in a southern Beirut suburb in January.

Who Is Hassan Nasrallah?

Born in 1960 into a poor Shiite family in the Beirut suburb of Bourj Hammoud and later displaced to south Lebanon, Nasrallah studied theology and joined the Amal movement, a Shiite political and paramilitary organization, before becoming one of Hezbollah’s founders.

He became Hezbollah’s leader in 1992 after his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike.

Idolized by many for presiding over Israel’s withdrawal from the south and leading the 2006 war, his image appears on billboards and on gadgets in souvenir shops in Lebanon, Syria and other countries across the Arab world. But he also faces opposition among Lebanese who accuse him of tying their country’s fate to Iran.

Nasrallah is also considered to be pragmatic, able to make political compromises.

He has lived in hiding for years, fearing Israeli assassination, and delivers his speeches from undisclosed locations.