Nigeria’s agency for combating human trafficking is repatriating and re-settling women who have been subjected to forced labor and prostitution after being smuggled into Europe on false promises of working at well-paying jobs.  Thousands of Nigerian women have been trafficked in recent years, though some were lucky enough to be able to return to their country.  

For 35-year-old Beatrice, it was an offer she couldn’t resist.  A job, the traffickers told her in 2013, on a large Italian farm.

She took the bait, thinking she could help pull her father and mother out of poverty by working abroad.

Instead, after being smuggled into Italy under extremely dire traveling conditions, she was forced into prostitution to earn money for her traffickers.

“A friend of mine introduced me, he said, ‘look at this place, you’re going to work there on the farm.’ He did not tell me I’m going to do prostitution, so I said it’s very nice let me try. At the end of the day we passed through Libya, took a ship, a lot of people died,” Beatrice said.

Beatrice was there for four years. She’s from Nigeria’s southern State of Edo, known to contribute the highest number of trafficked women from Nigeria.

More than 11,000 of them are estimated to be working as sex slaves in Italy alone.

Beatrice says her suffering was unbearable.

“If you don’t come back with money, they’ll beat you up, do different things. They give you fresh pepper, you know how it is if it got to your eyes. They’ll tell you to put it in your vagina. Even if you’re menstruating you’ll still go out to work,” Beatrice said.

The United Nations says women represent more than half of the thousands smuggled from Africa into Europe every year.

But Nigerian men also are victims of human trafficking and forced labor.

Forty-five-year-old Chukwuemeka Asiegbu spent six years in Libya and narrowly escaped alive. Upon his return to Nigeria, he started an advocacy group for the rights of trafficked victims.

“As a human trafficker you are meeting needs … your own needs. Is it detrimental to others? And actually we find out that human trafficking is quite detrimental, it’s an epidemic, it’s a disaster because you are meeting needs at the expense of the lives of others,” Asiegbu said.

Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency, NAPTIP was set up in 2003 to address the problem.  

Over the years, it has made some progress repatriating and resettling victims back home, says Arinze Orakwe, a director at NAPTIP.

“It’s a crime that brought so much shame to Nigeria. It’s a crime that we’re not proud of, the record and status … which government felt it’s important and critical that we have to do something about it,” Orakwe said.

With the help of NAPTIP, victims like Beatrice are starting again after being trained in various vocations. Beatrice now runs her own food cafe back home.

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Nigeria’s agency for combating human trafficking is repatriating and re-settling women who have been subjected to forced labor and prostitution after being smuggled into Europe on false promises of working at well-paying jobs.  Thousands of Nigerian women have been trafficked in recent years, though some were lucky enough to be able to return to their country.  Timothy Obiezu takes a closer look at the story of some human trafficking victims who are now back in Nigeria rebuilding their lives.

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Opera legend Placido Domingo was greeted with a standing ovation in Salzburg, Austria, at his first appearance on stage since nine women accused him of sexual harassment dating back three decades.

Even before he sang a single note, Domingo was greeted with a thunderous applause that grew to a crescendo until most of the house was on its feet.

“Wonderful public, good performance all,” the Spanish-born singer said as he signed autographs after the performance of Verdi’s tragic opera Luisa Miller.  “I mean, so much love from the public.”

The Associated Press reported last week that nine women accused Domingo of using his position as general director at the Los Angeles Opera and elsewhere to try to pressure them into sexual relationships. Several of the woman said he offered them  jobs and then punished them professionally if they refused his advances. Allegations included repeated phone calls, invitations to hotel rooms and his apartment, and unwanted touching and kisses.

In a statement to the AP, Domingo called the allegations “deeply troubling and, as presented inaccurate” and that he believed his interactions with the women were consensual.

Two U.S. opera houses, in Philadelphia and San Francisco cancelled performances by Domingo after the allegations surfaced, while others, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, took a wait-and-see attitude pending an investigation.

As of Sunday, Domingo was still booked to star in Macbeth at the Met in New York next month.

 

 

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Africans and African Americans participating in events marking 400 years since the start of slavery in the United States say everyone must work harder to unite societies divided along racial and economic lines. VOA reporter Kennes Bwire reports from Norfolk, Virginia, where people gathered Saturday to observe the anniversary of the beginning of more than two centuries of slavery in English-speaking America.  *For more on the anniversary, check out our Special Page.

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SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ, FRANCE – U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touted their trilateral trade agreement in their meeting at the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France.

“Quite frankly, around the table there’s a lot of people wanting to make trade deals with each other,” Trudeau said, adding that the U.S. and Canada have a deal that’s “good for our workers, good for our citizens, good for the middle class.”

My focus at the #G7 is working with our allies to strengthen the middle class – not just in Canada but around the world as well. We just wrapped up a productive first day in France, tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges. More to come tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/55pIiguuNO

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) August 25, 2019

Trump said that the two countries will be “significantly expanding” trade relations once the USMCA (U.S. – Mexico – Canada Agreement) is done.

Negotiations are final but the agreement has not yet been ratified by the U.S. Congress. The White House is pushing for an immediate ratification but Democrats and organized labor said certain provisions must first be improved.

The USMCA replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, which Trump at the meeting again called “the worst trade agreements ever done”. 

Trump added that the only thing worse than NAFTA is the World Trade Organization. “The WTO, that’s a beauty.” he said.

Climate change

Trudeau is pushing for action on climate change at the summit, in line with his Liberal government’s agenda to highlight its achievement on this issue ahead of Canada’s October election.

French President Emmanuel Macron, host of the summit has put climate issues high on the agenda for discussion, particularly focusing on the wildfires in the Amazon rainforest.

The leaders’ focus on climate change have put them at odds with an American president known for his anti-climate stance. In June 2017, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Accord, a multilateral climate pact championed by the Obama administration. 

The New York Times reported that senior Trump administration officials have accused Macron’s aides of ignoring requests by White House officials to keep the focus on security and the threat of a recession, and emphasizing instead on climate change, gender equality, and African development, which highlight disagreements the Trump administration.
 

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The leaders of the world’s major industrialized countries are holding their annual summit.

 The Group of Seven, or G-7, is meeting in Biarritz, France. 

U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on French wine, one of the most iconic industries of the host country, ahead of the summit has added to the tension among the leaders who remain at odds over issues ranging from climate change, how to deal with China and Iran, whether to bring Russia back into the fold, and Britain’s exit from the European Union. 

With these deep divisions, consensus seems unlikely. After Sunday’s first session the leaders failed to come to an agreement on readmitting Russia to the group in 2020.  Russia was ousted after its invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea in 2014.  

The French government announced after the first working session on the global economy, foreign policy and security affairs that the G-7 leaders had agreed to have French President Emmanuel Macron send a message to Iran and hold talks with Iranian officials.  No details were released about the message, and Trump said he had not discussed anything about a message or talks with Iran.  However, later Trump said he is not stopping anybody from talking with Iran.

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has acknowledged that “it has been increasingly difficult for us to find common language.”  

No joint communique planned

French President Emmanuel Macron already has declared that there will be no joint communique at the end of the summit, citing disagreements involving Trump and other leaders on the key issues as one of the reasons.

It will be the first time in G-7 history that a summit will end without a communique. 

The summit marks the first meeting between Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson since Johnson took over from his predecessor Theresa May who failed to deliver on Brexit. 

The members of the G-7 are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States. 

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France but did not announce they have reached a trade deal.

“We’re working on one and we’re fairly close,” said Trump.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who has been leading the negotiations with Japan added, “We’ve worked very intensively and probably as a result of this meeting will be able to come to agreement on core principle.” Prior to the Trump-Abe meeting, Lighthizer held talks with Japan’s Economic Revitalization Minister Toshimitsu Motegi in Washington.

Japanese media have reported that a deal is close, with Tokyo agreeing to lower tariffs on American beef and pork to levels set by the Trans-Pacific Partnership, while letting Washington maintain its 2.5% levy on Japanese autos for now.

Earlier Sunday during his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Trump said that he was “very close to a major deal with Japan”.

“Prime Minister Abe and I are very good friends,” he added.

The two leaders enjoy close ties but Trump often complains that Tokyo has an unfair advantage in bilateral trade.

In January 2017, very early in his presidency Trump withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a signature multilateral trade deal of the Obama administration.

After the U.S. withdrawal, in 2018, the 11 remaining TPP countries, including Japan, signed a version of the trade deal, championed as an antidote to growing American protectionism under Trump.

North Korea missile tests

Asked about recent North Korean missile tests, Trump said he is “not happy” about it but that he doesn’t consider Pyongyang to be violating agreements.

When Trump offered Abe to give his thoughts, the Japanese leader repeated his stance that the tests were a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Trump responded, “I can understand how the Prime Minister of Japan feels” but said that the North Korean leader is not the only one testing those missiles.

“We’re in the world of missiles, folks, whether you like it or not,” said Trump.

 

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One in a series on Generation Z.

Over the next 10 years, Generation Z will grow in size and racial diversity to tip today’s minority population into a majority.

Gen Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history, with 48% of Gen Z being nonwhite, according to Pew Research Center.

The implications of this demographic change are a political shift to the left, changes in education and other social changes, said William Frey, senior fellow and demographer at the Brookings Institution.

“The fact that white children under 15 have already become a minority in their age group puts an exclamation point on the fact that the nation’s diversity is percolating from the ‘bottom up’ as the white population ages,” Frey said.

Frey’s “bottom up” diversity is projected to grow, and will require governments and institutions to focus on a more racially diverse youth population, because they will be vital to the economic growth of the U.S.

While Gen Z is the most racially diverse generation in the U.S. because of an increase in first-generation U.S. births, there are fewer immigrants in the Gen Z population than in the millennial generation that preceded it, according to Pew. 

The U.S. political scene will also begin to change to reflect the diverse Gen Zers, as demographics in the U.S. continue to change, according to experts.

“That’s changing much more rapidly in (Southern and Western) states that used to vote Republican,” Frey said. Those states are moving into the Democratic column, he added.

As of 2018, in the Western U.S., Gen Zers are as likely to be Hispanic as they are white, with each race accounting for about 40% of the population.

“Things were a lot closer in Texas (during the 2018 midterm elections) than people thought it was going to be, largely because of the strong minority vote for Democrats there,” Frey said.“And in fact, states like North Carolina, Florida … in 2008, states that had long time voted Republican voted Democratic for (former President) Barack Obama, largely on the basis of younger racial minorities having very strong turnout.”

Predictably, Gen Zers, including Gen Z Republicans, view diversity as a good thing for society more than any other earlier generation, according to Pew.

When it comes to education, Gen Zers have the highest rate of educational attainment compared with their elders.

But despite also being the most diverse, “there are still sharp racial divisions, in terms of college, high school dropout rates, access to good post-secondary education, as opposed to a post-secondary education, which is not that quality,” Frey said.

“This kind of racial disparity still exists, and it is really important that the government takes the lead in trying to close that disparity,” he said.

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In August of 1619, several Africans were brought to Virginia in bondage, beginning more than two centuries of slavery in the United States. 400 years later, scholars at VOA’s town hall with Norfolk State University take a look at slavery’s bitter roots and it’s lasting impacts in the nation.  VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has this report.

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After Clinton Kanu was arrested and charged with murder in 1993, he spent 13 years in prison awaiting trial. He waited another 14 years on death row at a prison in southern Nigeria. 
 
He says that prison is horrible and that his entire youth was wasted in an awful situation. 

In April this year, Nigeria’s Supreme Court acquitted Kanu, saying there was not enough evidence to prove he committed murder. After 27 years in prison, Kanu was released. 
 

It’s cases like Kanu’s that a prison reform bill signed into law this month by President Muhammadu Buhari is aimed at addressing. The new law, which changed the name of the Nigerian Prison Service to the Nigerian Correctional Service, has been described as unprecedented in Nigeria. 
 
Francis Enobore, the spokesperson for the Nigerian Correctional Service, told VOA the new law was inspired by prison reform initiatives being taken in other countries. 
 
Nigeria’s prison service currently has about 250 prisons and 74,000 inmates.  
 
The recently passed law may fix what many say is the most glaring problem in the sector: overcrowding. The prison where Kanu was on death row houses more than 4,000 inmates; it was built for 804. 
 
The new law allows comptrollers to reject additional prisoners when the prison in question is already filled to capacity. 

Ways to avoid prison
 
The law also addresses overcrowding by administering community service, parole and meditation between the offender and the offended. This is so those convicted of minor or petty crimes can avoid prison. 
 
There’s also an option for judges to change a death sentence to life imprisonment if an inmate sentenced to death has exhausted all appeals and 10 years have elapsed without the execution of the sentence. 
 

Nigeria currently has the highest number of death sentences in sub-Saharan Africa, with 621 people sentenced to death in 2017 and more than 2,000 inmates on death row, according to Amnesty International. 
 
Giving judges the option to commute death sentences could be a game-changer. But legal analysts and activists like Sylvester Uhaa are already expressing concern about implementation.  

Sometimes, Uhaa said, money intended for implementation is not released to the relevant agencies. But corruption is also an issue, he added. 

Since 2008, Uhaa has directed the Nigeria chapter of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, or CURE. He’s among the activists and policymakers who have been waiting for the approval of the 11-year-old bill. 
 
One area the reform law does not address is transparency in contracting for prison services. Earlier this month, about 50 inmates at a prison in Keffi tried to escape, complaining of being poorly fed, forced to live in unsanitary conditions and not receiving medical attention. The prison also has a problem with sewage disposal and a severe shortage of drinking water.  
 
Monies are budgeted for feeding. Monies are budgeted for drugs,” Uhaa said. “So why are inmates not getting the food that they need to get? Who is getting these contracts to feed these inmates? Can we know the people and how much is involved? 

Large backlog
 
Slowness and corruption in the country’s criminal justice system have resulted in an enormous backlog of cases. Out of the nearly 74,000 inmates in the country, only about 24,000 have actually been convicted. That’s means 68 percent of the total prison population is awaiting trial.  
 
A section in the law mandates that steps be taken to speed up these cases. Such a mandate could have drastically reduced Kanu’s 27 years in prison. 
 
At 56, he’s still getting used to his newfound freedom. He’s been applying for work at human rights organizations, where he hopes to focus on prison reform. 

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Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen whom Russia accuses of being a spy, will remain in custody while Russian authorities continue their investigation of the former U.S. Marine. Whelan, his family and the United States believe the charges are baseless. Yulia Savchenko reports from Moscow.

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Syrian state media report that government forces now control all of northern Hama province for the first time since 2012 and that they have encircled a Turkish military monitoring post in the town of Morek. Turkish President Erdogan says that he will discuss the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they meet next week.

Supporters of the Syrian government in the country’s fourth largest city of Hama shot fireworks into the air overnight, following news by state media that the Syrian military had captured all of northern Hama province for the first time since 2012. A Syrian Army spokesman announced the victory over state TV late Friday.

He said Syrian Army forces have pursued their advance in the north of Hama and the south of Idlib provinces, liquidating armed rebel groups after inflicting heavy casualties on them, and that army forces are intent on continuing operations to liberate all Syrian territory.

Amateur video showed Syrian Army forces encircling a Turkish military monitoring position in the northern Hama town of Morek. Syrian forces did not, however, attack the Turkish position.

Turkish media reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will protest the Syrian government advance to Russian President Vladimir Putin when he visits Moscow on Tuesday. Erdogan claims that Damascus has not respected the de-escalation agreement signed in the Russian resort town of Sochi, last year.

A Syrian state TV correspondent in northern Hama reported that the Syrian Army was demining areas it had recaptured from rebel groups and had re-opened a large stretch of the main highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, which it had recaptured.

One Syrian Army officer told Syrian state television the “most significant part of recapturing the area was the fact that it allowed many residents of these towns to be able to return home.”

A woman resident of a town already under government control was also pleased by the victory:

She said the government victory means there no longer will be any warning sirens going off and that children can now play outside safely and be able to return to school.

Nadim Shehadi, executive director of the Lebanese American University Academic Center in New York, told VOA that he does not think the Syrian government military operation in northern Hama is a “significant victory.” He also envisions a sort of stalemate settling over Syria, like the one that prevailed in Iraq between 1991 and 2003, with the country remaining under economic sanctions.

Syrian government analyst Mahmoud Maraie told state TV, however, that the advance of government forces in Hama was a “major victory,” since it “allows the government to take control of the area for the first time since 2012, defeating several terrorist groups.”

He also claimed that “Turkey did not abide by the Sochi agreement signed in 2018, forcing the Syrian government to find a military solution.”

Damascus insists that Turkey had agreed to stop supporting what it considers terrorist groups in the Idlib and Hama provinces and to allow the re-opening of the strategic main highway linking Syria’s two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo.

 

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India’s former finance minister, Arun Jaitley, died Saturday in a New Delhi hospital months after he stepped away from the job due to deteriorating health.

A close associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the 66-year-old Jaitley was credited with steering landmark economic reform that helped create a single market in India for the first time since the country’s independence in 1947.

 
It was also under his watch that Modi announced his controversial decision to scrap 86 percent of India’s currency.
 
One of Modi’s most articulate ministers in parliament who was often called upon to defend the government, the former lawyer turned politician was known as one of the sharpest minds in the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. He also briefly headed the Defense Ministry.
 
A diabetic, he had undergone a kidney transplant in 2018 and opted out of Modi’s cabinet after the BJP’s resounding victory in May of this year. He was admitted to a hospital two weeks ago with breathing problems.  
 
“I have lost a valued friend, whom I have had the honour of knowing for decades,” Modi said on Twitter. “His insight on issues and nuanced understanding of matters had very few parallels.”

With the demise of Arun Jaitley Ji, I have lost a valued friend, whom I have had the honour of knowing for decades. His insight on issues and nuanced understanding of matters had very few parallels. He lived well, leaving us all with innumerable happy memories. We will miss him!

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 24, 2019

 
Modi also called him a “political giant, towering intellectual and legal luminary”.

During his stint as finance minister, Jaitley spearheaded the Goods and Services Tax or GST, which overhauled a messy system of indirect taxes into a single nationwide tax. It has been hailed as a big booster of the economy, though its implementation has proved to be a challenge in a country where millions of small businesses say they are struggling to adapt to it.   
 
The other big economic decision during his term was an overnight ban on most of the country’s cash in November 2016. It was slammed by critics as a disruptive measure that resulted in job losses and slowed down the economy as it dried up people’s access to cash for months. Jaitely defended the move as necessary to root out untaxed money, clean up the economy and fulfill the promise on which the BJP government swept to power: ending corruption.    
 
Jaitley began his career in politics as a college student at Delhi University when he was elected president of the party’s youth wing during the 1970s. He also served as a law minister in a previous BJP-led government that ruled from 1998 to 2004.
 

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Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, a stronghold of Islamic State’s Khursan branch, was hit with more than a dozen bomb blasts recently, wounding more than 120 people, including 30 children. Among those children was Basharyar, who fled Afghanistan with his family years ago to neighboring Pakistan. VOA’s Zia Urahman Hasrat reports from Nangarhar.

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Comedian Dave Chappelle plans to host a special block party and benefit concert in Ohio for those affected by the recent mass shooting.

Chappelle will be among national and local entertainers planned for the main stage at the “Gem City Shine” event in Dayton Sunday.

WDTN-TV reports the City of Dayton along with the Downtown Dayton Partnership and the Chamber of Commerce will help organize the tribute.

The organizers say the event will be an effort to reclaim the entertainment district after 24-year-old Connor Betts’ 32-second rampage in front of Ned Peppers that killed nine people and left dozens injured Aug. 4.

Chappelle, a resident of nearby Yellow Springs, urges attendees to “live in the moment” by enjoying the experience live rather than recording it on their cellphones.

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The Rolling Stones have rocked stages around the world in their more than 50-year career. But now their influence has gone into space after NASA’s Mars InSight Mission named a rock on the planet after the band.

Slightly larger than a golf ball, the “Rolling Stones Rock” is said to have rolled about 3 feet (1 meter), spurred by the InSight spacecraft’s thrusters during touchdown on Mars in November, NASA said.

“In images taken by InSight the next day, several divots in the orange-red soil can be seen trailing Rolling Stones Rock,” it said. “It’s the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll while landing a spacecraft on another planet.”

Hollywood actor Robert Downey Jr. announced the name as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts were about to perform Thursday night at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Stadium, close to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Rolling Stones, known for hits such as “Sympathy For The Devil” and “Brown Sugar,” called the honor “a milestone in our long and eventful history.”

While the “Rolling Stones Rock” name is informal, it will feature on working maps of Mars, NASA said, but only the International Astronomical Union can give official scientific names for locations, asteroids and other objects in the solar system.

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Hong Kong is gearing up for more protests as some demonstrators made plans to again to target the airport this weekend.

Hong Kong police said Friday that the city’s high court had extended an order restricting protests at the airport.

“Any person who unlawfully or willfully obstructs or interferes with the normal operation of the airport” is liable to face criminal charges, said Foo Yat-ting, the senior superintendent of Hong Kong Police Force’s Kowloon East Region.

Hong Kong’s Airport Authority also published a half-page notice in newspapers urging people to “love Hong Kong” and not to block the airport.

Protesters have called for an attempt Saturday to blockade routes to the city’s airport, which could disrupt the complex if large numbers turn out.

Hong Kong ‘Baltic Chain’

On Friday, thousands of Hong Kong protesters joined hands to form human chains in a peaceful protest, recreating a “Baltic Chain” that pro-democracy demonstrators used against the Soviet Union three decades ago.

Demonstrators linked hands or held their lighted phones above their heads, creating a line of lights against the night sky.

The “Baltic Chain” or “Baltic Way” was one of the largest anti-Soviet demonstrations, with more than 1 million people linking hands across 600 kilometers on Aug. 23, 1989.

11 weeks of demonstrations

Friday’s demonstration in Hong Kong was the latest in a nearly 11-week movement that began with calls to stop an extradition bill, which has now been scrapped, and has expanded to include demands for full democracy.

Last week, Hong Kong’s airport was forced to close when protesters occupied terminals. China called the behavior “near-terrorist acts” and some protesters later apologized.

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President Donald Trump is challenging a federal appeals court decision that ruled he violated the U.S. Constitution by blocking people whose views he disliked from his Twitter account.

In court papers filed late Friday by the U.S. Justice Department, Trump sought a rehearing by the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, calling the 3-0 decision “fundamentally misconceived.”

Trump has more than 63 million followers on Twitter, and often uses his account to make significant announcements, including Friday when his tweets about trade with China sent U.S. stock and oil prices down sharply.

Lower court ruling upheld

The three-judge panel last month upheld a May 2018 lower court ruling that forced Trump to unblock several dozen followers.

Twitter Inc. and the White House did not immediately comment.

In the appellate court ruling, Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote, “the First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialog because they expressed views with which the official disagrees.”

White House social media director Dan Scavino, who was also a defendant, is also challenging the appeals court ruling.

The Justice Department court filing Friday warned that if the appeals court ruling was upheld, that “public officials who address matters relating to their public office on personal accounts will run the risk that every action taken on that account will be state action subject to constitutional scrutiny.”

‘Official, state-run account’

Parker, however, had said Trump’s account bears “all the trappings of an official, state-run account” and is “one of the White House’s main vehicles for conducting official business.”

Trump has made his @RealDonaldTrump account, which he opened in 2009, a central and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda and attack critics.

His blocking of critics was challenged by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, as well as seven Twitter users he had blocked.

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Italian President Sergio Mattarella agreed to a new round of consultations with party leaders Tuesday to resolve Italy’s political crisis. Speaking to reporters in Rome Thursday, two days after the collapse of the country’s populist government, the president said if no coalition wins a parliamentary approval, he could form a caretaker government or hold early elections. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Italian political leaders have started negotiations in an effort to avert a snap vote.
 

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The first Official Comic Book Convention or Comic Con for short, happened in New York in 1964. Since then, the world of comic books has moved to TV, the movies, and video games, and these conventions have become huge events. We visited one to get a feel for how they work. VOA’s Dhania Iman reports.
 

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China “will not sit idly by” if the U.S. proceeds with a sale of advanced F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan, a Chinese general said, while warning of other potential countermeasures in addition to punishing foreign firms involved in the deal.

Beijing considered the sale a violation of previous U.S. commitments to China regarding the island it considers its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary, Maj. Gen. Chen Rongdi, chief of the Institute of War Studies at the Academy of Military Sciences, said. He did not elaborate on what additional measures China might take.

“China will not sit idly by,” Chen said Thursday at a forum sponsored by China’s official journalists’ association. “Of course, we don’t rule out additional measures.”

Sanction companies

Beijing has repeatedly said it will levy sanctions against U.S. companies linked to a planned $8 billion sale and demanded Washington cancel it immediately. China has made such threats regarding previous arms sales by the U.S., but they’ve had limited effect because the companies involved are either important to China’s own nascent commercial aviation industry or have little or no business with the country.

Most recently, China pledged sanctions against the U.S. in July when the Trump administration said it was considering a $2.2 billion sale of tanks and air missiles to Taiwan.

Both Chen and Col. Cao Yanzong, a research fellow at the institute, dismissed the ultimate effectiveness of the F-16V planes, given China’s overwhelming air superiority and arsenal of short- to medium-range missiles.

The sale would be of little use “beyond making profits for American arms makers, while further undermining relations between China and the U.S. and China and Taiwan,” Cao said.

Specific fighter jets opposed

China fiercely opposes all arms sales to Taiwan but has specifically objected to advanced fighter jets such as the F-16V, whose Active Electronically Scanned Array, or AESA, radar is compatible with the F-35 stealth fighters operated by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines. The U.S. is also installing upgraded electronics, including AESA radars, on Taiwan’s existing fleet of 144 older F-16s.

The Trump administration informed Congress last week that it plans to sell Taiwan 66 of the planes and the U.S. State Department this week approved the sale. It now goes before Congress, where Taiwan enjoys strong bipartisan support.

Despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties, U.S. law requires Washington to ensure Taiwan has the means to defend itself.

Taiwan is a democratically governed island that broke away from the Communist Party-ruled mainland during a civil war in 1949.

Increased pressure on Taiwan

China has been stepping up military, diplomatic and economic pressure against the administration of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who has refused to embrace Beijing’s “one-China principle” that regards Taiwan as Chinese territory.

A semi-annual defense ministry report issued last month stated that China “has the firm resolve and the ability” to take control of Taiwan. “We make no promise to renounce the use of force, and reserve the option of taking all necessary measures,” the report said.

The document, titled “China’s National Defense in the New Era,” also pointed to specific intimidation tactics cited by many as partial justification for strengthening Taiwan’s defenses.

“Aiming at safeguarding national unity, China’s armed forces strengthen military preparedness with emphasis on the sea,” the report said. “By sailing ships and flying aircraft around Taiwan, the armed forces send a stern warning to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”
 

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Japan’s prime minister said Friday that South Korea’s decision to end a military intelligence sharing deal with Tokyo damages mutual trust.

Shinzo Abe, speaking a day after Seoul announced its decision, said Tokyo “will continue to closely coordinate with the U.S. to ensure regional peace and prosperity, as well as Japan’s security.”

In an escalation of its bitter dispute with Japan, South Korea decided Thursday to scrap its military intelligence sharing agreement with Tokyo, opening a new divide in trilateral security cooperation among the U.S., Japan, and South Korea.

South Korea’s presidential Blue House said Thursday it is not in its national interest to continue the deal. Seoul will inform Tokyo of its decision before the Saturday deadline to renew the agreement, the South Korean statement said.

Worsening tensions

The decision will worsen tensions between South Korea and Japan, which are involved in a dispute rooted in Japan’s use of forced labor during its colonial occupation of Korea. The move also threatens to further upend security cooperation on U.S. priorities such as North Korea and China.

In announcing its decision, South Korea cited Japan’s recent decision to remove Seoul from its list of trusted trade partners.

“The rationale was that a national security problem had arisen due to a breach of trust, yet no concrete evidence to support those allegations was presented,” the Blue House statement said.

“Under these circumstances, the Government of the Republic of Korea decided that maintaining this Agreement, which was signed to facilitate the exchange of sensitive military information, does not serve our national interest,” it added.

The General Security of Military Information Agreement was signed in November 2016. It’s not clear what the immediate impact of its termination will be.

“I hope there is no impact on policies but there will be an impact on military and intelligence operations,” says David Maxwell, a former U.S. special forces colonel in the U.S. Army, who served in South Korea. “Information will be shared through the U.S. middle man unless South Korea or Japan makes the situation worse by adding caveats such as the information they provide cannot be shared with a third party.”

South Korea’s foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, said the decision to withdraw from the agreement is a “separate issue from the South Korea-U.S. alliance,” according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The decision, she says, was made because of a “trust issue” between Seoul and Tokyo, Yonhap reported.

But the move cannot be separated from Seoul’s alliance with Washington, insists Maxwell, now with the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“It damages the national security of all three countries, though South Korea suffers the worst,” he said.

“We encourage Japan and Korea to work together to resolve their differences,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn. “I hope they can do this quickly. We are all stronger — and Northeast Asia is safer — when the United States, Japan, and Korea work together in solidarity and friendship. Intel sharing is key to developing our common defense policy and strategy.”

Trade moves

Japan, last month, removed South Korea from its “white list” of trusted trade partners and restricted exports of high-tech materials to South Korea. The materials are used to produce semiconductors and displays in smartphones and other electronics that serve as the backbone of South Korea’s export-driven economy.

Japan’s moves are widely seen as retaliation for recent South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese companies to compensate Koreans who were forced to work during Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea.

Seoul retaliated earlier this month by removing Japan from its own “white list” of countries that enjoyed minimal trade restrictions.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, last week, signaled a de-escalation in its trade dispute with Japan, saying he would “gladly join hands” with Tokyo if it chooses dialogue.

Historic dispute

The trade dispute is the latest flare-up in tensions rooted in Japan’s brutal 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula. A major source of friction is how to compensate those forced into labor and sexual slavery in the colonial era.

Japan says the reparations issue was resolved with a 1965 treaty that normalized Japan-South Korea relations. Japan has complained that subsequent South Korean governments have not accepted further Japanese apologies and attempts to make amends.
 

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