The Jim Bakker Show

Trump, stymied on wall, to send troops to U.S.-Mexico border

Border patrol agents apprehend people who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near Falfurrias, Texas, U.S., April 4, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump, unable to get the U.S. Congress or Mexico to fully fund his border wall, will post National Guard troops along the Mexican frontier, officials said on Wednesday, in a move that was likely to escalate tensions with a key U.S. ally.

The Trump administration was working with the governors of the four southwestern U.S. states along the border to deploy the Guard, said Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, adding that the troops would not be involved in law enforcement.

In a supporting role, possibly for aerial reconnaissance, the Guard will help U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel with stopping illegal immigrants from entering the country, Nielsen said at a White House briefing with reporters.

In a memorandum laying out the new initiative, Trump directed Defense Secretary James Mattis to request the use of National Guard personnel to help the Department of Homeland Security in securing the southern border.

He ordered Mattis, Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to submit a report within 30 days detailing an action plan and recommendations for any other executive authorities to be invoked to protect the border.

The administration’s move drew criticism from Democrats. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado said Trump has failed to engage with lawmakers on bipartisan immigration reform that would satisfy both parties’ agendas on the volatile issue.

“Unfortunately, the president failed to lead, and rather than find real solutions on immigration, he continues to stoke fear,” Bennet said in a statement.

The Mexican government has told the United States that “if the announced deployment of the National Guard turned into a militarization of the border, that would gravely damage the bilateral relationship,” Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said.

It said Nielsen discussed the planned National Guard deployment with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray on Wednesday and told him the troops will not carry arms.

In keeping with a theme he often invoked as a candidate in 2016 and has continually returned to since taking office, Republican Trump has sharpened his anti-immigrant rhetoric, warning that illegal immigrants threaten U.S. safety and jobs.

His plan to deploy troops comes after his failure so far to persuade either the Mexican government or the U.S. Congress to fully fund a wall he wants to build along the border.

At the same time, the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to meaningfully overhaul U.S. immigration law, despite demands from Trump for a deal. With campaigning by lawmakers for November’s midterm congressional elections getting under way, little legislative action was expected in months ahead.

The National Guard is a reserve wing of the U.S. armed forces that is partially under the authority of governors.

Trump’s plans were hailed as welcome and needed by the Republican governors of Arizona and Texas.

The California National Guard will promptly review Trump’s request “to determine how best we can assist our federal partners,” said a spokesman for the state’s unit in a statement. He added he was speaking for Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat.

A general view shows San Diego, U.S. and Tijuana, Mexico (R) in this picture taken from the Mexican side of the border in Tijuana, Mexico 4, 2018. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes

WALL ON BASES?

Trump last month signed a federal spending bill that contained $1.6 billion to pay for six months of work on his wall. He had asked for $25 billion for it.

Nielsen told reporters the administration was looking into possibly constructing some wall on border land owned by the U.S. military.

After Nielsen spoke, a senior administration official said, “We expect personnel to be on the border quickly but at this time we don’t have a date, but that will be coming soon.”

Many National Guard personnel are federally funded and can be put under the direction of Washington when they are carrying out federal missions. There are thousands of U.S. National Guard now serving on federal missions, including in Afghanistan.

Nielsen did not give details on the number of the troops to be deployed to the border or the cost of the operation.

She said the administration had drafted legislation and would be asking Congress to provide the legal authority and resources to address “this crisis at our borders.” She said the Guard could conduct aerial surveillance along the border.

Nielsen said that despite steps taken by the administration, drug smuggling, illegal immigration and dangerous gang activity across the border were at unacceptable levels.

“Until we can have a wall and proper security we’re going to be guarding our border with the military,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, lamenting what he called “horrible” U.S. laws that left the border poorly protected.

On Wednesday, he said in a tweet: “Our Border Laws are very weak while those of Mexico and Canada are very strong. Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW!”

While the Trump administration speaks of an immigration “crisis” on the border, U.S. Border Patrol statistics show the fewest apprehensions of illegal immigrants on the border in 46 years. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2017, there were 303,916 such arrests, the lowest level since fiscal 1971.

Under Republican President George W. Bush, the National Guard between 2006 and 2008 provided border-related intelligence analysis, but had no direct law enforcement role.

In 2010, President Barack Obama sent National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to U.S. Border Patrol agents.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Richard Cowan and Phil Stewart in Washington, Ben Klayman in Chicago and Julia Love in Mexico City; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Sandra Maler)

Oklahoma House approves education tax bill amid teacher walkout

A teacher stands next to a music stand holding a sign during a school walkout in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. April 4, 2018. REUTERS/Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton

By Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton

TULSA, Okla. (Reuters) – The Oklahoma House of Representatives approved a $20 million internet sales tax on Wednesday as part of a revenue package aimed at ending a statewide walkout by teachers seeking higher pay and more education funding.

The walkout, now in its third day, is the latest upheaval by teachers in a Republican-dominated state after a successful West Virginia strike last month ended with a pay raise. More than 100 school districts in Oklahoma will remain shuttered on Thursday.

Lawmakers approved the tax measure as hundreds of teachers, parents and students packed the Capitol in Oklahoma City to press for a $200 million package to raise education spending in Oklahoma, which ranks near the bottom for U.S. states.

“This is a win for students and educators and signals major progress toward funding the schools our students deserve,” Alicia Priest, head of the Oklahoma Education Association, the teachers union, said in a statement after 92 lawmakers approved the sales tax measure.

Across the state, protests were held near schools and along streets, with demonstrators holding signs bearing slogans such as “35 is a speed limit, not a class size.”

The tax bill requires third-party vendors on internet sites such as Amazon to remit state sales taxes on purchases made by residents.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where lawmakers on Thursday will weigh a measure expanding gaming at Native American casinos as part of the $200 million package. Lawmakers are also weighing such options as repealing exemptions for capital gains taxes.

The teachers’ protests reflect rising discontent after years of sluggish or declining public school spending in Oklahoma, which ranked 47th among the 50 states in per-student expenditure in 2016, according to the National Education Association.

Kentucky teachers also have demonstrated against stagnant or reduced budgets by a Republican-controlled legislature. Arizona educators have threatened similar job actions.

“My books were old when I was in high school more than 15 years ago and chances are a lot of them are still being used today,” Oklahoma City resident Ashley Morris said by telephone from a statehouse rally.

“Students just aren’t getting what they need or deserve and that puts teachers in a tough situation,” said Morris, whose roommate is a first-grade teacher who relies on a second job to make ends meet.

(Reporting by Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Writing by Ian Simpson; Editing by Ben Klayman and Leslie Adler)

Trump agrees to keep U.S. troops in Syria a ‘little longer,’ but wants out

A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump agreed in a National Security Council meeting this week to keep U.S. troops in Syria a little longer to defeat Islamic State but wants them out relatively soon, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

Trump did not approve a specific withdrawal timetable at Tuesday’s meeting, the official said. He wants to ensure Islamic State militants are defeated but wants other countries in the region and the United Nations to step up and help provide stability in Syria, the official said.

“We’re not going to immediately withdraw but neither is the president willing to back a long-term commitment,” the official said.

Trump had signaled his desire to get U.S. forces out of Syria in a speech last Thursday in Ohio, and officials said he had privately been pressing for an early withdrawal in talks with his national security aides.

Trump told a news conference on Tuesday with Baltic leaders that the United States was very successful against Islamic State but that “sometimes it’s time to come back home.”

His advisers have been urging him to maintain at least a small force in Syria to ensure the militants are defeated and to prevent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ally Iran from gaining an important foothold.

The United States is conducting air strikes in Syria and has deployed about 2,000 troops on the ground, including special operations forces whose advice has helped Kurdish militia and other U.S.-backed fighters capture territory from Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders rejected concerns that a U.S. withdrawal from Syria might encourage deeper Iranian involvement in the country, saying U.S. allies and partners in the region could help with security.

“The purpose would be to … train local enforcement as well as have our allies and partners in the region who have a lot more at risk to put more skin into the game,” Sanders told a briefing. “Certainly that’s something that the president wants to see happen, for them to step up and for them to do more.”

Sanders did not say which regional partners might play a role in Syria, but Trump has said Saudi Arabia should pay more if it wants the United States to remain.

The White House said in a statement on Wednesday that the United States remained committed to eliminating ISIS in Syria, but it added that the U.S. military mission was “coming to a rapid end, with ISIS being almost completely destroyed.”

U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, who oversees U.S. troops in the Middle East as the head of Central Command, estimated on Tuesday that more than 90 percent of the group’s territory in Syria had been taken back since 2014.

In the National Security Council meeting, Trump made clear that he did not want to stay in Syria for a lengthy period. The senior official said the impression Trump left was that he would like to withdraw in a year or less.

“He’s not going to tolerate several years to a half decade,” the official said.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy for the global coalition against Islamic State, on Tuesday said: “We are in Syria to fight ISIS. That is our mission and our mission isn’t over and we are going to complete that mission.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay, Doina Chiacu and Phil Stewart; Editing by Alistair Bell and James Dalgleish)

Trump to order National Guard to protect border with Mexico

FILE PHOTO - Members of the U.S Army National Guard monitor the Oculus transportation hub ahead of the U.S presidential election in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 7, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will sign a proclamation on Wednesday ordering the deployment of the National Guard to help protect the border with Mexico, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said.

Troops may be heading to the border as early as Wednesday night, Nielsen said, saying that the National Guard would support U.S. Custom and Border Protection but would not be involved in enforcement.

Nielsen spoke at a White House news briefing a day after Trump sharpened his anti-immigration rhetoric by saying he wanted to deploy U.S. military forces until his promised border wall is built.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen speaks during a press briefing on border security at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 4, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

“The president has directed that the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security work together with our governors to deploy the National Guard to our southwest border to assist the Border Patrol,” Nielsen said. “The president will be signing a proclamation to that effect today.”

She said the administration had drafted legislation and would be asking Congress to provide the legal authority and resources to address “this crisis at our borders.”

She did not give the number of the troops to be deployed or the cost of the operation.

Nielsen said that despite steps taken by the administration, the levels of drug smuggling, illegal immigration and dangerous gang activity across the border were unacceptable.

Trump met with Defense Secretary James Mattis, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Nielsen and other officials to discuss border issues on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Trump said in a tweet: “Our Border Laws are very weak while those of Mexico andCanada are very strong. Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW!”

(This version of the story was refiled to add dropped word “but” in paragraph two)

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Eric Beech and Leslie Adler)

U.S. teachers face tough choice: Love of the job or living wage

Teachers rally outside the state Capitol for the second day of a teacher walkout to demand higher pay and more funding for education in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford

By Bernie Woodall and Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – John-David Bowman, Arizona’s 2015 “Teacher of the Year,” considers himself lucky: he can do the job he loves without worrying about supporting his family because he relies on his wife’s salary.

Things are harder for third-year Oklahoma teacher Jenny Vargas. The divorced mother of a 6-year-old girl is leaving her home state to take a job in Coffeyville, Kansas, where she can earn $8,000 a year more and be able to make ends meet.

Stories like theirs have sparked a wave of strikes and threats of more across the country over the past month as teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky have walked off the job to protest long-stagnant teacher pay and school budgets.

Teachers in Arizona have threatened similar action if lawmakers do not meet their demands for more spending on schools.

Vargas, who teaches second grade in a Tulsa school, joined thousands of Oklahoma teachers who crammed into the state Capitol in Oklahoma City this week and others held sympathy rallies around the state. They demanded lawmakers pass a tax package that would raise another $200 million for the state school budget to provide up-to-date books and other classroom materials. The protests continued on Wednesday.

“It was never my intention to leave the state of Oklahoma,” Vargas said in a phone interview. Despite her love for her students, she laments that she made more per year working at Walmart as a student than she does teaching, and said she is moving to give her daughter a better life.

“Most days I have to ask myself, ‘Today am I going to be a good mom or am I going to be a good teacher?'” Vargas said. “It’s really hard to do both.”

The walk-outs have shone a light on states where largely Republican-controlled legislatures have slashed funding for public schools.

Oklahoma ranked 47th in spending per student, according to National Education Association data, and its average salary for a high school teacher is $42,460, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.

Bowman, who teaches social studies, is better off, earning slightly over $50,000 a year at his Mesa, Arizona, high school, having boosted his pay over the years with extracurricular assignments including coaching baseball. That puts him above the $48,020 mean for the state, but still below the $58,030 national median, according to the BLS.

But over his 11 years of teaching, pay raises have not kept pace with the cost of living in the fast-growing Phoenix area, Bowman said. Many of his colleagues wait tables, mow lawns or drive for ride-share services to make ends meet, he added.

“I decided to teach because I felt it would be a job I could do for a couple of years and I could give back to my community,” Bowman said. “But I fell in love with the profession and here I am eleven years later.”

He’s been able to stay because his wife, a designer, earns considerably more.

As Bowman and Vargas struggle financially, education union leaders warn that the cuts in school spending across the country are scaring away future teachers.

“We are at a crisis now where if you go to the colleges of education, every single one of them will tell you they are seeing a drop in the number of applicants,” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association union.

Realizing that low wages will make it difficult for teachers to pay for the advanced degrees that the field requires, she added, “parents are telling their sons and daughters, ‘Don’t become a teacher.'”

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Barbara Goldberg in New York; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Erdogan, Putin mark start of work on Turkey’s first nuclear power plant

The leaders of Turkey and Russia marked the official start of work to build Turkey's first nuclear power station on Tuesday, launching construction of the $20 billion Akkuyu plant

By Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA (Reuters) – The leaders of Turkey and Russia marked the official start of work to build Turkey’s first nuclear power station on Tuesday, launching construction of the $20 billion Akkuyu plant in the southern province of Mersin.

The plant will be built by Russian state nuclear energy agency Rosatom and will be made up of four units each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts.

Construction site of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant is seen during the groundbreaking ceremony in Mersin, Turkey April 3, 2018. Depo Photos via REUTERS

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan marked the start to construction, watching by video link from Ankara.

“When all four units go online, the plant will meet 10 percent of Turkey’s energy needs,” Erdogan said, adding that despite delays Turkey still planned to start generating power at the first unit in 2023.

Speaking at a later news conference with Putin, Erdogan said the cost of the project may exceed the planned $20 billion for the 4,800 megawatt (MW) plant, part of Erdogan’s “2023 vision” marking 100 years since the founding of modern Turkey and intended to reduce Turkey’s dependence on energy imports.

Since Russia was awarded the contract in 2010, the project has been beset by delays.

Last month, sources familiar with the matter said Akkuyu was likely to miss its 2023 target start-up date, but Rosatom, which is looking for local partners to take a 49 percent stake in the project, said it is committed to the timetable.

The Interfax news agency cited the head of Rosatom saying the sale of the 49 percent stake was likely to be postponed from this year until 2019.

Turkish companies have been put off by the size of the financing required as well as by concerns they will not receive a sufficient share of the lucrative construction side of the deal, two industry sources have said.

Erdogan told the news conference Turkey may cooperate with Russia on defense projects besides the S-400 missile defense system which Moscow has agreed to supply to Ankara. He did not give further details.

Turkey signed an agreement to buy the S-400 system in late December in a move which raised concern in the West because it cannot be integrated into NATO’s military architecture.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will join Erdogan and Putin for a three-way summit on Syria in Ankara on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay and Denish Pinchuk in Ankara and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Writing by Dominic Evans and Daren Butler; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Developing nations to study ways to dim sunshine, slow warming

FILE PHOTO: Smoke from the Wallow Wildfire billows over the White Mountains as the sun sets in Springerville, Arizona, U.S., June 8, 2011. REUTERS/Joshua Lott/File Photo

By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) – Scientists in developing nations plan to step up research into dimming sunshine to curb climate change, hoping to judge if a man-made chemical sunshade would be less risky than a harmful rise in global temperatures.

Research into “solar geo-engineering”, which would mimic big volcanic eruptions that can cool the Earth by masking the sun with a veil of ash, is now dominated by rich nations and universities such as Harvard and Oxford.

Twelve scholars, from countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica and Thailand, wrote in the journal Nature on Wednesday that the poor were most vulnerable to global warming and should be more involved.

“Developing countries must lead on solar geo-engineering research,” they wrote in a commentary.

“The overall idea (of solar geo-engineering) is pretty crazy but it is gradually taking root in the world of research,” lead author Atiq Rahman, head of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, told Reuters by telephone.

The solar geo-engineering studies may be helped by a new $400,000 research project, the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative (SRMGI), which is issuing a first call for scientists to apply for finance this week.

The SRMGI is financed by the Open Philanthropy Project, a foundation backed by Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook, and his wife, Cari Tuna, the scientists wrote.

The fund could help scientists in developing nations study regional impacts of solar geo-engineering such as on droughts, floods or monsoons, said Andy Parker, a co-author and project director of the SRMGI.

Rahman said the academics were not taking sides about whether geo-engineering would work. Among proposed ideas, planes might spray clouds of reflective sulfur particles high in the Earth’s atmosphere.

“The technique is controversial, and rightly so. It is too early to know what its effects would be: it could be very helpful or very harmful,” they wrote.

A U.N. panel of climate experts, in a leaked draft of a report about global warming due for publication in October, is skeptical about solar geo-engineering, saying it may be “economically, socially and institutionally infeasible.”

Among risks, the draft obtained by Reuters says it might disrupt weather patterns, could be hard to stop once started, and might discourage countries from making a promised switch from fossil fuels to cleaner energies.

Still, Rahman said most developed nations had “abysmally failed” so far in their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, making radical options to limit warming more attractive.

The world is set for a warming of three degrees Celsius (5.7 Fahrenheit) or more above pre-industrial times, he said, far above a goal of keeping a rise in temperatures “well below” 2C (3.6F) under the 2015 Paris Agreement among almost 200 nations.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Civil rights ‘Freedom Riders’ cherish Martin Luther King’s lasting legacy, 50 years on

Freedom Riders Bob and Helen Singleton are pictured at their home in this still image from video in Inglewood, California, U.S., March 27, 2018. REUTERS/Alan Devall

By Jane Ross

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Bob Singleton only met civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. once, but that meeting changed his life.

As the 50th anniversary of King’s death approaches on April 4, Singleton and others have been reflecting on the man who inspired them and the legacy he left behind.

It was early 1961 and the then 24-year-old college student was protesting against Woolworths’ racially segregated southern lunch counters at a picket line outside the company’s Hollywood, California, store when King was introduced to him by a mutual acquaintance.

“He marched with us in front of the Woolworths store and that really made me, from that point on, an organizer,” said Singleton, now 81.

Soon after that meeting, Singleton organized a group of University of California Los Angeles students to travel to Jackson, Mississippi, to enforce federal desegregation laws at the train terminal.

They were known as the Freedom Riders, and among the group was Singleton’s wife, Helen, now 85. She, too, was inspired by King.

“He was able to make you feel that, whatever burden you might be carrying, carry it with dignity and hope. And then also take action,” she said.

The Singletons and hundreds of other young Freedom Riders were arrested and jailed. But by November 1961, the federal Interstate Commerce Commission’s ruling prohibiting segregation on interstate transportation facilities was being enforced across the South.

“We won that battle,” said Bob Farrell, 81, who was arrested in Houston, Texas, in one of the last organized Freedom Rides in August, 1961. “Inside of one year we contributed to changing public policy that had been there since the beginning of the 20th century.”

But the civil rights struggle was far from over. King was killed on a motel balcony in Memphis by an avowed segregationist on April 4, 1968.

Farrell traveled to Atlanta for his funeral.

“I can remember what it was like finally getting over to Ebenezer Baptist Church and preparing for the great march to Morehouse College where Dr. King was going to be temporarily buried,” he said.

“The silence, the silence once the body came out of the church, the silence on that long march and then the memorial celebration at Morehouse College with the speakers,” he said. “It was just something I’ve never experienced before or since.”

The Singletons and Farrell agree there has been significant progress in racial equality in the five decades since King’s death, but all are dismayed at the current state of U.S. race relations.

“The fact that, 50 years later, there’s so much still to be done just demonstrates to me and to others how deep, how very, very deep white supremacy, its premises and the dynamic that still propels our nation, is still there,” Farrell said.

(Reporting by Jane Ross; Editing by Paul Tait)

Four Marine helicopter crew presumed dead after California crash

FILE PHOTO: A United States Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion Helicopter sits at North Island Naval Air Station Coronado, California, April 12, 2015. REUTERS/Louis Nastro/File Photo

(Reuters) – A U.S. Marine helicopter crashed during a training mission in southern California Tuesday afternoon and all four crew members are believed to have died, a Marine spokeswoman announced.

No details about the nature of the training mission were released other than it was routine and held in the desert in El Centro, Ca., about 100 miles east of San Diego.

The helicopter was a Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing based at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Ca., according to a statement from the Marines.

It is the largest and heaviest “heavy-lift” helicopter in the U.S. military.

The accident is under investigation and no other information was available.

The wreck is the deadliest Marine accident since a cargo plane crash in the Mississippi Delta that killed 16 Marines in July, 2017.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; editing by Jason Neely)

U.N. seeks access to Syrians ‘on their knees’ in eastern Ghouta

Special Advisor to the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Jan Egeland, adresses the media during a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, April 4, 2018. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. humanitarian adviser for Syria called on Wednesday for access to the eastern Ghouta town of Douma, where he said some 80,000-150,000 civilians were “on their knees” after years of siege and fighting.

Syrian government forces backed by Russia have recaptured nearly all of eastern Ghouta, which was the last major rebel enclave on the outskirts of Damascus, in a ferocious assault that began in February, marking a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad.

A man walks with his bicycle at a damaged site in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

They were now negotiating with the armed group inside Douma, the last remaining area under armed opposition control, adviser Jan Egeland said, adding that the United Nations was playing no direct role.

“We hope that that agreement will lead to people being able to stay if they choose to, to get amnesty for those who put away their arms but also to an opportunity to leave for those who choose to leave Douma,” he told a news briefing.

Out of the nearly 400,000 people besieged in eastern Ghouta for years by Syrian government forces, 130,000 had fled in the last three weeks, Egeland said. Evacuations should be voluntary but in some cases might not have been, he added.

“The deals might have shortened the battle and that is a good thing. The worst possible thing would have been fighting street-by-street, like in Raqqa, until the very, very bitter end,” he said, referring to the northern city where Islamic State was defeated last year by U.S.-backed forces.

The evacuees included 80,000 people now in centres in government-controlled areas, where Egeland said conditions were terrible. Some 50,000 fled to opposition-held Idlib, which Egeland called “the biggest cluster of displacement camps in the world” with around 1.5 million people.

“We need to learn from the battles of Homs, Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor, and eastern Ghouta. Idlib cannot become a battle zone, it’s full of civilians and they are vulnerable displaced,” he said.

With no reports of recent fighting or air raids in eastern Ghouta, he hoped the battle there was now over.

Rebel group Jaish al-Islam, which has not confirmed any deal with the Syrian government over eastern Ghouta, released five prisoners on Wednesday as part of a deal over Douma, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and state media said.

“We would then say anywhere between 80,000 to 150,000 are in the Douma area still under control of the armed opposition groups, Jaish al-Islam the biggest,” Egeland said.

“Why can we not deliver to the people of Douma today for example even though we are on the eve of a deal for Douma, they are really, really on their knees in terms of needs.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alison Williams)

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