The Jim Bakker Show

Trump adds five conservatives to list of possible Supreme Court picks

By James Oliphant and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a move certain to please conservatives, President Donald Trump on Friday added five names to his list of candidates for a prospective U.S. Supreme Court vacancy as he presses ahead with a campaign to move the federal judiciary to the right.

Two of them are appellate judges who were nominated by Trump earlier this year and confirmed by the Senate: Amy Coney Barrett and Kevin Newsom. Another, Brett Kavanaugh, sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, long viewed as a stepping-stone to the high court.

The others were Britt Grant, a Georgia Supreme Court justice, and Patrick Wyrick, a Oklahoma Supreme Court justice.

There is no current vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court but three justices are 79 or older.

During his presidential campaign last year, Trump identified 20 conservative candidates for the Supreme Court. Upon taking office, he named Neil Gorsuch to the court to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, restoring the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate in April and has established himself as one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices.

Speaking at a Federalist Society conference of conservative legal advocates, White House Counsel Donald McGahn said Trump is “very committed” to appointing judges who are “committed originalists and textualists,” referring to a legal philosophy that relies on the actual wording of laws and the original meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

“They all have paper trails. They all are sitting judges. There is nothing unknown about them. What you see is what you get,” McGahn said.

The five jurists, all with strong conservative credentials, were added to the list with input from conservative leaders, and should another seat on the court open up, Trump will nominate a candidate from the updated list of 25, the White House said.

Leonard Leo, an advisor to the president on Supreme Court nominations, said Trump thought it was time to refresh the original list. “When you’re committed to picking from a list you want to make sure it’s as complete as possible,” Leo said in an interview.

Kavanaugh, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2006 by Republican former President George W. Bush, served as a White House counsel under Bush and worked as an assistant to Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated Democratic former President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Grant and Wyrick both joined state challenges to the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, and Obama regulations aimed at reducing emissions from coal-burning power plants, said Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal advocacy group.

KENNEDY IS PIVOTAL JUSTICE

The court currently consists of five conservatives and four liberals, with conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy sometimes joining with the liberals on high-profile issues such as gay rights and abortion.

At 81, Kennedy is the second-oldest justice on the court behind liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 84, and some former Kennedy clerks have said he is considering retirement. Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer is 79.

Should any of those step down, Trump would get a historic opportunity to shape the court in a more conservative direction for decades to come. Supreme Court appointments are lifetime jobs.

Conservatives criticize the federal judiciary as too liberal, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the same conference lashed out at “activist judges.”

Trump already has taken steps to make the federal judiciary more conservative, with 14 judicial appointees already confirmed by the Senate and more in the pipeline.

Catherine Glenn Foster, president of the anti-abortion advocacy group Americans United for Life, said she was pleased with the new selections. “From their known records they tend to be strong on recognizing the protections for life,” she said in an interview.

On Friday, Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said she would support her party’s Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused by several women of unwanted sexual contact, because of the importance of keeping the Senate under Republican control should another Supreme Court vacancy arise.

(Reporting by James Oliphant and Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Eric Beech; Editing by Will Dunham)

China says will work with North Korea to boost ties as envoy visits

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – Traditional friendship between China and North Korea represents “valuable wealth” for their people, China said after its special envoy met a high-ranking North Korean official, but there was no mention of the crisis over North Korea’s weapons.

Song Tao, who heads the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s international department, is visiting Pyongyang to discuss the outcome of the recently concluded Communist Party Congress in China, at which President Xi Jinping cemented his power.

In a brief statement dated Friday but reported by Chinese media on Saturday, the international department said Song, who is there representing Xi, reported to North Korean official Choe Ryong Hae the outcome of the congress.

Song and Choe also talked about relations between their parties and countries, the department said.

“They said that the traditional friendship between China and North Korea was founded and cultivated by both countries former old leaders, and is valuable wealth for the two peoples,” it said.

“Both sides must work hard together to promote the further development of relations between the two parties and two countries to benefit their two peoples.”

The department made no mention of North Korea’s nuclear or missile programs, which are strongly opposed by China.

The North’s official KCNA news agency said Song informed Choe about China’s 19th National Congress “in detail”, and stressed China’s stance to steadily develop the traditionally friendly relations between the two parties and countries.

Song arrived on Friday but it is not clear how long he will be in North Korea.

China has repeatedly pushed for a diplomatic solution to the crisis over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles to carry them, but in recent months it has had only limited high-level exchanges with North Korea.

The last time China’s special envoy for North Korea visited the country was in February last year.

NO MAGICIAN

Song’s trip comes just a week after U.S. President Donald Trump visited Beijing as part of an Asia tour, where he pressed for greater action to rein in North Korea, especially from China, with which North Korea does 90 percent of its trade.

The influential state-run Chinese tabloid the Global Times said in an editorial that it was unwise to expect too much from his trip, saying his key mission was to inform North Korea about the party congress in Beijing.

“Song is not a magician,” the newspaper said.

“The key to easing the situation on the peninsula lies in the hands of Washington and Pyongyang. If both sides insist on their own logic and refuse to move in the same direction, even if Song opens a door for talks, the door could be closed any time.”

It is not clear whether Song will meet North Korea’s youthful leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim and President Xi exchanged messages of congratulations and thanks over the Chinese party congress, but neither leader has visited the other’s country since assuming power.

Song’s department is in charge of the party’s relations with foreign political parties, and has traditionally served as a conduit for Chinese diplomacy with North Korea.

China’s new special envoy for North Korea, Kong Xuanyou, who took up his position in August, is not believed to have visited the country since assuming the job.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by G Crosse, Robert Birsel)

Zimbabwe protesters begin marching towards Mugabe residence

By Joe Brock and MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabweans celebrating the expected fall of President Robert Mugabe began marching towards his residence in the capital Harare on Saturday, live television pictures showed, as the country prepared to oust its leader of the last 37 years.

Earlier in the day tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of the capital singing, dancing and hugging soldiers in an outpouring of elation as Mugabe’s rule comes to an end.

In scenes reminiscent of the downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, men, women and children ran alongside the armored cars and troops that stepped in this week to oust the only ruler Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980.

The 93-year-old Mugabe has been under house arrest in his lavish ‘Blue Roof’ compound in Harare, from where he has watched support from his Zanu-PF party, security services and people evaporate in less than three days.

Emotions ran over on Harare’s streets as Zimbabweans spoke of a second liberation for the former British colony, alongside their dreams of political and economic change after two decades of deepening repression and hardship.

“These are tears of joy,” Frank Mutsindikwa, 34, told Reuters, holding aloft the Zimbabwean flag. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this day. Free at last. We are free at last.”

Mugabe’s downfall is likely to send shockwaves across Africa, where a number of entrenched strongmen, from Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni to Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila, are facing mounting pressure to step aside.

The secretary-general of Zimbabwe’s War Veterans Association, Victor Matemadanda, called on those at an anti-Mugabe rally to march on Mugabe’s residence, and live television footage showed hundreds of protesters marching in that direction.

“Let us now go and deliver the message that grandfather Mugabe and his typist-cum-wife should go home,” Matemadanda told the crowd in the Harare township of Highfield.

The crowds in Harare have so far given a quasi-democratic veneer to the army’s intervention, backing its claims that it is merely effecting a constitutional transfer of power, which would help it avoid the diplomatic backlash and opprobrium that normally follows coups.

NO DIS-GRACE

For some Africans, Mugabe remains a nationalist hero, the continent’s last independence leader and a symbol of its struggle to throw off the legacy of decades of colonial subjugation.

But to many more at home and abroad, however, he was reviled as a dictator happy to resort to violence to retain power and to run a once-promising economy into the ground.

Although Mugabe has been digging in his heels in the face of army pressure to quit, he appears to have run out of road, devoid of domestic or international support.

Political sources and intelligence documents seen by Reuters said Mugabe’s exit is likely to pave the way for an interim unity government led by Mnangagwa, a life-long Mugabe aide and former security chief known as “The Crocodile”.

Stabilising the free-falling economy will be the number one priority, the documents said.

The United States, a long-time Mugabe critic, said it was looking forward to a “new era” in Zimbabwe, while President Ian Khama of neighboring Botswana said Mugabe had no diplomatic support in the region and should resign at once.

“I don’t think anyone should be president for that amount of time. We are presidents. We are not monarchs. It’s just common sense,” Khama told Reuters.

In a sign of the depth of his demise, Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF called on Friday for him to go, according to The Herald, the state newspaper that has served as a loyal mouthpiece for nearly four decades.

ZANU-PF branches in all 10 provinces had also called for the resignation of Mugabe’s wife Grace, the first lady whose ambitions to succeed her husband outraged the military and much of the country.

To many Zimbabweans, Grace is more familiar as “Gucci Grace” on account of her reported dedication to shopping, or – in the wake of the alleged assault in September of a South African model – “Dis-Grace”.

Mugabe’s nephew, Patrick Zhuwao, told Reuters on Saturday that the elderly leader and his wife were “ready to die for what is correct” and had no intention of stepping down in order to legitimize what he described as a coup.

Speaking from a secret location in South Africa, Zhuwao said Mugabe had hardly slept since the military seized power on Wednesday but his health was otherwise “good”.

STUBBORN

The extraordinary scenes in Harare are indicative of the anger and frustration that has built up in nearly two decades of economic mismanagement that started with the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000, the catalyst of a wider collapse.

The central bank tried to print its way out of trouble by unleashing a flood of cash but that only made matters worse, leading to hyperinflation that topped out at 500 billion percent in 2008.

At least 3 million Zimbabweans emigrated in search of a better life, most of them to neighboring South Africa.

After stabilizing briefly when Mugabe was forced to work with the opposition in a 2009-2013 unity government, the economy has collapsed again, this time due to a chronic shortage of dollars.

In October, monthly inflation leapt to more than 50 percent, putting basic goods beyond the means of many in a country with 90 percent unemployment.

Mugabe’s only public appearance since the military took over on Wednesday was at a university graduation ceremony on Friday morning. Decked out in blue and yellow academic gowns, he appeared tired, at one point falling asleep in his chair.

A senior member of the ZANU-PF ruling party said it was only a matter of time before he agreed to his own departure.

“If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday,” the source said. “When that is done, it’s impeachment on Tuesday.”

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley; Writing by Ed Cropley and Alexander Winning; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Janet Lawrence)

White House plans to seek another $45 billion in U.S. hurricane aid

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House plans to ask the U.S. Congress on Friday for about $45 billion in additional aid for disaster relief to cover damage from hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida and other disaster damage, a congressional aide said on late Thursday.

The request would be significantly short of what some government officials say is needed.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello on Monday requested $94.4 billion from Congress to rebuild the island’s infrastructure, housing, schools and hospitals devastated by Hurricane Maria. The state of Texas earlier this month submitted a request for $61 billion in federal aid.

Last month, Congress approved $36.5 billion in emergency relief for Puerto Rico and other areas hit by recent disasters and said it planned to seek another round of funding after it reviewed requests from federal agencies and state and U.S. commonwealth governments.

Puerto Rico sought $31.1 billion for housing, followed by $17.8 billion to rebuild and make more resilient the power grid.

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said late Thursday at a congressional hearing his staff had been briefed on the White House that would be released on Friday that he called “wholly inadequate” but he did not disclose the precise amount.

He said the White House had also “short-changed” funding for wildfires that have struck the western United States. The October disaster assistance bill included $576.5 million for wildfire-fighting efforts.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Pakistan issues ‘last warning’ to Islamists blocking entrance to capital

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan’s government on Friday issued a final warning to members of a hard-line Islamist party who have blocked a main road into the capital since last week, raising fears of a violent clash as they refuse to budge.

Hundreds of supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party have been blocked the road to Islamabad for nearly 10 days, demanding that the minister of law be sacked for what they term blasphemy.

“You all are being given a last warning,” the Islamabad deputy commissioner said in the order.

A court had already ordered the party to end the protest, the order added. “After this final announcement, you all are being warned to end the illegal sit in immediately.”

Tehreek-e-Labaik blames the minister, Zahid Hamid, for changes to an electoral oath that it says amounts to blasphemy. The government puts the issue down to a clerical error.

Pakistan’s blasphemy law has become a lightning rod for Islamists, especially since 2011 when the liberal governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was murdered by a bodyguard for questioning the law that mandates the death penalty for insulting Islam or the Prophet Mohammad.

A spokesman for the Labaik party, Ejaz Ashrafi, refused to comply with the order.

“We’re not moving,” he told Reuters by phone form the sit-in.

A government official, Khalid Abbasi, said the protesters had set up pickets along the route they are occupying manned by party members carrying iron rods and sticks.

Since they got the warning, he said, hundreds of more party workers have joined the sit-in.

Fearing violence, the government has blocked several roads with shipping containers to corral the protesters, but that has caused hours-long traffic jams in and around the capital.

In 2007, a confrontation between authorities and supporters of radical preachers at an Islamabad mosque led to the death of more than 100 people.

“All resources can be used to break this sit-in,” the deputy commissioner’s warning said.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Zimbabwe’s Mugabe appears in public for first time since army took charge

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe appeared in public on Friday for the first time since the army took charge this week, as the ruling party made plans to force him to step down after more than three decades in power.

Mugabe, who is 93, opened a graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe Open University in Harare. He wore blue and yellow academic robes and a mortar board hat and appeared to fall asleep in his chair as his eyes closed and his head lolled.

Mugabe led the country’s liberation struggle and has dominated its politics since independence in 1980. He said he is still in charge but a senior member of the ZANU-PF ruling party said it wanted him gone.

“If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday,” the source said. “When that is done, it’s impeachment on Tuesday.”

In contrast, the military said in a statement on national television it was “engaging” with Mugabe. It referred to him as Commander in Chief and said it would announce an outcome as soon as possible.

Mugabe is revered as an elder statesman and member of the generation of Africa’s independence leaders but he is also viewed by many in Africa as a president who held his country back by remaining in power too long. He calls himself the grand old man of African politics.

Zimbabwe’s official newspaper, the Herald, ran photographs late on Thursday showing him grinning and shaking hands with military chief General Constantino Chiwenga, who seized power this week.

The images stunned Zimbabweans who thought it meant Mugabe was managing to hold out against Chiwenga’s coup, with some political sources saying he was trying to delay his departure until elections scheduled for next year.

The ZANU-PF source said that was not the case. Anxious to avoid a protracted stalemate, party leaders were drawing up plans to dismiss Mugabe at the weekend if he refused to quit, the source said.

“There is no going back,” the source told Reuters. “It’s like a match delayed by heavy rain, with the home side leading 90-0 in the 89th minute.”

The army is camped on his doorstep. His wife, Grace, is under house arrest, and her key political allies are in military custody. The police, once a bastion of support, have showed no signs of resistance.

Furthermore, he has little popular backing in the capital, a stronghold of support for opposition parties that have tapped into the anger and frustration at his handling of the economy, which collapsed after the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000.

Unemployment is now running at nearly 90 percent and chronic shortages of hard currency have triggered hyperinflation, with the prices of imports rising as much as 50 percent a month.

The only words Mugabe spoke at the graduation ceremony were met with ululations from the crowd. In a telling irony, one of the graduates was the wife of Chiwenga.

“A NEW ERA”

The United States, a longtime Mugabe critic, is seeking “a new era”, the State Department’s top official for Africa said, an implicit call for Mugabe to quit.

In an interview with Reuters, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto appeared to dismiss the idea of keeping Mugabe in an interim or ceremonial role.

“It’s a transition to a new era for Zimbabwe, that’s really what we’re hoping for,” Yamamoto said.

The army appears to want Mugabe to go quietly and allow a smooth and bloodless transition to Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice president, whose sacking last week triggered the military takeover.

The main goal of the generals is to prevent Mugabe from handing power to his wife, Grace, who appeared on the cusp of power after Mnangagwa was pushed out.

Dumiso Dabengwa, a former head of intelligence and a Mnangagwa ally, is due to hold a news conference in Johannesburg.

A South African government source said he expected Dabengwa to discuss the events in Zimbabwe.

“It seems there is some sort of agreement,” the source said.

Zimbabwe’s struggling economy: http://tmsnrt.rs/2zN0EdF

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley in Johannesburg and Warren Strobel in Washington; Writing by Ed Cropley and James Macharia; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Bullets and burns: Portraits of injured Rohingya refugees

By Jorge Silva

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – The two Rohingya Muslim brothers, six-year-old Mohamed Heron and four-year-old Akhter, held each other as they showed burns on their arms and torsos that their uncle says resulted from Myanmar’s armed forces firing rockets at their village.

Two of their siblings, one seven years old and the other a 10-month-old infant, died in the attack, according to their uncle, Mohamed Inus. Their father was held by the military and has not been heard of since.

“These two children survived when our village was fired on with rockets,” Inus told Reuters at Kutupalong refugee camp, near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

They were among a number of Rohingya who showed their wounds to a Reuters photographer who visited Kutupalong and the nearby camps at Balukhali, Leda and Nayapara.

(Click http://reut.rs/2hBZZoK to view the photo essay)

Fleeing along with other villagers who abandoned their scorched homes, the boys reached Bangladesh after a three-day trek. At Kutupalong, they were treated for three weeks for their burns at a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic.

Since the ethnic violence erupted in late August, thousands of Rohingya have crossed the border each week, often travelling for days and even weeks, trekking through forests and over mountains, with many making a hazardous river or sea crossing on the last leg of their flight to fellow-Muslim Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi hospitals and international aid agencies are struggling to provide medical care for all the refugees, many of whom have suffered horrific injuries and psychological trauma.

Since the crisis began, Chittagong Medical College Hospital has received 261 casualties suffering wounds from gunshots or explosions, according to its director, Brigadier General Jalal Uddin.

Sixteen have died from their wounds and some have been crippled.

“We have had to amputate the limbs of some patients,” Jalal Uddin said.

Sadar Hospital in Cox’s Bazar had treated 1,467 Rohingya since the exodus began for injuries including bullet wounds, broken bones, and cuts inflicted by knives or machetes, residential medical officer Shaheen Abdur Rahman Chowdhury said.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar’s military launched what it described as “clearance operations” following a series of attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts in Rakhine state in late August.

Rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes have mounted a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population.

The U.N. rights agency said it was “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Myanmar, an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, rejects the charge, saying its forces targeted insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, whom it has accused of setting fires and attacking civilians.

At the camps in Bangladesh, other Rohingya victims of the violence recounted the horrors they had lived through.

ANWARA BEGUM

Anwara Begum, 36, said she woke to find her home in Maungdaw township, in the northernmost part of Rakhine state, in flames. Before she could get out the burning roof caved in on her and her nylon clothes melted onto her arms.

Her husband carried her for eight days to reach the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh.

“I thought I was going to die. I tried to stay alive for my children,” she said, adding she was still waiting for treatment for her burns.

IMAM HOSSAIN

His right arm swathed in bandages from the knuckles of his hand to well above the elbow, Imam Hossain, 42, lay exhausted on the roadside near the Kutupalong camp.

He was returning home after teaching at a madrassa in his village when three men attacked him with knives.

The next day, he made his wife and two children leave with other villagers fleeing to Bangladesh. He reached Cox’s Bazar later. He was still searching for his family.

“I want to ask the Myanmar government why they are harming the Rohingya,” he said. “Why do Buddhists hate us? Why do you torture us? What is wrong with us?”

MOHAMED JABAIR

Suffering burns to his limbs and torso, Mohamed Jabair, 21, had feared that he had also lost his sight in an explosion that ripped through his village home.

Knocked unconscious and badly burned, Jabair was carried by his brother and others for four days to Cox’s Bazar.

“I was blind for many weeks and admitted to a government hospital in Cox’s Bazar for 23 days. I was frightened that I would be blind forever,” he said.

Jabair said money sent by relatives in Malaysia had run out and he could no longer afford treatment.

NUR KAMAL

Bowing to show deep cuts arcing across his scalp, 17-year-old Nur Kamal described how soldiers assaulted him after they found the young shopkeeper hiding in his home in Kan Hpu village in Maungdaw.

“They hit me with a rifle butt on my head first and then with a knife,” Kamal said.

His uncle found him unconscious in a pool of blood. It took them two weeks to get to Bangladesh.

“We want justice,” Kamal said. “We want the international community to help us obtain justice.”

KALABAROW

Her husband, daughter and one son were killed when soldiers fired on Kalabarow’s village in Maungdaw. The 50-year-old woman was hit in her right foot. For several hours, she lay where she fell, pretending to be dead, before a grandson found her.

During their 11-day journey to Bangladesh, a village doctor amputated her infected foot and four men carried her on a stretcher made of bamboo and a bedsheet.

“As we walked through the forest, we saw burnt villages and dead bodies. I thought we would never be safe,” she said.

ABDUR RAHAMAN

Abdur Rahaman, a 73-year-old merchant from Maungdaw, was ambushed while walking on a mountain path with other refugees.

A machete thrown at his feet severed three toes as he ran from his attackers. With his foot bleeding through a tourniquet made from his longyi, or sarong, Rahaman walked for two more hours, before his nephew and friends carried him across the border.

“Our future is not good,” he said. “Allah must help us. The international community has to do something.”

ANSAR ALLAH

Curled up in a ball, 11-year-old Ansar Allah shows a large, livid scar on his right thigh – the result of a gunshot wound.

“They sprayed us with bullets, as our house was burning,” his mother Samara said.

“It was a bullet half the size of my index finger,” she said, before adding, “I can’t stop thinking, why did God put us in that dangerous situation?”

SETARA BEGUM

Setara Begum, 12, was among nine siblings in their home in Maungdaw when it was hit by a rocket.

“I saved eight of my nine children from the burning house, but Setara was trapped inside,” said her mother, Arafa.

“I could see her crying in the middle of the fire, but it was difficult to save her. By the time we could reach her, she was badly burned,” Arafa said.

Setara’s father carried her for two days to Bangladesh.

The young girl received no treatment for the severe burns to her feet. Her feet healed. But she has no toes.

The trauma has scarred her psychologically.

“She has been mute from that day, and doesn’t speak to anyone,” her mother said. “She only cries silently.”

MOMTAZ BEGUM

Her face heavily bandaged, Momtaz Begum told how soldiers came to her village demanding valuables.

“I told them I was poor and had nothing. One of them started beating me saying, ‘If you have no money, then we will kill you’.”

After beating her, they locked her in her home and set fire to the roof. She escaped to find her three sons dead and her daughter beaten and bleeding.

Momtaz fled to Bangladesh, where she spent 20 days at the MSF clinic being treated for burns to her face and body.

“What can I say about the future, if now we have no food, no house, no family. We cannot think about the future. They have killed that as well.”

(Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir, Nurul Islam and Nazimuddin Shyamol; Writing by Karishma Singh; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Simon Cameron-Moore)

IBM urged to avoid working on ‘extreme vetting’ of U.S. immigrants

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A coalition of rights groups launched an online petition on Thursday urging IBM Corp to declare that it will not develop technology to help the Trump administration carry out a proposal to identify people for visa denial and deportation from the United States.

IBM and several other technology companies and contractors, including Booz Allen Hamilton, LexisNexis and Deloitte [DLTE.UL], attended a July informational session hosted by immigration enforcement officials that discussed developing technology for vetting immigrants, said Steven Renderos, organizing director at petitioner the Center for Media Justice.

President Donald Trump has pledged to harden screening procedures for people looking to enter the country, and also called for “extreme vetting” of certain immigrants to ensure they are contributing to society, saying such steps are necessary to protect national security and curtail illegal immigration.

The rights group said the proposals run counter to IBM’s stated goals of protecting so-called “Dreamer” immigrants from deportation.

Asked about the petition and whether it planned to work to help vet and deport immigrants, an IBM spokeswoman said the company “would not work on any project that runs counter to our company’s values, including our long-standing opposition to discrimination against anyone on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.”

The petition is tied to a broader advocacy campaign, also begun Thursday, that objects to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Extreme Vetting Initiative.

In an Oct. 5 email seen by Reuters, Christopher Padilla, IBM’s vice president of government affairs, cited the company’s opposition to discrimination in response to an inquiry about the vetting program from the nonprofit group Open Mic.

Padilla said the meeting IBM attended was only informational and it was “premature to speculate” whether the company would pursue business related to the Extreme Vetting Initiative.

Booz Allen Hamilton, LexisNexis and Deloitte did not immediately respond when asked about the campaign, which also highlighted their attendance at the July meeting.

ICE wants to use machine learning technology and social media monitoring to determine whether an individual is a “positively contributing member of society,” according to documents published on federal contracting websites.

More than 50 civil society groups and more than 50 technical experts sent separate letters on Thursday to the Department of Homeland Security saying the vetting program as described was “tailor-made for discrimination” and contending artificial intelligence was unable to provide the information ICE desired.

Opponents of Trump’s policies ranging from immigration to trade have been pressuring IBM and other technology companies to avoid working on proposals in these areas from the Republican president’s administration.

Shortly after the presidential election last year, for example, several internet firms pledged that they would not help Trump build a data registry to track people based on their religion or assist in mass deportations.

IBM is among dozens of technology companies to join a legal briefing opposing Trump’s decision to end the “Dreamer” program that protects from deportation about 900,000 immigrants brought illegally into the United States as children.

“While on the one hand they’ve expressed their support for Dreamers, they’re also considering building a platform that would make it easier to deport them,” Renderos said.

CREDO, Daily Kos, and Color of Change also organized the petition.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington, additional reporting by Salvador Rodriguez in San Francisco, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and David Gregorio)

Amnesty urges independent probe into atrocities, bombings in battle for Philippines Marawi city

MANILA (Reuters) – The war in the Philippine city of Marawi saw Islamist insurgents execute civilians or use them as human shields, while military air strikes killed non-combatants and may have been used in excess, an Amnesty International report said on Friday.

The investigation by the rights group on the bloody five-month battle was based on interviews with 48 witnesses from September until early November and called for an independent inquiry.

The conflict in Marawi, the only predominantly Muslim city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, was the country’s biggest and longest battle since World War Two. More than 1,100 people, mostly insurgents, were killed, including 166 soldiers and 47 civilians, according to the authorities.

At least 350,000 people were displaced and large parts of Marawi have been decimated by air strikes.

Witnesses described at least 10 separate incidents where at least 25 people were executed by the Muslim extremists because they were Christians. Amnesty described those as war crimes.

It also said 10 hostages may have been killed in a single bombing run by the armed forces, and said an independent inquiry should include an assessment as to whether the air strikes were proportionate to the threat.

“They must initiate a prompt, effective and impartial investigation into whether its bombings of civilian neighborhoods was proportional under international humanitarian law,” Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s crisis response director, said in a statement.

“The Philippine authorities must bring those responsible for torture and other violations to justice and ensure that the victims receive adequate reparations.”

Major-General Restituto Padilla, armed forces spokesman, said the military was aware of the report and would respond in full later. He said troops were given strict instructions to observe and respect international humanitarian law and human rights.

“We will not tolerate and condone these abuses and will act on them,” he told a regular news briefing on Friday.

The 34-page report, “The Battle of Marawi: Death and destruction in the Philippines”, quotes a survivor who said he was spared by rebels because he could recite the “shahada”, a statement of Islamic faith, but a Christian ambulance driver was shot dead because he could not do the same.

Other survivors said hostages were executed or physically abused, forced into labor and used as human shields.

Some hostages who escaped alleged they were detained and tortured by security forces who suspected them to be militants. Amnesty said it talked to eight men, including seven Christians, who said they were badly treated by the authorities.

“I was punched and kicked. They tied our hands and feet with electrical wire,” the report quoted one survivor as saying. “The military was angry because 13 of their men were killed.”

Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis praised the Philippine military for ending the war without a single credible human rights abuse allegation.

Amnesty noted that the military was responding to concerns about looting by soldiers but “must follow through on promises of compensation”.

(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty and Michael Perry)

Suicide bombers kill 10 in Nigeria’s Maiduguri: emergency official

By Ahmed Kingimi

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Suicide bomb attackers killed 10 people and wounded 30 in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Wednesday, an emergency agency official said.

Islamist militant group Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people since 2009 as part of its attempt to create an Islamic state in the Lake Chad basin.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack, which emergency officials and members of a government-approved vigilante group said was carried out by four female bombers in the Muna Garage district of Maiduguri at about 06:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).

The use of female bombers is a hallmark of Boko Haram attacks.

“We have so far recorded 10 people’s deaths and about 30 victims injured,” said Bello Dambatta, a spokesman for the State Emergency Agency (SEMA).

Maiduguri is the capital of Borno state and the city worst hit by the jihadist insurgency. At least 221 people have been killed in bombings and gun attacks in northeast Nigeria since June, according to a Reuters tally.

(Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Andrew Heavens and William Maclean)

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