The Jim Bakker Show

U.S. offers states help to fight election hacking

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government is offering to help states protect the Nov. 8 U.S. election from hacking or other tampering, in the face of allegations by Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump that the system is open to fraud.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told state officials in a phone call on Monday that federal cyber security experts could scan for vulnerabilities in voting systems and provide other resources to help protect against infiltration, his office said in a statement.

Trump has questioned the integrity of U.S. election systems in recent weeks, but his allegations have been vague and unsubstantiated.

The attempts to sow doubts about the 2016 election results coincided with Trump’s slide in opinion polls against Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton and missteps in his campaign. His complaints have focused on fears of voter fraud – that people will vote more than once – rather than election rigging.

“I mean people are going to walk in, they’re going to vote 10 times maybe. Who knows? They’re going to vote 10 times. So I am very concerned and I hope the Republicans are going to be very watchful,” Trump said in an Aug. 3 interview.

President Barack Obama dismissed the claims as “ridiculous.” “Of course the elections will not be rigged. What does that mean?” Obama said at a news conference the next day.

In his phone call, Johnson encouraged the state officials to comply with federal cyber recommendations, such as making sure electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet while voting is taking place, the department said.

Concerns in both parties about manipulation of electronic electoral systems are not new. Hackers can wreak havoc in myriad ways, from hijacking a candidate’s website to hacking voting machines or deleting or changing election records.

An Electronic Privacy Information Center report this week said 32 of the 50 states would allow voting by insecure email, fax and internet portals in this election cycle.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

Venezuela denies zoo animals starving, says one happy family

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s government denied on Monday that zoo animals were dying of starvation amid a national food shortage, saying they were being lovingly treated “like family.”

Minister for Ecosocialism and Water Ernesto Paiva toured Caricuao zoo in Caracas, where a union leader last week said 50 animals including Vietnamese pigs, tapirs, rabbits and birds had starved to death in the last six months.

“The animals are very dear, treated as if they were family, in fact they all have names,” said Paiva, adding that they were being seen by nutritionists to ensure they had an adequate diet.

The official said widespread media reports of deplorable conditions for zoo animals in the recession-hit OPEC nation were part of a campaign of “lies” against the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro.

A union leader for employees of state parks agency Inparques, which oversees zoos, and sources at various facilities have said animals are suffering across the country, with lions being fed mangoes instead of meat and bears receiving less than half of their required intake.

Despite the minister’s assurances that the Caricuao animals were healthy and adequately fed, state prosecutors are investigating the deaths of “various species of wildlife” there.

(Reporting by Daniel Kai; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Sandra Maler)

Exclusive: Top Obama aide to take call for South China Sea calm to Beijing

By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice will urge Beijing next week to avoid escalation in the South China Sea when she makes the highest-level U.S. visit to China since an international court rejected its sweeping claims to the strategic waterway.

Even as Washington has sought to keep a lid on the situation, Rice – in an interview with Reuters – vowed that the U.S. military would continue to “sail and fly and operate” in the South China Sea, despite a Chinese warning that such patrols could end “in disaster.”

With less than six months remaining of President Barack Obama’s tenure, Rice’s broader mission in her July 24-27 trip is aimed at keeping overall ties between the world’s two largest economies, which she called “the most consequential relationship we have,” on track at a time of heightened tensions. “I’ll be there to advance our cooperation,” she said.

But the trip, due to be formally announced later on Friday, follows a July 12 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea. Beijing has angrily rejected the verdict and pledged to pursue claims that conflict with those of several smaller neighbors.

“I’ve been in communication with our Chinese counterparts over the last couple of weeks … We understand each other’s perspectives clearly,” Rice said when asked what message she would deliver to the Chinese. “We’ll urge restraint on all sides.”

Her trip, to include Beijing and Shanghai, will coincide with visits by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Laos and the Philippines where he is expected to try to reassure Southeast Asian partners of Washington’s commitment.

The United States is also using quiet diplomacy to persuade claimants like the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam not to move aggressively to capitalize on The Hague ruling, U.S. officials have said.

TEST OF U.S. CREDIBILITY

How Washington handles the aftermath of the ruling is widely seen as a test of U.S. credibility in a region where it has been the dominant security presence since World War Two but is now struggling to contain an increasingly assertive China.

China has responded to the ruling with sharp rhetoric. But a senior official said, “So far there has not been precipitous action” and Washington was hoping confrontation could be avoided.

“We are not looking to do things that are escalatory,” another senior U.S. official said. “And at the same time we don’t expect that they (the Chinese) would deem it wise to do things that are escalatory.”

Despite that view, two Chinese civilian aircraft conducted test landings at two new military-length airstrips on reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands shortly after the arbitration ruling.

And signaling Beijing’s plans to further stake its claim to contested waters, a Chinese state-run newspaper said that up to eight Chinese ships will offer cruises to the South China Sea over the next five years.

China has blamed the United States for stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually.

Citing international rules, the United States has conducted freedom-of-navigation patrols close to Chinese-held islands where China has been bolstering its military presence.

Rice is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during her visit and her agenda will include North Korea, economic issues and human rights. She will also lay the groundwork for Obama’s talks with Xi at a G20 summit in China in September, U.S. officials said.

But with the South China Sea issue looming large, Rice, who has led U.S. policymaking on China, said the United States and China have “careful work to do to manage our differences.”

She also said the administration would not allow crises in other parts of the world, from Syria to Turkey to Ukraine, to distract from Obama’s signature policy of “rebalancing” toward Asia. “We don’t have the luxury as the world’s leading power to devote our attention to one region and ignore another,” she said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Colombia reaches deal with truckers to lift 45-day strike

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s government and truckers reached a deal on Friday to lift a strike that has stretched 45 days, snarling coffee exports and pushing inflation higher as foodstuff was blocked from moving around the nation.

The two sides reached agreement on cargo prices and the gradual removal of old vehicles, ending the longest and most costly strike in Colombian history, but failed to agree on toll road and fuel costs.

“The immobilization of cargo transport has been lifted,” Transport Minister Jorge Eduardo Rojas told reporters.

One person was killed during clashes, and the governor of Boyaca province was injured in a highway accident that authorities blamed on the protesters.

Trucks blocking highways were impounded, and the government said drivers or truck owners participating in violent protests would have their licenses revoked and face fines.

The strike, which began in early June, caused sharp rises in food prices, clogged ports and hit exports of the country’s high-quality arabica coffee.

Coffee growers are already struggling because of a drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, and are bracing for coming heavy rains, but the strike may send exports plunging by half in July, the coffee federation told Reuters recently.

High food prices have helped push 12-month inflation to 8.60 percent through June, more than double the central bank’s 2 percent to 4 percent target range.

(Reporting by Helen Murphy and Luis Jaime Acosta; Additional reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Bernadette Baum)

Turkey set for emergency measures to quell post-coup turmoil

By Humeyra Pamuk and Nick Tattersall

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey will announce emergency measures on Wednesday to try to shore up stability and prevent damage to the economy as it purges thousands of members of the security forces, judiciary, civil service and academia after an abortive coup.

Around 50,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended or detained since the military coup attempt, raising tensions across the country of 80 million which borders Syria’s chaos and is a Western ally against Islamic State.

Academics were banned from traveling abroad on Wednesday in what a Turkish official said was a temporary measure to prevent the risk of alleged coup plotters in universities from fleeing. State TRT television said 95 academics had been removed from their posts at Istanbul University alone.

“Universities have always been crucial for military juntas in Turkey and certain individuals are believed to be in contact with cells within the military,” the official said.

President Tayyip Erdogan blames the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for Friday night’s attempted coup, in which more than 230 people were killed as soldiers commandeered fighters jets, military helicopters and tanks to try to overthrow the government.

Erdogan has vowed to clean the “virus” responsible for the plot from all state institutions. The depth and scale of the purges have raised concern among Western allies that Erdogan is trying to suppress all dissent, and that opponents unconnected with the plot will be caught in the net.

He will chair meetings in his palace on Wednesday of the cabinet and the National Security Council, after which a series of emergency measures are expected to be announced.

In a sign of how shaken Turkey’s leadership has been by the coup attempt, with dozens of generals arrested as well as Erdogan’s aide de camp, government ministers and top officials have not been briefed in advance of the meetings.

“The cabinet meeting is classified at the highest level for national security reasons. The palace will give ministers a dossier just beforehand,” one senior official told Reuters.

“Ministers do not yet know what is going to be discussed.”

Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained since the coup bid, a second senior official said, with 99 charged pending trial and 14 more being held.

The threat of prolonged instability in a NATO member country, which had not seen a violent military coup for more than three decades, has shaken investors’ confidence.

The lira hit a 10-month low in early trade on Wednesday, touching 3.063 to the dollar. The Istanbul stock index is down 8 percent so far this week, its worst three-day performance since 2013. The cost of insuring Turkish debt against default rose to its highest in nearly a month, according to data from Markit.

Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told Reuters a priority in the measures to be discussed on Wednesday would be preventing damage to the economy. He also said on Twitter they would be “market-friendly” and would prioritize structural reform.

MILITARY CHIEF REFUSED TO BACK COUP BID

Around 1,400 people were wounded as soldiers commandeered tanks, attack helicopters and warplanes, strafing parliament and the intelligence headquarters and trying to seize the main airport and bridges in Istanbul.

At the height of the abortive coup, the rebel pilots of two F-16 fighter jets had Erdogan’s plane in their sights as he returned to Istanbul from a holiday on the coast. Erdogan said he was almost killed or captured by the mutineers.

In testimony published by the Hurriyet newspaper and corroborated by a Turkish official, an infantry lieutenant-colonel said the coup plotters had tried to persuade military chief Hulusi Akar, who was being held hostage, to join the effort to overthrow Erdogan but that he had refused.

“When he refused, they couldn’t convince the senior commanders either. Akar’s refusal to be a part of this paved the way for the failure of the coup attempt,” the written transcript published by the newspaper said.

Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, ministers, senior commanders and generals had been due to be taken one by one during the night of the coup bid, the testimony said.

Turkey’s Western allies have expressed solidarity with the government over the coup attempt but have also voiced increasing alarm at the scale and swiftness of the response, urging it to adhere to democratic values.

On Tuesday, authorities shut down media outlets deemed to be supportive of Gulen and said 15,000 people had been suspended from the education ministry along with 100 intelligence officials. A further 492 people were removed from duty at the Religious Affairs Directorate, 257 at the prime minister’s office and 300 at the energy ministry.

Those moves come after the detention of more than 6,000 members of the armed forces, from foot soldiers to commanders, and the suspension of close to 3,000 judges and prosecutors. About 8,000 police officers, including in the capital Ankara and the biggest city Istanbul, have also been removed.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, voiced “serious alarm” on Tuesday at the mass suspension of judges and prosecutors and urged Turkey to allow independent monitors to visit those who have been detained.

The foreign ministry has said criticism of the government’s response amounts to backing the coup.

TENSIONS WITH U.S.

Erdogan’s spokesman said on Tuesday the government was preparing a formal request to the United States for the extradition of Gulen. U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the status of Gulen in a telephone call with Erdogan on Tuesday, the White House said, urging Ankara to show restraint as it pursues those responsible for the coup attempt.

Seventy-five-year-old Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania but has a network of supporters within Turkey, has condemned the abortive coup and denied any role in it.

A former ally-turned critic of Erdogan, he suggested the president staged it as an excuse for a crackdown after a steady accumulation of control during 14 years in power.

Prime Minister Yildirim accused Washington, which has said it will consider Gulen’s extradition only if clear evidence is provided, of double standards in its fight against terrorism.

Yildirim said the justice ministry had sent a dossier to U.S. authorities on Gulen, whose religious movement blends conservative Islamic values with a pro-Western outlook and who has a network of supporters within Turkey.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed Ankara had filed materials in electronic form with the U.S. government, which officials were reviewing. Any extradition request from Turkey, once submitted, would be evaluated under the terms of a treaty between the two countries, he added.

Such a request would face legal and political hurdles in the United States. Even if approved by a judge, it would still have to go to Secretary of State John Kerry, who can consider non-legal factors, such as humanitarian arguments.

“I urge the U.S. government to reject any effort to abuse the extradition process to carry out political vendettas,” Gulen said on Tuesday in a statement issued by the Alliance for Shared Values, a group associated with the cleric.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Humeyra Pamuk, Can Sezer and David Dolan; Writing by Nick Tattersall and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by David Stamp)

Aleppo Rebels brace for long Syrian government siege

People walk on the rubble of a site hit by a barrel bomb in the rebel held area of Old Aleppo, Syria July 11, 2016.

By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Rebel areas of Aleppo have stockpiled enough basic supplies to survive months of siege by Syrian pro-government forces that cut off their half of the city last week, even though some goods are running out, an opposition official said.

Government forces backed by allies including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Russian air force advanced last week to within a few hundred meters (yards) of the only road into the rebel-held part of Aleppo, making it impassable for the several hundred thousand people living there.

The advance has brought Damascus closer to achieving its long-held aim of encircling rebel districts of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a potent symbol of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad now in its sixth year.

Rebel forces are fighting back in an attempt to reopen the Castello road. The opposition does not expect the Syrian army and its allies to storm the populous, rebel-controlled sector of Aleppo, and is preparing for the possibility of a long siege.

Russian officials said Moscow was there to help Damascus in its fight because the road had been used to supply armed groups, but the United States urged Russia to put pressure on the Syrian government to cease its onslaught.

With prices rocketing in Aleppo, opposition authorities were seeking to ration consumption to prevent hoarding and prevent traders from overcharging, said Brita Hagi Hassan, president of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo.

He said opposition authorities were also moving towards opening “alternative ways” into the rebel-held part of the city.

“We have the capability to open new ways because the situation is still under control,” Hassan told Reuters. The plans were secret, he added, speaking from a rural area west of Aleppo after twice failing to enter the city last week.

Prices of non-perishable staple foods have tripled and fresh produce has gone up by even more, if it can be found at all. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of tomatoes, which are now in season, costs at least five times more than they did before the blockade.

AIR STRIKES

The city council has stockpiled flour, wheat, fuel, sugar and rice, and residents were being urged to adapt to the new situation, Hassan said. “I reassured people on this matter … we can remain for several months without a problem.

“There are posters, pamphlets and there will be a press conference about this matter, so that the people are aware of the new situation, because the situation is very bad.”

Operators of generators had been told to cut back their use to two hours a day, and the council had set aside fuel for essential uses such as bakeries.

As part of their counter-attack, rebels bombarded government-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, where the population is estimated at slightly over 1 million people. Air strikes have also targeted rebel areas of the city.

“The streets are abnormally quiet after several barrel bombs hit our neighborhood. People are waiting,” said Malek Idrees, a father of five who lives in a rebel district.

“I could not find fresh produce for the last two days … but there are no severe shortages … most goods (are) still in the markets. I could not find bread yesterday,” he said.

The United Nations said it was worried about increased fighting in and around Aleppo and called for humanitarian aid access and the safe and rapid evacuation of civilians.

U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci said that intensified hostilities had cut off 300,000 people. Hassan estimated the population in the rebel zone to be 400,000.

Assad is backed by Moscow, which launched air strikes in September, as well as by Iranian and Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah has said it regards Aleppo – Syria’s pre-war commercial hub – as the most important battleground in the country, equating it with the defense of the capital Damascus.

“The fact is that the (Castello) road has been very actively and heavily used to supply various terrorist groups,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said on Tuesday. “Clearly in that kind of a situation, the government has to fight back and we’re there to help them in this regard.”

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told a U.N. Security Council meeting Assad’s bid to encircle eastern Aleppo would have “potentially devastating consequences.

“Russia, as a co-sponsor of the cessation of hostilities, should use its influence on the regime to help stop these attacks,” Power said, referring to a truce agreed in February that subsequently unraveled.

Assad’s allies say they are battling the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in Aleppo. But Western-backed nationalist insurgents loosely grouped under the banner of the Free Syrian Army say they control the rebel-held part of the city.

Nusra Front said it and the Nour al-Din al-Zinki insurgent group had fought back and advanced in an area near the Castello road late on Tuesday. There was no immediate Zinki comment.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iraq’s war children face void without world’s help: UNICEF country chief

UNICEF Iraq Representative Peter Hawkins speaks with media at a school for displaced people who fled from Mosul, in Nahrawan district, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq December 16, 2015. Picture taken December 16, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

By Tom Esslemont

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A generation of children face the bleak prospect of going without an education unless the Iraqi government, its allies and aid agencies rebuild communities torn apart by years of war, a senior U.N. children’s agency official said on Friday.

Peter Hawkins, UNICEF representative in Iraq, said recent fighting between government forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, and Islamic State fighters, had cut off thousands of children from school and healthcare.

“We are faced with a whole generation losing its way and losing prospects for a healthy future,” said Hawkins in an interview.

Government institutions, faced with financial deficit, are collapsing leaving them dependent on U.N. agencies to provide schools and teacher training, following more than a decade of sectarian violence, Hawkins said during a visit to London.

“What is needed is a cash injection through central government so that we can see it building the systems required for an economic turnover,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Conflict has worsened the situation across Iraq, with an estimated 4.7 million children – about a third of all children in the country – in need of assistance, the U.N. agency said in a report last month.

Mass movements of people forced from their homes by fighting in areas like Ramadi and Falluja, west of the capital, Baghdad, put one in five Iraqi children at risk of death, injury, sexual violence, abduction and recruitment into fighting, the report said.

UNICEF said earlier this year that at least 20,000 children in Falluja faced the risk of forced recruitment into fighting and separation from their families.

“A big problem is the lack of schools, with a lack of investment in recent years meaning the systems have all but collapsed,” Hawkins said.

CHILD RECRUITMENT

Thousands of civilians across much of western Iraq’s rugged Anbar province have been driven from their homes into the searing desert heat in the last two years, as a tide of Islamic State fighters took control of key towns and cities.

Despite losing considerable ground on the battlefield, a massive suicide bombing in Baghdad’s central shopping district of Karrada last weekend showed Islamic State remains capable of causing major loss of life.

In Anbar, where fighting has ruined scores of residential areas, many of the people displaced by the militants were now “in limbo”, waiting in displacement centers, Hawkins said.

Nearly one in five schools in Iraq is out of use due to conflict. Since 2014 the U.N. has verified 135 attacks on educational facilities and personnel, with nearly 800 facilities taken over as shelters for the displaced, UNICEF data shows.

But Hawkins said he expected thousands of families to soon return home and rebuild their lives.

In Ramadi, where government forces retook control last December, UNICEF will help the ministry of education reestablish schools, provide catch-up lessons and teacher training over the summer after it had been “flattened” by fighting, Hawkins said.

The veteran aid worker, who has also worked in Angola, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Pakistan, said his “biggest fear” was that children could get caught up in a battle to retake Mosul, Iraq’s biggest northern city still held by the militants.

Protection of children must be part of a military strategy to retake Mosul, said Hawkins.

Pressures on UNICEF’s $170 million annual budget for 2016-17, which Hawkins said was short by $100 million, were hampering its ability to reach all those affected and may mean some child protection programmes are abandoned, he said.

(Reporting By Tom Esslemont, Editing by Ros; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

U.S. GMO food labeling bill passes Senate

A customer picks up produce near a sign supporting a ballot initiative in Washington state that would require labelling of foods containing genetically modified crops at the Central Co-op in Seattle, Washington October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Redmond

By Chris Prentice

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would for the first time require food to carry labels listing genetically-modified ingredients, which labeling supporters say could create loopholes for some U.S. crops.

The Senate voted 63-30 for the bill that would display GMO contents with words, pictures or a bar code that can be scanned with smartphones. The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) would decide which ingredients would be considered genetically modified.

The measure now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass.

Drawing praise from farmers, the bill sponsored by Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas and Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is the latest attempt to introduce a national standard that would override state laws, including Vermont’s that some say is more stringent, and comes amid growing calls from consumers for greater transparency.

“This bipartisan bill ensures that consumers and families throughout the United States will have access, for the first time ever, to information about their food through a mandatory, nationwide label for food products with GMOs,” Stabenow said in a statement.

A nationwide standard is favored by the food industry, which says state-by-state differences could inflate costs for labeling and distribution. But mandatory GMO labeling of any kind would still be seen as a loss for Big Food, which has spent millions lobbying against it.

Farmers lobbied against the Vermont law, worrying that labeling stigmatizes GMO crops and could hurt demand for food containing those ingredients, but have applauded this law.

Critics like Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, say the bill’s vague language and allowance for electronic labels for scanning could limit its scope and create confusion.

“When parents go to the store and purchase food, they have the right to know what is in the food their kids are going to be eating,” Sanders said on the floor of the Senate ahead of the vote.

He said at a news conference this week that major food manufacturers have already begun labeling products with GMO ingredients to meet the new law in his home state.

Another opponent of the bill, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said it would institute weak federal requirements making it virtually impossible for consumers to access information about GMOs.

LOOPHOLES

Food ingredients like beet sugar and soybean oil, which can be derived from genetically-engineered crops but contain next to no genetic material by the time they are processed, may not fall under the law’s definition of a bioengineered food, critics say.

GMO corn may also be excluded thanks to ambiguous language, some said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised concerns about the involvement of the USDA in a list of worries sent in a June 27 memo to the Senate Agriculture Committee.

In a letter to Stabenow last week, the USDA’s general counsel tried to quell those worries, saying it would include commercially-grown GMO corn, soybeans, sugar and canola crops.

The vast majority of corn, soybeans and sugar crops in the United States are produced from genetically-engineered seeds. The domestic sugar market has been strained by rising demand for non-GMO ingredients like cane sugar.

The United States is the world’s largest market for foods made with genetically altered ingredients. Many popular processed foods are made with soybeans, corn and other biotech crops whose genetic traits have been manipulated, often to make them resistant to insects and pesticides.

“It’s fair to say that it’s not the ideal bill, but it is certainly the bill that can pass, which is the most important right now,” said American Soybean Association’s (ASA) director of policy communications Patrick Delaney.

The association was part of the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food, which lobbied for what labeling supporters termed the Deny Americans the Right to Know, or DARK Act, that would have made labeling voluntary. It was blocked by the Senate in March.

(Reporting by Chris Prentice in New York; Additional reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago, Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Kouichi Shirayanagi and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Ed Davies)

U.S. sanctions North Korean leader for first time over human rights

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un posing with school children

By David Brunnstrom and James Pearson

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time, citing “notorious abuses of human rights,” in a move diplomats say will infuriate the nuclear-armed country.

The sanctions, the first to target any North Koreans for rights abuses, affect property and other assets within the U.S. jurisdiction. They include 10 other individuals besides Kim and five government ministries and departments, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

“Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture,” Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin said in the statement.

But inside North Korea, adulation for Kim, 32, is mandatory and he is considered infallible. A 2014 report by the United Nations, which referred to Kim by name in connection to human rights, triggered a strong reaction from Pyongyang, including a string of military provocations.

Earlier this year, Congress passed a new law requiring U.S. President Barack Obama to deliver a report within 120 days to Congress on human rights in North Korea. It had designate for sanctions anyone found responsible for human rights violations. Kim Jong Un, the third generation of his family to rule the Stalinist state, topped the list.

The U.S. Treasury Department identified Kim’s date of birth as Jan. 8, 1984, a rare official confirmation of the young leader’s birthday.

Many of the abuses are in North Korea’s prison camps, which hold between 80,000 and 120,000 people including children, the report said.

The five agencies designated were two ministries that run North Korea’s secret police and their correctional services, which operate the prison camps. Also named were the ruling Workers’ Party’s Organization and Guidance Department (OGD), a key bureau used by Kim to wield control of the party and the government.

The sanctions also named lower-level officials, such as Minister of People’s Security Choe Pu Il, as directly responsible for abuses.

FORCED LABOR

Senior U.S administration officials said the new sanctions showed the administration’s greater focus on human rights in North Korea, an area long secondary to Washington’s efforts to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

The report was “the most comprehensive” to date on individual North Korean officials’ roles in forced labor and repression.

They said the sanctions would be partly “symbolic” but hoped that naming mid-level officials may make functionaries “think twice” before engaging in abuses. “It lifts the anonymity,” a senior administration official told reporters.

The North Korea mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

South Korea, which cut off all political and commercial ties with its own sanctions against the North in February, welcomed the move, saying it will encourage greater international pressure on the North to improve its human rights record.

China’s foreign ministry, asked about the new sanctions, reiterated its policy of opposing unilateral sanctions.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, visiting Beijing on Thursday, said he is very concerned about rising tension on the Korean peninsula and called on North Korea to refrain from making any provocations.

MORE SANCTIONS TO COME

Using sanctions against a head of state is not unprecedented. In 2011, the United States sanctioned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six other senior Syrian officials for their role in Syria’s violence. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was also sanctioned.

Policymakers often worry that targeting a country’s leader will destroy any lingering chance of rapprochement, former diplomats say.

It is a sign “there probably isn’t much of a hope for a diplomatic resolution,” said Zachary Goldman, a former policy adviser in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

The new sanctions follow a long list of measures that have had little effect in pressuring North Korean leaders to change, experts who study the North’s political system said.

“The sanctions from today will do nothing whatsoever to alter North Korea’s strategic calculus and only underscore their thinking that the U.S. has a ‘hostile policy’ against their country,” said Michael Madden an expert on the North Korean leadership.

“Considering the sanctions name Kim Jong Un, the reaction from Pyongyang will be epic,” he said. “There will be numerous official and state media denunciations, which will target the U.S. and Seoul, and the wording will be vituperative and blistering.”

Peter Harrell, a former State Department sanctions official, said the measures would signal to companies in China, as well as others doing business with North Korea, the U.S. would continue escalating sanctions.

Harrell added it was unlikely any assets would be blocked, however “given the realities of where Kim Jong Un and his cronies likely hide their assets.”

In March, the U.N. Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the country in response to its nuclear and missile tests.

That same month, Obama imposed new sanctions on North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test and a rocket launch that Washington and its allies said employed banned ballistic missile technology.

Those steps froze any property of the North Korean government in the U.S. and essentially prohibited exports of goods from the U.S. to North Korea.

“The United States has maintained sanctions and pressure against the North for 65 years since the Korean War, but there’s not been a single case where the intended result was accomplished,” said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

“How much time is left in the Obama administration? There may be the wish to prove the policy of ‘strategic patience’ against the North has not failed, but when it comes to practical results, there won’t be much to show,” Yang said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Yeganeh Torbati and Joel Schectman in Washington, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Bill Tarrant)

Tens of thousands protest in Hong Kong as China tensions simmer over booksellers

By Venus Wu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents marched in protest on the 19th anniversary of the financial hub’s return to Chinese rule on Friday as tensions simmer against Chinese authorities over the abductions of Hong Kong booksellers.

Some waved banners criticizing Beijing for the cross-border abductions as acts of a “totalitarian” regime, as well as calling for the release of leading dissidents, chanting for democracy and for Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying to step down.

Several hundred scuffled with police outside Government House, with police using pepper spray to keep them back. Organizers said 110,000 people took part in the march, while police put the figure at 19,300.

The July 1 protests are considered a barometer of public sentiment toward Beijing, with the former British colony due to hold citywide elections in September.

The city has been unnerved over the past year by the disappearances of five booksellers who specialized in works critical of Chinese leaders. One of the men, Lam Wing-kee, who was detained for eight months by Chinese agents and released last month, criticized Beijing for “violating Hong Kong’s rights” through illegal cross-border enforcement operations.

The tactics have raised fears of Communist Party rulers in Beijing eroding the so-called “one country, two systems” formula, granting Hong Kong a high degree of freedom and autonomy since its 1997 return from British to Chinese rule.

China has denied wrongdoing.

“This is a very grave threat to the safety of Hong Kong residents that an unknown force is spying on people,” said pro-democracy lawmaker Cyd Ho at the rally.

“The Hong Kong government has to follow up with the central government on what’s really happening behind the scenes.”

Hundreds of police were also deployed to guard China’s main representative “Liaison Office” in Hong Kong, after activists who advocate independence from China posted plans on social media for a “black mask” evening protest to besiege the skyscraper.

Scores of young people, some dressed in black T-shirts with the words “HK is not China”, were searched by police in the area and roads were blocked off with metal barricades to prevent trouble.

Lam, who had been due to lead the July 1 march that each year draws tens of thousands, pulled out, citing safety concerns after being followed by two unknown strangers, a lawmaker said.

“He feels increasingly concerned about his own personal safety,” said pro-democracy lawmaker Albert Ho.

A senior Chinese official, Wang Guangya, who heads the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office in Beijing, said the booksellers had “destroyed” the one country, two systems formula by publishing banned books in mainland China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, however, said in a speech on Friday that “no matter what the difficulties and challenges, our confidence and determination towards one country, two systems will not waver”.

Xi added Hong Kong would continue to enjoy a high degree of autonomy and Beijing would strictly adhere to the law.

A 79-day “umbrella revolution” in late 2014 demanding Beijing allow full democracy in Hong Kong brought chaos to the streets.

(Additional reporting by Lindsy Long, Sharon Shi and Hera Poon in Hong Kong and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by James Pomfret; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show