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China, though barred from the world’s largest multi-country naval exercises this year, will shrug off the slight because it has accumulated enough power in Asia’s disputed seas to cause it little concern about the U.S.-led maneuvers, experts believe.

The United States uninvited China from attending the Rim of the Pacific Exercise in view of Beijing’s naval expansion, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement June 2. The exercises better known as RIMPAC bring together 25 countries, 45 vessels and 25,000 people.

Beijing need not worry because it has already militarized its key islets in the South China Sea over the protests of Southeast Asian states and cultivated a blue-water navy that plies the open Pacific Ocean despite objections from Japan and Taiwan, analysts say.

“They’ll shrug it off,” said Jeffrey Kingston, author and history instructor at Temple University Japan. “I think they know there’s displeasure about their actions, but they’re not going to lose sleep over it.”

RIMPAC 2018 exercises

RIMPAC exercises for 2018 began last week. The series of maneuvers coordinated from Honolulu were highlighted by amphibious assault vehicle training by U.S., Canadian and Mexican forces.

The exercises, set to last through July 16, will also cover live-fire drills, urban tactics and “scenario-based small-unit leadership exercises,” the U.S. Navy’s website said.

Exercises help the military personnel of participating countries — all fundamentally U.S. allies — get to know one another for future cooperation and emergency responses, said Jay Batongbacal, a University of the Philippines international maritime affairs professor. The event poses no threat to China, he said.

The U.S. government “disinvited” the People’s Liberation Army Navy from the 2018 exercises “as initial response to China’s continued militarization of the South China Sea,” Defense Secretary James Mattis was quoted saying on his department’s website.

“China’s behavior is inconsistent with the principles and the purposes of the RIMPAC exercise, an exercise in which transparency and cooperation are hallmarks,” he said.

Beijing sealed itself off from RIMPAC by placing missiles and fighter jets in the disputed South China Sea and passing naval vessels and military aircraft near Taiwan since 2016, analysts say.

“Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea, as well as its continued encirclement and harassment of Taiwan, clearly places it outside our circle of like-minded partners,” said Sean King, vice president of the Park Strategies political consultancy in New York.

China undaunted

China attended the 2016 RIMPAC exercises with five warships, 1,200 officers and soldiers as well as combat divers. It was invited back to the event last year. RIMPAC was first held in 1971.

This year its Communist Party-run newspaper Global Times called “the provocative involvement of the U.S…. now the biggest source of risk” in the region.

Beijing need not fret over its exclusion because it has built military infrastructure on its main holdings in the South China Sea with unimpeded access for aircraft, radar systems and in one case reported earlier this year, missiles, scholars in Asia say.

“China’s policies over the South China Sea are pretty much set in stone, as far as it’s concerned, so even if it did participate in RIMPAC it would not have changed anything,” Batongbacal said.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam contest Chinese sovereignty over all or parts of the South China Sea. China has the strongest armed forces in the region. It has offered economic aid to much of Southeast Asia, effectively keeping some of the disputants there quiet, scholars have said previously.

All claimants prize the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea for its fisheries and fossil fuel reserves. Washington does not have a claim to the waterway, which extends from Hong Kong south to the island of Borneo, but it periodically sends vessels to the sea to counter Chinese influence.

China has rattled Taiwan over the past three years with military aircraft flybys near the self-ruled island’s air defense identification zone and tested Japanese control over the uninhabited Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. China claims the same islands, which it calls the Diaoyu.

Japan and the four Southeast Asian states that dispute Beijing’s South China Sea claims joined RIMPAC this year. Japan will be glad China’s not there, Kingston said. The Philippines can “practice and learn” from RIMPAC’s joint operations, Batongbacal said.

China might retaliate against its un-invitation by spiking a future military exchange with the United States, said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei. But in the long term, he said, “military exchanges will be normal.”

“I don’t know how [China] would react if it wanted to,” Huang said. “To react, for example, if a U.S. general were to visit, they could say ‘no need to come.’”
…

Washington is gearing up for a protracted battle over a looming U.S. Supreme Court vacancy as President Donald Trump considers a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is retiring at the end of the month. VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report.
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Washington is gearing up for a protracted battle over a looming U.S. Supreme Court vacancy as President Donald Trump considers a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is retiring at the end of the month. VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report.
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Guatemalan Yeni Gonzalez crossed the border into the United States illegally and was separated from her children. VOA is following her quest to overcome legal barriers and get her kids back from distant detention centers. This is one case among the 2,000 children of illegal migrants separated from their families.

After 43 days in the custody of the U.S. immigration authorities and having been separated on the southern border of the United States from her three children when trying to enter the country as an illegal immigrant, Yeni Gonzalez was released on bail.

The undocumented mother spoke with the Voice of America,

“I’m going to look for my children,” she said. … “It has been very difficult, very hard for me, I felt that my heart broke into a thousand pieces, they snatch my children from my arms.”

For five weeks Yeni Gonzalez was detained in this immigration center in Eloy Arizona, 3,800 kilometers from New York where her three children were taken, after they were separated when they tried to cross the border illegally

Yeni Gonzalez was distraught.

“I asked them to please give me a call, and they said no, there were no calls,” she said. “And I told them, please, I want to know from my children, that I already have days of not knowing about them and he said, ‘do you know something? You will be deported to Guatemala and your children,’ he told me, ‘will remain in the hands of this government.'”

In a VOA interview, Yeni says she was unaware of the “Zero Tolerance” policy that separated her from her children. She says if she had known, she would never have brought her children this way.

They are in New York, under the care of the Cayuga center. Donations made it possible for her to be released on bail.

“The bail was paid by some families, mothers who are in New York City. And thank God they sent me by text message, confirmation that was paid, that the bail of $7,500 dollars was paid,” said Yeni’s lawyer, Jose Orechena.

The departure of Yeni coincided with the visit to a migration processing center in Tucson Arizona, of the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, who is closely following the situation of these undocumented families and the work of the authorities.

“I’m here to support you and give my help, whatever I can on behalf of children and the families,” she said.

The Trump administration says it will reunify families, according to the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar.

“They would be unified with either parents or other relatives under our policies, so of course if the parent remains in detention, unfortunately under rules that are set by Congress and the courts, they can’t be reunified while they’re in detention,” he said.

Yeni Gonzalez is looking forward to hugging her kids very soon.

 
…

Guatemalan Yeni Gonzalez crossed the border into the United States illegally and was separated from her children. VOA is following her quest to overcome legal barriers and get her kids back from distant detention centers. This is one case among the 2,000 children of illegal migrants separated from their families.

After 43 days in the custody of the U.S. immigration authorities and having been separated on the southern border of the United States from her three children when trying to enter the country as an illegal immigrant, Yeni Gonzalez was released on bail.

The undocumented mother spoke with the Voice of America,

“I’m going to look for my children,” she said. … “It has been very difficult, very hard for me, I felt that my heart broke into a thousand pieces, they snatch my children from my arms.”

For five weeks Yeni Gonzalez was detained in this immigration center in Eloy Arizona, 3,800 kilometers from New York where her three children were taken, after they were separated when they tried to cross the border illegally

Yeni Gonzalez was distraught.

“I asked them to please give me a call, and they said no, there were no calls,” she said. “And I told them, please, I want to know from my children, that I already have days of not knowing about them and he said, ‘do you know something? You will be deported to Guatemala and your children,’ he told me, ‘will remain in the hands of this government.'”

In a VOA interview, Yeni says she was unaware of the “Zero Tolerance” policy that separated her from her children. She says if she had known, she would never have brought her children this way.

They are in New York, under the care of the Cayuga center. Donations made it possible for her to be released on bail.

“The bail was paid by some families, mothers who are in New York City. And thank God they sent me by text message, confirmation that was paid, that the bail of $7,500 dollars was paid,” said Yeni’s lawyer, Jose Orechena.

The departure of Yeni coincided with the visit to a migration processing center in Tucson Arizona, of the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, who is closely following the situation of these undocumented families and the work of the authorities.

“I’m here to support you and give my help, whatever I can on behalf of children and the families,” she said.

The Trump administration says it will reunify families, according to the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar.

“They would be unified with either parents or other relatives under our policies, so of course if the parent remains in detention, unfortunately under rules that are set by Congress and the courts, they can’t be reunified while they’re in detention,” he said.

Yeni Gonzalez is looking forward to hugging her kids very soon.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday defended the country’s embattled immigration control agency against calls by some opposition Democrats to abolish it.

“The Liberal Left, also known as the Democrats, want to get rid of ICE, who do a fantastic job, and want Open Borders.Crime would be rampant and uncontrollable!” Trump said on Twitter, one of several tweets he made over the weekend supporting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

In an interview on Fox News, Trump said that from a political standpoint, “I love that issue.” He contended that if Democrats continue their call for abolishing the agency, “I think they’ll never win another election.”

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated Saturday across the United States against his “zero tolerance” policy calling for the apprehension of anyone illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States and for the immediate reunification of more than 2,000 immigrant children with their parents they were separated from when they entered the United States.

The government detained the parents to wait for legal proceedings on their claims for asylum in the U.S. and sent the children to shelters. A federal judge has ordered the government to reunite the families over the next three weeks, but U.S. officials have made little progress in carrying out the edict.On June 20, Trump issued an executive order that promised to end family separations when possible.

Trump did not comment directly on the protests that took place in major cities and small towns. But he said, “When people come into our Country illegally, we must IMMEDIATELY escort them back out without going through years of legal maneuvering. Our laws are the dumbest anywhere in the world.”

Some key Democratic lawmakers who are possibly eyeing a 2020 presidential campaign against Trump’s re-election bid have called for closing ICE, which is part of the government’s Homeland Security agency.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York told CNN last week that ICE has “become a deportation force” and that “you should get rid of it, start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works.”

Senator Kamla Harris of California told several news outlets that “maybe” or “probably” the government should “start from scratch” on a new immigration enforcement agency.

Trump, however, in repeated tweets has defended the agency, saying Saturday, “To the great and brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit. You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements.”

He also contended, inaccurately, that he “never pushed Republicans in the House” last week to vote for an immigration overhaul that would have put into law his executive order to end separating children from their parents when they are apprehended at the U.S.-Mexican border. He had told fellow Republicans last week that they “should pass the strong, but fair immigration bill.”

But the measure was overwhelmingly rejected, with solid Democratic opposition and a splintered Republican vote. It would have provided $25 billion in funding for a wall along the border, a Trump priority. But the most conservative Republican lawmakers opposed the legislation because it also created a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who years ago were brought illegally into the country by their parents, a provision they say amounts to “amnesty” for law breakers.

Trump said he knew the bill, even if it passed the House of Representatives, would not clear the Senate in the face of Democratic opposition. Republicans hold a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate, where the immigration legislation would need a 60-vote super-majority to win approval.

Trump said he “released many” House Republicans so they could vote against the immigration bill last week. Trump branded the filibuster rule in the Senate requiring most significant legislation to need 60 votes for passage “ridiculous” and called for its abolition, but both Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have rejected calls to do so.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday defended the country’s embattled immigration control agency against calls by some opposition Democrats to abolish it.

“The Liberal Left, also known as the Democrats, want to get rid of ICE, who do a fantastic job, and want Open Borders.Crime would be rampant and uncontrollable!” Trump said on Twitter, one of several tweets he made over the weekend supporting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

In an interview on Fox News, Trump said that from a political standpoint, “I love that issue.” He contended that if Democrats continue their call for abolishing the agency, “I think they’ll never win another election.”

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated Saturday across the United States against his “zero tolerance” policy calling for the apprehension of anyone illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States and for the immediate reunification of more than 2,000 immigrant children with their parents they were separated from when they entered the United States.

The government detained the parents to wait for legal proceedings on their claims for asylum in the U.S. and sent the children to shelters. A federal judge has ordered the government to reunite the families over the next three weeks, but U.S. officials have made little progress in carrying out the edict.On June 20, Trump issued an executive order that promised to end family separations when possible.

Trump did not comment directly on the protests that took place in major cities and small towns. But he said, “When people come into our Country illegally, we must IMMEDIATELY escort them back out without going through years of legal maneuvering. Our laws are the dumbest anywhere in the world.”

Some key Democratic lawmakers who are possibly eyeing a 2020 presidential campaign against Trump’s re-election bid have called for closing ICE, which is part of the government’s Homeland Security agency.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York told CNN last week that ICE has “become a deportation force” and that “you should get rid of it, start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works.”

Senator Kamla Harris of California told several news outlets that “maybe” or “probably” the government should “start from scratch” on a new immigration enforcement agency.

Trump, however, in repeated tweets has defended the agency, saying Saturday, “To the great and brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit. You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements.”

He also contended, inaccurately, that he “never pushed Republicans in the House” last week to vote for an immigration overhaul that would have put into law his executive order to end separating children from their parents when they are apprehended at the U.S.-Mexican border. He had told fellow Republicans last week that they “should pass the strong, but fair immigration bill.”

But the measure was overwhelmingly rejected, with solid Democratic opposition and a splintered Republican vote. It would have provided $25 billion in funding for a wall along the border, a Trump priority. But the most conservative Republican lawmakers opposed the legislation because it also created a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who years ago were brought illegally into the country by their parents, a provision they say amounts to “amnesty” for law breakers.

Trump said he knew the bill, even if it passed the House of Representatives, would not clear the Senate in the face of Democratic opposition. Republicans hold a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate, where the immigration legislation would need a 60-vote super-majority to win approval.

Trump said he “released many” House Republicans so they could vote against the immigration bill last week. Trump branded the filibuster rule in the Senate requiring most significant legislation to need 60 votes for passage “ridiculous” and called for its abolition, but both Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have rejected calls to do so.
…

Several prominent Democrats who are mulling a bid for the White House in 2020 have sought to bolster their progressive credentials by calling for major changes to immigration enforcement, with some pressing for the outright abolition of the federal government’s chief immigration enforcement agency. 

President Donald Trump responded on Twitter Saturday that it will “never happen!” 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has “become a deportation force,” telling CNN late Thursday “you should get rid of it, start over, re-imagine it and build something that actually works.”

Her comments follow similar sentiments expressed by Sen. Kamala Harris of California over the past week. In interviews with multiple outlets, she has said the government “maybe” or “probably” should “start from scratch” on an immigration enforcement agency.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination in 2016 and is mulling another run, has stopped short of his colleagues’ calls to dismantle ICE. But he has also been quick to note his vote opposing the 2002 law that paved the way for ICE to replace the old Immigration and Naturalization Service following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Trump tweeted Saturday morning from New Jersey that Democrats “are making a strong push to abolish ICE, one of the smartest, toughest and most spirited law enforcement groups of men and women that I have ever seen.” He noted the agency’s work to counter MS-13 gang members.

He urged ICE agents to “not worry or lose your spirit,” adding: “The radical left Dems want you out. Next it will be all police. Zero chance, It will never happen!”

Balancing act

Housed within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE is in charge of executing hundreds of federal immigration statutes. The debate over the agency’s future follows the widespread outcry in recent weeks after the Trump administration separated more than 2,000 migrant children from their parents. Marches took place across the country Saturday to protest the policy, which Trump later reversed.

The Democratic calls to scrap the agency underscore the balancing act the party is facing on immigration issues. Such rhetoric could prove unhelpful to the 10 Democratic senators seeking re-election this fall in states Trump carried in 2016, where conservative views on immigration prevail. But calling for an end to ICE could be a winner for Democrats seeking to rally the party’s base in the 2020 presidential primaries.

Trump seems to relish the prospect of Democrats making the abolishment of ICE a campaign issue. 

“Well I hope they keep thinking about it. Because they’re going to get beaten so badly,” he said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo,” according to an excerpt released Saturday. He added: “get rid of ICE you’re going to have a country that you’re going to be afraid to walk out of your house. I love that issue if they’re going to actually do that.”

Many anti-Trump activists, who are driving the Twitter hashtag #abolishICE, have celebrated the moves by Gillibrand, Harris and others.

Nelini Stamp, the national organizing director for the Working Families Party, one of many progressive groups that ratcheted up its activity after Trump’s election, called it a “critical moment” in the early maneuverings for 2020.

“Any Democrats who want to be the nominee need to stand on the right side of this,” Stamp said. “Even if they don’t say ‘abolish ICE,’ they can’t not address it.”

Angel Padilla, policy director at the grassroots group Indivisible, said ICE “terrorizes communities” and that Gillibrand’s move “demonstrates where the progressive base is.”

Still, not every immigrant advocacy group takes the same view.

No litmus test

Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Project, a political action group that backs pro-immigration candidates, rejected ICE as a “litmus test.” But he said it’s “heartening” that immigration policy in general “is at the forefront of the conversation ahead of 2020.”

Alex said his group has met privately with several potential presidential candidates.

Their focus, Alex said, should be on “stopping the long-standing culture of corruption” in U.S. immigration policy and “the appalling practices” of the Trump administration, not on a move that by itself “amounts to rebranding.”

Indeed, the would-be presidential candidates haven’t yet detailed what they propose in ICE’s place. Before the border separation crisis, Harris had introduced legislation that would curb the expansion of immigration detention centers. She and Gillibrand and others have at least hinted that they would want the Justice Department’s prosecutorial power less involved in border security.

Whatever the details, the focus on ICE could cause problems for some potential candidates with more conservative records on immigration.

Former Vice President Joe Biden voted as a senator from Delaware for the 2002 law, the Homeland Security Act, that paved the way for ICE to replace the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He also voted in 2006 for a Bush administration-backed border security measure. Biden, however, has been critical of Trump’s immigration policy as he considers a 2020 run. Earlier this year, Biden headlined a private event with the Latino Victory Project in Miami.

The activists pushing for ICE abolition, meanwhile, said they aren’t worried about potential blowback or any difficulties for Democrats facing more conservative voters, including those potentially swayed by Trump’s repeated charges that Democrats favor “open borders.”

At the Working Families Party, Stamp said she sees the activists taking a position that “offers space” to other Democrats activists who won’t agree with them.

“We give them room to talk about better immigration policy,” she said, comparing the circumstances to the civil rights movement, when Martin Luther King Jr., was viewed more favorably by white power brokers than more strident leaders like Malcolm X.

“Martin Luther King never said, ‘Black power,’” Stamp said. “But having the left flank that did made the right folks willing to at least talk to King.”
…

Several prominent Democrats who are mulling a bid for the White House in 2020 have sought to bolster their progressive credentials by calling for major changes to immigration enforcement, with some pressing for the outright abolition of the federal government’s chief immigration enforcement agency. 

President Donald Trump responded on Twitter Saturday that it will “never happen!” 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has “become a deportation force,” telling CNN late Thursday “you should get rid of it, start over, re-imagine it and build something that actually works.”

Her comments follow similar sentiments expressed by Sen. Kamala Harris of California over the past week. In interviews with multiple outlets, she has said the government “maybe” or “probably” should “start from scratch” on an immigration enforcement agency.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination in 2016 and is mulling another run, has stopped short of his colleagues’ calls to dismantle ICE. But he has also been quick to note his vote opposing the 2002 law that paved the way for ICE to replace the old Immigration and Naturalization Service following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Trump tweeted Saturday morning from New Jersey that Democrats “are making a strong push to abolish ICE, one of the smartest, toughest and most spirited law enforcement groups of men and women that I have ever seen.” He noted the agency’s work to counter MS-13 gang members.

He urged ICE agents to “not worry or lose your spirit,” adding: “The radical left Dems want you out. Next it will be all police. Zero chance, It will never happen!”

Balancing act

Housed within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE is in charge of executing hundreds of federal immigration statutes. The debate over the agency’s future follows the widespread outcry in recent weeks after the Trump administration separated more than 2,000 migrant children from their parents. Marches took place across the country Saturday to protest the policy, which Trump later reversed.

The Democratic calls to scrap the agency underscore the balancing act the party is facing on immigration issues. Such rhetoric could prove unhelpful to the 10 Democratic senators seeking re-election this fall in states Trump carried in 2016, where conservative views on immigration prevail. But calling for an end to ICE could be a winner for Democrats seeking to rally the party’s base in the 2020 presidential primaries.

Trump seems to relish the prospect of Democrats making the abolishment of ICE a campaign issue. 

“Well I hope they keep thinking about it. Because they’re going to get beaten so badly,” he said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo,” according to an excerpt released Saturday. He added: “get rid of ICE you’re going to have a country that you’re going to be afraid to walk out of your house. I love that issue if they’re going to actually do that.”

Many anti-Trump activists, who are driving the Twitter hashtag #abolishICE, have celebrated the moves by Gillibrand, Harris and others.

Nelini Stamp, the national organizing director for the Working Families Party, one of many progressive groups that ratcheted up its activity after Trump’s election, called it a “critical moment” in the early maneuverings for 2020.

“Any Democrats who want to be the nominee need to stand on the right side of this,” Stamp said. “Even if they don’t say ‘abolish ICE,’ they can’t not address it.”

Angel Padilla, policy director at the grassroots group Indivisible, said ICE “terrorizes communities” and that Gillibrand’s move “demonstrates where the progressive base is.”

Still, not every immigrant advocacy group takes the same view.

No litmus test

Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Project, a political action group that backs pro-immigration candidates, rejected ICE as a “litmus test.” But he said it’s “heartening” that immigration policy in general “is at the forefront of the conversation ahead of 2020.”

Alex said his group has met privately with several potential presidential candidates.

Their focus, Alex said, should be on “stopping the long-standing culture of corruption” in U.S. immigration policy and “the appalling practices” of the Trump administration, not on a move that by itself “amounts to rebranding.”

Indeed, the would-be presidential candidates haven’t yet detailed what they propose in ICE’s place. Before the border separation crisis, Harris had introduced legislation that would curb the expansion of immigration detention centers. She and Gillibrand and others have at least hinted that they would want the Justice Department’s prosecutorial power less involved in border security.

Whatever the details, the focus on ICE could cause problems for some potential candidates with more conservative records on immigration.

Former Vice President Joe Biden voted as a senator from Delaware for the 2002 law, the Homeland Security Act, that paved the way for ICE to replace the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He also voted in 2006 for a Bush administration-backed border security measure. Biden, however, has been critical of Trump’s immigration policy as he considers a 2020 run. Earlier this year, Biden headlined a private event with the Latino Victory Project in Miami.

The activists pushing for ICE abolition, meanwhile, said they aren’t worried about potential blowback or any difficulties for Democrats facing more conservative voters, including those potentially swayed by Trump’s repeated charges that Democrats favor “open borders.”

At the Working Families Party, Stamp said she sees the activists taking a position that “offers space” to other Democrats activists who won’t agree with them.

“We give them room to talk about better immigration policy,” she said, comparing the circumstances to the civil rights movement, when Martin Luther King Jr., was viewed more favorably by white power brokers than more strident leaders like Malcolm X.

“Martin Luther King never said, ‘Black power,’” Stamp said. “But having the left flank that did made the right folks willing to at least talk to King.”
…

Iran is studying ways to keep exporting oil and other measures to counter U.S. economic sanctions, state news agency IRNA reported Saturday.

Since last month, when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal that lifted most sanctions in 2015, the rial currency has dropped up to 40 percent in value, prompting protests by bazaar traders usually loyal to the Islamist rulers.

Speaking after three days of those protests, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the U.S. sanctions were aimed at turning Iranians against their government.

Other protesters clashed with police late Saturday during a demonstration against shortages of drinking water.

“They bring to bear economic pressure to separate the nation from the system … but six U.S. presidents before him [Trump] tried this and had to give up,” Khamenei said on his website Khamenei.ir.

With the return of U.S. sanctions likely to make it increasingly difficult to access the global financial system, President Hassan Rouhani has met with the head of parliament and the judiciary to discuss countermeasures.

“Various scenarios of threats to the Iranian economy by the U.S. government were examined and appropriate measures were taken to prepare for any probable U.S. sanctions, and to prevent their negative impact,” IRNA said.

One such measure was seeking self-sufficiency in gasoline production, the report added.

Looking for buyers

The government and parliament have also set up a committee to study potential buyers of oil and ways of repatriating the income after U.S. sanctions take effect, Fereydoun Hassanvand, head of the parliament’s energy committee, was quoted as saying by IRNA.

“Due to the possibility of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the committee will study the competence of buyers and how to obtain proceeds from the sale of oil, safe sale alternatives which are consistent with international law and do not lead to corruption and profiteering,” Hassanvand said.

The United States has told allies to cut all imports of Iranian oil by November, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

In the separate unrest, demonstrators protesting against shortages of drinking water in oil-rich southwestern Iran clashed with police late Saturday after officers ordered about 500 protesters to disperse, IRNA reported.

Shots could be heard on videos circulated on social media from protests in Khorramshahr, which has been the scene of demonstrations for the past three days, along with the nearby city of Abadan. The videos could not be authenticated by Reuters.

A number of protests have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over water, a growing political concern because of a drought that residents of parched areas and analysts say has been exacerbated by mismanagement.

Speaking before the IRNA report on the clash, Khamenei said the United States was acting with Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states, which regard Shiite Muslim Iran as their main regional foe, to try to destabilize the government in Tehran.

“If America was able to act against Iran, it would not need to form coalitions with notorious and reactionary states in the region and ask their help in fomenting unrest and instability,” Khamenei told graduating Revolutionary Guards officers, in remarks carried by state TV.
…

Iran is studying ways to keep exporting oil and other measures to counter U.S. economic sanctions, state news agency IRNA reported Saturday.

Since last month, when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal that lifted most sanctions in 2015, the rial currency has dropped up to 40 percent in value, prompting protests by bazaar traders usually loyal to the Islamist rulers.

Speaking after three days of those protests, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the U.S. sanctions were aimed at turning Iranians against their government.

Other protesters clashed with police late Saturday during a demonstration against shortages of drinking water.

“They bring to bear economic pressure to separate the nation from the system … but six U.S. presidents before him [Trump] tried this and had to give up,” Khamenei said on his website Khamenei.ir.

With the return of U.S. sanctions likely to make it increasingly difficult to access the global financial system, President Hassan Rouhani has met with the head of parliament and the judiciary to discuss countermeasures.

“Various scenarios of threats to the Iranian economy by the U.S. government were examined and appropriate measures were taken to prepare for any probable U.S. sanctions, and to prevent their negative impact,” IRNA said.

One such measure was seeking self-sufficiency in gasoline production, the report added.

Looking for buyers

The government and parliament have also set up a committee to study potential buyers of oil and ways of repatriating the income after U.S. sanctions take effect, Fereydoun Hassanvand, head of the parliament’s energy committee, was quoted as saying by IRNA.

“Due to the possibility of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the committee will study the competence of buyers and how to obtain proceeds from the sale of oil, safe sale alternatives which are consistent with international law and do not lead to corruption and profiteering,” Hassanvand said.

The United States has told allies to cut all imports of Iranian oil by November, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

In the separate unrest, demonstrators protesting against shortages of drinking water in oil-rich southwestern Iran clashed with police late Saturday after officers ordered about 500 protesters to disperse, IRNA reported.

Shots could be heard on videos circulated on social media from protests in Khorramshahr, which has been the scene of demonstrations for the past three days, along with the nearby city of Abadan. The videos could not be authenticated by Reuters.

A number of protests have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over water, a growing political concern because of a drought that residents of parched areas and analysts say has been exacerbated by mismanagement.

Speaking before the IRNA report on the clash, Khamenei said the United States was acting with Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states, which regard Shiite Muslim Iran as their main regional foe, to try to destabilize the government in Tehran.

“If America was able to act against Iran, it would not need to form coalitions with notorious and reactionary states in the region and ask their help in fomenting unrest and instability,” Khamenei told graduating Revolutionary Guards officers, in remarks carried by state TV.
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A senior U.S. diplomat for Asian affairs is leaving State Department at the end of July amid ongoing and critical negotiations with North Korea, weeks after the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea met in Singapore.

“Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton has announced her intention to retire from the Foreign Service at the end of July,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saturday in a statement.

“We particularly appreciate her dedication to department and interagency colleagues, her extraordinary leadership, especially as acting assistant secretary over the past year and a half,” Nauert added.

Thornton was formally nominated by President Donald Trump as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs last December. She began serving in the position in an acting capacity soon after Trump took office.

Thornton’s nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, has been blocked by key Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

In a tweet in May, Rubio said Thornton was “undermining” Trump’s effort to negotiate with North Korea by suggesting that the U.S. might accept a “partial” surrender of its nuclear weapons at the start of the talks.

Rubio was quoting Thornton’s remarks at a Wall Street Journal conference in Tokyo.

The State Department later clarified, saying Thornton’s position was in line with that of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

“What Susan Thornton was talking about is very similar and the same thing to what Secretary Pompeo spoke about, and that is that we would like to see a bigger, bolder, different, faster deal than the kind of deals that have been proposed before,” Nauert said in a briefing May 17.

Pompeo is said to be working diligently on nominations to fill key leadership roles across the State Department, including the position of assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
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A senior U.S. diplomat for Asian affairs is leaving State Department at the end of July amid ongoing and critical negotiations with North Korea, weeks after the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea met in Singapore.

“Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton has announced her intention to retire from the Foreign Service at the end of July,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saturday in a statement.

“We particularly appreciate her dedication to department and interagency colleagues, her extraordinary leadership, especially as acting assistant secretary over the past year and a half,” Nauert added.

Thornton was formally nominated by President Donald Trump as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs last December. She began serving in the position in an acting capacity soon after Trump took office.

Thornton’s nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, has been blocked by key Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

In a tweet in May, Rubio said Thornton was “undermining” Trump’s effort to negotiate with North Korea by suggesting that the U.S. might accept a “partial” surrender of its nuclear weapons at the start of the talks.

Rubio was quoting Thornton’s remarks at a Wall Street Journal conference in Tokyo.

The State Department later clarified, saying Thornton’s position was in line with that of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

“What Susan Thornton was talking about is very similar and the same thing to what Secretary Pompeo spoke about, and that is that we would like to see a bigger, bolder, different, faster deal than the kind of deals that have been proposed before,” Nauert said in a briefing May 17.

Pompeo is said to be working diligently on nominations to fill key leadership roles across the State Department, including the position of assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
…

The National Security Agency is deleting more than 685 million call records the government obtained since 2015 from telecommunication companies in connection with investigations, raising questions about the viability of the program.

The NSA’s bulk collection of call records was initially curtailed by Congress after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing extensive government surveillance. The law, enacted in June 2015, said that going forward, the data would be retained by telecommunications companies, not the NSA, but that the intelligence agency could query the massive database.

Now the NSA is deleting all the information it collected from the queries.

Program questioned, defended

The agency released a statement late Thursday saying it started deleting the records in May after NSA analysts noted “technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunication service providers.” It also said the irregularities resulted in the NSA obtaining some call details it was not authorized to receive.

That points to a failure of the program, according to David Kris, a former top national security official at the Justice Department.

“They said they have to purge three years’ worth of data going back to 2015, and that the data they did collect during that time, which they are now purging, was not reliable and was infected with some kind of technical error,” said Kris, founder of Culper Partners, a consulting firm in Seattle. “So whatever insights they were hoping to get over the past three years from this program of collection … is all worthless. Because of that, they are throwing all the data away and basically starting over.”

Christopher Augustine, an NSA spokesman, disagreed with the claim that the program had failed.

“This is a case in which NSA determined that there was a problem and proactively took all the right steps to fix it,” he said.

The agency has reviewed and re-validated the intelligence reporting to make sure it was based only on call data that had been properly received from the telecommunication providers, he said. The agency declined to assign blame, and said the “root cause of the problem has since been addressed.”

​Who is to blame?

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a staunch advocate of privacy rights, placed the blame on the telecom companies providing the NSA with call records.

“This incident shows these companies acted with unacceptable carelessness, and failed to comply with the law when they shared customers’ sensitive data with the government,” he told The Associated Press in a written statement Friday.

What is legal

Under law, the government can request information, such as the type of details that might be printed on a phone bill: the date and time of a call or text, a telephone calling card number, the duration of a call and to what phone number it was made. The details provided to the government do not include the content of any communications, the name, address or financial information of a customer, cell site location or GPS information.

If government investigators have reasonable suspicion that a certain phone number is being used by a terrorist, who might be in the U.S. or overseas, the government asks the phone companies which other numbers have been in touch with the suspicious number, something known as the “first hops,” and then which numbers are in touch with those numbers, the “second hops.”

42 targets, 534.4 million details

The NSA collected more than 534.4 million details of calls and text messages in 2017 from American telecom providers like AT&T and Version, according to the most recent government report covering NSA surveillance activities that year. That was more than three times the 151.2 million collected in 2016.

The call records were part of an intelligence collection effort aimed at 42 targets in 2016 and 40 targets in 2017, according to the report. It defines a target as an individual, group of individuals, organization or entity.

Annual reports to Congress from the intelligence community are now required under the 2015 surveillance reform legislation. The law also requires the government to seek a court order to collect call records to obtain intelligence. Requests for records of U.S. citizens must be based on an investigation being conducted to protect against terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities and the probe cannot be conducted solely on activities protected by the First Amendment.

However, despite the reforms, the NSA still received some data from the telecommunications companies that the agency was not authorized to see and some of that data was erroneous, Augustine said.

“We cannot go into greater detail because those details remain classified. However, at no point in time did NSA receive the content of any calls, the name, address or financial information of a subscriber or customer, nor cell site location information or global positioning system information,” he said.

Privacy and civil rights advocates said the NSA announcement raised further concerns about the program.

“This is another in a series of failures that shows that many NSA spying programs have ballooned out of control and have repeatedly failed to meet the basic limits imposed by Congress and the FISA court,” said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington. Guliani was referring to a U.S. federal court established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to oversee requests for surveillance warrants.

She said the public has a right to know more about the cause and scope of the problem, such as how many of the records were obtained in error and whether the NSA notified any individuals that their information improperly ended up in the agency’s hands.
…

The National Security Agency is deleting more than 685 million call records the government obtained since 2015 from telecommunication companies in connection with investigations, raising questions about the viability of the program.

The NSA’s bulk collection of call records was initially curtailed by Congress after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing extensive government surveillance. The law, enacted in June 2015, said that going forward, the data would be retained by telecommunications companies, not the NSA, but that the intelligence agency could query the massive database.

Now the NSA is deleting all the information it collected from the queries.

Program questioned, defended

The agency released a statement late Thursday saying it started deleting the records in May after NSA analysts noted “technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunication service providers.” It also said the irregularities resulted in the NSA obtaining some call details it was not authorized to receive.

That points to a failure of the program, according to David Kris, a former top national security official at the Justice Department.

“They said they have to purge three years’ worth of data going back to 2015, and that the data they did collect during that time, which they are now purging, was not reliable and was infected with some kind of technical error,” said Kris, founder of Culper Partners, a consulting firm in Seattle. “So whatever insights they were hoping to get over the past three years from this program of collection … is all worthless. Because of that, they are throwing all the data away and basically starting over.”

Christopher Augustine, an NSA spokesman, disagreed with the claim that the program had failed.

“This is a case in which NSA determined that there was a problem and proactively took all the right steps to fix it,” he said.

The agency has reviewed and re-validated the intelligence reporting to make sure it was based only on call data that had been properly received from the telecommunication providers, he said. The agency declined to assign blame, and said the “root cause of the problem has since been addressed.”

​Who is to blame?

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a staunch advocate of privacy rights, placed the blame on the telecom companies providing the NSA with call records.

“This incident shows these companies acted with unacceptable carelessness, and failed to comply with the law when they shared customers’ sensitive data with the government,” he told The Associated Press in a written statement Friday.

What is legal

Under law, the government can request information, such as the type of details that might be printed on a phone bill: the date and time of a call or text, a telephone calling card number, the duration of a call and to what phone number it was made. The details provided to the government do not include the content of any communications, the name, address or financial information of a customer, cell site location or GPS information.

If government investigators have reasonable suspicion that a certain phone number is being used by a terrorist, who might be in the U.S. or overseas, the government asks the phone companies which other numbers have been in touch with the suspicious number, something known as the “first hops,” and then which numbers are in touch with those numbers, the “second hops.”

42 targets, 534.4 million details

The NSA collected more than 534.4 million details of calls and text messages in 2017 from American telecom providers like AT&T and Version, according to the most recent government report covering NSA surveillance activities that year. That was more than three times the 151.2 million collected in 2016.

The call records were part of an intelligence collection effort aimed at 42 targets in 2016 and 40 targets in 2017, according to the report. It defines a target as an individual, group of individuals, organization or entity.

Annual reports to Congress from the intelligence community are now required under the 2015 surveillance reform legislation. The law also requires the government to seek a court order to collect call records to obtain intelligence. Requests for records of U.S. citizens must be based on an investigation being conducted to protect against terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities and the probe cannot be conducted solely on activities protected by the First Amendment.

However, despite the reforms, the NSA still received some data from the telecommunications companies that the agency was not authorized to see and some of that data was erroneous, Augustine said.

“We cannot go into greater detail because those details remain classified. However, at no point in time did NSA receive the content of any calls, the name, address or financial information of a subscriber or customer, nor cell site location information or global positioning system information,” he said.

Privacy and civil rights advocates said the NSA announcement raised further concerns about the program.

“This is another in a series of failures that shows that many NSA spying programs have ballooned out of control and have repeatedly failed to meet the basic limits imposed by Congress and the FISA court,” said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington. Guliani was referring to a U.S. federal court established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to oversee requests for surveillance warrants.

She said the public has a right to know more about the cause and scope of the problem, such as how many of the records were obtained in error and whether the NSA notified any individuals that their information improperly ended up in the agency’s hands.
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