1UA TV

President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday revived its support for construction of a new FBI headquarters, saying it planned to ask Congress in 2018 for the remaining $2.175 billion needed to help pay for it.

The funding request, tucked inside the president’s larger $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, would help cover the cost to tear down and rebuild the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s aging 1970s-era headquarters building in downtown Washington, which has nets rigged to catch falling stones.

The move marks a reversal from July, when the administration canceled a years-long search to find a new home for the crime-fighting agency.

The FBI had previously searched for possible new spots in either Maryland or Virginia, and local leaders had battled it out to try to get the bureau.

The total estimated cost for a new FBI headquarters is $3.3 billion, Assistant Attorney General Lee Lofthus told reporters in a briefing Monday at the Justice Department.

The FBI has already set aside $1.125 billion toward the construction project.

“The idea is to build a modern and secure headquarters building across the street on the side of the [J. Edgar] Hoover building,” Lofthus said. “This is an important part of the president’s infrastructure program.”

Lofthus added that the projected $3.3 billion would also cover the cost of so-called “swing space,” or space that FBI employees will use on a temporary basis during construction.

The funding request for the FBI will still need a green light from Congress before it can be appropriated.

​Budget proposal

Also on Monday, the Trump administration unveiled its proposal for the fiscal 2019 budget.

That plan asks for a Justice Department budget of $28 billion, a slight decrease of 1.2 percent from the 2017 enacted level.

Most of the Justice Department’s components would see a funding boost under the plan, with increases proposed for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as for U.S. attorneys and the office that oversees immigration courts.

The decrease would be achieved by consolidating the COPS grants program into the Office of Justice Programs, and closing two regional Bureau of Prisons offices.

The plan also calls for stripping the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) of its powers to police cigarette and alcohol smuggling and transferring them to a tax and trade unit inside the Treasury Department.

After that, the ATF would focus solely on efforts to combat violent crimes such as arson, illegal firearms trafficking and bombings.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday urged department employees to intervene if they witness sexual harassment, two days after U.S. President Donald Trump expressed sympathy for those accused of harassment and not given due process.

“There is no form of disrespect for the individual that I can identify, anything more demeaning than for someone to suffer this kind of treatment,” he said.

“It’s not OK if you’re seeing it happening and just look away. You must do something. You must notify someone. You must step in and intervene,” Tillerson added, speaking in Cairo to about 150 U.S. embassy staff outside the ambassador’s residence.

Tillerson’s comments came amid a chorus of sexual misconduct accusations against powerful men in media, business and politics in the United States that in recent days has reached top aides in the White House.

His remarks also stand in stark contrast to those expressed by Trump, who last week defended a top aide who resigned after domestic violence allegations against him came to light and over the weekend also took to Twitter to raise doubts about such allegations.

A second White House aide left late last week after domestic violence allegations against him also surfaced. Both men have denied the accusations. Reuters has not independently verified either case.

“[People’s] lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. …  Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?” Trump said Saturday on Twitter.

Tillerson, in contrast, on Monday emphasized that all State Department employees would undergo mandatory training to be completed by June 1. The training was announced last month, according to the department.

Speaking in Cairo at the start of a Middle East tour, he said respect for one another is a key value at the State Department, noting that a prime example is the problem of sexual harassment.

In November, some 200 women who worked in national security, including at the State Department, signed a letter calling for mandatory training and channels to report abuse without fear of retribution.

Asked about Trump’s public defense of one of the now-departed aides, Rob Porter, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley on Monday said that, while Trump has not spoken out publicly against the allegations in that case, the president has in the past said domestic abuse is “disgusting.”

“There is no place for it in this country and no place for it in the White House, and the president won’t stand for it,” Gidley told Fox News in an interview.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would push for a “reciprocal tax” against countries, including U.S. allies, that levy tariffs on American products, but officials did not provide details on how such a tax would be structured or what goods it would apply to.

During his populist 2016 presidential campaign, Republican Trump railed at countries that had trade surpluses “taking advantage of the United States” and he revisited the theme Monday.

“We cannot continue to let people come into our country and rob us blind and charge us tremendous tariffs and taxes and we charge them nothing,” Trump told reporters at a White House event to announce a proposed infrastructure plan.

The United States loses “vast amounts of money with China and Japan and South Korea and so many other countries … It’s a little tough for them because they’ve gotten away with murder for 25 years. But we’re going to be changing policy,” he said.

Trump said his administration will impose a “reciprocal tax” to charge other countries — “some of them are so-called allies, but they’re not allies on trade.”

Retailers and trade associations have fought a Republican proposal on how imports are taxed because they believe it hurts their businesses and would lead to higher prices for consumers on basic items such as food and clothing.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, as they began to assemble a tax reform plan last year, proposed imposing a 20 percent border-adjustment tax on imports that was designed to offset the value-added tax refunds that some countries grant to their exporters.

But the idea was dropped after it ran into stiff opposition from retailers and other industries that depend on imported materials. The National Retail Federation called it a “bad tax” that would “drive up the prices of countless products Americans use every day.”

Last April on Fox Business Network, Trump suggested that if he said the U.S. would charge a 10 percent or 20 percent border tax “everyone goes crazy, because they like free trade” and added: “But when you say ‘reciprocal tax,’ nobody can get angry … OK, you say, ‘whatever you charge, we’re charging.'”
…

A blackout hit northern Puerto Rico late Sunday after an explosion set off a big fire at a main power substation in the U.S. territory.

Officials with the island’s Electric Power Authority said several municipalities were without power, including parts of the capital of San Juan.

It was not immediately known what caused the fire, although officials said the explosion knocked two other substations offline and caused a total loss of 400 megawatts worth of generation.

“We are trying to restore that as quickly as possible,” the company said.

Heavy black smoke billowed from the substation as neighbors in the area described on social media seeing the sky turn orange following a loud explosion. San Juan Mayor Carmen Cruz tweeted that no injuries had been reported and that firefighters were on the scene.

The blackout comes as more than 400,000 power customers remain in the dark more than five months after Hurricane Maria. The Category 4 storm destroyed two-thirds of the island’s power distribution system and caused up to an estimated $94 billion in damage.

Puerto Rico’s governor recently announced that he plans to privatize the state-owned power company, which is $9 billion in debt and relying on infrastructure nearly three times older than the industry average. It would be the largest restructuring of a public entity in U.S. history.
…

The Senate begins a rare, open-ended debate on immigration and the fate of the “Dreamer” immigrants on Monday, and Republican senators say they’ll introduce President Donald Trump’s plan. Though his proposal has no chance of passage, Trump may be the most influential voice in the conversation.

If the aim is to pass a legislative solution, Trump will be a crucial and, at times, complicating player. His day-to-day turnabouts on the issues have confounded Democrats and Republicans and led some to urge the White House to minimize his role in the debate for fear he’ll say something that undermines the effort.

Yet his ultimate support will be vital if Congress is to overcome election-year pressures against compromise. No Senate deal is likely to see the light of day in the more conservative House without the president’s blessing and promise to sell compromise to his hard-line base.

Watch, VOA’s Michael Bowman reports:

Trump, thus far, has balked on that front.

“The Tuesday Trump versus the Thursday Trump, after the base gets to him,” is how Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a proponent of compromise, describes the president and the impact conservative voters and his hard-right advisers have on him. “I don’t know how far he’ll go, but I do think he’d like to fix it.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., scheduled an initial procedural vote for Monday evening to commence debate. It is expected to succeed easily, and then the Senate will sort through proposals, perhaps for weeks.

Democrats and some Republicans say they want to help the “Dreamers,” young immigrants who have lived in the U.S. illegally since they were children and have only temporarily been protected from deportation by an Obama-era program. Trump has said he wants to aid them and has even proposed a path to citizenship for 1.8 million, but in exchange wants $25 billion for his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall plus significant curbs to legal immigration.

McConnell agreed to the open-ended debate, a Senate rarity in recent years, after Democrats agreed to vote to end a three-day government shutdown they’d forced over the issue. They’d initially demanded a deal toward helping Dreamers, not a simple promise of votes.

To prevail, any plan will need 60 votes, meaning substantial support from both parties is mandatory. Republicans control the chamber 51-49 but GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona has been home for weeks battling brain cancer.

Seven GOP senators said late Sunday that they will introduce Trump’s framework, which they called a reasonable compromise that has White House backing. The group includes Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John Cornyn of Texas and Iowa’s Charles Grassley.

Democrats adamantly oppose Trump’s plan, particularly its barring of legal immigrants from sponsoring their parents or siblings to live in the U.S. It has no chance of getting the 60 votes needed to survive. The plan will give GOP lawmakers a chance to stake out a position, but it could prove an embarrassment to the White House if some Republicans join Democrats and it’s rejected by a substantial margin.

Another proposal likely to surface, backed by some Republicans and many Democrats, would give Dreamers a chance at citizenship but provide no border security money or legal immigration restrictions. It too would be certain to fail.

Votes are also possible on a compromise by a small bipartisan group led by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. It would provide possible citizenship for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, $2.7 billion for border security and some changes in legal immigration rules. McCain and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., would offer legal status but not necessarily citizenship, and require tougher border security without promising wall money.

Trump has rejected both proposals.

Some senators have discussed a bare-bones plan to protect Dreamers for a year in exchange for a year’s worth of security money. Flake has said he’s working on a three-year version of that.

“I still think that if we put a good bill to the president, that has the support of 65, 70 members of the Senate, that the president will accept it and the House will like it as well,” Flake told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Underscoring how hard it’s been for lawmakers to find an immigration compromise, around two dozen moderates from both parties have met for weeks to seek common ground. So have the No. 2 Democratic and GOP House and Senate leaders. Neither group has come forward with a deal.

In January, Trump invited two dozen lawmakers from both parties to the White House in what became a nearly hour-long immigration negotiating session. He asked them to craft a “bill of love” and said he’d sign a solution they’d send him.

At another White House session days later, he told Durbin and Graham he was rejecting their bipartisan offer. He used a profanity to describe African nations and said he’d prefer immigrants from Norway, comments that have soured many Democrats about Trump’s intentions.

Trump made a clamp-down on immigration a staple of his 2016 presidential campaign. As president he has mixed expressions of sympathy for Dreamers with rhetoric that equate immigration with crime and drugs.

Last September he said he was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which lets Dreamers temporarily live and work in the U.S. Trump said President Barack Obama had lacked the legal power to create DACA.

Trump gave Congress until March 5 to somehow replace it, though a federal court has forced him to continue its protections.

The court’s blunting of the deadline has made congressional action even less likely. Lawmakers rarely take difficult votes without a forcing mechanism – particularly in an election year. That has raised the prospect that the Senate debate launching Monday will largely serve to frame a larger fight over the issue on the campaign trail.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to unveil his long-awaited plan to tackle the nation’s crumbling infrastructure Monday, and meets with state and local officials to discuss the initiative.

The plan aims to turn $200 billion in federal funds into a $1.5 trillion investment for fixing America’s roads, bridges, railways and other infrastructure.

The proposal relies heavily on state and local governments and the private sector to cover the costs for most of the  projects.

“Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments, and where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit,” Trump said at last month’s State of the Union address.

The $200 billion federal funds would come from cuts to existing programs. Of that, half would be spent on an incentive program to match funds from state and local governments.

About $50 billion would go toward rural projects in the form of block grants to states. Another $20 billion would be allocated to “transformative programs” meant for new and innovative projects. An additional $20 billion would go toward expanding loan programs and private activity bonds, and the final $10 billion would go into a “capital financing fund.”

The plan also seeks to shorten the time and expense of getting federal permits to no more than two years. Currently, the process can take five to 10 years.

“President Trump’s infrastructure proposal is a disaster,” said Shelley Poticha of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It fails to offer the investment needed to bring our country into the 21st century. Even worse, his plan includes an unacceptable corporate giveaway by truncating environmental reviews.”

But Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, praised Trump “for providing the leadership we have desperately needed to reclaim our rightful place as a global leader on true 21st-century infrastructure.”

On Monday, Trump will meet with key members of Congress, including heads of relevant committees, to discuss the plan.
…

Federal investigators are still looking at how CSX railway crews routed an Amtrak train into a parked freight train in Cayce, South Carolina, last weekend. But even if CSX should bear sole responsibility for the accident, Amtrak will likely end up paying crash victims’ legal claims with public money.

Amtrak pays for accidents it didn’t cause because of secretive agreements negotiated between the passenger rail company, which receives more than $1 billion annually in federal subsidies, and the private railroads, which own 97 percent of the tracks on which Amtrak travels.

Both Amtrak and freight railroads that own the tracks fight to keep those contracts secret in legal proceedings. But whatever the precise legal language, plaintiffs’ lawyers and former Amtrak officials say Amtrak generally bears the full cost of damages to its trains, passengers, employees and other crash victims — even in instances where crashes occurred as the result of a freight rail company’s negligence or misconduct.

​No ‘iron in the fire’

Railroad industry advocates say that freight railways have ample incentive to keep their tracks safe for their employees, customers and investors. But the Surface Transportation Board and even some federal courts have long concluded that allowing railroads to escape liability for gross negligence is bad public policy.

“The freight railroads don’t have an iron in the fire when it comes to making the safety improvements necessary to protect members of the public,” said Bob Pottroff, a Manhattan, Kansas, rail injury attorney who has sued CSX on behalf of an injured passenger from the Cayce crash. “They’re not paying the damages.”

Beyond CSX’s specific activities in the hours before the accident, the company’s safety record has deteriorated in recent years, according to a standard metric provided by the Federal Railroad Administration. Since 2013, CSX’s rate of major accidents per million miles traveled has jumped by more than half, from 2 to 3.08 — significantly worse than the industry average. And rail passenger advocates raised concerns after the CSX CEO at the time pushed hard last year to route freight more directly by altering its routes.

CSX denied that safety had slipped at the company, blaming the change in the major accident index on a reduction of total miles traveled combined with changes in its cargo and train length.

“Our goal remains zero accidents,” CSX spokesman Bryan Tucker wrote in a statement provided to The Associated Press. CSX’s new system of train routing “will create a safer, more efficient railroad resulting in a better service product for our customers,” he wrote.

Amtrak’s ability to offer national rail service is governed by separately negotiated track usage agreements with 30 different railroads. All the deals share a common trait: They’re “no fault,” according to a September 2017 presentation delivered by Amtrak executive Jim Blair as part of a Federal Highway Administration seminar.

No fault means Amtrak takes full responsibility for its property and passengers and the injuries of anyone hit by a train. The “host railroad” that operates the tracks must only be responsible for its property and employees. Blair called the decades-long arrangement “a good way for Amtrak and the host partners to work together to get things resolved quickly and not fight over issues of responsibility.”

Amtrak declined to comment on Blair’s presentation. But Amtrak’s history of not pursuing liability claims against freight railroads doesn’t fit well with federal officials and courts’ past declarations that the railroads should be held accountable for gross negligence and willful misconduct.

​Maryland crash, backlash

After a 1987 crash in Chase, Maryland, in which a Conrail train crew smoked marijuana then drove a train with disabled safety features past multiple stop signals and into an Amtrak train — killing 16 — a federal judge ruled that forcing Amtrak to take financial responsibility for “reckless, wanton, willful, or grossly negligent acts by Conrail” was contrary to good public policy.

Conrail paid. But instead of taking on more responsibility going forward, railroads went in the opposite direction, recalls a former Amtrak board member who spoke to the AP. After Conrail was held responsible in the Chase crash, he said, Amtrak got “a lot of threats from the other railroads.”

The former board member requested anonymity because he said that Amtrak’s internal legal discussions were supposed to remain confidential and he did not wish to harm his own business relationships by airing a contentious issue.

Because Amtrak operates on the freight railroads’ tracks and relies on the railroads’ dispatchers to get passenger trains to their destinations on time, Amtrak executives concluded they couldn’t afford to pick a fight, the former Amtrak board member said.

“The law says that Amtrak is guaranteed access” to freights’ tracks, he said. “But it’s up to the goodwill of the railroad as to whether they’ll put you ahead or behind a long freight train.”

A 2004 New York Times series on train crossing safety drew attention to avoidable accidents at railroad crossings and involving passenger trains — and to railroads’ ability to shirk financial responsibility for passenger accidents. In the wake of the reporting, the Surface Transportation Board ruled that railroads “cannot be indemnified for its own gross negligence, recklessness, willful or wanton misconduct,” according to a 2010 letter by then-Surface Transportation Board chairman Dan Elliott to members of Congress.

That ruling gives Amtrak grounds to pursue gross negligence claims against freight railroads — if it wanted to.

“If Amtrak felt that if they didn’t want to pay, they’d have to litigate it,” said Elliott, now an attorney at Conner & Winters.

Same lawyers

The AP was unable to find an instance where the railroad has brought such a claim against a freight railroad since the 1987 Chase, Maryland, disaster. The AP also asked Amtrak, CSX and the Association of American Railroads to identify any example within the last decade of a railroad contributing to a settlement or judgment in a passenger rail accident that occurred on its track. All entities declined to provide such an example.

Even in court cases where establishing gross negligence by a freight railroad is possible, said Potrroff, the plaintiff’s attorney, he has never seen any indication that the railroad and Amtrak are at odds.

“You’ll frequently see Amtrak hire the same lawyers the freight railroads use,” he said.

Ron Goldman, a California plaintiff attorney who has also represented passenger rail accident victims, agreed. While Goldman’s sole duty is to get the best possible settlement for his client, he said he’d long been curious about whether it was Amtrak or freight railroads which ended up paying for settlements and judgments.

“The question of how they share that liability is cloaked in secrecy,” he said, adding: “The money is coming from Amtrak when our clients get the check.”

Pottroff said he has long wanted Amtrak to stand up to the freight railroads on liability matters. Not only would it make safety a bigger financial consideration for railroads, he said, it would simply be fair.

“Amtrak has a beautiful defense — the freight railroad is in control of all the infrastructure,” he said. But he’s not expecting Amtrak to use it during litigation over the Cayce crash.

“Amtrak always pays,” he said.
…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s invitation to South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang could complicate the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts to pressure the reclusive communist state to abandon its nuclear weapons program, analysts say.

Kim extended the rare invitation to the South Korean leader through his closest confidante: his only sister Kim Yo Jong, who was visiting the South as part of the North Korean delegation to the Winter Olympics, according to South Korea’s presidential office on Saturday.

Moon said he wanted to “create the environment for that to be able to happen,” according to the office.

​Dialogue or pressure or both?

The North Korean diplomatic initiative comes amid growing international pressure, led by the United States, aimed at imposing maximum economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime. Former U.S. officials and analysts say the North Korean move could put Moon, who supports Trump’s pressure campaign while pursuing dialogue with the North, at odds with the Trump administration.

“The invitation is a very clever move by Kim Jong Un to drive a big wedge [between Washington and Seoul]. Kim has been masterful at public relations in regard to the summit and playing on feelings for Korean unity,” said Robert Manning, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

In the past, inter-Korean summits often resulted in a substantial economic aid to Pyongyang. If Moon follows in the footsteps of his predecessors, it would hurt the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the North, according to Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at the Center for Naval Analyses.

“If it leads to promises of aid, then it would definitely undermine the maximum pressure strategy,” Gause said, referring to the proposed summit between the two Koreas.

Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst who is now senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, warned Seoul could violate international sanctions by providing economic aid to Pyongyang.

“Moon should realize that offering economic benefits for symbolic North Korean gestures is not only ineffectual but would themselves risk being violations of U.N. resolutions,” Klingner said.

Balancing act

The Moon government has been engaging in a delicate balancing act between Pyongyang and its longtime ally Washington after Kim Jong Un offered to send a delegation to the Olympics in the South. Moon has accommodated the North’s demands on Olympics participation in hopes of persuading Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table to discuss denuclearization, while trying to allay concern in Washington that the North was using a “charm offensive” to simply ease sanctions and earn time to complete its nuclear weapons program. 

The North’s invitation, Manning said, apparently puts Seoul in a difficult position, where it needs to prove its efforts will bear fruit.

“President Moon must balance his desire for North-South reconciliation with his policy of denuclearization,” Manning said.

Dennis Wilder, a Georgetown University assistant professor, who served as National Security Council senior director for East Asian affairs during the George W. Bush administration, suggested Moon should accept the invitation only if Pyongyang agrees to discuss denuclearization with Washington.

“My own view is that President Moon should only go if there is a strong signal from the North of willingness to engage seriously with the Trump administration,” Wilder said.

Joseph DeTrani, former U.S. special envoy for nuclear talks with North Korea, said Moon should make it clear to Kim that he wants to discuss the nuclear and missile issues at the summit. The former envoy believes Moon should use the meeting as an opportunity to push Kim to accept his predecessor’s promise to denuclearize.

Washington unmoved

The latest North Korean diplomatic overture does not appear to have discouraged Washington from pursuing its strategy of pressure.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who led a U.S. delegation to the Olympic Games, told reporters that he and Moon discussed the South Korean leader’s meeting with Kim Jong Un’s sister, adding he remains confident about Seoul’s support for the pressure strategy.

“There is no daylight between the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan on the need to continue to isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically until they abandon their nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” Pence said.
…

Increasing demand for long-haul truckers in the United States is drawing more African immigrants onto America’s roads. VOA’s Arzouma Kompaoré hitched a ride with African truckers whose routes to success stretch across the United States.
…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence left South Korea Saturday saying the U.S. and its allies are more committed than ever to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs.

“We are going to continue to stand together, along with our other allies and partners, to continue to intensify the economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea until they permanently abandon their nuclear, ballistic missile program,” Pence told reporters aboard Air Force Two on a return flight to the United States.  

The vice president said he was “encouraged” by bilateral discussions with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Moon’s talks with members of North Korea’s delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics, which included Kim Yo jong, the influential and younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

When asked if his commitment to the denuclearization of North Korea is personal because his father served in the Korean War, Pence responded, “The whole global community is committed, with a few exceptions, to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. And I share that.”

Pence, President Moon, and top representatives from North Korea shared a VIP box at Friday’s opening of the Olympics, although Pence avoided interaction with the North Korean officials.

Pence and his wife, Karen, sat next to President Moon, in the same row as Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. They both donned the red, white, and blue Team USA winter jackets.

The North Koreans – Kim Yong Nam and Kim Yo jong – were also in the box, seated in a row behind Pence.

Kim Yo Jong is a key advisor to her brother. She is the first member of the North’s longtime ruling family to visit the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

According to Pence’s office, there was “no interaction” between the U.S. vice president and the North Korean officials.

“He [Pence] could have sat with the U.S. delegation and avoided the box but he chose not to…knowing the North Koreans would be seated behind him,” said a U.S. official.  The vice president wanted to show the “alliance was strong” by sitting with Moon and Abe.  However, “If they [the North Koreans] had approached him (in the box) he would have responded,” added the official.

The vice president and North Koreans are not expected to interact Saturday during events in Pyeongchang, according to a second U.S. official.  “I don’t think you talk geopolitics over speed skating,” the second official said.

The United Nations allowed the North Korean delegation to travel to South Korea for the Olympics, granting an exemption on sanctions against the repressive regime.

During the trip, Pence has kept up pressure on the north over its nuclear ambitions and human rights record.

Fred Warmbier attended the opening ceremony as the vice president’s guest. His son, Otto Warmbier, died after being returned to the U.S. with extensive brain damage he suffered while being detained in North Korea.

Earlier Friday, Pence traveled to the South Korean Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, to visit a memorial for sailors of the South Korean warship Cheonan, which was sunk by an explosion blamed on the North. Nearly 50 sailors aboard the Cheonan were killed.

“Our objective here today is to stand with our allies. But is also to stand up for the truth. And to recognize that whatever images may emerge against the powerful backdrop and idealism of the Olympics, North Korea has to accept change,” Pence told reporters at a South Korean naval base before heading to the Olympic Games venue.  

“They have to abandon their nuclear ambitions. They have to end the day of provocation and menacing. And frankly they have to end an appalling record of human rights that you heard first-hand today, the world community.”

The vice president also met with  North Korean defectors while in Pyeongtaek.

U.S. officials have not ruled out the possibility that the vice president might meet a North Korean official at the Olympics.  North Korean state media said Thursday there was no intention on the North Korean side for such talks to take place.

Pence said his team had not requested a meeting, but that if it did happen, he would continue his message that North Korea must entirely abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile efforts and will remain under pressure until it does so.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said South Korea is viewing hosting the Olympics as a way to improve diplomatic relations with North Korea. He has referred to the games as the “Olympic Games of peace.”

VOA’s Brian Padden contributed to this report.

 
…

American cities are becoming safer as violent crime decreases nationwide. But the city of Baltimore is an exception. Amy Berbert, a local artist whose photography project ‘Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk’ aims to bring awareness and compassion to the frequently forgotten victims of Baltimore’s homicides.
…

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” — an old saying that often elicits groans — is just what organizers of an exhibition of 20th and 21st century photographic masterpieces at the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne believe and are promoting.

The exhibit, “The Beauty of Lines,” exposes 160 photographs from the extensive, New York-based Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla collection, considered one of the top five private collections in the world.

“The exhibition is a journey throughout the beauty of photography,” said Tatyana Franck, director of the internationally renowned Swiss photographic museum.

“The show is intended to have visitors experience beauty by how they feel,” she said. “You cannot explain beauty. It is something you feel, depending on your own history.”

Photo Gallery: ​’The Beauty of Lines’ Exhibit at the Musée de l’Élysée

First time in Europe

This is the first time selected works of the 1,500 original prints from the collection of the husband and wife team are being presented in Europe.

The collection includes the works of 73 master photographers from the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Japan, such as Berenice Abbott, Robert Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Imogen Cunningham, Rineke Dijkstra, Robert Mapplethorpe, Man Ray and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

When she first met the two prominent collectors three years ago, Franck said she was “amazed by their enthusiasm and passion for photography” and their desire “to share their passion with the world.”

Celso Gonzalez-Falla told VOA he saw nothing unusual in that. 

“The reason why we buy the photographs and are creating our collection is to share it with the rest of the world,” he said.

Sondra Gilman affirmed that “our philosophy is that no one should or could own art. It belongs to the world. To have wonderful art and have it limited to one family or a small group of people is outrageous.”

​Show follows themes

The exhibit itself is not chronological. It is a thematic show that conveys the universality of artistic expression through photographs that explore ideas and concepts of humanity, society and nature without being constrained by time and nationality.

The show is divided into three sections: Lines, Abstractions and Curves.

“Lines, especially straight and parallel lines are used by photographers who want to depict reality,” Franck said. “Straight, vertical and parallel lines are being used by artists not only to document reality, but also to give some sociological messages.”

A noteworthy example of this is a 1933 print, “View of Exchange Place from Broadway,” by American photographer Berenice Abbott. The photo presents an image of a modern town in which tall buildings lean into each other, creating a sense of loneliness and powerlessness among the almost microscopically small people below.

This somewhat claustrophobic image is offset by an expansive view of “The George Washington Bridge,” a photograph by Margaret Bourke-White, the first U.S. female war correspondent and one of the world’s first female photojournalists.

Franck said Bourke-White wanted to glorify the modernity of New York by shooting the bridge within a vertical and short frame. Although the picture was made in 1933, she said, “Today, 100 years later, that print seems and continues to seem modern.”

​Unknown artists, too

In a departure from the exhibit’s focus on the works of famous photographers, the photo chosen for the cover of the catalogue is by an unknown Italian artist, Augusto Cantamessa.

The picture, “Breve Orizzonte” (Short Horizon), stands out for its poetic and graceful beauty. It captures a row of pencil thin trees swaying and seemingly straining to leave the frame that confines them. The trees tower over two miniature bikers peddling slowly through this strange forest.

“He was a true discovery for us. We never heard of this photographer,” Franck said. “What makes this collection extremely interesting is Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzales-Falla … do not have a criterion of names. They have the criteria of quality” when buying a print.

Gilman agreed that she and her husband were not affected by fame. 

“We are only affected by the image, by our judgment and emotional reaction,” she said.

​Abstractions and Curves

One of the finest examples in the second section, Abstractions, which presents the line in its purest form, is a 1960 picture by U.S. photographer Ray K. Metzker, called “Venice.”

In this photo, as in others in this section, the real world disappears behind abstract lines, creating a different kind of reality. The Metzker picture depicts two black doors split by a large vertical crack through which a sharp, dazzlingly bright light shines. Franck said she was certain that behind the doors she would find “true light and a huge welcoming sun.”

“It is perfection in terms of composition,” she said. “It is like a spiritual experience.”

Curved Lines are represented in the show with works by Edward Weston, Andre Kertesz and Robert Mapplethorpe among others. Curves capture life as it is. They are a symbol of sensuality. Curves show human beings in motion, moving from one situation to another.

The exhibition, which runs through May 6, is beautifully mounted and easily relatable within the intimate setting of the museum. From conversations with visitors, the collection seems to have changed the lens through which some now view photography.

‘Pictures talk to each other’

It even has added a new dimension to the way Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla see their collection.

“It has totally changed the way I look at my own photographs because we never ever analyzed them so distinctly as to isolate line,” Gilman said. “It has opened up a new world to us.”

Gonzalez-Falla had a similar reaction. “We always looked at our photographs because we loved them,” he told VOA. “The show now makes me look at the collection in a different light.”

Calling it a “marvelous installation,” Gonzalez-Falla said that he was particularly impressed with the way the photographs have been hung. “They have the pictures talk to each other.”
…