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U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement Thursday canceling a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sparked reactions from disappointment to approval. Trump said the angry rhetoric from Pyongyang makes the meeting on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula inappropriate at this time. Critics say recent statements by Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser John Bolton were not helpful. But as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, some analysts say there may be another reason.
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The U.S. oil export infrastructure is straining to keep up as the country’s crude oil exports hit new highs and China snaps up more of it than ever before.

U.S. crude production has surged to a record 10.7 million barrels a day, driven largely by growth from the Permian shale patch in West Texas, which pumps more than 3 million barrels per day.

However, the infrastructure to move it abroad is lagging, even as U.S. prices are well below the Brent benchmark, a discount that sits just off three-year highs at $8.09 per barrel. 

U.S. crude exports peaked at 2.6 million bpd two weeks ago, but are expected to keep rising.

What is US export capacity?

No definitive data are available on how much crude the United States can export, though analysts estimate a nationwide capacity of 3.5 million to 4 million bpd. Most terminal operators and companies do not disclose capacity, and the U.S. Energy Department does not track it.

“So far, export capacity is keeping pace, but we are walking a tightrope,” said Bernadette Johnson, vice president at Drilling Info.

That capacity may begin to be tested next month, as Sinopec, Asia’s largest refiner, bought a record 16 million barrels, or about 533,000 bpd of U.S. crude, to load in June, two sources with knowledge of the matter said Wednesday.

For the last six months of available data, ending in February, the United States exported about 332,000 bpd to China.

Terminals designed for imports

Analysts are concerned about how quickly the crude terminals at Gulf Coast ports, many initially designed for imports, can shift to handling exports. Only the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port can handle supertanker exports, but it only started testing in February. The supertankers, known as VLCCs or very large crude carriers, can handle about 2 million barrels of oil, the amount preferred by Asian buyers with bigger ports.

“There’s only one dock on the Gulf Coast that can handle a VLCC deepwater, and that’s LOOP. And the LOOP has only started to export,” said Sandy Fielden, director of research in commodities and energy at Morningstar. 

Port of Corpus Christi in Texas is developing its Harbor Island port, which will accommodate 120 VLCCs per year, said Jarl Pedersen, chief commercial officer at the port, with a targeted completion of late 2020.

Kpler, a cargo tracking service, Thursday estimated that up to 4.8 million bpd can be moved from the top crude-exporting ports of Corpus Christi, Houston, Port Arthur and New Orleans. Their estimate in October was 3.2 million bpd.

PIRA Energy Group put the U.S. overall crude export capacity at 3.5 million bpd, while Morningstar’s estimate is 3.8 million bpd at most.

Pipelines lacking, too

In addition to port constraints, inadequate pipeline space has created a glut of supply in West Texas, pushing the principle cash grade there to a $13 discount to benchmark U.S. crude futures this month, the biggest in 3½ years.

“The constraint is really the pipeline coming down from the Permian to Corpus Christi,” Pedersen said. However, the ship channel still needs to be deepened, a $320 million project in development with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

There is 3.4 million bpd of pipeline capacity, while total output from tight oil and legacy production from vertical wells in the Permian is at more than 4.2 million bpd, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

“The combined volumes mean that the infrastructure is crammed full — there’s little or no room for incremental volumes,” R.T. Dukes, head of U.S. Lower 48 oil supply at Wood Mackenzie said in a note.

About 300,000 bpd of new pipeline capacity is to come on by the end of January, but “it’s really from next summer that we’ll see big new capacity,” Dukes said.

In the second half of 2019, another 1.25 million bpd will be added, lifting total capacity up to 5 million bpd, he said.

“That’s when the big discount of WTI at Midland will narrow,” Dukes said.
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President Donald Trump praised an NFL policy banning kneeling during the “The Star-Spangled Banner,” saying that “maybe you shouldn’t be in the country” if you don’t stand for the anthem.

Trump spoke to “Fox & Friends”‘ in an interview that aired Thursday. The policy forbids players from sitting or taking a knee on the field during the anthem but allows them to stay in the locker room. Any violations of the new rules would result in fines against teams.

“I think that’s good,” Trump said in the interview that taped Wednesday. “I don’t think people should be staying in the locker rooms, but still I think it’s good. You have to stand proudly for the national anthem. Or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”

Trump last fall called on team owners to fire players who followed former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s lead by kneeling during the national anthem. During a rally, he referred to an NFL player making a gesture during “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a “son of a bitch” who should be fired.

The president’s comments spurred a national conversation about patriotism and the nation’s symbols and the use of peaceful protest. Trump said in the interview that he thought “the people” pushed for the new policy.

“I brought it out. I think the people pushed it forward,” Trump said. He added: “you know, that’s something ideally could have been taken care of when it first started, it would have been a lot easier, but if they did that, they did the right thing.”

 
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Even though the United States is one of the richest and most technologically advanced countries in the world, about 45 million Americans live below the poverty line. In Buffalo, New York, a once-prosperous city that has fallen on hard-times, one-third of its residents live in poverty. As Olga Loginova reports, the city offers an example of what happens when a once-powerful industrial sector declines and well-paying jobs become scarce.
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The Los Angeles County jails are run by the sheriff, but the Mexican Mafia wields the power in the underworld behind bars.

The organization made up of leaders from various Latino gangs operated like an illegal government, collecting “taxes” on smuggled drugs, ordering hits on people who didn’t follow their rules and even calling the shots on street crimes, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Their clout was diminished as 83 members and associates were charged in a pair of sweeping federal racketeering conspiracies that alleged drug dealing, extortion, violent assaults and murders.

“We just delivered a blow to a cold-blooded prison gang and their associates,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said during a news conference.

New leaders inevitable​

In an effort to disrupt the gang’s stronghold, the suspects will be held in federal facilities, and those in custody in state prisons will be moved, authorities said.

Sheriff Jim McDonnell acknowledged that others will follow in their wake, as leadership in the gang that operates in most prisons and jails in the state is always changing.

“There will be new leaders, that’s kinda how the whole system works. It’s hierarchical,” McDonnell said. “When one goes to jail or passes away then someone else backfills their spot just like any multilevel organization.”

Started in 1950s in juvenile jail

The so-called “gang of gangs” — an organization of imprisoned Latino street gang leaders who control operations inside and outside California prisons and jails — started in the 1950s at a juvenile jail and grew to an international criminal organization that has controlled smuggling, drug sales and extortion inside the nation’s largest jail system.

“These Mexican Mafia members and associates, working together to control criminal activity within (LA County jails), have become their own entity or enterprise and effectively function as an illegal government,” an indictment said.

The gang was also able to control street crime by using wives, girlfriends and lawyers to help relay orders to be carried out by members who were not incarcerated, an indictment said.

In some instances, gang members would deliberately get arrested on low-level charges so they could smuggle drugs into the jail and be released days later.

‘Operation Dirty Thirds’

Because the Mexican Mafia controlled drug trafficking in the jails, they got the first shot to sell their supply of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin or marijuana, prosecutors said. Other groups had to wait and give a third of their contraband to the Mexican Mafia leadership.

The fee, known as a “thirds” tax, gave the name “Operation Dirty Thirds” to the investigation that led to the indictments and arrest of 32 people Wednesday. Another 35 defendants were in custody and 16 were fugitives.

The gang enriched itself through drug sales, taxes on drugs and even collected a share of purchases on candy bars, deodorant and other items at the jail commissary, the indictment said, adding that the gang was able to exert control by threatening and carrying out violence if people didn’t pay up or follow the rules.

The gang members were accused of committing vicious beatings, stabbings, kidnappings and murders in retaliation, Hanna said.

The indictment alleges crimes between 2012 and 2016, when a grand jury was convened and before President Donald Trump took office.

Trump has focused on gang violence but has singled out MS-13, pointing to the gang’s gruesome crimes in a push for stronger immigration policies.

While MS-13 is associated with the Mexican Mafia, the majority of the crimes listed in the indictments Wednesday are alleged to have been committed by members affiliated with other street gangs.

​Mostly US citizens

The jail indictment said Jose Landa-Rodriguez and two now-deceased members of the Mexican Mafia controlled operations in the jail between 2012 and 2016.

Landa-Rodriquez, 55, is accused of sanctioning murders, assaults and the kidnapping and planned murder of a relative of a gang member who defied him, prosecutors said.

Landa-Rodriguez is not a U.S. citizen, though nearly all of the other defendants charged in the indictment are citizens, Hanna said.

A second higher-up, Luis Vega, 33, ordered a murder and directed assaults against those who showed disrespect or didn’t obey rules, the indictment said.

One of the group’s facilitators was attorney Gabriel Zendejas-Chavez, who was able to carry messages to the gang members while operating under the shield of attorney-client privilege, the indictment said. He is also accused of enabling a plot to extort $100,000 from the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang.

Zendejas-Chavez was arrested Wednesday. A woman who answered the phone at his office was unaware of the arrest and didn’t comment.
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Lieutenant General Scott Miller is the expected nominee to command U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, a U.S. official with knowledge of the process told VOA.

U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan are currently being commanded by U.S. General John Nicholson. He has served as commander since March 2016.

Miller’s consideration must be finalized by a White House nomination, followed by confirmation by the Senate.

The general currently leads the military’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command.

If nominated and confirmed, Miller will be the ninth American general in 17 years to oversee the Afghanistan war. The Pentagon declined to confirm Miller’s selection.

“We have nothing to announce at this time,” Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway told VOA.

Miller, a decorated special operations soldier, earned a Bronze Star for his service in Somalia and has also served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Miller’s selection as the expected nominee.

VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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President Donald Trump says the U.S. will know by next week whether his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be held on June 12 in Singapore as scheduled.

“It could very well be June 12th,” Trump said Wednesday. “If we go, it’ll be a great thing for North Korea.”

North Korea has indicated it might call off the meeting due to disagreements on conditions by the United States for unilateral denuclearization.

Trump on Tuesday, during a meeting with visiting South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said the summit might not be held next month.

“If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later,” Trump said.

The president said, “There are certain conditions that we want. I think we will get those conditions.”

Asked about the conditions, Trump replied, “I’d rather not say.” But he stated that the denuclearization of North Korea “must take place.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has twice met with Kim in Pyongyang in preparation for the Singapore summit, said Wednesday, “Our posture will not change until we see credible steps taken toward the complete, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”
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The United States has disinvited China from a major international maritime exercise, saying Beijing’s “destabilizing behavior” in the South China Sea is inconsistent with the principles of the U.S.-led drill.

“China’s continued militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea only serve to raise tensions and destabilize the region,” read a statement from Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Logan, a Pentagon spokesman.

The statement said that disinviting China from the 2018 RIMPAC is an “initial” response to Beijing’s South China Sea activities. It did not specify what other steps may be taken.

Since 2014, China has taken part in RIMPAC, the world’s largest international maritime drill, which is held every two years in Hawaii. It’s a reflection of expanding U.S.-China military ties, despite tensions over Beijing’s construction of man-made islands in the South China Sea, some of which have been militarized.

“We have strong evidence that China has deployed anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, and electronic jammers to contested features in the Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea. China’s landing bomber aircraft at Woody Island has also raised tensions,” the Pentagon statement said.

“We have called on China to remove the military systems immediately and to reverse course on the militarization of disputed South China Sea features,” the statement added. “We believe these recent deployments and the continued militarization of these features is a violation of the promise that (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping) made to the United States and the World not to militarize the Spratly Islands.”

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea, despite overlapping claims by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam. The area is rich in fish, oil and natural gas resources. It’s also a vital shipping lane. About $5.3 trillion worth of goods moves through the sea every year, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

U.S. ships and aircraft have conducted regular “freedom of navigation” operations (FONOPS) near some of the Chinese installations. But the Pentagon’s decision to boot Beijing from RIMPAC suggests U.S. officials realize the FONOPS were not enough to deter China, says Harry Kazianis, director of Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest.

“China should never, ever have been invited to RIMPAC. Period,” Kazianis said. “Considering their aggressive approach to dominate the Asia-Pacific region, turn the South China Sea into their own personal lake, as well as diminish America’s position in the region, this move on the Trump administration’s part makes sense.”

The decision comes at a particularly sensitive moment in U.S.-China relations. Washington and Beijing are engaged in negotiations aimed at averting a trade war. Those talks have been complicated by plans for a nuclear summit with North Korea, a major ally of Beijing.
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The body of a 17-year-old Pakistani exchange student killed in a mass shooting at a high school in Texas has arrived in the port city of Karachi, where her family lives.

Sabika Sheikh was among 10 students and staff slain Friday at Santa Fe High School. The alleged shooter is 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who is being held on capital murder charges.

Sabika had planned to return home in a few weeks for Eid al-Fitr, the three-day holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. 

Her body reached her hometown before dawn Wednesday and she was to be buried later in the day.

Sabika was her family’s oldest child and began classes at Santa Fe High School last August.  
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed Tuesday to bring home American hostages in Iran, saying “the entire United States government” is working “diligently” and is utilizing “every avenue” and “mechanism.” 

“I mentioned a handful of names yesterday. There are more around the world I didn’t identify in yesterday’s remarks,” said the chief American diplomat during his first appearance at the State Department briefing.  

In his first major foreign policy address on Monday, Pompeo said Iran had failed to free American detainees, including Baquer Namazi, Siamak Namazi, Xiyue Wang and Bob Levinson, even during a time when Washington gave Tehran sanctions relief under the 2015 nuclear deal.

Pompeo drew a comparison with the U.S.’ “frosty relations” with North Korea a few months ago, where three American detainees were later released.

“We are working diligently along every avenue that we can develop to get these folks to return back home, back to their families,” he said, responding to a question posed by VOA.

Trump’s decision worries families

Families of several American hostages are worried that the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal will make it harder to get their loved ones home safely.

On May 8, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Washington would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Under terms of the 2015 accord, Iran agreed to take a number of steps to limit its nuclear program, in exchange for sanctions relief. 

The Untied States has been calling for an immediate and unconditional release of Americans detained or missing in Iran.

One of them is Namazi, who is 81 and said to be in poor health. 

“We have been alarmed for some time at his declining health. We know that he’s in urgent need of sustained medical care,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in February. She added that Washington had also renewed its call that Tehran release Baquer Namazi’s son, Siamak Namazi, who is also being held.

Change in approach needed?

In August 2016, Wang, a naturalized American citizen from China, was arrested in Iran while researching Persian history for his doctoral thesis at Princeton University. He was sentenced to 10 years on an espionage charge.

Levinson is a former FBI agent who has been missing in Iran for more than a decade.  

Iranian officials said they could be open to discussing the prisoner release if the U.S. changed its hostile approach and engaged with Iran in a respectful way. 
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Workers raced Tuesday to cap wells at a geothermal plant threatened by lava pouring from Hawaii’s erupting Kilauea volcano.

The lava flow entered the 800-acre (330-hectare) property of the Puna Geothermal Venture Plant on Monday and destroyed a warehouse, but stalled about 300 yards from the nearest underground well. On Tuesday, the lava began advancing again.

The plant was shut down shortly after Kilauea began spewing lava on May 3. 

Officials feared that if the lava breached uncapped wells, it could release hydrogen sulfide, a toxic and flammable gas. 

County, state and federal authorities are monitoring the flow and working with the power plant “to ensure the safety of the surrounding communities,” the county civil defense agency said in a statement. It added that nearby residents should be prepared to leave the area with little notice because of gas or lava inundation.

Kilauea’s eruption, which has already produced nearly two dozen lava-spewing fissures, entered a more violent phase over the weekend, producing larger volumes of molten rock from fissures.

On Sunday, the first serious injury was reported when a man was hit by “lava spatter” — projectile molten rock — while sitting on his balcony.

“It hit him on the shin and shattered everything there down on his leg,” County of Hawaii government spokeswoman Janet Snyder said.

Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and one of five on the Big Island. Since May, about 2,000 people have been forced to evacuate, and lava has destroyed more than 47 buildings.

Scientists do not expect fatalities in the event of a large eruption because most of the exposed residential communities have been evacuated, and the southeastern part of the island where the volcano is located is sparsely populated.

Most of the Big Island and the rest of the state’s island chain have not been affected by the volcanic activity. Officials said flights to and from the Big Island and the rest of the state have not been affected.
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