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The University of Florida campus in Gainesville was on edge Wednesday, a day before white nationalist Richard Spencer is scheduled to speak there.

The school has called in hundreds of law enforcement officers from federal, state, county and city sources in an effort to avoid a repeat of the deadly violence that erupted in August at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

The University of Florida initially denied Spencer’s request to speak there but later university president Kent Fuchs said the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution required it to allow the event.

Fuchs estimates the school will spend $600,000 on security for Spencer’s speech Thursday.

The National Policy Institute, which is run by Spencer, is paying $10,564 to rent space for the speech.

“I fully understand freedom of speech cannot be burdened legally with the full cost of this, but on the other hand we’re being burdened,” Fuchs said Wednesday. “So taxpayers are subsidizing hate speech.”

In anticipation of trouble, Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency Monday, saying a “threat of a potential emergency is imminent” in Alachua County, where the school is located.

In his order, Scott cited several Spencer appearances that have resulted in violence and “civil unrest,” including in Charlottesville where a counterdemonstrator was killed.

Carrying torches, Spencer’s supporters were joined by the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis at the “Unite the Right” rally to protest the removal of a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee. They clashed with local law enforcement officials as well as counterprotesters that included the so-called antifa movement (short for anti-fascists).

After Scott’s emergency declaration, Fuchs said the school received many calls from parents concerned about safety.

“Parents want to know, ‘Why is the governor declaring a state of emergency and yet you, President Fuchs, are saying my son or daughter should be going to class?’ That (announcement) elevated that tension, locally with parents and brought a national visibility to this,” Fuchs said.

Fuchs said he hopes the event will end up bringing the community closer together, and that it can be used to create a dialogue about race.
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Although he hasn’t seen his home country in more than a decade, modern technology has made it easy for Abdul Jabbar Amanullah to stay in regular contact with his family in Myanmar’s remote Rakhine state.

Using email and social media to interact with loved ones has made his life as a refugee now living in Chicago a little easier, even if the latest news coming from his village has been growing increasingly unsettling.

“They are telling me the situation is [becoming even] worse because the military has them surrounded,” he told VOA.

For all that the technology has given him, however, it also has fueled his greatest fears. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya have been fleeing attacks in Rakhine in recent weeks.  The last contact Amanullah had with family in his village is a blurry, 11-second video of towering flames… footage he says shows his village burning to the ground after Myanmar military forces came through.

“We don’t know who set fires,” Amanullah explained, though he suspects it was the military or groups aligned with them.

It’s difficult for him to verify what’s going on in Myanmar because officials restrict access for journalists and aid workers, but hundreds of thousands of ethnic Muslim Rohingya have already fled for neighboring Bangladesh, pushed out of their homes in what the United Nations calls “textbook ethnic cleansing” by the Myanmar military.

Myanmar rejects claims

Myanmar officials reject those claims.  They blame arsonists for the burning villages, and say the problems are being exaggerated.

As the crisis, and blame, continue to unfold, many Rohingya in the United States, particularly in Chicago — which is home to the second largest Rohingya community in the nation — frantically await word from friends and family still in the conflict zone. They search for any hint of news slowly trickling out of the refugee camps in Bangladesh.

“The story is very similar from everybody,” said Dr. Imran Akbar. “The military is coming in, they are torching the villages, they are shooting the men.There’s been countless reports of women being kidnapped, anywhere from 12 years old to older, being kidnapped and carried away and raped. They are not allowed to take anything with them, and the villagers are running for the hills.”

Akbar recently returned to Chicago after visiting several camps in Bangladesh, and shared his first-hand observations with Amanullah and others who gathered at the Rohingya Cultural Center in Chicago.

“The lines are miles long waiting for food distribution,” he explained to VOA. “It rains there every day. With that there is constant mud and sludge and a lot of times impassible conditions for vehicles. Couple that with not having proper sanitation and not having adequate latrines and so forth, it creates the perfect environment for cholera and other infectious diseases.”

Durbin meets with Rohingya in Chicago

Armed with pictures and first-hand video accounts, Akbar is taking their case directly to the U.S. government through Senator Dick Durbin, who listened to Akbar’s observations, as well as concerns from other Rohingya who gathered to make a direct appeal for U.S. action in their home country.

“What we know is this, there is an ethnic cleansing taking place in Myanmar today,” Durbin told VOA in an exclusive interview after his meeting with Rohingya community members in Chicago.

Durbin wants to immediately terminate military-to-military contact between the United States and Myanmar, something Congress, and the president, currently is evaluating.

“They should allow U.N. observers in immediately to see all of the territory in Myanmar currently occupied by the Rohingya people,” said Durbin. “There is no excuse for that. Until they allow that to happen, there is no reason the United States should send them aid.”

Myanmar ambassador meeting

Durbin believes finding a way to end the crisis has bipartisan support in Congress, and he says he plans to address the issue himself directly with the Myanmar government.

“My task is to really reach out directly to the Myanmar ambassador in Washington and demand that he come and meet with a group of senators who share my concerns, both Democrats and Republicans, about the ethnic cleansing taking place in his country,” said Durbin.

“Secondly, to join with Senator (John) McCain and others on both sides of the aisle to say the United States will not be complicit in this ethnic cleansing. We are going to cut off assistance to Myanmar if they refuse to allow U.N. observers, and if they continue to participate in this ethnic cleansing.”

Need ‘immediate action’

As Abdul Jabbar Amanullah seeks further news, or videos, from those in his home village, he hopes that whatever action the U.S. government takes isn’t too late to help his family.

“The military is still doing the same thing they did before, setting the fires, killing the Rohingyas, so our first target is to stop this kind of stuff,” he said. “So that is my hope to Senator Durbin — he can raise his voice and tell Congress and our president to take immediate action with the Burmese government.”

Action he hopes that ultimately will lead to the end of a still unfolding humanitarian crisis, which already has forced more than half a million people from their homes.

 
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has given a rare, major foreign policy speech outlining the Trump administration’s south Asia policy, reaching out to India to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Speaking to a packed auditorium at the Center for Strategic and International Studies research center in Washington, D.C., Tillerson looked forward to the next 100 years of close U.S.-India ties.

“President Trump and [Indian] Prime Minister Modi are committed – more than any of our leaders before them – to building an ambitious partnership that benefits not only our two great democracies, but other sovereign nations working toward greater peace and stability.”

Tillerson said the U.S. and India are “bookends of stability” on either side of the globe, noting the nations share a commitment to upholding the rule of law, freedom of navigation, universal values and free trade. Tillerson said the Trump administration is determined to “dramatically deepen” ways for the United States and India to work together, and he announced that he will be visiting New Delhi next week.

Asia expert Michael Kugelman said that while Tillerson’s focus on defense and security cooperation was predictable, he “was also struck how he spoke in great detail, and at the very beginning of the speech, about economic partnership. Economic cooperation has lagged behind defense cooperation, and so we can read this as an effort to expand the relationship beyond its main comfort level of defense and security.”

Tillerson took a more strident tone on China.

“China’s provocative actions in the South China Sea directly challenge the international law and norms that the United States and India both stand for. The United States seeks constructive relations with China,” said Tillerson. “But we will not shrink from China’s challenges to the rules-based order, and where China subverts the sovereignty of neighboring countries, and disadvantages the U.S. and our friends.”

The Secretary of State said India and China both have risen over the past decades to become global powers. He contrasted their paths, though, saying China “has done so less responsibly, at times undermining the international, rules-based order — even as countries like India operate within a framework that protects other nations’ sovereignty.”

Kugelman said U.S. policy toward India has been consistent for the last 15 years, but he noted that what makes the policy outlined by Tillerson a bit different is its explicit focus on China.

“The Obama administration agreed that shared concern about China was a major strategic issue that brings the U.S. and India together. And yet, the Obama administration chose to be less overt in calling out China and in highlighting it as a point of convergence for U.S.-India ties,” said Kugelman. “The Obama White House struggled in its relations with Beijing, but at the same time it didn’t want to alienate the Chinese. With the Trump administration, there is a tendency to take less of a ‘kid gloves’ [cautious] approach.”

A senior State Department spokesman told reporters later Wednesday that Tillerson’s speech was the culmination of several months of deliberation between the State Department, the White House and the National Security Council. The spokesman confirmed U.S. eagerness to strengthen ties with India, saying, “India is looking for a partner – America is that partner.”

Tillerson said India is a partner for peace in Afghanistan, and he welcomed India’s assistance to that war-torn country. He called on Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorist groups based within their own borders there that threaten its own people and the broader region. Asked about concerns Pakistan might have about a U.S. shift toward India, a senior State Department spokesman said a stronger U.S. relationship with India does not come at the expense of Pakistan, and vice-versa.

 
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The White House is reacting furiously to a federal judge blocking President Donald Trump’s latest executive order that would have banned entry to travelers from several countries beginning Wednesday.

“Today’s dangerously flawed district court order undercuts the president’s efforts to keep the American people safe and enforce minimum security standards for entry into the United States,” said a White House statement issued Tuesday shortly after Judge Derrick Watson ruled against restrictions on travelers from six countries the Trump administration said could not provide enough information to meet U.S. security standards.

The travel order would have barred to various degrees travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Watson’s temporary restraining order does not interfere with restrictions on North Korea and Venezuela.

Justice Department defends White House

The Justice Department “will vigorously defend the president’s lawful action,” the White House said, contending its proclamation restricting travel was issued after an extensive worldwide security review. 　

The Justice Department called the ruling incorrect and said it will appeal the decision “in an expeditious manner.”

Homeland Security Acting Secretary Elaine Duke said: “While we will comply with any lawful judicial order, we look forward to prevailing in this matter upon appeal.”

No change for North Korea, Venezuela

The new travel order “suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor: it lacks sufficient findings that the entry of more than 150 million nationals from six specified countries would be ‘detrimental to the United States,'” Judge Watson wrote in his opinion.

The White House argues that its restrictions “are vital to ensuring that foreign nations comply with the minimum security standards required for the integrity of our immigration system and the security of our nation.”

Officials in the White House are expressing confidence that further judicial review will uphold the president’s action.

Hawaii involved for third time

Consular officials have been told to resume “regular processing of visas” for people from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, according to a State Department official.

The suit on which Judge Watson ruled on Tuesday was filed by the state of Hawaii, the Muslim Association of Hawaii and various individuals.

“This is the third time Hawaii has gone to court to stop President Trump from issuing a travel ban that discriminates against people based on their nation of origin or religion,” said Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin. “Today is another victory for the rule of law.”

Molly McKitterick contributed to this report.
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U.S. lawmakers hailed the apparent liberation of Raqqa, Syria, as a major milestone in the fight against Islamic State, but cautioned that the terrorist group retains the ability to mount attacks in Europe and elsewhere, and that the ultimate defeat of IS will occur beyond the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.

“It’s a great step in combating ISIS. Raqqa is definitely an important piece of real estate, as was Mosul [Iraq],” the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, told VOA. “It [Raqqa] was central to their caliphate, so very important.”

“The concept has always been to eliminate the caliphate [that IS sought to build in the Middle East],” said the Foreign Relation Committee’s top Democrat, Ben Cardin of Maryland. “Shrinking the caliphate, Raqqa falling is an important element in eliminating and containing ISIS. They lose a lot of their wealth and a lot of their credibility when they lose territory.”

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said Tuesday they seized the last remaining areas of Raqqa from Islamic State militants. The American-led coalition fighting IS said the city was “on the verge of liberation” after a protracted offensive that began in June.

Islamic State has also lost territory in neighboring Iraq, notably the northern city of Mosul, giving the group an ever-shrinking base of operations.

“For a while it’s been apparent that we were going to defeat Islamic State on the battlefield,” said Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat. “Their peak [at holding territory] was in August of 2014, and there’s been a steady erosion of them being able to control territory.”

While welcoming the outcome in Raqqa and elsewhere, lawmakers cautioned that Islamic State remains a threat in many countries far beyond the Middle East.

“What we’ve seen is a diffusion [of IS elements], so they go to other countries and they do a lot on the internet,” Cardin said. “To strike in Paris all you need is a couple people who get the opportunity and are motivated. That’s a hard thing to eliminate.”

“What they’ve been trying to do is more off-battlefield attacks here and there,” Kaine said. “And what that does is put a primacy in this phase on intelligence sharing, because the way you stop the off-battlefield attack is through better and better intelligence-sharing. It makes alliances, like NATO and others, more important.”

Corker said defeating IS militarily is “one element of multiple elements [of the coalition’s strategy] combating the ideology, suffocating them financially.”

That more work remains to be done should not detract from progress made so far, according to Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado.

“Our fight against ISIS will continue no matter where they are, no matter what they do, until they are eliminated,” Gardner told VOA, using an acronym for Islamic State. “Any advance is significant and any defeat we give them is significant.”
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Canada’s foreign minister says there are “unconventional” and “troubling” proposals on the table as Canada, the United States and Mexico seek to update the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The fourth round of talks on revising the 23-year-old NAFTA deal wrapped up Tuesday, with more talks set for Mexico next month and additional discussions early next year.

Canada’s Chrystia Freeland said proposals created “challenges,” and “turn back the clock” on NAFTA. Failure could threaten jobs across North America, she said. In addition, ending NAFTA could hurt the North American teamwork that produces cars efficiently and makes them competitive with products from other regions, she added.

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said it was clear from the beginning that the talks would be tough and “we still have a lot of work to do.” He also said all nations “have limits.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the United States faces a large trade deficit, and blamed NAFTA for the loss of manufacturing jobs. He expressed frustration that his negotiating partners were not willing to make changes to reduce those deficits. 

NAFTA was harshly criticized by candidate Donald Trump, and press reports say Washington has since proposed renegotiating the deal every five years, requiring more U.S.-made content in automobiles, and scaling back a mechanism to resolve disputes. Trump has blamed what he called poorly negotiated agreements for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs that hurt the U.S. economy. He promised to drive harder bargains in trade deals. 

The Brookings Institution’s Dany Bahar said trade deficits are not the cause of job losses, and called the U.S. focus misplaced. He said NAFTA’s dispute resolution mechanism and some other provisions could use some updating. However, he told VOA that NAFTA is closer to collapse than in previous rounds of talks. Such a collapse would mean U.S.-made cars would become more expensive and less competitive on world markets, likely making the United States the “biggest loser” if the trade deal fails, he said.
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President Donald Trump waded back into Southern politics Monday, showering praise on one of his earliest supporters, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster.

At a closed-door campaign fundraiser, Trump praised McMaster as his “friend” and “compatriot” and predicted McMaster would be the state’s governor for “many years,” according to video of the event posted by the South Carolina newspaper The State.

“He’s a terrific person, terrific man. He works so hard,” Trump told the crowd. “He loves South Carolina, he loves the people.”

Trump’s appearance at a private fundraiser for McMaster in Greenville came less than a month after the defeat of Sen. Luther Strange, the president’s preferred candidate in a Republican runoff for a U.S. Senate seat from Alabama.

McMaster greeted Trump at the airport in nearby Greer, South Carolina, before they traveled to an Embassy Suites hotel for the event. Two of the state’s Republican lawmakers in Washington, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Joe Wilson, flew with Trump on Air Force One.

Organizers closed the event to the news media, but several minutes of video were posted online by The State.

Some in heavily Republican South Carolina see similarities between McMaster and Strange, both with impeccable Republican credentials.

Strange fought same-sex marriage as Alabama attorney general. McMaster headed South Carolina’s GOP for years, was its top prosecutor and was elected lieutenant governor in 2014. Both men were elevated to their current offices by appointment. Strange was appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. McMaster was elevated to the governor’s office after Trump picked then-Gov. Nikki Haley to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Strange and McMaster took political risks to support Trump’s presidential candidacy. Known for rewarding loyalty, Trump backed their candidacies.

But Strange lost the nomination to Moore, who was twice removed as Alabama Supreme Court chief justice. The first removal was for defying a federal judge’s order to take down a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building. He was elected again but was permanently suspended after a judicial discipline panel ruled he urged probate judges to deny marriage licenses to gay couples. Moore was propelled by his support across the mostly white, evangelical-dominated state where voters have repeatedly embraced political outsiders who campaign heavily on defending their religious values and rebuffing the establishment.

Although he is the incumbent, McMaster isn’t receiving political deference: several Republicans are challenging him in the primary. His most formidable opponent thus far is Catherine Templeton, an anti-union attorney who served Haley as head of the state’s labor and public health departments.

The Trump administration tried to woo Templeton to Washington with a job at the Department of Labor, but Templeton passed. She has amassed a campaign war chest nearly commensurate to McMaster’s. Both are nearing $2 million cash on hand.

Some South Carolina political analysts question whether McMaster, who is entering his fourth decade in politics, may be relying too heavily on Trump’s support to boost his 2018 election chances. Chad Walldorf, a businessman who served in former Gov. Mark Sanford’s administration, said he sees the parallels with Alabama.

“I respect loyalty, but it seems that Trump is again misreading the situation on the ground, getting behind the establishment candidate who was not elected to his position, running against a credible agent of change who’s garnering more significant grassroots support,” he said, referring to Templeton. “At least from the voter standpoint, it seems to me that folks eager for change are eagerly jumping on the Templeton bandwagon.”

Trump, meanwhile, said McMaster was a “talented guy” and said he believed he was doing “really well.”

“You know I’m a poll person. Then I don’t believe ’em, but I like to read ’em anyway,” Trump said.
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The fires in Northern California improved this week, with fire officials saying they have the upper hand on the widespread blazes.

But for firefighters, there is still the daily work of containing the fire and shifting into recovery and clean up. For Ryan Estes, the fight against the widespread, complex fire in Northern California is personal. Estes has worked as a firefighter outside of Santa Rosa, California since 2000.

“This is home and we’ve been here since day one,” said Ryan Estes, captain of the Rincon Valley Fire Department. “We’re still working because this is home. We don’t want to leave.”

Estes’s family and home are fine. His wife is home 15 minutes away with their two children, packed if they need to evacuate.

Firefighters here say this is what they call “a career fire,” something they have trained for all of their lives. But even with that training, the fire’s power has been too much at times. They have needed downtime and a place to refuel—for themselves and their vehicles.

Estes worked three days straight when the fire first erupted. Help arrived quickly – firefighters from all over California, Oregon, Nevada, the East Coast and even Australia. Equipment came too – fire retardant, helicopters, engines, bulldozers.

“It can be a roller coaster obviously,” said Jay Smith, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

“As most fire fighters have a can-do attitude. You want to go in, very task oriented, just do our job and get people back in their homes. Make it safe for everyone who lives here.”

Firefighters here have lost their homes and one firefighter lost his life.

The extra help has given Estes a chance to go home for 12 hours to see his family, and begin to take in what has happened to his community.

For firefighters, the fight is shifting into the recovery phase, putting out every smoking log or ember they see, discussing what went well and what didn’t in the fire fight.

And with the recovery, there will be the emotional toll.

“Once everyone has gone, the dust has settled, you get the deeper emotions out,” Estes said. “Right now it’s a somber feeling.”
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For the last year, the deli that Egyptian-American Hatem El-Gamasy owns in Queens, New York has been the backdrop to on-air discussions on U.S. foreign policy and Middle Eastern affairs that are broadcast in Egypt. But when Egyptian broadcasters caught wind of his daytime job, the calls suddenly stopped. But VOA’s Ramon Taylor reports that El-Gamasy’s dream to achieve journalistic success carries on.
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