Rebels begin to leave Syria’s Barada Valley Syrian state-controlled TV says rebels have begun to evacuate Barada Valley as part of an agreement to surrender the capital region’s primary water source to government control.
Al-Ikhbariya TV says four buses carrying 160 rebels and family members departed the Barada Valley on Sunday for the rebel-held Idlib province, where they will join thousands of other rebels and dissidents from the Damascus area.
The evacuation marks the end of a nearly six-week-long standoff between rebels and pro-government forces that led to severe water cuts to some 5 million people around Damascus.
The governor of the Greater Damascus province told Al-Ikhbariya that water pressure would begin to return to Damascus on Monday as engineers repair facilities destroyed in the fighting.
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Saudi king agrees in call with Trump to support Syria, Yemen safe zones -White House- Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, in a telephone call on Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump, agreed to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen, a White House statement said.
Trump, during his presidential campaign last year, had called for Gulf states to pay for establishing safe zones to protect Syrian refugees.
A statement after the phone call said the two leaders agreed on the importance of strengthening joint efforts to fight the spread of Islamic State militants.
« The president requested, and the King agreed, to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen, as well as supporting other ideas to help the many refugees who are displaced by the ongoing conflicts, » the statement said.
The Saudi Press Agency, in an initial readout of the call, made no specific mention of safe zones, but said the two leaders had affirmed the « depth and durability of the strategic relationship » between the two countries.
The agency later said « the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques had confirmed his support and backing for setting up safe zones in Syria », but did not mention Yemen, where a Saudi alliance is fighting against the Iran-aligned Houthi group.
A senior Saudi source told Reuters the two leaders spoke for more than an hour by telephone and agreed to step up counter-terrorism and military cooperation and enhance economic cooperation.
But the source had no word on whether the two leaders discussed Trump’s order to put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily ban travelers from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries.
The source said Saudi Arabia would enhance its participation in the U.S.-led coalition fighting to oust Islamic State from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
The White House statement said the two leaders also agreed on the need to address « Iran’s destabilizing regional activities. » SPA confirmed the report but made no specific mention of Iran.
Both countries share views about Iranian policies in the region, the Saudi source said, suggesting Trump agreed with Riyadh’s suspicion of what it sees as Tehran’s growing influence in the Arab world. Iran denies it meddles in Arab countries.
The White House statement said the two also discussed what it called an invitation from the king for Trump « to lead a Middle East effort to defeat terrorism and to help build a new future, economically and socially, » for Saudi Arabia and the region.
The two also discussed the Muslim Brotherhood, the senior Saudi source said, adding in a reference to the late al Qaeda leader, « it was mentioned that Osama bin Laden was recruited at an early stage » by the organization.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Riyadh fears the Brotherhood, whose Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the Saudi principle of dynastic rule, has tried to build support inside the kingdom since the Arab Spring revolutions.
U.S. officials and people close to Trump’s transition team have said a debate is under way in the Trump administration whether the United States should also declare the Brotherhood a terrorist organization and subject it to U.S. sanctions.
Trump also spoke with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In what appears to have been a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Crown Prince was cited by UAE state news agency WAM as saying « groups that raise fake slogans and ideologies aim to hide their criminal truth by spreading chaos and destruction. » The White House said Trump had also « raised the idea of supporting safe zones for the refugees displaced by the conflict in the region, and the Crown Prince agreed to support this initiative. »
Military: First-known combat death since Trump in office
It’s been described as the greatest burden any commander in chief must bear.
Just days into his young presidency, a U.S. service member has died in military action authorized by Donald Trump. It’s the first known combat death of a member of the U.S. military since Trump took the oath of office on Jan. 20 and underscores the gravity of the decisions he now makes.
Three service members were also wounded Sunday during the firefight with militants from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s branch in Yemen. The raid left nearly 30 others dead, including an estimated 14 militants. A fourth U.S. service member was injured when a military aircraft assisting in the mission had a « hard landing » nearby, according to U.S. Central Command.
« Americans are saddened this morning with news that a life of a heroic service member has been taken in our fight against the evil of radical Islamic terrorism, » Trump said in a statement.
« My deepest thoughts and humblest prayers are with the family of this fallen service member, » he said.
The names of the casualties were not released.
Planning for the clandestine counterterrorism raid begun before President Barack Obama left office on Jan. 20, but Trump authorized the raid, according to a U.S. defense official, who was not authorized to discuss details beyond those announced by the Pentagon and so spoke on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. has been striking al-Qaida in Yemen from the air for more than 15 years, mostly using drones. Sunday’s surprise pre-dawn raid could signal a new escalation against extremist groups in the Arab world’s poorest but strategically located country.
The action provides an early window into how the new president will put his campaign rhetoric into action when it comes to foreign intervention.
Trump had promised an « America first » approach and an end to the « era of nation building » if he won the White House. Many interpreted his language as isolationist and expected Trump to be more cautious about where the U.S. intervened.
At the same time, Trump had broadcast a stronger posture on the world stage. He pledged to beef up the military and said he aimed to achieve « peace through strength. »
Sunday’s raid was not the first time that the United States had conducted a counterterrorism raid on the ground in Yemen, but it was not the usual approach of striking from the air, the defense official said.
The raid was planned as a clandestine operation and not intended to be made public, but the loss of a service member changed that, the official said, adding that no detainees were taken in the operation.
An al-Qaida official and an online news service linked to the terror group said the raid left about 30 people dead, including women and children. Among the children killed was Anwaar, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric killed in a U.S. airstrike in Yemen in 2011, according to the girl’s grandfather.
Nasser al-Awlaki told The Associated Press that Anwaar was visiting her mother when the raid took place. She was shot in the neck and bled for two hours before she died, he said.
In addition to killing the militants, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said U.S. forces « captured a whole host of information about future plots that’s going to benefit this country and keep us safe. »
The president « extends his condolences, » he said on ABC’s « ‘This Week. » »But more importantly, he understands the fight that our servicemen and women conduct on a daily basis to keep this country safe. »
Just over a week ago, suspected U.S. drone strikes killed three other alleged al-Qaida operatives in Bayda in what was the first-such killings reported in the country since Trump assumed the U.S. presidency.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, long seen by Washington as among the most dangerous branches of the global terror network, has exploited the chaos of Yemen’s civil war, seizing territory in the south and east.
The war began in 2014, when Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies swept down from the north and captured the capital, Sanaa. A Saudi-led military coalition has been helping government forces battle the rebels for nearly two years.
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U.S. drones target two suspected al Qaeda militants in Yemen – officials – A suspected U.S. drone strike killed two men believed to be al Qaeda militants in central Yemen, local officials said early on Monday, hours after American commandos carried out the first military operation authorized by President Donald Trump.
The officials said the pilotless plane targeted a vehicle travelling in Baihan in the province of Shabwa, in which two suspected al Qaeda members were travelling. Both men were killed, they said.
Al Qaeda has exploited a civil war in Yemen pitting the Iran-aligned Houthi movement against the Saudi-backed government of president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to recruit more followers and enhance its influence in the impoverished country.
The United States, which sees the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda as a major threat to its regional interests, conducted dozens of drone strikes in Yemen throughout Barack Obama’s presidency.
It has acknowledged drone strikes to target militants, but declines to comment on specific attacks.
A U.S. commando died and three were wounded during a dawn raid on Sunday in the rural Yakla district of central Yemen’s al-Bayda province. The U.S. military also said that at least 14 suspected al Qaeda militants were killed.
Shock and indifference to Trump ban on Mosul frontline U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning citizens from Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States was met with mixed reactions in Mosul, where Iraqi soldiers are working closely with a U.S.-led coalition in a tough fight against the Islamic State group.
But while many Iraqi soldiers said they were shocked by the news, others brushed it aside, explaining that in the long run it may be better for their country to prevent the highly educated from immigrating abroad.
« When he made this decision he destroyed us, » said Iraqi special forces Cpl. Ali Latif, whose unit works closely with U.S.-led coalition forces in the fight against IS in Mosul. « I heard the news, that many people were stopped in airports, why would (the United States) do this? »
Meanwhile, the foreign relations committee of Iraq’s parliament is asking the government to impose a similar visa ban on Americans trying to enter Iraq, according to member Hassan Shwerid.
Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has also spoken out against the ban, suggesting all Americans should be forced out of Iraq in retaliation, according to a statement from his office.
In the more than three months since the operation to retake Mosul was officially launched, Latif says he’s lost six close friends in the fight against the militants. Moving forward he doesn’t believe Trump’s order will dramatically alter the fight against IS, but he says it’s already caused mild friction with his U.S. counterparts.
« This (decision) it makes us feel a little bad, » he said.
Deeper inside Mosul a unit of Iraqi soldiers admitted they hadn’t heard the news.
« Have they stopped giving visas to Iraqi people? Does this mean we cannot enter America? Why? » a man yelled from the top of a supply truck.
« Honestly I love Trump! » said another Iraqi special forces solider, Sgt. Maj. Diar Al-Khair.
« We don’t want our doctors and professors to keep going to another country and make it greater than our own, » he said.
Iraq has suffered from severe brain-drain for over a decade as many of the country’s educated elite have fled the instability in the country that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
State media reported that Jordan’s King Abdullah II will visit Washington on Monday. The king will meet with administration officials and members of Congress, according to state media who did not mention a White House visit.
Pro-Western Jordan isn’t among the countries slapped with the travel ban, but views refugee resettlement to the U.S. and other countries as a way of easing its own burden; Jordan hosts more than 650,000 displaced Syrians.
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Emirates changes pilot, crew rosters on US flights after Trump order – Emirates airline has changed pilot and flight attendant rosters on flights to the United States following the sudden U.S. travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, highlighting the challenges facing airlines to deal with the new rules.
The world’s largest long-haul carrier, which flies daily to 11 U.S. cities, has made « the necessary adjustments to our crewing, to comply with the latest requirements, » an Emirates spokeswoman told Reuters by email on Sunday. She added U.S. flights continue to operate to schedule.
President Donald Trump on Friday suspended the entry of people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The decision caught airlines off guard, according to the International Air Transport Association .
« I cannot think of anything comparable. This brings a mix of administrative confusion, impact and uncertainty for many travellers as well as practical operational headaches and complexities for airlines in planning their flight programmes, » independent aviation consultant John Strickland told Reuters.
The ban applies to pilots and flight attendants from the seven countries, even though all flight crew who are not U.S. citizens already need a special visa to enter the country.
Nicoley Baublies, from the German cabin crew union UFO, said the move was very unusual and meant uncertainty for airlines in terms of planning.
« Lufthansa has always ensured it has very diverse crews, with staff of different nationalities and that means that we are for the first time in decades having to look at where people come from, » he told Reuters at Frankfurt airport.
A spokesman for Lufthansa said on Sunday it was too early to comment on the effects of the order but that airlines and passengers were required to follow the new rules.
Another Emirates spokeswoman said the impact of the ban on operations would be minimal. The airline employs over 23,000 flight attendants and about 4,000 pilots from around the world, including the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi said the airline had « taken steps to ensure there will be no issues for flights departing over the coming weeks. » But amid confusion over enforcing the ban, it is unclear if the ban applies to dual nationals – those who hold one passport from a country on the list and another from a non-U.S. country that is not.
Etihad said on its website that dual citizens could travel to the U.S. using their non-banned passport. IATA have told its members that the ban does not apply to dual nationals if they have a passport not on the list, according to an email seen by Reuters.
However, the Guardian reported on Saturday, quoting State Department officials, that dual nationals were banned.
US officials said on Sunday holders of green cards need to check with a U.S. consulate and will be cleared on a case by case basis.
EFFECT ON TRAVEL DEMAND? On Sunday, IATA sent another email to member airlines, seen by Reuters, asking for examples of Green Card holders being denied boarding. It also said it was seeking more information from authorities in Washington.
Baublies said the uncertainty over the rules was not helping. « Trump reacts in 140 characters, we don’t know what it means – for people with the wrong entries in their passports or with dual nationality or married to someone from one of the countries affected, are they allowed to travel? » There are also concerns the restrictions could dampen travel demand.
« Ultimately this could feed through to the role airlines play in the global economy in supporting business and tourism due to as yet unquantifiable impacts on demand & cost, » Strickland said.
Baublies said airlines were usually among the first affected by global crises. « We hope it doesn’t mean that seats are left empty because people don’t know where they can travel with which passport. » Dubai-based Emirates and Etihad Airways are both owned by the governments of the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. ally and Muslim-majority country.
Both carriers said they would continue to comply with the new rules on U.S. immigration but where possible would offer to refund or rebook affected passengers.
Emirates and Etihad have also said that passengers were affected by the ban over the weekend but their flight crews had not been impacted.
Qatar Airways declined to comment on the impact of the ban on flight operations, although on Saturday it issued a statement on its website that passengers would need a green card or diplomatic visa to enter the U.S. Emirates and Etihad issued similar statements.
Israel’s Netanyahu says US embassy should be in Jerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the American embassy in Israel should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, injecting himself once again into a charged campaign trail promise of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Netanyahu’s comments at his weekly Cabinet meeting appeared aimed at countering reports that Israel was concerned about the fallout of such a move, which is vehemently opposed by the Palestinians and has sparked fears of a renewed outbreak of violence. It comes a day after Netanyahu unilaterally endorsed Trump’s call to build a wall along the Mexican border, saying the Israeli model along its border with Egypt has proven successful
« I would like to clarify unequivocally that our view has always been, and continues to be, that the United States’ embassy should be here in Jerusalem, » Netanyahu said. « Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and it is appropriate that not only the American embassy will be here but that all embassies will move here and I believe that in due course most will come here, to Jerusalem. »
Currently, nearly all foreign embassies are located in the coastal city of Tel Aviv because their countries have refrained from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital until its status is resolved in future peace talks. Israel has long called for the embassies to be relocated but hasn’t pushed hard for it given the widespread international opposition.
But Trump’s rise has emboldened Israel’s nationalists. His campaign platform made no mention of a Palestinian state, a cornerstone of two decades of international diplomacy in the region, and he has signaled that he will be far more tolerant of Israeli settlement construction than his predecessors.
Both his designated ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, now a top aide and Mideast envoy, have deep ties to the settler movement. Friedman and Kushner’s family foundation have both been generous contributors to the Beit El settlement, and a delegation of settler representatives was invited to Trump’s inauguration.
The Palestinians want the West Bank and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for their hoped-for state. Former President Barack Obama, like the rest of the international community, considered the building of settlements an obstacle to peace and frequently criticized their construction. But Trump did not comment when Israel announced a major housing drive last week.
At the Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu also said his government planned to introduce a bill to legalize dozens of West Bank settlement outposts later this week.
There are about 100 outposts across the West Bank that Israel considers illegal but tolerates and often allows to flourish. The bill is being pushed by the pro-settler Jewish Home party, which has threatened to quit Netanyahu’s coalition if it doesn’t go through.
The bill was cited as one of the reasons the Obama administration allowed a United Nations Security Council resolution to pass that challenged the legality of the settlements.
U.S. officials said that after previously vetoing anti-Israel resolutions, they felt compelled to abstain because of continued Israeli settlement construction and efforts to retroactively legalize dozens of them in exchange for compensation for the original Palestinian landowners.
Also Sunday, Israeli troops killed an 18-year-old Palestinian and wounded five others after they came under attack in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.
Palestinian police said a group hurled rocks at the Israeli troops, who responded with fire and fatally shot Mohammed Khalefeh. The Israeli military confirmed the account, saying that its forces were attacked with pipe bombs before they responded. Israeli forces routinely carry out arrest raids in the West Bank against wanted Palestinian militants.
Since 2015, Palestinian attackers have carried out numerous stabbings, shootings and vehicular assaults that killed 40 Israelis and two visiting Americans. Israeli forces killed 235 Palestinians in the same period, most identified by Israel as attackers.
Palestinians and rights groups have accused Israel of using excessive force in some of the confrontations.
Israel says the violence is fueled by a Palestinian campaign of incitement compounded on social media sites that glorify and encourage attacks. Palestinians say it stems from frustration over decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for a state.
Czech FM: 20-year sentence for Czech in Sudan groundlessThe Czech Foreign Ministry has rejected as groundless a Sudanese court’s ruling that sentenced a Czech national to 20 years in prison.
The ministry said Petr Jasek was given the stiff prison term on Sunday by a court in Khartoum, where he was tried on charges that included espionage.
The ministry says a deputy foreign minister will travel to Sudan in the coming days to try to negotiate Jasek’s release and if necessary, Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek is ready go there, too.
Czech officials say Jasek was in Sudan to help local Christians and was arrested in December 2015.
In a statement on Sunday, the ministry said Jasek is in relatively good condition, but that there was no evidence to support his conviction or sentence.
Former warlord’s return could shake up Afghan politics
The only insurgent leader to sign a peace pact with Afghanistan’s government will return to the country within weeks, his chief negotiator says, in a move that could shake up Afghan politics and complicate the much wider war against the Taliban.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former warlord who battled U.S. forces after the 2001 invasion and nursed a bitter rivalry with other Afghan factions, agreed to lay down arms last year. Amin Karim, his chief negotiator, told The Associated Press earlier this week that he would return to the capital in « a matter of weeks, not months. »
Hekmatyar is seen as a potential rival to President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who have governed the country through a shaky, U.S.-brokered power-sharing agreement since the disputed elections of 2014. His return could inject new political uncertainty as the government struggles to confront a reinvigorated Taliban that has been advancing on several fronts.
The former warlord battled the Soviets in the 1980s and then took part in the civil war that erupted after their withdrawal, clashing with the so-called Northern Alliance, in which Abdullah was a leading figure. Hekmatyar was driven out when the Taliban seized power in 1996, but returned after the American invasion, vowing to resist the foreign « occupation. »
His forces were largely confined to just two provinces, however, and have carried out few attacks in recent years. He is believed to be in hiding somewhere in the eastern Kunar province, where he enjoys popular support, and to make occasional trips into Pakistan across the nearby border.
Last year he became the only insurgent leader to sign a peace agreement with the Afghan government, in what many hoped would provide a model for a wider reconciliation with the Taliban. But he has yet to return to the fold.
His Hezb-e-Islami party wants his name taken off the U.N. and the U.S. Treasury lists of wanted terrorists. Karim declined to say whether Hekmatyar would return to Afghanistan without first being removed from the lists, and there has been no indication that the U.N. or Washington is considering his removal. Both Canada and Britain consider Hezb-i-Islami to be a terrorist group.
Hekmatyar, like Ghani, hails from Afghanistan’s ethnic Pashtun majority, and a revitalized Hezb-e-Islami could become a powerful player in the 2019 parliamentary elections, says Andrew Wilder, vice president of the Asia Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
« Hekmatyar’s return to Kabul would certainly be significant, » he said. « But the significance of his return, if it happens, will have a lot more to do with the impact of an influential Pashtun political figure who had been sidelined re-entering the political fray, and much less to do with moving the peace process forward.
The prospect of his return has already caused Abdullah’s fractured Jamiat-e-Islami Party to try to unify its ranks in order to better compete, Wilder said in an email interview. Abdullah and Ghani are also political rivals, and traded accusations of fraud after the hard-fought election three years ago.
No one expects Hekmatyar’s return to end the 15-year-old war with the Taliban, who control large swathes of rural territory in the south and east, and rule eight districts outright. A three-way struggle for power among Ghani, Abdullah and Hekmatyar could further divide the government at a critical time.
« The Taliban has ample momentum on the battlefield and is gaining territory, while Hezb-i-Islami is a shadow of its former self and not particularly active, » said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Washington-based Wilson Center’s South Asia program. « I simply don’t think the Taliban will pay much mind to Hekmatyar and his peace deal with Kabul. »
Karim, who negotiated the peace pact, lives behind two cordons of security in a heavily guarded Kabul villa. He accused unnamed Afghan rivals and regional countries of trying to sabotage Hekmatyar’s return, saying several Hezb-e-Islami commanders who ventured into the capital have been arrested.
The government says it remains committed to the peace deal and Hekmatyar’s return, which government spokesman Mohammad Haroon Chakhansuri said would be a « positive » step.
Mosque president says 5 dead in Quebec City shooting
Five people have been killed in a shooting at a Quebec City mosque, the president of the center said Sunday.
Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre President Mohamed Yangui confirmed the number of dead late Sunday in a telephone call from the provincial capital.
Authorities did not confirm the number of fatalities.
Quebec City police spokesman Constable Pierre Poirier said two suspects were arrested.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard termed the act « barbaric violence » and expressed solidarity with the victims’ families.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quickly took to social media to express his condolences.
« Tonight, Canadians grieve for those killed in a cowardly attack on a mosque in Quebec City. My thoughts are with victims & their families, » Trudeau tweeted.
He later said on Twitter that he spoke to Quebec’s premier and was being briefed by officials. The prime minister said the government had offered « any & all assistance needed. »
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said on Twitter Sunday that he was deeply saddened by the loss of life. His office says no motive had been confirmed.
In the summer of 2016 a pig’s head was left on the doorstep of the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre.
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Canadian PM says mosque shooting a « terrorist attack on Muslims » – Six people were killed and eight wounded when gunmen opened fire at a Quebec mosque during Sunday night prayers, in what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a « terrorist attack on Muslims ».
Police said two suspects had been arrested, but gave no details about them or what prompted the attack.
Initially, the mosque president said five people were killed and a witness said up to three gunmen had fired on about 40 people inside the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre. Police said only two people were involved in the attack.
« Six people are confirmed dead – they range in age from 35 to about 70, » Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Christine Coulombe told reporters, adding eight people were wounded and 39 were unharmed.
The mosque’s president, Mohamed Yangui, who was not inside when the shooting occurred, said he got frantic calls from people at evening prayers.
« Why is this happening here? This is barbaric, » he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement: « We condemn this terrorist attack on Muslims in a centre of worship and refuge ».
« Muslim-Canadians are an important part of our national fabric, and these senseless acts have no place in our communities, cities and country. » The shooting came on the weekend that Trudeau said Canada would welcome refugees, after U.S. President Donald Trump suspended the U.S. refugee program and temporarily barred citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States on national security grounds.
A Canadian federal Liberal legislator, Greg Fergus, tweeted: « This is an act of terrorism — the result of years of sermonizing Muslims. Words matter and hateful speeches have consequences! » New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said police were providing additional protection for mosques in that city following the Quebec shooting. « All New Yorkers should be vigilant. If you see something, say something, » he tweeted.
‘NOT SAFE HERE’ Like France, Quebec has struggled at times to reconcile its secular identity with a rising Muslim population, many of them from North Africa.
In June last year, a pig’s head was left on the doorstep of the cultural centre.
« We are not safe here, » said Mohammed Oudghiri, who normally attends prayers at the mosque in the middle-class, residential area, but did not on Sunday.
Oudghiri said he had lived in Quebec for 42 years but was now « very worried » and thinking of moving back to Morocco.
Mass shootings are rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the United States, and news of the shooting sent a shockwave through mosques and community centres throughout the mostly French-language province.
« It’s a sad day for all Quebecers and Canadians to see a terrorist attack happen in peaceful Quebec City, » said Mohamed Yacoub, co-chairman of an Islamic community centre in a Montreal suburb.
« I hope it’s an isolated incident. » Incidents of Islamophobia have increased in Quebec in recent years. The face-covering, or niqab, became a big issue in the 2015 Canadian federal election, especially in Quebec, where the majority of the population supported a ban on it at citizenship ceremonies.
In 2013, police investigated after a mosque in the Saguenay region of the province was splattered with what was believed to be pig blood. In the neighbouring province of Ontario, a mosque was set on fire in 2015, a day after an attack by gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris.
Zebida Bendjeddou, who left the Quebec City mosque earlier on Sunday evening, said the centre had received threats.
« In June, they’d put a pig’s head in front of the mosque. But we thought: ‘Oh, they’re isolated events.’ We didn’t take it seriously. But tonight, those isolated events, they take on a different scope, » she said.
Bendjeddou said she had not confirmed the names of those killed, but added: « They’re people we know, for sure. People we knew since they were little kids. »
Recent developments surrounding the South China Sea
A look at recent developments in the South China Sea, where China is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters crucial for global commerce and rich in fish and potential oil and gas reserves:
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WHITE HOUSE ON COLLISION COURSE WITH CHINA?
The new U.S. administration is heating up rhetoric over the South China Sea with a promise to challenge China’s occupation of disputed islands. Beijing is responding cautiously, appealing for calm and direct negotiations involving claimants.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said « the U.S. is going to make sure that we protect our interests there. » His comments came just weeks after President Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, caused some consternation when he told his Senate confirmation hearing that the U.S. should deny China access to its seven man-made islands.
« So it’s a question of if those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yes, we’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country, » Spicer said. Pressed on whether that means physically preventing China from accessing the islands, he refused to answer, saying « I think as we develop further, we’ll have more information on that. »
China immediately responded, with Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying the U.S. is not a party to the disputes and should stay away. She again insisted that China has « indisputable sovereignty » over the South China Sea and is committed to safeguarding it. She said China preserves freedom of navigation in those waters — a concern the U.S. has repeatedly challenged as it stepped up its military presence in the region.
The comments at the regular briefing in Beijing were followed up by the most senior Foreign Affairs spokesman on NBC News, who said « there might be a difference » of opinion over the sovereignty of these islands, « but it’s not for the United States » to get involved in.
« That’s not international territories, that’s Chinese territories, » said Lu Kang. « Countries have already come back to the original agreement that maybe for the time being we could set aside those sovereign disputes, and focus on some joint developments, and working together to maintain the peace and stability in this region. »
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ANALYSTS WORRY ABOUT ESCALATION
The references by U.S. officials to blocking China’s access to artificial islands have caused concern among analysts about a potential for military escalation in the South China Sea.
« If the U.S. takes actions against China’s moves to protect their own sea territories, it may result in a serious military confrontation, » said Sun Hao, an international relations expert at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing.
Teng Jianqun, a scholar at the China Institute of International Studies, said he didn’t believe the U.S. would follow through on the threat of a blockade, saying « it’s like announcing war. That would be ridiculous. »
« Both Tillerson and Spicer seem to be trying to show China that the Trump administration will adopt a tougher approach on the South China Sea, but it’s evident that they haven’t yet developed a policy, » said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said the Trump administration needed to send « clear, consistent » signals to China.
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U.S. TO CONSTRUCT FACILITIES IN PHILIPPINES
The Philippines, the only U.S. defense treaty ally among the six claimants in the South China Sea, said the U.S. military will soon commence construction of facilities to accommodate troops and equipment inside Philippine army bases.
The five locations for U.S. troops were chosen in a 2014 defense agreement and include air bases facing the South China Sea. China has criticized the U.S. military presence in the Philippines.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said President Rodrigo Duterte, who has had a testy relationship with Washington and has mended ties with Beijing, was aware of the impending construction.
Still, Lorenzana said his country should maintain neutrality as he expressed fear of getting caught between the U.S. and China should Washington press ahead with blocking China’s access to Beijing-controlled islands.
« We might be caught in the middle if they do that. We are very wary, » he said. « In the first place, they (Chinese) are already there. How can they (Americans) prevent them from going there since they (Chinese) are already there? »
He said the Philippines will deal with both the Chinese « for the benefit of our people » and also with the Americans « because we are still military allies. »
Lorenzana said the Philippines was also discussing reviving military exercises with Singapore, one of Southeast Asian nations that has irked Beijing by calling for the respect of an international arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s territorial claims.
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MALAYSIA SPLITS NAVY FLEET, BEEFS UP SOUTH CHINA SEA ASSETS
Malaysia, which is grappling with piracy, militant raids from the southern Philippines and incursions by Chinese fishermen, has decided to split its navy fleet into two with the emphasis on protecting its resources in the South China Sea.
The Eastern Fleet will be based in Kota Kinabalu, on Borneo Island, and the Western Fleet in Lumut, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Kuala Lumpur.
« Security wise, the current maritime activities and development in the South China Sea and in the Sulu waters in Eastern Sabah require the government to give high level of focus and attention to ensure maritime security for the two states, » said navy chief Adm. Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin.
Like other claimants, Malaysia is balancing its relations between China and the U.S. It recently welcomed a port call by two Chinese submarines in Kota Kinabalu.
However, a Chinese coast guard vessel anchored off Luconia Shoals within Malaysia’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone remains an irritant for Malaysia, though officials rarely publicly raise the issue to avoid antagonizing Beijing. In the past, Malaysia has filed diplomatic protests over Chinese coast guard vessels escorting Chinese fishermen near its shore.
Hamon to lead Socialists into French presidential election
Benoit Hamon, rising from left-wing obscurity on a radical proposal to a pay all adults a monthly basic income, will be the Socialist Party candidate in France’s presidential election this spring, after he handily beat ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls in a primary runoff vote Sunday.
Hamon’s win sends the divided Socialists, weakened by the unpopularity of outgoing President Francois Hollande, into a tough presidential battle behind a candidate with limited government experience and hard-left politics that could alienate some center-left Socialist voters.
With votes counted at three-quarters of polling stations, Hamon had almost 59 percent and Valls around 41 percent. Valls immediately conceded defeat in the face of the result that appeared to sanction both Hollande’s polices and his former prime minister.
With the beleaguered ruling party now having its candidate, the race for the presidential Elysee Palace begins in earnest, although the outcome of the two-round vote in April and May looks increasingly uncertain.
Leading conservative candidate Francois Fillon, who also is a former prime minister, was rocked in the past week by allegations that his wife, Penelope, held a fake but handsomely paid job as a parliamentary aide. Financial prosecutors are investigating.
At a campaign rally in Paris on Sunday — where a boisterous crowd gave Penelope Fillon a standing ovation and chanted her name, Fillon said, « We have nothing to hide. »
« Through Penelope they are trying to break me, » he said. « I will never forgive those who chose to throw us to the wolves. »
A priority for Hamon, a 49-year-old former junior minister and, briefly, education minister, will be to rally the Socialists, split ideologically and wounded by Hollande’s five-year tenure as president.
« Our country needs the left, but a left that is modern and innovates, » Hamon said.
The party is squeezed by rivals on both flanks. Fiery far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon and centrist Emmanuel Macron, Hollande’s former economics minister, are both making hay by appealing to disappointed Socialist voters.
Early polling has suggested the Socialist candidate will struggle to advance to the presidential runoff in May, where far-right leader Marine Le Pen could be waiting, campaigning on anti-Europe, anti-immigration and anti-Islam themes.
In defeat, Valls didn’t throw his support behind Hamon, but cautioned against the risk of the country shifting to the right.
« We refuse that tomorrow Marine Le Pen becomes the face of France, » he said.
The turnout on Sunday, estimated at around 2 million voters, was more robust than in the first round of voting but still suggested a lack of enthusiasm among the French electorate of 44 million. The primary was open to all voters who paid 1 euro ($1.04).
Hamon wasn’t as tainted as Valls by Hollande’s unpopularity, because he rebelled and quit the government in 2014.
Valls served as Hollande’s prime minister for more than two years until last December, when it became clear the president couldn’t win a second term. Having to defend the government’s economic policies and labor reforms against Hamon proved an uphill fight for Valls.
Hamon’s signature proposal for a 750 euros ($800) « universal income » that would be gradually granted to all adults also proved a campaign masterstroke, grabbing headlines and underpinning his surprise success in the primary’s two rounds of voting, first against six opponents and then against Valls in the runoff.
Sharply criticized by Valls as unrealistic and ruinous, Hamon says the no-strings-attached payments would cushion the French in an increasingly automated future, as machines take their jobs.
He proposes a tax on robots to help finance the measure’s huge costs — by Hamon’s reckoning, at least 300 billion euros ($320 billion) if applied to more than 50 million adults.
Hamon also proposes legalizing cannabis and allowing medically assisted deaths.
First-time voter Maayane Pralus said Hamon « has a lot of the youth vote with him, which is sick of the old politics. »
« People call him utopian, but that’s the politics we’ve been waiting for, » the 18-year-old student said.
Valls, 54, emphasized his government experience. He was prime minister when gun and suicide-bomb attacks killed 147 people in Paris in January and November 2015, and still in office in July 2016 when a man drove a truck into crowds in Nice, killing 86 people.
Such are the left’s divisions that some Valls supporters may now shift to Macron’s independent run for the presidency.
In such a complex political landscape, some voters cast ballots strategically.
Bernard Biassette, 74, a retired bank worker, voted for Hamon only to eliminate Valls, whom he saw as a greater threat to his hoped-for president — Macron.
Hamon « is throwing money out of the window, » Biassette said. « He’s not a serious candidate. »
France’s 5 main contenders in the presidential race
A look at the five main candidates competing in France’s April-May presidential election, whose outcome remains highly uncertain.
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FRANCOIS FILLON, 62
Fillon won the conservative nomination in November. He’s campaigning on promises of drastic free-market reforms, a hard line on immigration and Islam, support for traditional family values and friendlier ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Allegations that his wife, Penelope, held a fake but handsomely paid job as a parliamentary aide disrupted Fillon’s campaign during the last week. Polls suggest his biggest obstacle to advancing in the general election may be far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
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BENOIT HAMON, 49
Comparatively inexperienced, Hamon was chosen as the Socialist nominee on Sunday, defeating former Prime Minister Manuel Valls in a primary runoff.
He is a former junior minister and briefly served as education minister under President Francois Hollande. Hamon then rebelled against Hollande’s shift toward more business friendly policies and left the government in 2014. His signature proposal is to give a « universal income » of 750 euros ($800) gradually to all adults.
The Socialist candidate is now squeezed between far-left and centrist rivals.
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MARINE LE PEN, 48
Far-right leader Le Pen, who has strong anti-migrant views, wants to strengthen France’s borders and reinstate its national currency, the franc.
Since inheriting the leadership of the National Front party from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011, she has ditched its long-standing anti-Semitism to focus on economic protectionism and fears of Islam. The makeover has boosted the party’s fortunes among French voters before the spring presidential election.
Early polls show Le Pen may be among the two top contenders in the first round of the two-part election and advance to the runoff.
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EMMANUEL MACRON, 39
Centrist Emmanuel Macron, 39, is campaigning on pro-free market, pro-European views. He suggests loosening some of France’ stringent labor rules, especially the 35-hour workweek, to boost hiring.
Macron is a former investment banker. He became Hollande’s economic adviser at the Elysee Palace in 2012 and two years later, economy minister. He left the government last year after he launched his own political movement, « In Motion » (En Marche). He never has held elected office.
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JEAN-LUC MELENCHON, 65
Outspoken Jean-Luc Melenchon, 65, is a former Socialist who left the party in 2008 to create his own far-left movement, the Left Party.
Presenting himself as the people’s candidate, he is calling for reforms to make the European Union « more democratic » and advocates environment friendly measures. He promises a 1,300-euro ($1,393) minimum wage for employees, up from 1,149-euro ($1,231) now.
Melenchon was a candidate in the 2012 presidential race, coming in fourth with 11.1 percent of the votes in the first round.
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Poll of voting intentions shows France’s Fillon lost ground to centrist Macron – French presidential frontrunner Francois Fillon lost ground in his campaign for this spring’s election to centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, according to a Kantar-Sofres poll of voting intentions for Le Figaro newspaper published on Sunday.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen would come first in the election’s first round in April with 25 percent of the votes, while Fillon would garner 21-22 percent and Macron 20-21 percent, the poll showed.
In the runoff to be held on May 7, both Fillon, a conservative, and Macron were seen winning if either was pitted against Le Pen, while Macron would beat Fillon in the knockout.
The survey of voting intentions was taken on Jan. 26 and 27 – after a press report in a satirical weekly about his wife’s employment embroiled Fillon in scandal.
« A runoff without Francois Fillon is no longer ruled out, » Emmanuel Riviere at Sofres pollster told Reuters. « What boosts Emmanuel Macron’s momentum is above all Penelopegate, » he said, referring to the « fake jobs » scandal around Fillon’s wife Penelope.
Merkel challenger wants ‘fairness’ pact in German election
The man nominated to lead Germany’s center-left Social Democrats into the country’s upcoming election said Sunday that he would ask all parties to agree on a fairness pact, to prevent vitriol of the kind seen during last year’s U.S. election campaign.
Martin Schulz, a small-town mayor from western Germany who rose to become president of the European Parliament, said he wouldn’t shy away from debates with his political opponents, but that fake news about candidates and the use of so-called bots to spread messages on social media need to be stopped.
« What we saw last year during the election campaign in the United States, the lack of decency in debates, that shocked me deeply, » he told an audience in Berlin. « It opened up rifts and destroyed much in a country which once stood for freedom and tolerance. That mustn’t happen to us in Germany. »
Members of the Social Democratic Party’s national executive agreed unanimously Sunday to make Schulz their candidate for the chancellorship, a post that traditionally goes to the party which receives the greatest share of votes in a general election.
The executive’s decision needs to be confirmed at a party convention on March 19, when the 61-year-old also is expected to become party leader. Incumbent Sigmar Gabriel unexpectedly stepped down to make way for Schulz last week.
Polls put Schulz’s popularity close to that of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is running for a fourth term in the Sept. 24 vote.
A policeman’s son from Wuerselen, near the Dutch border, Schulz has spoken openly of his descent into alcoholism following an injury that ended a promising soccer career, saying he is grateful to have had a second chance in life.
He pledged to campaign for greater social justice while maintaining a « zero tolerance » policy on crime, quoting a fellow party leader who said: « I’m liberal, but not stupid. »
In his speech, Schulz also criticized President Donald Trump’s comments about women and minorities as « outrageous and dangerous, » while vowing to fight against anti-immigrant populism that’s boosted the nationalist Alternative for Germany party in recent years.
Thousands protest plan to pardon prisoners in Romania
Some 10,000 people marched through Romania’s capital and other cities on Sunday to protest a government proposal to pardon thousands of prisoners, a move critics said would set back anti-corruption efforts.
Protesters massed in Bucharest’s University Square called the ruling Social Democratic Party « the red plague. » They later marched to Victory Square, where the government has its main offices.
Premier Sorin Grindeanu has requested an emergency ordinance allowing the government to pardon prisoners to ease prison overcrowding. On Sunday, he said the protests had been « politicized » and criticized President Klaus Iohannis, who took part in a similar protest a week ago.
Critics say the proposal would benefit party allies convicted of corruption. Romania’s top prosecutor has criticized the plan.
It would primarily affect people serving sentences of less than five years, except those convicted of sexual or violent crimes.
Prisoners over age 60, pregnant women and inmates with young children would see their sentences halved regardless of the charges on which they were convicted.
According to a draft of the proposal, the government also intends to decriminalize official misconduct that involves financial damage valued at less than 200,000 lei ($47,800.)
The government says its proposal would lead to the release of 2,500 prisoners. Prison authorities estimate 3,700 would be freed.
Along with Bucharest, protests were held in the Cluj, Timisoara and more than a dozen cities around Romania.
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Under U.S. pressure on trade, Japan scrambles ahead of White House visit – Japan is scrambling to respond to intensifying trade pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe planning to meet the head of Toyota Motor Corp this week and business lobby Keidanren setting up a Trump task force.
Abe will visit Washington Feb. 10 for talks with Trump at which the U.S. leader is expected to seek quick progress toward a two-way trade deal with Japan and discuss the automotive sector.
Ahead of those talks, Abe will meet with Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda, two sources told Reuters. One of them said the meeting would take place on Friday.
In a phone call with Abe on Saturday, Trump reiterated his pledge to create jobs in the United States and asked that the Japanese auto industry contribute, the Nikkei business daily reported, quoting unidentified Japanese government officials.
The two leaders discussed the automotive industry, senior government spokesman Koichi Hagiuda told reporters after the phone call, without giving details. A White House statement said the two « committed to deepen the bilateral trade and investment relationship. » Abe has left open the door to discussing a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States but some officials worry Japan would have little to gain while coming under intense pressure from Washington. Bilateral talks on specific sectors such as autos, however, are an option, officials have said.
Trump, who last week dropped out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership pushed by his predecessor Barack Obama and favoured by Abe, has repeatedly attacked Japan’s auto market as closed in an echo of criticism heard two decades ago.
Japan has rejected that criticism, saying it does not impose tariffs on U.S. auto imports nor put up discriminatory non-tariff barriers.
Over the decades, Japanese automakers have developed SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks specifically targeting American consumers’ taste for bigger cars, while U.S. brands have struggled to make inroads in Japan, where drivers overwhelmingly prefer domestic brands.
Foreign-branded cars accounted for only 7 percent of the passenger car market, led by Germany. American brands collectively made up less than a third of 1 percent of passenger cars sold in Japan last year.
TRUMP TASK FORCE Toyota has come under fire from Trump for plans, announced in 2015, to shift production of its Corolla to Mexico from Canada. Earlier this month, Japan’s top automaker said it would invest $10 billion in the United States over the next five years, the same as the previous five years.
Toyota says it directly employed about 40,000 American workers as of December 2015 and indirectly more than 200,000 if dealers and suppliers are included.
Japan’s biggest business lobby Keidanren wants to beef up its information gathering and analysis of the Trump administration’s policies while also conveying data on Japan Inc’s importance to the U.S. economy, a Keidanren official said.
« We will create a task force the main purpose of which is to convey correct information about the contribution of Japanese firms in the United States, » said another Keidanren official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to media.
Japan’s government is already trying to give Trump’s administration a crash course on its companies’ contribution to U.S. jobs and growth, with fact sheets showing, among other things, that Japanese companies created 839,000 jobs in America, second only to Britain.
Tokyo came under harsh U.S. criticism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Japan accounted for up to 60 percent of the U.S. trade deficit.
But now its share has shrunk to less than 10 percent, while China’s has ballooned to nearly 50 percent – something Japanese officials are trying to stress to American counterparts.
Automobiles and car parts account for about three-quarters of the overall Japan-U.S. trade gap, making it an easy target.
Japanese media have begun reminiscing about the heated U.S.-Japan auto talks 20 years ago. A last-minute deal in June 1995 averted U.S. tariffs on Japanese luxury cars when Japan’s automakers crafted « voluntary plans » to boost purchases of American auto parts and expand production in the United States
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ANALYSIS-Border tax ideas roil oil markets, favor Gulf Coast refiners – As with many industries now fretting over the uncertain future of U.S. trade policy, the oil business is sizing up the potential impact of the various protectionist measures being bandied about Washington – which have sent crude markets into a tizzy.
The trade proposal with the most momentum may be the controversial tax reform, pushed by Republicans in Congress, that could slap a tax of up to 20 percent on all imports, including crude oil. That would spark a rise in fuel costs across the country that would hurt East and West Coast refiners more than those near the Gulf of Mexico.
It would also hit the pocketbooks of drivers and airline passengers, as refiners pass on the nearly $30 billion that the tax could cost them each year on crude imports.
« The consumer is really the one that suffers, » Cynthia Warner, executive vice president for operations at refiner Tesoro Corp, said earlier this month at a conference in Houston. Tesoro operates seven refineries: two in California, two in North Dakota and one each in Utah, Alaska and Washington.
The « border adjustment » tax could also redraw trade maps for global flows of crude and refined products. U.S. crude producers would be the obvious beneficiaries as their overseas rivals bear heavy taxes on imports, which are used often by coastal refiners, especially those without direct access to U.S. pipelines.
Higher prices for domestic crude would make pumping from more U.S. fields economically viable – encouraging higher output from the shale patch and giving more momentum to a nascent recovery in the U.S. shale industry after a brutal international price war.
While that likely would not put a big dent in the 7.9 million barrels per day (bpd) that the U.S. imports, Goldman Sachs estimates that U.S. oil exploration and production firms would benefit to the tune of $20 billion from higher domestic crude price and increased production.
Crude markets have been buffeted by the public back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and the Republican party over various tax proposals.
Contradictory signals from Trump sent the oil markets up and down in recent days. U.S. crude fell to its biggest discount to Brent crude in five months last week after Trump appeared to poured cold water on the idea as « too complex ».
The next day, he said the tax would be discussed – and U.S. crude rose relative to Brent.
Traders had speculated on the tax with an options bet that the value of U.S. crude would rise above the global Brent crude benchmark. Trump’s comments caused volatility in trade of those options, which in turn impacted benchmark oil prices.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated in a report this week the border tax proposal had a 20 percent chance of passing. But White House chief of staff Reince Priebus seemed to move the President closer to supporting the border adjustment tax on Thursday, in the context of discussing how to make Mexico pay for a security wall on U.S. border with Mexico, his signature campaign promise.
Asked if Trump favored a border adjustment tax, Priebus said such a tax would be « one way » of paying for the border wall.
$30 BILLION IN IMPORT COSTS Border taxes are part of a broader tax reform plan that is being pushed by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan as an alternative to a variety of protectionist trade policies discussed in a more ad hoc way by Trump.
While Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on specific industries or countries in an effort to boost U.S. manufacturing, Ryan’s border adjustment tax would tax all imports at 20 percent. Exports would be tax-free.
That could add more than $30 billion to the annual import bill for U.S. refiners, assuming an oil price of $53 per barrel on the 7.9 million bpd of imports that fuel the world’s largest economy.
A steep rise in import costs would squeeze the margins of refiners dependent on foreign crude shipments such as Chevron and PBF Energy.
But all refiners would see feedstock prices rise if the tax pushed up domestic crude prices – and it would, because there is not enough U.S. crude to meet demand.
To cover the costs to refiners, retail gasoline prices would need to increase by 13 percent, or 30 cents a gallon, energy consultant Philip Verleger estimated in a report last month. Diesel would rise by 11 percent, or 27 cents a gallon.
That would be the equivalent of adding $300 to $400 per year to the average consumers’ gasoline tab, Barclays Capital said earlier this month.
Aside from oil refiners, automakers and retailers oppose the tax. Those against the measure include billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, who spend heavily to support Republican candidates and conservative policies and own a refinery that imports crude.
Republicans, who now control the House and Representatives and the Senate, say that if U.S. companies want the lower corporation tax from its current level of 35 percent – a move supported by both Trump and Ryan – then they have to accept the border tax on imports.
COSTS FOR COASTAL REFINERS The refining industry as a whole opposes the tax, which would separate it from the global oil marketplace. But East and West Coast refiners have more reason to worry.
Coastal refiners import more foreign oil and typically have a competitive advantage over inland counterparts in accessing imports because they can buy a wider range of crude oil in various qualities.
That advantage would evaporate with the tax.
« Anybody who is importing crude and not exporting very much – mostly refiners on the East and West Coasts – is going to be in a worse position, » said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products research at Morningstar. « Their raw material cost will have gone up, and that will eat into their margins. » Chevron, which operates two refineries in California with capacity of more than 500,000 barrels per day, is the largest importer of foreign crude, according to government data from 2016.
For the first ten months of 2016, Chevron imported some 213 million barrels, excluding Canadian imports. That’s followed by Valero Energy, which imported 194 million barrels, and Phillips 66, which imported 130 million barrels.
Phillips 66 said it was analyzing the potential impacts of such a law, while Chevron, Valero and PBF Energy did not respond to requests for comment.
West Coast refiners may feel the pinch less than those on the East Coast, because they have access to Alaskan crude cargoes.
U.S. Gulf refiners would be on the best footing, traders say, because of their easy access to domestic and foreign supplies and proximity to export markets for tax-free fuel shipments out.
Trump ban inspires wide anger, some applause across world
Anger and dismay, along with congratulations from Europe’s far-right, rippled across the world Sunday as politicians, community leaders and even a sports star reacted to the entry ban U.S. President Donald Trump imposed on refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations.
As the realization sank in that people with dual-citizenship who live outside the targeted Mideast and African countries would be affected, condemnation mixed with concern about families with traveling members who could be prevented from returning to the United States they call home.
Olympic long-distance running champion Mo Farah — born in Somalia, citizen and knight of Britain, U.S. resident and currently training in Ethiopia — wondered how he would tell his children that « daddy might not be able to come home. »
The ban, Farah said in a statement on his Facebook page, « comes from a place of ignorance and prejudice » and « seems to have made me an alien. »
In Iran, director Asghar Farhadi said the ban had prompted him to skip this year’s Academy Awards, where his film « The Salesman » is nominated for best foreign language film.
He condemned the « unjust conditions forced upon some of my compatriots and the citizens of the other six countries, » and expressed « hope that the current situation will not give rise to further divide between nations. »
Etihad Airways, the United Arab Emirates’ national airline, said some of its passengers were affected by the new policies and like other major airlines, was working closely with American officials on the matter.
Leaders of Britain and Germany joined other American allies in criticizing Trump’s entry ban, even as some far-right politicians expressed hope the move would inspire similar measures in Europe.
British Prime Minister Theresa May does « not agree » with Trump’s order and will challenge the U.S. government if it has an adverse effect on British nationals, a spokesman said. The official comment came after May said during a meeting Saturday with Turkish leaders the decision was a matter solely for the U.S.
Her main political rival, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, called for Trump to be banned from visiting Britain until the temporary travel restrictions are rescinded.
A petition on the British Parliament’s website attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures backing its call for Trump, who has been invited to meet Queen Elizabeth II, to be barred on the basis of misogyny and vulgarity.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has drawn fire for her government’s welcoming refugee policies, also regretted the ban.
Merkel raised the issue during a phone call with Trump Saturday, citing the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention that calls on signatories to take in people fleeing war, spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
« She is convinced that even the necessary, resolute fight against terrorism doesn’t justify putting people of a particular origin or particular faith under general suspicion, » Seibert said.
He said Germany’s government « will now examine what consequences the U.S. government’s measures have for German citizens with dual citizenship and, if necessary, represent their interests toward our American partners. »
The order Trump issued Friday includes a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, and a 120-day suspension of the U.S. refugee program.
Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr reacted by suggesting all Americans should be forced out of Iraq in retaliation, according to a statement from his office.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, also was sharp in her criticism of Trump’s move.
« All men are first and foremost human beings, with their inalienable rights, » Mogherini wrote in a blog post. She added: « It feels so strange that we need to restate this, just days after Holocaust Remembrance Day. »
In contrast, nationalist and far-right groups in Europe applauded the restrictions and said they should be used a model for the continent.
The Dutch anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders said in a tweet: « Well done @POTUS it’s the only way to stay safe + free. I would do the same. Hope you’ll add more Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia soon. »
The far-right National Democratic Party in Germany celebrated « the massive restriction on the entry of pseudo-refugees and Muslims to the USA. »
In Italy, the leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League party also expressed admiration. « What Trump’s doing on the other side of the ocean, I’d like it done also here, » Matteo Salvini told reporters.
Referring to the hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers and economic migrants rescued while crossing the Mediterranean and brought to Italy in recent years, Salvini said there is « an invasion underway which needs to be blocked. » He is pressing for early elections and courting other far-right leaders for a possible campaign coalition.
Italy’s Interior Minister Marco Minniti, who had held top security roles in recent governments, warned against « equating immigration and terrorism. »
« Let’s be careful, » he said in a speech Sunday to officials from the main government coalition party, the Democrats. « Dissatisfaction and marginalization becomes the culture terrain of terrorism. »
Day after Putin call, GOP warns Trump on lifting sanctionsA day after Donald Trump’s first call as president with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, leading congressional Republicans made clear they oppose any attempt by the new administration to wipe away U.S. penalties imposed on Moscow by the Obama White House.
« I’m absolutely opposed to lifting sanctions on the Russians, » Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday. « If anything, we ought to be looking at increasing them. »
The White House said the issue of sanctions wasn’t discussed during Saturday’s nearly one-hour conversation, which both sides described in positive terms.
Trump, who has said he wants a better relationship with Russia, has been noncommittal on the matter, and his spokesman, Sean Spicer, said Sunday that no decision has been made.
The Obama administration hit Russia with several rounds of punishing sanctions in 2014 in response to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and support for separatists fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine. These penalties targeted sectors of Russia’s economy, major companies and people in Putin’s inner circle.
Shortly before leaving office, Obama also ordered sanctions on Russian spy agencies, closed two Russian compounds in the U.S. and expelled 35 diplomats that he said were really spies. These sanctions followed an assessment by U.S. intelligence that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump.
Sen. Rob Portman, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it would be a « huge mistake for American foreign policy » to remove the sanctions « until the reasons those sanctions were put in place are resolved. »
Portman, R-Ohio, is part of a bipartisan group of senators who have introduced legislation that would extend the sanctions and put them into law.
McConnell held back on supporting that effort: « Well, we’ll wait and see. I hope the president will follow our advice and not be lifting the sanctions on the Russians. »
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus refused to say whether the subject of Russian interference in the election was raised during Saturday’s call.
« What I will tell you is that it was a positive call, » Priebus said. The two leaders discussed working together in eradicating the Islamic State group and « resolving problems around the world, including Syria, » he said Sunday, going little beyond the brief White House statement issued shortly after the call.
The Kremlin statement was broader. Although there was no mention of the sanctions, it said Putin and Trump discussed the importance of « restoring mutually beneficial trade and economic ties between business circles of the two countries. »
The Kremlin also said Putin and Trump spoke in particular about international issues, including the fight against terrorism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran’s nuclear program, the situation on the Korean peninsula and the Ukraine crisis.
Moscow has applauded Trump’s promises to rebuild U.S.-Russian relations, which have been pushed to their worst level since the Cold War.
Trump on Saturday signed a presidential memorandum on a plan to defeat the Islamic State group. It included the possibility of teaming up with « new coalition partners » and suggested pairing up with Russia wasn’t off the table.
Trump’s tempered approach to U.S.-Russia relations has raised concern among several European allies who believe keeping Russia in check is essential to regional security.
McConnell and Spicer appeared on ABC’s « This Week. » Portman was on CNN’s « State of the Union, » while Priebus spoke on CBS’ « Face the Nation. »
Australian leader says Trump agrees to accept refugees President Donald Trump had agreed to keep an Obama administration promise to resettle refugees languishing in Pacific island camps despite the U.S. toughening its stance on Muslim immigration, the Australian prime minister said Monday.
Trump had agreed that during a 25-minute telephone conversation on Sunday to accept an unspecified number of refugees as promised in the final months of the previous administration, ending weeks of uncertainty, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.
« I thank President Trump for his commitment to honor that existing agreement, » Turnbull told reporters. He declined to say how many refugees might be resettled in the United States.
The Obama administration had agreed to resettle refugees among the almost 1,300 asylum seekers held on the island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Another 370 who came to Australia for medical treatment and then refused to return to the islands would also be eligible.
Most of the asylum seekers are Muslims from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Australia refuses to resettle any refugee who has arrived by boat since the date the tough policy was announced on July 19, 2013, and pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to house them and has been searching for countries that will resettle them.
Few refugees have accepted offers to resettle in Papua New Guinea and Cambodia because most hope that Australia will eventually take them in.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have already begun screening asylum seekers on Nauru, and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Monday that the screening « could take some time. »
Turnbull declined to comment on Trump’s immigration order that effects travel to the United States for people from seven Muslim-majority countries. Turnbull said no Australian had sought consular assistance over the order, which has sowed chaos and outrage across the United States with travelers detained at airports and protesters demanding the order be changed.
« It’s not my job, as prime minister of Australia, to run a commentary on the domestic policies of other countries, » Turnbull said.
Any refugee who refuses to go to the United States would be given a 20-year visa to stay on Nauru, a tiny impoverished atoll with a population of 10,000 people.
The Refugee Council of Australia, an advocacy group, has welcomed the deal as a first step in ending the indefinite detention of asylum seekers on the islands. The London-based rights group Amnesty International has accused Australia of taking « an extreme step in shirking responsibility. »
Turnbull has said the most vulnerable refugees would be given priority.
Canada to offer temp permits to those stranded by Trump ban
Canada will offer temporary residency permits to travelers who become stranded here by President Donald Trump’s order banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations, the immigration minister said Sunday.
Ahmed Hussen, a Somali refugee, was recently named Canada’s immigration minister. He said no one is currently stranded at the country’s airports by the ban.
« Let me assure those who may be stranded in Canada that I will use my authority as minister to provide them with temporary residency if they need it, as we have done so in the past, » Hussen said.
Hussen said White House officials have offered assurances that permanent Canadian residents can enter the U.S. if they have a valid Canadian permanent resident card and a passport from one of the countries affected. Permanent residents are the equivalent of green card holders in the United States.
Dual citizens with a Canadian passport can still enter the U.S. The U.S. State Department had initially said that dual Canadian citizens were included in the ban.
But Daniel Jean, Canada’s national security adviser, said Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn assured him that dual Canadian citizens are not affected.
He said he first learned of the ban on travelers through the news media, and doesn’t believe the measure makes the world any safer.
Meanwhile, more than 200 leaders of Canada’s technology sector signed an open letter urging the federal government to provide working visas to tech workers affected by the Trump administration’s action. The letter requests visas allowing people who were working in the sector in the U.S. to now live and work in Canada with access to benefits while they apply for permanent residency, if they choose.
Jennifer Moss, who co-founded a Canadian tech company and speaks for an organization called Tech Without Borders, said such visas could help workers who are blocked from returning to U.S. jobs.
« If you’re not interested in keeping people that are extremely talented, intelligent, brilliant minds from all around the world, and turning them away at the borders, we’re happy to take those people in our country, » Moss said.
Mexican president gets new invite to US — from border state Mexican President Enrique Pe?a Nieto has a new diplomatic invitation to visit the United States after canceling a trip to Washington in response to President Donald Trump’s plans to build a border wall — this time from a trio of Democratic lawmakers in the heavily Hispanic state of New Mexico.
Democratic state Rep. Javier Martinez of Albuquerque said Sunday that Trump’s insistence on making Mexico pay for a border wall extension is a threat to centuries-old economic and cultural ties between Mexico and the state of New Mexico, including recent investments by taxpayers in the Santa Teresa-San Jeronimo border crossing that have spurred trade.
Martinez, with state Reps. Bill McCamley of Mesilla Park and Angelica Rubio of Las Cruces, sent a letter Friday inviting Pe?a Nieto to address the New Mexico House Chamber during the current legislative session.
« If you look at the way Trump has spoken out against the Mexican president, the country of Mexico, his position to build this very expensive wall across the border and then his suggestions that it be paid for with a 20 percent tariff on imports — those are all statements and actions that can only be detrimental to the state of New Mexico, » said Martinez, an attorney and El Paso native who spent part of his childhood in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
There’s no word yet if Mexico’s president will accept the invitation. The decision by Pe?a Nieto to scrap a planned Jan. 31 meeting with Trump in Washington has boosted the Mexican president’s lagging popularity as he struggles to contain rising crime, a sluggish economy and a series of corruption scandals in his party.
Republican New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez has avoided criticizing Trump on his executive action pushing a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
A spokesman for Gov. Martinez said Friday that she « supports strengthening our border and giving the federal government a variety of tools » to protect residents, while declining to comment specifically on the border wall.
The second-term governor — of no relation to Javier Martinez — said last year that building fences could impact the U.S. economy and relationship with trading partners in Mexico and farther south.
Martinez was a vocal critic of Trump during the presidential campaign for his derogatory comments about Mexican immigrants and women.
Trump lost the popular vote in New Mexico to Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 8 percentage points.
Mexico president gets a bounce from clash with Trump
Just a few days ago, Enrique Pena Nieto was a pariah president, dogged by protests and cursed with the lowest approval rating for a Mexican leader in recent history.
No more, thanks to Donald Trump.
Months of Trump’s insults to Mexican migrants, threats to build a vast border wall to keep out them out, deport those who’ve arrived and impose crippling taxes on Mexican exports were met with teeth-clenched restraint by Pena Nieto’s government — infuriating many Mexicans.
But when Trump repeatedly insisted Pena Nieto accept paying for the wall, Pena Nieto finally had enough and scrapped a planned Jan. 31 meeting with Trump in Washington.
Suddenly, the nation rallied around him.
« We have to support the president of Mexico, so he can defend the country’s interests, » said telecom magnate Carlos Slim, the world’s fourth-richest man. « I would be very interested in seeing this unity last. »
Even the government’s most prominent critic, leftist presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has called on Mexicans who three weeks ago were marching in the streets against the government’s polices to support Pena Nieto.
Rising crime, a sluggish economy and a series of corruption scandals in his party had already sent the president’s popularity reeling. Things got even worse when the government — which originally promised lower fuel prices — imposed a sudden 20-percent increase. Nationwide protests and widespread looting broke out and Pena Nieto’s approval ratings collapsed to a historic low of 12 percent in mid-January.
Then came the mini-showdown with Trump.
« Under a national crisis people rally around a leader. Now he’s got to keep leading, that’s important, » said Peter Schechter, senior vice president for strategic Initiatives at the Atlantic Council. « There has to be perception he continues to lead. »
Former presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar saId the popularity bounce for Pena Nieto may be short-lived.
« There is a certain feeling of unity around the president, » Aguilar said. « But it is very possible that this sentiment could evaporate. »
While most Mexicans were flabbergasted that Pena Nieto chose to meet the Mexico-bashing Trump before the election, many economic and political analysts praised his cautious diplomacy, meant to avoid a potentially catastrophic rupture with a northern neighbor that that buys 80 percent of the country’s exports.
But traditional cautious diplomacy may not always work in the Trump era.
« Being friendly, being courteous, now appears to be weak, and Mexico should not and cannot appear to be weak, » Aguilar said.
Trump has endlessly repeated that he’ll make Mexico pay for a border wall, and Mexican officials have endlessly ridiculed the idea.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told CBS’ « Face the Nation » on Sunday that the administration hasn’t yet determined just how to make Mexico pay.
He said the « buffet of options » could include a tax on goods coming across the border, import and export taxes — even a tax on drug cartels or fines to people who come to the U.S. illegally.
Schechter noted that the spat could increase the popularity of Lopez Obrador, « who espouses weakening ties with the United States. It is a troubling development for a relationship that has few parallels throughout the world. »
Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who advocates developing the country’s internal economy, has already declared his intention to make a third run for the presidency in 2018. Lopez Obrador narrowly lost in his first two tries, but Mexico could be a different, angrier place in 2018 with a wall sealing it off from the United States, millions of deported migrants and a potential recession caused by scrapped trade agreement with its northern neighbor.
Still, Lopez Obrador — a fiery, irascible and unyielding leftist — may suffer if Mexicans start seeing parallels with Trump’s behavior.
« I don’t see this as automatically implying more votes for Andres Manuel, » Aguilar said. « It may instead prove damaging to him, if comparisons are made. »
« If they are compared, the Mexican public could think, ‘Gee, it’s tough to vote for a messianic guy who’s going to get into trouble with the United States.' »
With students stranded abroad, colleges condemn travel ban
Dozens of U.S. colleges are opposing President Donald Trump’s sweeping travel ban that has left some students and professors stranded abroad.
The presidents of several universities on Sunday issued scathing attacks of Trump’s executive order halting immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations. Many said it’s already disrupting research and academics for their scholars, while some suggested they would defy the ban as far as legally possible.
The Association of American Universities, which represents 62 schools, urged Trump to reverse the order and said it will only steer top scholars to countries that compete with the United States.
Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University and a former Republican governor of Indiana, called the order « a bad idea, poorly implemented, » and called on Trump to revoke it.
The ban, which blocks immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, has been put on hold after federal judges in New York and Boston stepped in. But some students and scholars from those countries remain caught in legal limbo, stranded while traveling abroad or visiting home during the recent holiday break.
Ata Anzali, an assistant professor of religion at Vermont’s Middlebury College, has been living in his home country of Iran since last summer to conduct research. His family booked flights that would have brought them back to the U.S. just before noon Sunday, but Anzali changed his mind at the last minute. He said he canceled two flights because he feared his children might get snarled by the travel ban.
« I don’t want my kids to go through this traumatic experience of being detained or deported, » Anzali told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Iran. « This is causing so much confusion, what are we supposed to do? »
Yale University doctoral student Ali Abdi, who is from Iran, left the U.S. days before the order was signed to conduct research in Afghanistan. Now he doesn’t know if he can return.
« I cannot go to Iran, my home country, because I’ve been a human rights activist over the past 10 years and I might face some sort of persecution, » he said. « I’m in a situation where it seems I am neither welcome by the Iranian government or the American government. »
A Stanford University student from Sudan who is a legal resident in the U.S. was detained for hours after arriving in New York on Friday but later allowed in.
« An unfortunate consequence of the new policy appears to be that students and scholars from designated countries are, for the moment, effectively detainees in this country, » Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and other leaders from the school wrote in a letter.
University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan said several students and faculty members were traveling abroad when the order was signed, including two professors from Iran who were temporarily detained at Logan Airport in Boston even though they’re permanent U.S. residents.
« This is not the country we promised to them when we invited them to study, teach and conduct research here, » Meehan wrote.
Students and scholars from several other colleges also have been stuck, including from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Clark Atlanta University.
More than 17,000 students from the seven counties affected by the ban studied at American colleges last year, according to data from the State Department and the nonprofit Institute of International Education. More than 12,000 of those were from Iran.
As spring break approaches, some international students were planning to visit home or take academic trips abroad. But now, many colleges are urging them to reconsider.
Schools including Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Tufts University in Boston guided students from nations under the ban to avoid all travel outside the U.S. Many are advising to students to determine whether it’s safe to travel.
On social media, some schools received praise Sunday for saying they would do everything in their power to protect immigrants on campus.
The University of Michigan said its campus police don’t ask about immigration status and don’t partner with federal officials to enforce immigration laws. Duke University said it « cannot and will not share confidential student records with law enforcement agencies — local, state, or federal — without a subpoena. »
Longtime US residents, aspiring citizens caught up in ban
A woman traveling to Indiana to care for her cancer-stricken mother, a family physician who has lived in the U.S. for two decades, and a Minneapolis woman about to become a U.S. citizen were among those caught in the net cast by President Donald Trump when he banned travelers from entering the country from Muslim-majority nations.
Here are their stories:
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Sahar Algonaimi, a 58-year-old Syrian woman coming to the U.S. to care for her cancer-stricken mother was put on a plane Saturday and sent back to Saudi Arabia hours after arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
When her 76-year-old mother became ill, Algonaimi’s sister, Nour Ulayyet, asked her to come to their home in Valparaiso, Indiana, to help take care of her. Their mother underwent a mastectomy Friday.
Algonaimi had visited just last year and still had a U.S. visa good until June 2018.
After texting to say her plane had touched down, she never arrived at the gate. A man identifying himself as an immigration officer eventually called Ulayyet to say her sister was being put aboard a flight back to Saudi Arabia, where she teaches school.
« I asked if I could speak to a supervisor, » Ulayyet said. « He was very nice, very sympathetic, but he said, ‘Literally for me to help I’m going to be breaking the law and I’m not going to break the law.' »
Before Algonaimi left officials had her sign paperwork that she told her sister she didn’t understand. It canceled her visa.
« I really can’t put it in words how much sadness I feel and the sense of injustice we feel, » Ulayyet said Sunday as she choked up.
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Dr. Sarwa Aldoori, a family physician from Bakersfield, California, was returning home Saturday from an eight-day religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia when she was startled to be pulled aside from the rest of her group.
« Everything was OK until I got to the customs checking point and my colleagues and friends went through and the guy looked at my passport and eyed me and he said step aside, » Aldoori said Sunday, her voice shaking as she tearfully described the ordeal.
She was released and reunited with her husband after nine hours.
Aldoori, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., said she made a similar pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last year — « a very special visit in the life of every Muslim » — without incident.
As she cried and asked to know why she couldn’t leave the airport this time, the doctor, who has lived in the United States since 1996, said an officer finally told her, « It’s because you were born in Iraq. »
« I looked at him and I said, ‘You know, I am 62 years old. What did I do wrong?’ He didn’t say anything, he just looked at the floor and said have a seat. »
Although angry and shaken, she said she still plans to become a U.S. citizen someday.
« I’m not going to let something like that stop me, » she said defiantly. « We used to have decent people in government and now we don’t. »
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Fateme Farmad was returning from Iran to her Minneapolis home with her 11-month-old son when she was detained and questioned for more than 12 hours at Los Angeles International Airport.
Farmad and her family had traveled to Iran last month to visit relatives. Her husband, Masoud Samet, returned to the U.S. for work on Jan. 6 while she and other family members stayed for a wedding.
When the group returned Saturday, her brother, a U.S. citizen, was immediately allowed back in. She, her son and her mother were detained.
« They are OK, but they are very tired and the situation was unexpected and very horrible, » said her husband.
Attorneys who filed legal action demanding Farmad’s release accused officials at the airport of attempting to coerce her into signing papers relinquishing her permanent resident status.
Farmad, who has lived in the United States for five years, is scheduled to take her oath of citizenship on Feb. 13.
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Nazanin Zinouri had only been in Iran a couple of days for a family visit when she began to hear rumors that citizens of Muslim-majority nations would be banned from returning to the United States.
The U.S. resident of nearly seven years tried to return home immediately but flights were delayed in Tehran by heavy snow. She’d only gotten as far as Dubai when the ban went into effect and authorities refused to let her board a plane to the United States.
She said by phone Sunday she’s been spending her time following the news and worrying about her rescue dog, Dexter, her home, her car and her job. She works for a technology firm in South Carolina.
« What’s going to happen to my dog? My dog is sick. Is anyone going to adopt him? » she asked. « Am I going to lose my job forever? »
Zinouri, 29, has a master’s degree from Northern Illinois University and a Ph.D. from Clemson University.
She had gone to Iran to see her mother, brother and sister.
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Abdollah Mostafavi was traveling to San Francisco for hip replacement surgery when the 80-year-old green-card holder was suddenly stopped at San Francisco International Airport.
Mostafavi, who has relatives in Canada and the U.S., splits his time between those countries and his native Iran.
When he was finally released after six hours Saturday his 8-year-old grandson ran to hug him as his 46-year-old daughter fought back tears.
« I’m worried sick, » his daughter, Mozhgan Mostafavi, had told the AP as she waited at the airport for him. « I don’t know any Iranians who have been in a terrorist attack. It’s so dehumanizing. It’s so insulting. I grew up during the Revolution in Iran and I feel that same suffocation. It’s hard to breathe. »
She said Sunday her father told her he’d been held for hours in a room with about 15 other Iranians.
« He said it seemed they had the order to detain them but had no idea what to do next, » she said.
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An Iraqi immigrant couple who arrived in Maine with two daughters just days before citizens of Muslim-majority nations were banned from entering the country are awaiting word on the fate of their oldest daughter, who didn’t get out in time.
Labed Alalhanfy, his wife, Soso, and their 13- and 19-year-old daughters arrived in the United States from Baghdad on Tuesday.
Their 20-year-old daughter, Bananh, a student at the American University in Iraq, had planned to join them shortly.
« She is now very anxious and scared, » said Alalhanfy.
He described his family as secular Muslims, which puts his daughter at some risk of remaining in Iraq without her family.
« The neighbors will start to notice. People will start questioning, especially because she is female. It is a critical situation, » Alalhanfy said Saturday in an interview with the Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/2k5RGhO).
Somalia-born Farah troubled by Trump’s travel ban
Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, saying Sunday the temporary travel ban « seems to have made me an alien » and leaves him unsure whether he can return to his U.S. home.
Farah is a British citizen who was born in Somalia, one of seven predominantly Muslim nations subject to the executive order signed by Trump that currently bars entry to the United States.
Farah currently is training in Ethiopia. His wife, Tania, and four children are in Portland, Oregon, where the Farah family has lived for the last six years.
« It’s deeply troubling, » the 33-year-old Farah said in a statement on his Facebook page, « that I will have to tell my children that Daddy might not be able to come home — to explain why the President has introduced a policy that comes from a place of ignorance and prejudice. »
Farah and his representatives are trying to establish whether the fact he was born in Somalia will now present a problem for him when he wishes to return to the United States. Farah has a British passport and does not have dual nationality or hold a Somalian passport.
« We are seeking to clarify the situation with the US authorities, » Farah’s agent, Jo Livingston, told The Associated Press in an email. « Mo is currently at a training camp and is not planned to return to the U.S. for a number of weeks. However, as I’m sure you can appreciate, he and Tania want to understand the direct impact on them (if any) as a matter of urgency. »
Farah moved to Britain from Somalia at the age of 8 and is now regarded as one of the greatest-ever athletes in British sport after winning the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games and at the 2013 and ’15 world championships. He also won the 5,000 gold at the 2011 world championships and was recently given a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II.
« On 1st January this year, Her Majesty The Queen made me a Knight of the Realm. On 27th January, President Donald Trump seems to have made me an alien, » Farah said in his statement.
« I am a British citizen who has lived in America for the past six years — working hard, contributing to society, paying my taxes and bringing up our four children in the place they now call home. Now, me and many others like me are being told that we may not be welcome. »
Syrian musician in limbo after travel ban
A Syrian musician who was allowed to legally immigrate to the United States on account of his « extraordinary » abilities, and who recently toured with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, is now wondering whether he can return to his Brooklyn home.
Kinan Azmeh, a clarinet player who has called the U.S. home for 16 years, said Sunday he does not have a « plan B » if he is not allowed to return.
Azmeh, who flew to China three weeks ago to perform with Ma, was caught in travel limbo after President Donald Trump issued an order last Friday to refuse entry to citizens of Syria and six other Muslim-majority nations, including travelers holding valid visas and residency permits.
He was granted a green card three years ago through an EB-1 visa, for applicants who can demonstrate « extraordinary ability » in science, business, or art.
The 40-year-old is currently in Beirut on the last leg of his tour before he will attempt to return home later this week. He also performed with Ma in Denmark.
« I have my apartment. You know, 16 years is not a short time, you accumulate lots of stuff, » he said. « But what is not replaceable is all the friends who are incredibly supportive. »
He said he was flooded with messages of support in the hours after the executive order, which is being challenged by civil rights attorneys in federal courts. Several judges have granted injunctions against the order, but lawyers say border control officers at several airports still have not granted them access to detained travelers. They say they are afraid the deportations will continue.
Azmeh said he was « positively surprised » by the support shown by demonstrators at U.S airports.
« I am holding onto the optimist in me, » he said.
Confusion about cases such as Azmeh’s remained, even though Trump’s aides stressed during a round of Sunday show interviews that only a small portion of travelers had been affected by the order.
The aides said Sunday that citizens of the seven affected countries who hold permanent U.S. residency « green cards » will not be barred from re-entering the country, as officials had said the day before.
Azmeh grew up in Damascus, Syria, before coming to the U.S. to pursue his doctorate in music. He stayed in the U.S. for years on a student visa, before applying for permanent immigration status three years ago.
« It seemed like the natural step, » he said. « New York is where I developed my musical skills, and where I grew as an artist. »
He says he considers himself fortunate to be able to call two cities his home, the Syrian capital and New York, even though he has not been able to visit Damascus since Syria descended into war nearly six years ago. Neighbors in Damascus have told Azmeh that his apartment there has been looted twice.
Millions of Syrians are not so lucky. Half the country’s population has been displaced, according to the U.N., and an estimated 400,000 have been killed.
« I think of my countrymen and women, people who were forced out of their homes, and have to repeat that again — that is the worst case scenario, » he said.
Iranian director to skip Oscars over Trump’s travel ban
An Oscar-nominated Iranian director said Sunday he will not attend this year’s Academy Awards because of a travel ban imposed by President Donald Trump.
Asghar Farhadi, an acclaimed director whose film, « The Salesman, » was nominated for best foreign language film, said the uncertainty surrounding his ability to travel to the United States was « in no way acceptable, » and that he would not attend next month’s ceremony even if an exception to the ban were possible.
An executive order issued last week temporarily bans the entry of citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. The administration says it is necessary to keep out potential terrorists while stricter vetting procedures are put in place.
Farhadi became the first Iranian to win an Oscar, for his 2011 film, « A Separation. »
He said he had initially hoped to attend the awards and express his opinions in the press surrounding the event.
« However, it now seems that the possibility of this presence is being accompanied by ifs and buts which are in no way acceptable to me even if exceptions were to be made for my trip, » he said.
He compared « hard-liners » in the United States to those in his own country, saying both « have tried to present to their people unrealistic and fearful images of various nations and cultures in order to turn their differences into disagreements, their disagreements into enmities and their enmities into fears. »
He went on to condemn the « unjust conditions forced upon some of my compatriots and the citizens of the other six countries, » and expressed « hope that the current situation will not give rise to further divide between nations. »
In a statement released Saturday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expressed concern that Farhadi and his cast and crew may not be permitted to attend the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles, calling it « extremely troubling. »
On Thursday, Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, star of the « The Salesman, » tweeted she would boycott the Oscars — whether allowed to attend or not — in protest of Trump’s immigration policies, which she called « racist. »
The ban is affecting other Oscar nominees as well. On Sunday, a statement was issued by the producers of the Oscar-nominated documentary short « The White Helmets » saying that the film’s subjects, Syrian humanitarian workers, would not be able to attend the ceremony.
« They’ve been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize — these people are the bravest humanitarians on the planet, » said the statement from producer Joanna Natasegara. « The idea that they could not be able to come with us and enjoy that success is just abhorrent. »
Similarly, director Marcel Mettelsiefen, nominated for the documentary short « Watani: My Homeland, » about a family escaping the Syrian civil war, called the travel ban « another devastating blow to refugees who have already suffered so much. »
The Writers Guilds of America East and West issued a statement Sunday saying it condemned « Trump’s profoundly un-American ‘Muslim ban.' »
« From its early days, the entertainment industry has been built by the imagination of immigrants. Our guilds are unions of storytellers who have always welcomed those from other nations, and of varying beliefs, who wish to share their creativity with America. We are grateful to them, we stand with them, we will fight for them, » the WGA statement said.
Starbucks to hire 10,000 refugees over next 5 years Starbucks says it will hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years, a response to President Donald Trump’s indefinite suspension of Syrian refugees and temporary travel bans that apply to six other Muslim-majority nations.
Howard Schultz, the coffee retailer’s chairman and CEO, said in a letter to employees Sunday that the hiring would apply to stores worldwide and the effort would start in the United States where the focus would be on hiring immigrants « who have served with U.S. troops as interpreters and support personnel. »
Schultz, a supporter of Hillary Clinton during the presidential run, took aim at other parts of a Trump agenda focused on immigration, repealing former President Barack Obama’s health care law and restructuring trade with Mexico. The letter said that Starbucks would help support coffee growers in Mexico, provide health insurance to eligible workers if the health care law is repealed and back an Obama-era immigration program that allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to apply for a two-year reprieve from deportation and a work permit.
The move reflects the increasing complexity that businesses face when dealing with the Trump administration. Trump has met with CEOs at Ford, General Motors and Boeing and asked them to create jobs in the United States, while touting each announcement about new factory jobs as a success even if those additions had been planned before his presidential victory.
But not all corporate leaders have embraced Trump. Schultz added that Starbucks would aim to communicate with workers more frequently, saying Sunday, « I am hearing the alarm you all are sounding that the civility and human rights we have all taken for granted for so long are under attack. »
Kochs condemn Trump’s immigration crackdown Charles Koch first likened candidate Donald Trump’s plan to ban Muslim immigrants to something Adolf Hitler would have done in Nazi Germany.
The billionaire industrialist and his chief lieutenants offered a more delicate response this weekend when asked about President Trump’s plan to block immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. They described Trump’s plan as « the wrong approach » that violated its dedication to « free and open societies. »
The criticism comes as the Koch network, among the most powerful conservative groups in the nation, works to strike a delicate balance in the early days of the new administration. The Kochs refused to support Trump’s candidacy last fall, but they now see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to influence the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress.
Their optimism is fueled by strong relationships inside the administration, despite their vow to oppose Trump’s policies if they deviate from the Koch brothers’ conservative priorities.
Trump critics were easy to find at the California desert resort this weekend, where attendance at a semi-annual conference was limited to the 550 people who donate at least $100,000 each year to the various conservative political and policy groups backed by Charles and David Koch.
The critics included Charles Koch himself, although the conservative patriarch did not mention Trump by name Sunday as he warned that the nation is facing a moment of « tremendous danger. » He said the nation could « go the authoritarian route … or we can move toward a free and open society. So this is our opportunity. »
Still, the Koch network says it’s confident about its ability to shape the direction of the Trump administration’s policies from the inside.
« Many former network staffers that are in the White House now remain good friends of ours. So we’re in constant contact with them, » said Koch spokesman James Davis. « Conversations have been open and continue to be. »
There is perhaps no bigger Koch ally than Vice President Mike Pence, whose staff and ideology has been in close alignment with the Kochs for years.
Charles Koch spoke directly with the vice president on the phone days before his inauguration as Pence considered hiring a Koch communications staffer, Stephen Ford, to serve as his chief speechwriter. Ford was soon hired, along with former Koch chief Marc Short, who now serves as the White House legislative director.
« The reason we’re optimistic … is really Mike Pence, » said Doug Deason, a prominent Trump supporter and major Koch donor. « If you think Cheney had power in Bush White House, just watch and see what happens with Mike Pence. »
Several reporters, including one from The Associated Press, were invited to attend the weekend conference. As a condition of attending, photographers were not allowed and reporters were not permitted to identify any donors without their permission.
Koch and his powerful allies insist they will challenge Trump when his policies don’t align with their conservative vision.
The network plans to spend between $300 million and $400 million over the next two years to shape policy and politics, much of it devoted to its nationwide grassroots network. While there has been much talk of Trump allies creating an outside group to help promote his agenda, the Koch network’s capacity to communicate directly with voters on the ground in key states has no political rival.
The Koch’s « secret sauce, » Holden says, is « the accountability play. »
« We’re principled. And if we can’t get comfortable with the policies that are in place, then we’re not going to support them. But if we can we will support them, regardless of who’s in office, » he said.
Like Trump, the Kochs favor efforts to cut government regulation and replace the federal health-care system. They do not share the president’s plans for a massive infrastructure spending or his crackdown on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.
« The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive, » network co-chair Brian Hooks said Sunday.
« Our country has benefited tremendously from a history of welcoming people from all cultures and backgrounds, » he said. « This is a hallmark of free and open societies. »
Trump travel ban sows chaos at airports, outrage at protests
President Donald Trump’s immigration order sowed more chaos and outrage across the country Sunday, with travelers detained at airports, panicked families searching for relatives and protesters registering opposition to the sweeping measure that was blocked by several federal courts.
Attorneys struggled to determine how many people had been affected so far by the rules, which Trump said Saturday were « working out very nicely. »
But critics described widespread confusion, with an untold number of travelers being held in legal limbo because of ill-defined procedures. Lawyers manned tables at New York’s Kennedy Airport to offer help to families whose loved ones had been detained, and some 150 Chicago-area lawyers showed up at O’Hare Airport after getting an email asking for legal assistance on behalf of travelers.
« We just simply don’t know how many people there are and where they are, » said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
Advocates for travelers say the chaos is likely to continue. The executive director of National Immigration Law Center, Marielena Hincapie, said « this is just the beginning. »
« We’re really in a crisis mode, a constitutional crisis mode in our country, and we’re going to need everyone, » she said. « This is definitely one of those all-hands-on-deck moments. »
Meanwhile, protests continued across the country Sunday. Demonstrations first erupted Saturday, a day after Trump signed the order banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen. The president also suspended the U.S. refugee program for four months.
In Washington D.C., hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the White House, some holding signs that read, « We are all immigrants in America. » More than 100 protesters also gathered at the international terminal at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, cheering people arriving from Muslim countries.
At the main Dallas-Fort Worth airport, some 200 people held signs and chanted, « Let them go! » They awaited word on nine people detained at the airport, most of them Iranian, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Demonstrations also unfolded at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport and Detroit Metropolitan Airport and in suburban Chicago, where a Jewish group organized a protest to support Muslims.
Lawyers in Chicago crowded into a food court Saturday at O’Hare, some walking around with signs offering legal help. One volunteer attorney, Julia Schlozman, jumped on a subway train and headed to O’Hare even though she is a criminal attorney, not an immigration lawyer.
« I just felt like I had to do something, » she told the Chicago Tribune.
A federal judge in New York issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the government from deporting people with valid visas who arrived after Trump’s travel ban took effect. But confusion remained about who could stay and who will be kept out of the country. Federal courts in Virginia, Massachusetts and Washington state took similar action.
A more decisive ruling on the legality of the Trump action by U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly will probably take at least several weeks. Opponents and government attorneys will get a chance to lay out their arguments in filings and possibly in oral arguments in court, Gelernt said. Activists said their goal was to have Trump’s order overturned entirely.
Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, known for usually tempering his public comments, did not hold back in a statement Sunday about Trump’s measures: « Their design and implementation have been rushed, chaotic, cruel and oblivious to the realities » of security. They had, he added, ushered in « a dark moment in U.S. history. »
University presidents criticized the ban and cautioned students and professors from the seven listed countries to beware of traveling outside the U.S. for now The president of the University of Notre Dame, Father John I. Jenkins, was among the sharp critics of the ban.
« If it stands, it will over time diminish the scope and strength of the educational and research efforts of American universities, » he said Sunday in a statement. And he added: « We respectfully urge the president to rescind this order. »
There was no sign the Trump administration might heed such calls. The Department Of Homeland Security said in a statement issued Sunday that « prohibited travel will remain prohibited. »
An official with the Department of Homeland Security who briefed reporters by phone on Saturday said 109 people who were in transit on airplanes had been denied entry and 173 had not been allowed to get on their planes overseas.
No green-card holders were turned away from entering the U.S. as of Saturday, the official said, though several spent hours in detention before being allowed in.
Hameed Khalid Darweesh, a translator and assistant for the U.S. military in Iraq for 10 years now fleeing death threats, was among at least a dozen people detained at Kennedy Airport. He walked free after his lawyers, two members of Congress and as many as 2,000 demonstrators went to the airport to seek his release.
After an appeal from civil liberties lawyers, Judge Donnelly issued an emergency order Saturday barring the U.S. from summarily deporting people who arrived with valid visas or an approved refugee application, saying it would likely violate their legal rights.
Before Trump signed the order, more than 67,000 refugees had been approved by the federal government to enter the U.S., said Jen Smyers, refugee policy director for Church World Service. More than 6,400 had already been booked on flights, including 15 families that had been expected over the next few weeks in the Chicago area from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran, Syria and Uganda.
The bulk of refugees entering the U.S. are settled by religious groups. All that work ground to a halt after Trump signed the order.
White House: Immigration order ‘small price’ for safety
The White House on Sunday tried to tamp down concerns about President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration order in the face of widespread protests, as some Republicans in Congress urged him to proceed with caution in the face of legal pushback. Top congressional Republicans, however, remain largely behind the new president.
During a round of Sunday show interviews, Trump’s aides stressed that just a small portion of travelers had been affected by the order, which temporarily bars the citizens of seven majority Muslim nations from entering the country. The aides also reversed course and said that citizens of those countries who hold permanent U.S. residency « green cards » will not be barred from re-entering the U.S., as officials had previously said.
« I can’t imagine too many people out there watching this right now think it’s unreasonable to ask a few more questions from someone traveling in and out of Libya and Yemen before being let loose in the United States, » said Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus. « And that’s all this is. »
As of Sunday afternoon, one legal permanent resident had been denied entry to the country as a result of the order, according to a federal law enforcement official. The official was not permitted to discuss the order’s impact publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly issued a statement Sunday, saying he deemed the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest, and absent information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, residency would be a « dispositive factor in our case-by-case determination. »
The changes, said White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, are « a small price to pay » to keep the nation safe.
But it’s unclear whether the order, which also suspends refugee admissions for 120 days and indefinitely bars the processing of refugees from Syria, will accomplish that. The order does not address homegrown extremists already in America, a primary concern of federal law enforcement officials. And the list of countries in Trump’s order doesn’t include Saudi Arabia, where most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from.
Priebus said that other countries could be added to the list. Trump spoke by phone Sunday with leaders from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two countries not affected by the change.
The order has sparked widespread protests and denunciations from Democrats and a handful of Republicans. Many have accused the administration of rushing to implement the changes, resulting in panic and confusion at the nation’s airports.
« You have an extreme vetting proposal that didn’t get the vetting it should have had, » said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who urged the new president to « slow down » and work with lawmakers on how best to tighten screening for foreigners who enter the United States.
« In my view, we ought to all take a deep breath and come up with something that makes sense for our national security » and reflects the fact that « America’s always been a welcoming home for refugees and immigrants, » he said.
Several Democrats in Congress said they would be introducing legislation to stop the ban.
Trump, meanwhile, defended his actions, saying in a statement that America « will continue to show compassion to those fleeing oppression » while protecting its own citizens.
He said he has « tremendous feeling » for the people fleeing the bloody civil war in Syria and vowed to « find ways to help all those who are suffering. »
The White House said later that King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, had both agreed to support safe zones for refugees, but offered no further details.
The comments came the morning after a federal judge in New York issued an emergency order temporarily barring the U.S. from deporting people from the seven majority Muslim nations subject to Trump’s 90-day travel ban. The judge said travelers who had been detained had a strong argument that their legal rights had been violated.
The order barred U.S. border agents from removing anyone who arrived in the U.S. with a valid visa from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. It also covered anyone with an approved refugee application.
The Department of Homeland Security, however, said Sunday said the court ruling would not affect the overall implementation of the White House order.
« President Trump’s executive orders remain in place — prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety, » the department said in a statement.
Top congressional Republicans, meanwhile, were backing Trump despite concerns raised Sunday from a handful of GOP lawmakers.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he supports more stringent screening mechanisms, though he cautioned that Muslims are some of the country’s « best sources in the war against terror. »
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, warned of unintended consequences, expressing fear the order could « become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. »
« This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security, » they wrote.
Koch political network, which is among the most influential players in the conservative movement, also condemned the plan Sunday.
« We believe it is possible to keep Americans safe without excluding people who wish to come here to contribute and pursue a better life for their families, » network co-chairman Brian Hooks said in a statement.
Priebus was on NBC’s « Meet the Press » and Portman was on CNN’s « State of the Union, » while McConnell appeared on ABC’s « This Week. »
White House defends strategist’s clout on national security The White House on Sunday said the addition of President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to regular meetings on national security was essential to the commander in chief’s decision-making process.
Trump took steps Saturday to begin restructuring the White House National Security Council, adding the senior adviser to the principals committee, which includes the secretaries of state and defense. At the same time, Trump said his director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would attend only when « issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed. »
Bannon served in the Navy before attending Harvard Business School, working at Goldman Sachs, starting his own media-focused boutique investment banking firm and later heading the ultraconservative outlet Breitbart News, which has been condemned for featuring racist, sexist and anti-Semitic content.
« He is a former naval officer. He’s got a tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now, » White House press secretary Sean Spicer told ABC’s « This Week. »
Spicer said « having the chief strategist for the president in those meetings who has a significant military background to help make — guide what the president’s final analysis is going to be is crucial. »
But to Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, the NSC « sadly has some really questionable people on it, » he told NBC’s « Meet the Press, » citing Bannon among them.
And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Bannon’s appointment « a radical departure from any National Security Council in history. »
He told « Face the Nation » on CBS: « The role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been diminished, I understand, with this reorganization. One person who is indispensable would be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in my view. So, it’s of concern, this ‘reorganization.' »
Liberals trying to harness activist energy vs. Trump, GOP
Donald Trump’s surprise win in November lit a fire under Carolyn Clow, a county purchasing agent in Madison, Wisconsin. On Saturday, she attended her first in a series of classes on how to run for office.
« If we learn anything as a liberal community, I’d hope that it’s time to stop thinking ‘I’d like to do something,’ and time to take that action, » said Clow, 43, who is running for the village board in her town outside of Madison in the April election with the help of an organization that recruits Democratic women candidates.
« It’s fun and exciting to march and it’s boring to go down to village hall to vote, but we have to learn to do both, » she said.
Trump’s election has sparked what liberal groups say is unprecedented activism. The most visible manifestation of that were protest marches the day after Trump’s inaugural, which drew millions to Washington, D.C., and other locations across the country and overseas. Those were followed by demonstrations at airports and in cities this weekend against Trump’s executive order prohibiting entry into the U.S. by people from seven countries and also limiting refugees.
Much of the discussion since the marches has revolved around how to turn that energy into an effective movement, especially through electoral politics. Democrats have been decimated in elections at the state and local level during the past eight years, and have their best chance to stymie Trump if they can seize control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections.
The morning after the election, Ethan Todras-Whitehill embodied liberals’ dilemma — in bright blue western Massachusetts no Republicans other than Trump were on the ballot to vote against. He began googling to find his nearest swing district and thought — why not create a tool to help others like him?
The day before Trump’s inauguration, he and some friends debuted swingleft.org, which lets people find their nearest House swing district and register to help flip the House in 2018. Todras-Whitehill says 250,000 people have already signed up.
There’s been grumbling from some liberal activists that the effort wasn’t coordinated with Democratic party officials who are already trying to flip the House. « We can’t be waiting around for someone else to do something, » Todras-Whitehill said. « Everyone needs to be standing up and doing something on their own. »
That scattershot approach has taken hold everywhere. While the organizers of last weekend’s Women’s Marches haven’t announced future demonstrations, there are already plans in the works for scientists to march in protest of Trump, for nationwide protests on April 15 demanding the president release his tax returns.
In cities around the country, people are marching on congressional offices, joining liberal organizations and lobbying their local representatives.
« There’s a battle raging on multiple fronts and you have the feeling of being surrounded, » said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network. « The most important thing is to focus on whatever hill you have and hold your hill. »
Newman’s group focuses on immigrant rights and has been using a strategy honed in fights against former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose immigration crackdown in Arizona’s largest county is a possible model for the Trump administration. The group has been co-hosting community meetings where nervous immigrants and eager, mobilized new volunteers can learn the basics of immigration law and how to protect their rights.
They’ve also been pushing state and local officials to step up protections for immigrants. « The pressure for action will be felt more sharply on the local level, » Newman said. « There are increasing expectations for mayors and governors and state lawmakers. »
Neil Aquino, 49, has high expectations for his local elected officials in Houston. Texas may be a solidly Republican state but its cities are increasingly Democratic and Aquino is writing all of Houston’s elected Democrats demanding they step up and fight Trump. « I don’t find the response from local Democrats is matching the anxiety people feel, » said Aquino, an artist.
Liz Merriweather is also contacting her elected officials, though they are Republicans. As part of a Women’s March follow-up project she’s writing postcards to her congressional representatives from Tennessee. She’s waiting for more direction — this is the 56-year-old therapist’s first political activity.
« Over the past eight years, I’ve kind of gotten complacent and felt things are in good hands and I can trust officials, » she said. « But people like me, your average citizen, have a duty to take action. »
A progressive group that Emily Barnes helped launch in her quiet suburb in Orange County, California held a post-card writing party Sunday. The group started with six parents meeting in August hoping to increase multicultural education in the local schools. After the election its membership ballooned to more than 220.
« Every time we have an event, more and more people show up, » Barnes, 41, said.
The Ladera Ranch Social Justice Committee doesn’t sound like the vanguard of the resistance: It mainly hosts multicultural children’s book readings. But it also funnels its members to more political events like the Women’s March. Last week, some of its members attended a demonstration at the office of their local Republican congressman, Rep. Darrell Issa.
He’s one of the most endangered Republican House members in 2018.