ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

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June 20, 2018 (San Diego’s East County) - East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen on important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

Immigrant child detentions

Other national new issues

WORLD

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

U.S.

Immigrant child detentions

Audio recording: Hear the voices of children detained at the border (ProPublica)

The desperate sobbing of 10 Central American children, separated from their parents one day last week by immigration authorities at the border, makes for excruciating listening. Many of them sound like they’re crying so hard, they can barely breathe. They scream “Mami” and “Papá” over and over again, as if those are the only words they know.

Trump Order Ending Family Separation Likely Won’t Apply to Children Already Taken from Parents (Huffington Post)

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to end his administration’s policy of separating undocumented immigrant families and instead detain parents with their children. But the reversal, which could face a legal battle, likely won’t apply to the more than 2,300 children who have already been separated from their parents, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

Separated migrant children are headed toward shelters that have a history of abuse and neglect (Texas Tribune)

Taxpayers have paid more than $1.5 billion in the past four years to private companies operating immigrant youth shelters accused of serious lapses in care, including neglect and sexual and physical abuse, an investigation by Reveal and The Texas Tribune has found.

Immigrant children forcibly drugged with ‘powerful’ psychotropics at Texas ‘treatment center’: lawsuit (RawStory)

In a new lawsuit, immigrant children detained at a government-funded facility in Texas described being forcibly drugged with psychotropic medicines that made them dizzy and unable to walk. Reveal reported Wednesday that minors held at the Shiloh Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas — described in its Google+ listing as a “baby gulag” — were physically abused and given shots of “powerful” psychiatric medications that “rendered them unable to walk, afraid of people and wanting to sleep constantly.”

Immigrant babies, young children held in `tender age’ shelters, AP reports (USA Today)

Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to at least three “tender age” shelters in South Texas, The Associated Press has learned. Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the Rio Grande Valley shelters described playrooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis.

The U.S. isn’t just separating children from their parents. It also has no plan to reunite them. (BuzzFeed)

Two months after the Trump administration began separating children from their parents along the US–Mexico border, immigration authorities said they have no plans to reunite children with their parents after the parents' illegal-entry cases have been resolved but their immigration case is still pending.

Doctors saw immigrant kids separated from their parents. Now they’re trying to stop it. (CNN)

The toddler pounded her fists on the play mat, sobbing, with no parent to comfort her. Dr. Colleen Kraft watched from across the room, shaken by what she saw…We all knew why she was crying," says Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "She was crying because she wanted her mother, and there was nothing we could do…This is something that was inflicted on this child by the government, and really is nothing less than government-sanctioned child abuse."

Airlines ask Trump not to put migrant children on flights (NBC San Diego)

American Airlines, United Airlines and Frontier Airlines have asked the Trump administration not to put migrant children who have been separated from their parents on their flights. The 3 airlines said that the administration's recent immigration policy of separating migrant families conflicts with their values.

$4,000 a minute flows in to help reunite separated immigrant families (CNN)

In less than four days, a California couple has raised more than $4 million -- and counting -- through Facebook to help reunite undocumented families that have been separated at the border…. the couple chose to raise money for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), a nonprofit located in Texas that offers free and low-cost legal services to immigrants and refugees.

Former CIA head compares Trump’s border separation policy to Nazi Germany (Media ITE)

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden issued a scathing rebuke of President Donald Trump‘s policy of separating migrant children from their families at the southern border on Saturday. Hayden, a CNN contributor who served as CIA director under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, posted a photo of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp on Twitter along with the caption, “Other governments have separated mothers and children.”… Hayden isn’t the first to publicly compare the policy to Nazi Germany. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough (former Republican Congressman) did so on Morning Joe Friday.

Other national new issues

Latest watchdog report rebukes Comey for Clinton probe (AP)

The Justice Department has issued a stinging rebuke to the FBI for its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The report released Thursday calls former FBI Director James Comey “insubordinate” and says his actions were “extraordinary.”

Manafort heads to jail after judge faults witness tampering (Bloomberg News)

Paul Manafort was sent to jail Friday by a federal judge who said she couldn’t turn a blind eye to claims that he attempted to tamper with witnesses, adding pressure on President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager to cooperate with a U.S. probe of Russian election meddling.

New York sues to dissolve Donald J. Trump Foundation (Reuters)

New York's attorney general on Thursday sued the Donald J. Trump Foundation, U.S. President Donald Trump, and others, and is seeking to dissolve the foundation after what she called its "persistent illegal conduct" over more than a decade. Barbara Underwood, the attorney general, said the foundation engaged in "extensive unlawful political coordination" with Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, conducted "repeated and willful self-dealing" to benefit his personal and business interests, and violated "basic legal obligations" for nonprofits.

After nine years of U.S. recovery, Fed sheds anxieties (Reuters)

The Federal Reserve is guiding a U.S. economy that is as close to ideal as it could have dreamed a decade ago, when the darkest days of the recession forced it to take big risks to protect workers, banks and economies around the world from further devastation.

Supreme Court’s conservatives uphold Ohio’s voter purge law (Vox)

…The Court split 5-4 along partisan lines, with the five conservative-leaning justices, in a majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, upholding the system and the four liberal-leaning justices opposing it. The ruling focused in large part on technical interpretations of federal voting laws, although the argument underlying Ohio’s system is, in fact, a much bigger one about voter suppression.

U.S. withdraws from U.N. Human Rights Council over perceived bias against Israel (Washington Post)

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley had repeatedly urged changes to remove a disproportionate amount of criticism toward Israel and to boot human rights abusers…. Since 2006, the Human Rights Council has passed more than 70 resolutions critical of Israel, 10 times as often as it has criticized Iran. On one day alone in March, the council passed five resolutions condemning Israel.  The council’s current membership includes 14 countries that are ranked as “not free” by Freedom House…

U.S. announces its withdrawal from U.N. Human Rights Council  (NPR)

After more than a year of complaints and warnings — some subtle and others a little less so — the Trump administration has announced that the United States is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council… there is another potential issue muddying the waters of this decision: the recent condemnations leveled at the Trump administration's immigration policies by international human-rights officials.

Laser Attacks Against U.S. Forces Spreads to the Pacific (Popular Mechanics)

Popular Mechanics — Laser attacks against U.S. forces have spread out of Africa into the Pacific. U.S. personnel operating in the East China Sea area have been the victim of blinding laser attacks similar to those that took place earlier this year in Djibouti.

WORLD

Pakistan Taliban leader killed in U.S. drone strike, official says (Time)

An Afghan Defense Ministry official says a U.S. drone strike in northeastern Kunar province has killed Pakistan Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah.

Under pressure from Pence, U.S. aid is directed to Christian, Yazidi communities in Iraq (Washington Post)

Even in an era of shrinking resources for foreign assistance, U.S. aid to vulnerable Christian communities is increasing, with the vice president monitoring progress.

Trump sets tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods; Beijing strikes back (Reuters)

U.S. President Donald Trump said he was pushing ahead with hefty tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports on Friday, and the smoldering trade war between the world’s two largest economies showed signs of igniting as Beijing immediately vowed to respond in kind.

Shin Bet chief reveals Israel has prevented 250 terror attacks in 2018 (Jerusalem Post)

the agency had succeeded in blocking major terrorist attacks involving suicide bombings, kidnappings and shootings. The Shin Bet chief said that especially big-data abilities had helped the agency to hone in on lone-wolf attackers in a way that was impossible before Israeli intelligence advanced its abilities in massively tracking postings on social media.  [Director] Argaman said that the Shin Bet was striking the right balance between continuing its effective human intelligence collection programs and new cyber intelligence gathering abilities. 

Papua New Guinea declares state of emergency over riots (Reuters)

Papua New Guinea has declared a state of emergency, suspended a provincial government and is sending armed forces to its rugged highlands to restore order after rioters went on a rampage of looting and burning… / Violence has often ravaged the remote interior of the resource-rich Pacific nation, where tribal and land disputes overlay regional politics. / Armed crowds angered over the failure of a court challenge to a regional governor’s election burned an airplane, looted a warehouse and torched buildings in Mendi, the capital of the Southern Highlands province...

Magnitude 6.1 quake in Japan's Osaka area kills three, stops factories (Reuters)

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake shook Osaka, Japan's second-biggest metropolis, early on Monday morning, killing three people, halting factory lines in a key industrial area and bursting water mains, government officials and broadcaster NHK said.

Kite Terror: 15 fires around Gaza border communities (JPost)

Palestinian incendiary kite and ballon terror continues on Saturday as 15 fires currently rage in the south of [Israel].

IDF confirms it fired at Gaza incendiary balloon launching cell (JPost)

The IDF confirmed on Wednesday that a short while ago it fired at a cell in Gaza that was attempting to launch an incendiary balloon into Israeli territory.  There are no reports of Palestinian casualties. Overnight Palestinian terror groups fired 45 missiles towards Israel. At least five of them landed in Israeli border communities. Israel in response carried out extensive airstrikes on Hamas targets.


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