OSCE urges Poland show 'restraint' against critical reporter

August 04, 2017

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says it is concerned about legal steps the Polish government is taking against a reporter who alleges the defense minister has longstanding ties with Russian military agents and members of the Russian mafia.

Tomasz Piatek, an investigative reporter for the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, published his allegations about Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz in a new book, "Macierewicz and his Secrets." The ministry filed a complaint with military prosecutors accusing Piatek of "using force or threats against a public official" and "public insults or humiliation of a constitutional body." If Piatek is tried and found guilty he could face up to three years in prison.

The Vienna-based OSCE called on Poland on Thursday to show "restraint" in reacting to the book "in order to protect freedom of the media." The OSCE said that its representative on freedom of the media, Harlem Desir, wrote to the Polish Foreign Ministry saying "authorities should not use the courts to silence the media, whose role it is to hold them to account."

Ten other media freedom groups, including Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House, also wrote to Macierewicz last month urging him to drop the legal proceedings, saying, "this latest attempt to intimidate a journalist seems to be part of a broader two-year-old offensive against freedoms in Poland."

Macierewicz, a communist-era dissident, is known as one of the most anti-Russian officials in Poland's conservative government. For years he has promoted a theory that the Russians might have intentionally brought down the plane in which Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others died in a crash in Russia in 2010. Polish and Russian investigations determined it was an accident.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also alleged several days ago that Macierewicz has suspicious Russian contacts in an article titled "The other side of the Moscow hater."

UN report details killings, butchery in Congo this year

August 04, 2017

GENEVA (AP) — U.N. human rights investigators have issued a new report documenting the killings of more than 250 people, including 62 children, in central Congo over three recent months that could turn into "wider ethnic cleansing."

The investigators based the report on interviews in June of 96 people who fled Congo's Kasai provinces into neighboring Angola. It decried alleged violence involving a new militia, Bana Mura, backed by Congolese security officials.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein urged Congo's government to "act now to prevent such violence from tipping into wider ethnic cleansing." His office also called on militia groups to lay down their weapons, and provided photos of survivors with long scars and dismembered limbs. Zeid described accounts of "the screams of people being burned alive" and others who were "cut down."

"Interviewees indicated that local security forces and other officials actively fomented, fueled, and occasionally led, attacks on the basis of ethnicity," a U.N. statement said. Violence in the Kasai region by the Kamwina Nsapu militia erupted last August with the killing of a regional tribal leader who had defied the government of President Joseph Kabila.

Based on the accounts from people who fled between March and June, the report counted 251 killings, attributing 150 of them to the Bana Mura and another 79 to the Kamwina Nsapu. Government forces were blamed for another 22.

In far higher numbers, the Catholic church has estimated more than 3,300 people have died in the fighting since the tribal leader was killed in a military operation a year ago. The violence in the once-calm Kasai region comes on top of a broadly unstable situation in Congo, which has faced years of tensions and bloodshed in the east and where Kabila's government has defied international calls for Congo to hold elections as required under its constitution. The government says it needs more time.

Rwandans vote in presidential election

August 04, 2017

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — Rwandans voted in an election Friday that the country's longtime president is widely expected to win. President Paul Kagame is running against Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda — the only permitted opposition party — and independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana.

There were long queues in some parts of the capital Kigali, where all the candidates are registered to vote. At some polling stations, music was being played urging the voters to choose the candidate who will transform the country and unite all Rwandans.

Kagame, who won the 2010 election with 93 percent of the vote, told a rally in July that "the day of the presidential elections will just be a formality." "Even the critics will tell you Kagame is an extraordinary leader who walks the talk," Kigali resident Charles Karemera said after voting at the city's Amahoro Stadium.

The 59-year-old Kagame has been de-facto leader or president of the nation of 12 million people since his rebels ended the 1994 genocide. While he remains popular for presiding over economic growth, critics accuse him of using the powers of the state to remove perceived opponents.

Rwandan authorities, including Kagame, deny critics' claims that the government targets dissidents for assassination or disappearances. Presidential candidates were barred from putting campaign posters in most public places, including schools and hospitals. The electoral commission has vetted candidates' campaign messages, warning that their social media accounts could be blocked otherwise.

Three potential candidates for Friday's election were disqualified by the electoral commission for allegedly failing to fulfill certain requirements, including collecting enough signatures. A constitutional amendment after a referendum in 2015 allows Kagame to stay in power until 2034 if he pursues it.

Rwanda has about 6.9 million registered voters. More than 44,000 Rwandans living outside the country voted Thursday. Polls close at 3 p.m. local time, and provisional results are expected later on Friday, said Charles Munyaneza, executive secretary of the Rwanda Electoral Commission.

Kuwait to hold international conference on rebuilding Iraq

August 2, 2017

Kuwait has started extensive contacts with the World Bank to prepare for hosting a donor conference for the reconstruction of the Iraqi areas that have been liberated from Daesh control, Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Jarallah announced yesterday.

Speaking in an event that was held at the Iraqi embassy to celebrate the liberation of Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, Al-Jarallah said that “there was no date set for the conference,” adding that “it is likely to be in the first quarter of next year [2018].”

“Kuwait has always stood by Iraq via the international coalition (fighting Daesh) and bilaterally,” the Kuwaiti minister noted.

Al-Jarallah pointed out that “there is coordination and harmony between Kuwait and Iraq to overcome any problems that may occur.” He also congratulated the Iraqi people on the recapture of Mosul from Daesh.

On 11 July, Kuwaiti Emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, told the Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider Al-Abadi, in a phone call that his country was ready to host an international conference on rebuilding the liberated areas in Iraq.

The World Bank had also welcomed the initiative, stressing that it would support the long-term reconstruction of the liberated areas in Iraq.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170802-kuwait-to-hold-international-conference-on-rebuilding-iraq/.

Flames engulf 86-story residential skyscraper in Dubai

August 04, 2017

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Firefighters brought under control a blaze that broke out early Friday in one of the world's tallest residential towers in Dubai, engulfing part of the skyscraper and sending chunks of debris plummeting below, the city authorities announced.

More than 40 floors of the 86-story Torch Tower were burning on one side of the building, an Associated Press journalist near the scene of the blaze said. Building residents could be seen on the street outside crying with several saying the fire broke out just after 1 a.m.

Dubai's Civil Defense announced at about 3:30 a.m. that firefighters had brought the blaze under control and that no injuries had been reported. "Cooling operations are underway," Dubai's official media office said on Twitter.

It was the second time in 2 ½ years that the more than 1,100-foot-tall (335 meters) tower has been ravaged by fire. The tower, located in the popular waterfront Marina district, caught fire in February 2015, but there were no major casualties reported in that blaze.

Early Friday, authorities shared a photo of the charred and blackened tower but it was no longer visibly in flames. Officials said they were now working on providing shelter for those affected. Dubai police cordoned off several blocks around the building, keeping people away from the fire's falling debris.

Several skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates have caught fire in recent years, including a towering inferno that engulfed a 63-story luxury hotel in Dubai on New Year's Eve in 2016. In that blaze, as in others in Dubai in recent years, residents escaped without major injury.

Earlier this year, Dubai passed new fire safety rules requiring buildings with quick-burning side paneling to replace it with more fire-resistant siding. Authorities have previously acknowledged that at least 30,000 buildings across the UAE have cladding or paneling that safety experts have said accelerates the rapid spread of fires.

A devastating tower fire in London in June killed at least 80 people and prompted Britain to order more thorough testing on the cladding systems of its towers.

The Iranian government is killing Al Ahwaz's environment

Yasser Assadi
Monday 3 July 2017

Many Ahwazis – Arab inhabitants who mostly live in southern Iran’s Khuzestan Province - believe that, over the course of nearly a century, the state intentionally neglected their lands, turning them into a desert and resulting in giant sand storms that have covered their skies and killed 2,000 locals from related illnesses in recent years.

It was in 1908 that oil was discovered in the area. In 1925, Reza Khan, the Shah of Iran, invaded what was then called the emirate of Al-Ahwaz, overthrowing the Arab ruler of the region and annexed the 330,000 square-kilometer area in 1934. The lands were confiscated by the state from their original Arab owners and then transferred to the government.

Since then, the state has systematically abandoned the land and people of the area, leading the fertile land to become a small desert and a source of pollution in the region.

These days, the drinking water delivered to homes in Al-Ahwaz city is so dirty and brown in color and the cost of repairing dated water infrastructure beyond the financial capabilities of the province, residents joke that they don’t drink water. They drink chocolate milkshake.

For Ahwazis, this is just one aspect of what they feel is widespread racism. Despite the fact that they make up the majority of those living in the province, they are often unable to get jobs because employers discriminate against Ahwazi candidates.

While the state builds first-class living facilities in the province for Persian newcomers, the poverty levels in Khuzestan remain among the highest in any province in Iran, despite the existence of oil, gas and other lucrative national resources.

So in the eyes of the Ahwazis, the discovery of oil and these other resources has been no less than a scourge and an affliction that has resulted in the occupation and environmental degradation of the lands they inherited from their ancestors.

Dusty, smoky skies

Today, the Al-Ahwaz city is ranked as one of the most polluted cities in the world.

According to government reports, around 40 percent of gas which is extracted alongside oil in the province and could be used as an energy resource is actually burned off. This causes the emission of millions of tons of carbon dioxide gas in the air each year, further contributing to the air and environmental pollution already in Ahwaz as a result of the sand and dust in the air from desertification.

The Iranian regime appears to be concentrating solely on the process of extracting oil for income. Despite repeated appeals from the region’s parliamentary delegates, the Iranian regime has not even considered allocating a small percentage of the oil income made in the area to remedy the environment or build hospitals and other health institutions for the region.

In a remarkable speech last year, Ahwaz’s interim Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Ali Heydari, warned international oil companies of excessive oil exploration in the province pointing out that they could endanger the Hor-El-Howayzeh wetlands.

He also said that excessive activity could create unprecedented security challenges in the area by triggering Ahwazi anger and confrontations with the state. It could even attract the involvement of neighboring countries who want to interfere to defend the Ahwazi.

Toxins dumped, fields burned

Oil extraction is not the only source of environmental damage in Ahwaz. The production of sugar cane in the region - which requires massive amounts of water and produces hazardous toxins when it is refined - has also harmed Alahwaz’s environment.

Not only are massive amounts of water from the Karoun River, the main source of drinking and irrigation water in the region, used in the process, but also the substances created in the refinery process are poured into the river. And the sugar cane companies set fire to the fields during harvest season, further threatening air quality and the ecosystem.

This industry, according to experts, is not economically viable for the government or the people of the region, but is purely designed to change the demographic balance of the region’s population, allowing the state to steal more Arab land.

By law, the state is allowed to take ownership of the land if resources are discovered. Owners are given two weeks notice to go to the state registry office and hand over their deeds. The state claims it will buy lands according to market value, but that rarely happens. Anyone who stands against this process is considered to be standing against the government and is heavily penalized.

The idea behind this policy goes back to the period of Mohammad Reza Shah, but it couldn’t be fully implemented at that time because of the internal instability and the eruption of the revolution. But eventually, it was implemented in 1988 by top-ranking politicians of the regime like Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president.

"The sugar cane project has had devastating effects on air pollution in the towns of Ahwaz and Al-Falahiya (Shadegan in Farsi) and their surrounding villages," said Jawad Kazem Nasab, an Ahwaz city delegate in the Iranian parliament.

He added that, "the previous Iranian government had promised people of the region that it will take all measures and international standards to address these environmental risks and the collateral damage caused to the livelihood of the inhabitants of these areas”.

“However, as the delegate later confirmed, the sugar cane industry burnt its plants for economic purposes, which eventually caused even more air pollution in the region and left the lives of residents of the villages adjacent to these plantations under serious threat.”

Even the head of the environmental protection department in the province, Sayed Amid Hajti, reportedly said recently that "the oil and petrochemicals, sugar cane and other major industries in the region did not positively contribute to the lives of the people of the region, but instead increased the proportion of pollution in the air and environment”.

Dried up marshes

As a result of both the oil and sugar cane production in the region, the marshes of Hawr al-Howeyzeh and Hor al-Falahiya – which were used for fishing, wildlife conservation and helped reduce dust pollution - dried out over the past decade.

Once the marshes dried out, large sandstorms regularly occurred, disrupting the lives of people at their homes and at work and, according to some experts, causing a major increase in cases of lung infections and cancer.

Even Ahmed Reza Lahijganzadeh, the region's environment department chief, revealed that the proportion of air pollutants is 66 times above the hazardous threshold.

"Until 12 years ago, the phenomenon of sandstorm did not exist and it came after the drying of the marshes for the purpose of oil," said Kordawani, professor and director of the UN's Anti-Desertification Organization.

In an interview with Tasnim New Agency, Qasim Saadi, another Ahwazi Arab MP representing Al-Khafajiyeh (Susangerd in Persian) in the Iranian parliament, criticized government policies toward the Alahwaz region by saying they are deliberate and aimed against Ahwazi Arabs. He accused the energy and agricultural ministers of staying silent about the impact of the policies.

Letting the world know

In the absence of powerful laws to protect civilians in Iran and under an autocratic system, most ethnic groups in the country are exposed to systematic discrimination and persecution. The Iranian regime should respect its own people, take its international obligations seriously and avoid violating the rights of its own people.

Although the regime repressed the media and limited correspondents only to the capital or one or two Persian cities, social media and technology has allowed us to share what is happening and let the world know.

Ahwazi Arabs would like to know that the international community will take a stance and stop the Iranian regime from committing human rights abuses against them. Ignoring or neglecting people’s demands will only fuel their confrontation with the state and lead to dangerous escalation.

Source: Middle East Eye.
Link: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/iranian-government-ruined-my-region-s-air-and-water-because-it-s-racist-681919641.

Spain PM calls new Catalan secession plans "authoritarian"

July 05, 2017

MADRID (AP) — Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has described as "authoritarian delirium" plans by the ruling parties in the northeastern Catalonia region to declare independence from Spain within 48 hours of a promised referendum Oct. 1, if voters say "yes."

Rajoy told a business meeting Wednesday that Spaniards and Catalans could rest assured that the "confrontational' gestures of the pro-independence parties will never win over the democratic state. He was speaking a day after Catalonia's governing parties presented details of a proposed law to cover the planned referendum. The law says if the "yes" vote wins, independence will be declared within two days regardless of the vote's turnout percentage.

Spain has pledged there will be no referendum because it violates the country's constitution.

All-powerful Venezuelan assembly to open amid protests

August 04, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is heading toward a showdown with his political foes, promising to seat a new constituent assembly Friday that will rewrite the country's constitution and hold powers that override all other government branches.

Leaders of the opposition urged Venezuelans to fill the streets of the capital Friday, hoping to provide a strong showing that many people object to the assembly. The body's 545 delegates were expected to be installed at the legislative palace in a room just yards (meters) from the chamber where the opposition-controlled National Assembly meets. Maduro, who has said he will use the assembly to punish his opponents, planned to attend the opening session.

The legislature building has been the scene of bloody clashes in recent weeks and the installation of the all-powerful assembly will intensify a political struggle that has brought three months of bloody anti-government protests to Venezuela. Maduro vows the assembly will strip opposition lawmakers of their constitutional immunity from prosecution, while members of congress say they will only be removed by force.

"The only way they'll get us out of here is by killing us," declared Freddy Guevara, the National Assembly's first vice president. "They will never have the seat that the people of Venezuela gave us."

The opposition boycotted Sunday's election of the constituent assembly, arguing that the rules were rigged to benefit the government, and nearly all the candidates were supporters of Maduro's administration.

The election has come under mounting scrutiny since the CEO of an international voting technology company said that "without any doubt" the official voter turnout number had been tampered with — a charge that Maduro and the National Electoral Council have dismissed. An increasing number of foreign governments have refused to recognize the assembly and many within Venezuela fear it will create a one-party state.

"There has been a gradual erosion of democratic practice and this is a significant line that has been crossed," said Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue. "To attach the term democracy to Venezuela with this new constituent assembly is on very weak ground."

The U.S. State Department called the assembly illegitimate Thursday, saying the election was rigged to further entrench "the Maduro dictatorship." "The United States will not recognize the National Constituent Assembly," spokeswoman Heath Nauert said.

On the eve of the assembly's installation, the Spanish Embassy in Caracas was attacked with gasoline bombs. Prosecutors said two individuals on a motorcycle launched the devices, which started a fire but caused no reported injuries.

Carlos Romero, a professor and foreign relations analyst in Caracas, called the incident "extremely grave" and said it could further complicate relations between Venezuela and Madrid. Spain's ambassador to Venezuela was among a group of legislators who visited the National Assembly on Tuesday in a show of support after the constituent assembly election.

Prominent members of the constituent assembly, such as Diosdado Cabello, the leader of the ruling socialist party, have said they plan to target the opposition-controlled congress and the country's chief prosecutor, Luisa Ortega Diaz, a longtime supporter of the late Hugo Chavez who recently broke with Maduro. As one of its first tasks, Maduro has ordered the assembly to declare Ortega Diaz's office in a state of emergency and entirely restructure it.

In a continuing show of defiance, Ortega Diaz filed papers Thursday seeking a court order to block installation of the new assembly. The request, filed to a lower court in an apparent attempt to circumvent the government-stacked Supreme Court, was almost certain to be denied.

She also ordered prosecutors to investigate the allegations of election tampering raised by Antonio Mugica, the head of the voting technology firm Smartmatic. Mugica told reporters in London on Wednesday that results recorded by his company's systems and those reported by the National Electoral Council show the official turnout count was off by at least 1 million votes.

Pledges by opposition lawmakers to remain in power no matter what action the constituent assembly takes have opened the possibility of two governing bodies operating side by side — neither recognizing the other.

One opposition lawmaker, Henry Ramos Allup, said this week that if forcibly expelled from the legislative palace the National Assembly could potentially hold its sessions at another site. Despite questions surrounding the vote, Maduro all but ensured there was nothing that could stop the government from seating the new assembly.

"They are bent on plowing ahead with this power grab," Shifter said, "and this is not going to stand in the way."

Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez reported this story in Caracas and AP writer Christine Armario reported from Bogota, Colombia.

Venezuelan leader defiant as US imposes sanctions on him

August 01, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolas Maduro claimed a popular mandate Monday to dramatically recast Venezuela's political system, dismissing U.S. sanctions imposed on him and condemnations by his domestic opponents and governments around the world.

Washington added Maduro to a steadily growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials targeted by financial sanctions, escalating a tactic that has so far failed to alter his socialist government's behavior. For the moment Trump administration did not deliver on threats to sanction Venezuela's oil industry, which could undermine Maduro's government but raise U.S. gas prices and deepen the humanitarian crisis here.

The sanctions came after electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted Sunday to create a constitutional assembly endowing Maduro's ruling party with virtually unlimited powers — a turnout doubted by independent analysts while the election was labeled illegitimate by leaders across the Americans and Europe.

Maduro said Monday evening he had no intention of deviating from plans to rewrite the constitution and go after a string of enemies, from independent Venezuelan news channels to gunmen he claimed were sent by neighboring Colombia to disrupt the vote as part of an international conspiracy led by the man he calls "Emperor Donald Trump."

"They don't intimidate me. The threats and sanctions of the empire don't intimidate me for a moment," Maduro said on national television. "I don't listen to orders from the empire, not now or ever ... Bring on more sanctions, Donald Trump."

Venezuela's National Electoral Council said turnout in Sunday's vote was 41.53 percent, or 8,089,320 people. The result would mean the ruling party won more support than it had in any national election since 2013, despite a cratering economy, spiraling inflation, shortages of medicine and malnutrition. Opinion polls had said some 85 percent of Venezuelans disapproved of the constitutional assembly and similar numbers disapproved of Maduro's overall performance.

Opposition leaders estimated the real turnout at less than half the government's claim in a vote watched by government-allied observers but no internationally recognized poll monitors. An exit poll based on surveys from 110 voting centers by New York investment bank Torino Capital and a Venezuela public opinion company estimated 3.6 million people voted, or about 18.5 percent of registered voters.

The electoral council's vote counts in the past had been seen as reliable and generally accurate, but the widely mocked announcement appeared certain to escalate the polarization and political conflict paralyzing the country.

"If it wasn't a tragedy ... if it didn't mean more crisis, the electoral council's number would almost make you laugh," opposition leader Freddy Guevara said on Twitter. Maduro has threatened that one of the constitutional assembly's first acts would be jailing Guevara for inciting violence.

The constituent assembly will have the task of rewriting the country's constitution and will have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress. Maduro has said the new assembly will begin to govern within a week. Among other measures, he said he would use the assembly's powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of protests that have killed at least 120 and wounded nearly 2,000.

Along with the U.S., the European Union and nations including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain and Britain criticized Sunday's vote. Maduro said he had received congratulations from the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua, among others.

The monetary impact of the new U.S. sanctions wasn't immediately clear as Maduro's holdings in U.S. jurisdictions, if he has any, weren't publicized. However, imposing sanctions on a head of state is rare and can be symbolically powerful, leading other countries to similarly shun such a leader. For example, the U.S. has had sanctions against Syria's President Bashar Assad since 2011. Other heads of state currently subject to U.S. sanctions include Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

Maduro called the constitutional assembly in May after a month of protests against his government, which has overseen Venezuela's descent into a devastating crisis during its four years in power. Due to plunging oil prices and widespread corruption and mismanagement, Venezuela's inflation and homicide rates are among the world's highest, and widespread shortages of food and medicine have citizens dying of preventable illnesses and rooting through trash to feed themselves.

The president of the opposition-led National Assembly, Julio Borges, told Venezuelan news channel Globovision on Monday that Maduro's foes would continue protesting until they won free elections and a change of government.

He said Sunday's vote gave Maduro "less legitimacy, less credibility, less popular support and less ability to govern."

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

Turnout in Venezuela assembly vote another point of conflict

July 31, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted to create a constitutional assembly endowing President Nicolas Maduro's ruling socialist party with virtually unlimited powers — a turnout more than double that estimated by outsiders and by opponents who derided the announcement.

National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena announced just before midnight that turnout in Sunday's vote was 41.53 percent, or 8,089,320 people. Members of the opposition said they believed between 2 million and 3 million people voted and one well-respected independent analysis put the number at 3.6 million.

The electoral council's vote counts in the past have been seen as reliable and generally accurate, but the widely mocked announcement appeared certain to escalate the polarization and political conflict paralyzing the country.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the governor of the central state of Miranda, urged Venezuelans to protest Monday. Maduro said he would use the assembly's powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of protests that have killed at least 125 and wounded nearly 2,000.

"The people have delivered the constitutional assembly," Maduro said on national television. "More than 8 million in the middle of threats ... it's when imperialism challenges us that we prove ourselves worthy of the blood of the liberators that runs through the veins of men, women, children and young people."

Across the capital, Venezuelans had appeared to be staying away from the polls in huge numbers in protest against the vote. Venezuela's chief prosecutor's office reported 10 deaths in new rounds of the clashes between protesters and police. Seven police officers were wounded when a fiery explosion went off as they drove past piles of trash that had been used to blockade a street in an opposition stronghold in eastern Caracas.

"If it wasn't a tragedy ... if it didn't mean more crisis, the electoral council's number would almost make you laugh," opposition leader Freddy Guevara said on Twitter. Maduro has threatened that one of the constitutional assembly's first acts would be jailing Guevara for inciting violence.

An exit poll based on surveys from 110 voting centers by New York investment bank Torino Capital and a Venezuela public opinion company estimated 3.6 million people voted, or about 18.5 percent of registered voters. "The results thus suggest that the government maintains an important loyal core of supporters that it can mobilize in both electoral and non-electoral scenarios," the report concluded.

The same exit poll also noted that Venezuela has an estimated 2.6 million government employees, "suggesting that a large fraction of the votes could have not been voluntary." Several nations including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain, Britain and the United States said they would not recognize Sunday's vote. The Trump administration again promised "strong and swift actions" against Venezuelan officials, including the 545 participants in the constitutional assembly, many of them low-ranking party members. The U.S. did not say whether it would sanction Venezuelan oil imports, a measure with the potential to destabilize Maduro's government and deepen the country's humanitarian crisis.

Maduro said he had received congratulations from the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua, among others. Across this capital of more than 2 million people, dozens of polling places were virtually empty Sunday, including many that over the last two decades saw hours-long lines of thousands voting to keep the government in power.

At the Poliedro sports and cultural complex in western Caracas, several thousand people waited about two hours to vote, many drawn from opposition-dominated neighborhoods where polling places were closed. But at least three dozen other sites visited by The Associated Press had no more than a few hundred voters at any one time, with many virtually empty.

Opposition leaders had called for a boycott of the vote, declaring it rigged for the ruling party, and by late afternoon they were declaring the apparent low turnout to be a resounding victory. Ahead of the vote, the opposition organized a series of work stoppages as well as a July 16 protest vote that it said drew more than 7.5 million symbolic votes against the constitutional assembly.

"It's very clear to us that the government has suffered a defeat today," said Julio Borges, president of the opposition-controlled but largely powerless National Assembly. "This vote brings us closer to the government leaving power."

Maduro called the vote for a constitutional assembly in May after a month of protests against his government, which has overseen Venezuela's descent into a devastating crisis during its four years in power. Due to plunging oil prices and widespread corruption and mismanagement, Venezuela's inflation and homicide rates are among the world's highest, and widespread shortages of food and medicine have citizens dying of preventable illnesses and rooting through trash to feed themselves.

The winners among the 5,500 ruling-party candidates running for 545 seats in the constituent assembly will have the task of rewriting the country's constitution and will have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.

Maduro made clear in a televised address Saturday that he intends to use the assembly not just to rewrite the country's charter but to govern without limitation. Describing the vote as "the election of a power that's above and beyond every other," Maduro said he wants the assembly to strip opposition lawmakers and governors of constitutional immunity from prosecution — one of the few remaining checks on ruling party power.

Declaring the opposition "already has its prison cell waiting," Maduro added: "All the criminals will go to prison for the crimes they've committed." He said the new assembly would begin to govern within a week, with its first task in rewriting the constitution to be "a total transformation" of the office of Venezuela's chief prosecutor, a former government loyalist who has become the highest-ranking official to publicly split from the president.

"People aren't in agreement with this," Daniel Ponza, a drywall contractor, said Sunday as he watched a few dozen people outside a polling place in El Valle, a traditional stronghold of the ruling Chavista movement in western Caracas. "People are dying of hunger, looking for food in the trash. And I think this is just going to make things worse."

Still, for many others, the looming likelihood of authoritarian government was appealing after months of street blockades and street clashes. Sculptor Ricardo Avendano traveled from the opposition-dominated eastern neighborhood of Las Mercedes to vote at the Poliedro complex, saying the government needed total power to control food prices and shut down protests.

"The most important thing is imposing order," he said. "If I'd been president there wouldn't be protesters in the streets. They'd be prisoners."

Associated Press writers Christine Armario and Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.

Few heed call for mass protest in Venezuela's capital

July 29, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Few demonstrators heeded opposition calls for a mass protest Friday in Venezuela's capital against President Nicolas Maduro's divisive push to rewrite the constitution by a constituent assembly to be elected Sunday.

Streets in Caracas were largely devoid of protests a day after Interior Minister Nestor Reverol announced that authorities were prohibiting any demonstrations from taking place through Tuesday. Opposition leaders had urged Venezuelans to demonstrate anyway in a protest they billed as the "Taking of Caracas," hoping for a dramatic culmination of three days of protests that started with a 48-hour nationwide general strike. But the hundreds of thousands who have sometimes taken to the streets during nearly four months of anti-government protests were largely absent.

"Here we are in the streets, just like the first day," opposition lawmaker Jose Manuel Olivares said, urging people to reject Reverol's demonstration ban. "Let's not be victims of fear." There were isolated clashes between National Guard troops and small groups of young demonstrators who call themselves "The Resistance." A few protest barricades went up in opposition-friendly eastern Caracas, but the city was relatively calms two days before Sunday's constituent assembly election.

Maduro has deployed the military and police to clear blockades and protect a vote that he says is meant to end the power struggle with the opposition-controlled National Assembly, which he blames for Venezuela's spiraling political, economic and social crisis. The opposition is boycotting the vote, saying the election rules have been rigged to favor the ruling socialist party and will only serve to tighten Maduro's grip on power.

International pressure to cancel the vote intensified Friday, with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence reiterating in a telephone call with opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez that the United States would respond with "strong and swift economic actions" if the election proceeds.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santo said he would not recognize the constituent assembly, given that it has "illegitimate origins." His finance minister also told a local radio station the neighboring nation would sanction the same 13 former and current Venezuelan officials cited by the U.S. on Wednesday.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, one of Maduro's most vocal opponents, said in a meeting with two other U.S. legislators that he expects further sanctions if the assembly vote proceeds. Maduro appeared unconcerned by the mounting international outcry, instead paying homage Friday to the late President Hugo Chavez on what would have been his predecessor's 63rd birthday, telling supporters that with the constitution rewrite, "Chavez is more alive than ever."

"What would Chavez do July 30th?" he asked. "Would he call on us to sabotage the constituent assembly?" "No!" the crowd shouted back. Delegates elected to the constituent assembly will take on the task of rewriting the 1999 constitution, which was crafted by Chavez to install a socialist administration. That constitution is considered one of his principal legacies, and the move to rewrite it has drawn rebuke even from some longtime government loyalists and Chavez supporters.

Residents in Caracas lined up for hours at grocery stores and banks to stockpile food and cash before what many expected to be a chaotic weekend. The election has added fuel to near-daily protests that began in early April after the government-packed Supreme Court ruled to strip the opposition-controlled National Assembly of its last powers. The decision was quickly reversed but it sparked a protest movement demanding a new presidential election.

Deaths in the anti-government demonstrations and upheaval climbed to at least 113 on Friday. That number included a police officer slain in the town of Ejido in the western state of Merida, which has been the scene of violent clashes in recent days.

Meanwhile, Alfredo Romero, director of Foro Penal, a lawyers' group, said that Wuilly Arteaga, a young violinist who has become a symbol of anti-government protest in Venezuela, had been detained while performing.

"They took his violin and hit him with it," Romero said. Air service to Venezuela continued to dwindle. Avianca was offering full refunds to the estimated 13,000 passengers who had booked a flight on the now-suspended service. Delta, one of the last airlines still serving Venezuela, said on Twitter that it could not guarantee service after September. The airline declined further comment.

Venezuelan opposition sets symbolic vote on new constitution

July 04, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's opposition said Monday it will hold a symbolic referendum to give voters the opportunity to reject President Nicolas Maduro's plans to rewrite the constitution. The plan announced by National Assembly President Julio Borges is a dramatic escalation of the opposition's effort to fight Maduro's proposal. Borges said that the vote would be held July 16 — two weeks before Maduro is asking Venezuelans to go to the polls to choose delegates for a special assembly to overhaul the charter.

"We want the people to decide," Borges told a crowd of opposition leaders gathered in eastern Caracas. "Today we're united in a single bloc to defend our constitution." Protests against Maduro have swept across Venezuela the past three months, leaving at least 80 people dead and hundreds more jailed or injured, and the opposition-controlled legislature has embraced an agenda of civil disobedience.

Polls show that barely 20 percent of Venezuelans favor rewriting the late Hugo Chavez's 1999 constitution — about the same level of support for Maduro. The opposition coalition has decided to boycott the polling, arguing that rules to choose delegates to the proposed assembly are undemocratic and heavily favor the government.

Once seated, the constitutional assembly will have vast powers to reshape Venezuela's institutions, and some in the opposition fear it could convert Venezuela into a Cuba-styled socialist system in which open elections would cease to exist.

But even with the threat of low turnout hanging over the process, the government seems determined to plow ahead. "Even if only one, two or three Venezuelans vote, it's still an election and the opposition will be left there squealing," socialist party leader Diosdado Cabello said last week on state TV.

Maduro has vowed to present any new constitution for a ratification vote, but the opposition argues that a referendum is required just to call a constitutional assembly. Both times Chavez attempted to rewrite the constitution, in 1999 and 2007, he sought a popular mandate before embarking on the process.

Chief Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz, an ideological admirer of Chavez who broke with Maduro, has also criticized the government's plans. Opposition lawmakers greeted her with enthusiastic applause Monday when she appeared at the chamber for special assembly to reappoint her deputy, who was removed last week by the government-stacked supreme court in apparent violation of the constitution

"My role as chief prosecutor requires that I assume the first line of defense of our republican state," she said in a video address to the nation on Monday. She said that "in the face of the attacks and threats hanging over the country,' her agency is "perhaps one of the few democratic windows that are left open in the country" and said it "won't be intimidated or give up the rights and freedoms of Venezuelans without a fight."

As Ortega has assumed the role as the government's most-feared opponent, attempts to undermine her authority have become more frequent. On Monday, the supreme court threw out her order from a few days earlier for the former head of the national guard, Gen. Antonio Benavides, to testify about allegations of human rights abuses during the crackdown on the protests.

A few hours later, Ortega responded with some strong arming of her own, saying on Twitter that her office had requested access from U.S. authorities to the case file of two relatives of first lady Cilia Flores who were convicted last year of drug trafficking.

Ortega is set to appear Tuesday before the supreme court as it debates whether to strip her of her immunity from prosecution for unspecified irregularities she allegedly committed in her role as the nation's top law enforcement official.

Peru prosecutors seek jail for president in corruption case

July 11, 2017

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Prosecutors in Peru are seeking the arrest of former President Ollanta Humala and his wife on money laundering and conspiracy charges tied to a corruption scandal involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Prosecutor German Juarez tells The Associated Press that he has asked a judge to jail Humala and former first lady Nadine Heredia for 18 months. He says Tuesday's request is based on testimony provided in Brazil by the former head of Odebrecht, who said he illegally contributed $3 million to Humala's 2011 presidential campaign.

The judge in the case has already ordered the arrest of another former president, Alejandro Toledo, for related charges in the scandal. Humala governed Peru between 2011 and 2016.

Troops deploy in Rio de Janeiro amid increasing violence

July 29, 2017

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Thousands of soldiers began patrolling Rio de Janeiro on Friday amid a spike in violence in Brazil's second-largest city. The deployment of 8,500 soldiers, plus hundreds of police and highway patrol officers, is aimed at fighting organized crime gangs, which control many of the city's hundreds of slums.

Defense Minister Raul Jungmann said patrols would soon start participating in operations against drug traffickers. That is a break from previous duties that were limited to patrolling, manning checkpoints and recovering caches of weapons seized during police raids. The operation is scheduled to run until the end of 2018.

Some troops began deploying in the afternoon, with trucks full of soldiers seen rolling over bridges and expressways. While the main efforts were concentrated in the city's north, where violence is most pervasive, armored vehicles were also patrolling the quiet surroundings of the Santos Dumont airport. As the sun set, a dozen soldiers with rifles in hand stood silhouetted against Guanabara Bay.

"I'm not really sure what they are doing here, since the crime they have to fight is in the other side of the city," said Almir Soares, a passer-by. He called the deployment a stunt, but then conceded that the military operation could deter violence where it is actually needed.

Three people on average were killed each day by stray bullets in the first six months of the year in Rio de Janeiro. That mounting number, plus criminal assaults and increasing shootouts between drug traffickers and police, have led authorities in recent weeks to acknowledge that much of the city is out of their control.

Last year, 85,000 troops were used to bolster security around the venues of the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio. Public security experts say Brazil's worst recession in decades is exacerbating the situation.

Ukraine says it will focus on reforms, not NATO membership

July 10, 2017

MOSCOW (AP) — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says his country will focus on reforms and will not seek NATO membership for the time being. Poroshenko was elected in 2014 after a pro-Western government took over from the pro-Russian president who fled the country following months of protests.

Shortly after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and threw its weight behind separatist rebels in the east. Russian officials have claimed the new Kiev government would have turned Crimea, home to a Russia-leased naval base, into a NATO base.

Speaking at a meeting Monday with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Kiev , Poroshenko said Ukraine would not be applying for a NATO membership "immediately" but would instead "build a genuine program of reforms" to meet NATO requirements for membership in the future.