Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Myanmar’s deposed leader Suu Kyi found guilty in widely-criticized trial

(Reuters) – A court in military-ruled Myanmar found deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of charges of incitement and breaching coronavirus restrictions on Monday, drawing international condemnation of what some critics described as a “sham trial.”

Suu Kyi is set to serve two years in detention at an undisclosed location, a sentence reduced from four years after a partial pardon from the country’s military chief, state TV reported.

President Win Myint was also sentenced to four years as the court delivered its first verdicts in numerous cases against Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders ousted by the military in a coup on Feb. 1.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup against Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government led to widespread protests and raised international concern about the end of tentative political reforms following decades of military rule.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, 76, has been detained since the coup, along with most senior leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Others are abroad or in hiding.

“The conviction of the State Counsellor following a sham trial in secretive proceedings before a military-controlled court is nothing but politically motivated,” U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said in comments echoed by the European Union and others.

A military spokesman did not respond to attempts by Reuters to reach him for comment on the sentencing, which was widely reported in domestic media.

The military has not given details of where Suu Kyi – who spent years under house arrest due to her opposition to military rule before becoming Myanmar’s leader – is being detained.

She is due to remain at that location to serve her sentence, MRTV reported, suggesting she will not be sent to prison.

(Writing by Martin Petty, Ed Davies, Robert Birsel and John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Angus MacSwan)

 

U.S. government opens civil rights probe into police in New York suburb

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Justice Department has launched a civil rights inquiry into police practices in yet another U.S. city, investigating possible systemic abuses in the New York suburb of Mount Vernon after receiving tips accusing officers of using excessive force and conducting illegal searches, officials said on Friday.

The department’s Civil Rights Division since President Joe Biden took office in January also has launched investigations into police practices in Minneapolis, Phoenix and Louisville, Kentucky, following protests in many U.S. cities last year against racism and police brutality.

Kristen Clarke, assistant U.S. attorney general for the civil rights division, and Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney Damian Williams announced the investigation into possible abuses by the city of Mount Vernon, which has a population of roughly 70,000, and its police department.

Clarke said investigators will look at evidence suggesting that Black residents are targeted for “abuse and excessive force,” and that police supervisors may be teaching this targeting.

The inquiry, she said, was prompted by tips and publicly available information.

“We have received information about the repeated use of excessive force, often against individuals who are handcuffed,” Clarke said. “Similarly, reports indicate that officers routinely conducted searches without sufficient legal basis, including strip searches.”

A spokesperson for Mount Vernon said the city was preparing to issue a statement and hold a news conference on the matter.

Biden has made the issue of racial justice a priority in the aftermath of the May 2020 police killing of a Black man named George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer who was later convicted of murder.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham)

 

Iran nuclear talks break, Europe dismayed by Tehran demands

By Parisa Hafezi, Francois Murphy and John Irish

VIENNA (Reuters) – Indirect U.S.-Iranian talks on saving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal broke off until next week as European officials voiced dismay on Friday at the demands of Iran’s new, hardline administration.

The seventh round of talks in Vienna is the first with delegates sent by Iran’s anti-Western President Ebrahim Raisi on how to resuscitate the agreement under which Iran limited its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.

Raisi’s election in June caused a five-month hiatus in the talks, heightening suspicions among U.S. and European officials that Iran is playing for time while advancing its nuclear program.

Diplomats said the Iranian delegation had proposed sweeping changes to a text that was painstakingly negotiated in previous rounds and that European officials had said was 70-80% finished.

“Over five months ago, Iran interrupted negotiations. Since then, Iran has fast-forwarded its nuclear program. This week, it has back-tracked on diplomatic progress made,” senior officials from France, Britain and Germany said in a statement, adding that Iran was demanding “major changes” to the text.

It is “unclear how these new gaps can be closed in a realistic time frame”, they added.

The three European powers expressed “disappointment and concern” at Iran’s demands, some of which they said were incompatible with the deal’s terms or went beyond them.

The 2015 agreement imposed strict limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment activities, extending the time it would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months. Most experts say that period is now shorter than before the deal.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it only wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In exchange for the nuclear restrictions, the deal lifted U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

After more than two years of Iranian adherence to the core curbs, however, then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, calling it too soft on Tehran, and reimposed painful U.S. economic sanctions on Tehran.

Tehran retaliated from 2019 by breaching many of the deal’s limits on enrichment and other restrictions, and advancing well beyond them. With the deal’s nuclear benefits now badly eroded, some Western officials say there is little time left before the foundation of the deal is damaged beyond repair.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he thought it likely the current round of talks would not succeed and appeared to look beyond them, hinting at involving more nations, such as Gulf Arab states, in a wider discussion if the Vienna talks fail.

“I think it’s very difficult to find an agreement if the Gulf countries, Israel, all those whose security is directly affected, don’t take part,” he told reporters in Dubai.

FIRM STANCE

Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani’s uncompromising stance is that since Washington left the deal, it should make the first move by lifting all sanctions imposed on Tehran since then, even those unrelated to Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Bagheri Kani told Reuters on Monday the United States and its Western allies also should offer guarantees to Iran that no new sanctions would be imposed on it in future.

However, he left the door ajar for more talks by saying European nations could propose their own drafts for discussion, Iranian state media reported.

Western negotiators take a return to the original deal as their base line, meaning if Iran wants sanctions relief beyond it, Tehran should accept more nuclear restrictions.

This week’s talks ended with a meeting of the remaining parties to the deal: Iran, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. Officials said the talks, in which others shuttle between U.S. and Iranian diplomats because Iran refuses to meet directly with U.S. officials, will resume mid-week.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Francois Murphy in Vienna and John Irish in Dubai; Writing by Francois Murphy, Parisa Hafezi and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Daniel Wallis)

 

Where’s the paper, ink, lightbulbs? U.S. offices struggle with supply shortages

By Elizabeth Dilts Marshall and Maria Caspani

NEW YORK(Reuters) – While news of the Omicron coronavirus variant threatens to derail U.S. companies’ return-to-office-plans, employers trying to get workers back into offices said they are encountering a different, unforeseen challenge: keeping the lights on.

The disruptions to the global supply chain caused by factory shutdowns in Asia, congestion at U.S. ports and a nationwide labor shortage have led to widely publicized microchip and building materials shortages. Now these issues are causing shortages in everyday office supplies, everything from printer ink and toner to paper to lightbulbs.

When anthropology professor Sara Becker returned to her office at the University of California, Riverside, in early November, she noticed several bulbs had burned out over the eight months she’d worked remotely. An assistant in her department contacted the facilities unit for replacements, and Becker was asked what percentage of lightbulbs in her office were out.

“I’m an anthropologist not a mathematician!” Becker joked on Twitter. Becker said in an email interview that, instead of counting bulbs, she sent photos of her darkened office to the facilities department, which, university spokesman John Warren said, is short on lighting materials and lamps.

For offices and workers, these supply issues – which can trickle down to cause workplace headaches – are only adding to the obstacles companies face in getting people back to the office.

Variants of the coronavirus, such as Delta, have already forced companies to push back the dates when they hoped most employees would begin to return to offices. It is possible the Omicron variant, first detected in the United States on Wednesday, will delay openings further.

Now, just securing general lighting supplies is taking eight to 13 weeks longer than normal, said Cheryl Carron, whose duties include heading facilities management for global commercial real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle.

“It’s a significant challenge as we look at how we bring people back to work,” Carron said in an interview. “It’s a real critical need and one we take for granted.”

Companies across the globe have sounded the alarm on supply issues, which have boosted prices on raw materials from chemicals to steel. The concern dominated the last earnings season, with mentions of the issue by chief executives jumping 412%.

U.S. Customs data showed imports of glass bulbs for use in incandescent lamps fell 25% from the fourth quarter of 2020 to the first quarter this year, a period when the supply-chain issues first hit supplies. Imports have since rebounded but are still below pre-pandemic levels. The United States gets most of its incandescent bulbs from Taiwan.

In addition to lightbulbs, a source at one of the big retail banks, speaking on condition of anonymity, said replacement parts for heating and air-conditioning units across its branch network were in short supply.

In a recent earnings call, ODP Corp Chief Executive Gerry Smith, whose company owns the Office Depot and OfficeMax superstore chains, said the company anticipates a shortage in printer ink and toner until early next year. And one Midwestern law firm asked staff in an email last month to cut back on printing because they are short on paper, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters. The law firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Peter Lorenz, director of facilities and office operations at law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, said they also experienced paper shortages and delays in obtaining lightbulbs at the firm’s New York City office, a 360,000-square-foot (33,445-square-meter) space that used to be occupied by about 500 employees before the pandemic.

Supplies have been ramping back up since mid-October, Lorenz said, as employees began returning to the office as part of a hybrid work model, in which they split time between that workplace and working remotely.

“I think a lot of the suppliers have sort of bulked up so that they have a pretty good inventory of what we need,” he said in a phone interview.

If there is a silver lining to be found in this facilities management headache, Jones Lang LaSalle’s Carron said, it is in the lessons that building managers learned from last year’s pandemic-triggered shortages.

“They’ve got toilet paper,” she joked.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall and Maria Caspani; additional reporting by Herb Lash; editing by Megan Davies and Jonathan Oatis)

 

China and Laos open $6 billion high-speed rail link

VIENTIANE (Reuters) – A $6 billion high-speed rail line connecting China with its Southeast Asian neighbor Laos opened on Friday, a milestone in Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure plans.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Lao counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith attended a virtual ceremony to mark the maiden voyages on the line, which stretches from the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming to the Laotian capital Vientiane.

China, which holds a 70% stake in the joint venture project signed in 2015, hopes the 1,000-km (621.37-mile) line will eventually expand through Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore.

In a video meeting between the two leaders earlier on Friday, Xi said the countries stood at “a new historical starting point”.

“China is willing to strengthen strategic communication with Laos, promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative, and continue to build an unbreakable China-Laos community with a shared future,” he said in comments published by China’s state broadcaster CCTV.

Economists have warned that the rail project could make it difficult for communist Laos, one of Asia’s poorest nations, to repay external debt, much of it owed to China.

Laos state news agency KPL said on Thursday the project was part of the government’s strategy to convert Laos “from a landlocked country to a land-linked one”.

(Reporting by Phoonsab Thevongsa and Ella Cao; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

Floods cut off communities in South Sudan’s Unity state

By Denis Dumo

JUBA (Reuters) – Severe flooding has hit South Sudan’s northern state of Unity, cutting off communities from accessing supplies of food and other vital commodities, a state official said on Friday.

More than 700,000 people have been affected by the worst flooding in the country for nearly 60 years, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in October, blaming climate change.

In Unity, which borders Sudan, the floods have left a trail of food shortages, caused malnutrition in children and increased the spread of diseases such as malaria, said Lam Tungwar Kueigwong, the state’s minister of land, housing and public utilities.

Oil from the fields in the region had contaminated the water, he said, leading to the death of domestic animals.

The suffering caused by the floods, including food shortages and illnesses, is putting pressure on the health facilities, said international charity Médecins Sans Frontières, which operates in the area.

“We are extremely concerned about malnutrition, with severe acute malnutrition levels two times the WHO threshold, and the number of children admitted to our hospital with severe malnutrition doubling since the start of the floods,” MSF said.

For Nyatuak Koang, a mother of three boys and two girls, that concern is all too real for her after the floods forced her to move twice.

“We don’t have anywhere to sleep, we don’t have any mosquito nets and we don’t have material to cover our house,” she said.

Nearly a decade after South Sudan gained independence following a war, it faces the threat of conflict, climate change and COVID-19, the outgoing head of the U.N. mission in the country said in March.

Nearly all the population depends on international food aid, and most basic services such as health and education are provided by the United Nations agencies and aid groups.

(Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Canadian, U.S. truckers warn vaccine mandates will disrupt supply chains

By Steve Scherer and David Shepardson

OTTAWA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The main trucking lobbies in Canada and the United States are warning that vaccine and testing requirements for workers will further disrupt supply chains because there is already a dire shortage of drivers.

Canada will require vaccines for truck drivers starting in January, while the Biden administration has issued rules requiring truck drivers at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

More than two-thirds of goods traded between Canada and the United States travels on roads and highways. For most of the pandemic, truckers crossed the border regularly as they were considered essential workers to keep supply chains flowing.

“We know that there already is disruption in the supply chain; this is going to intensify it,” said Stephen Laskowski, president and chief executive of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), which represents some 4,500 carriers.

It estimates that 10-20%, or between 12,000-22,000 of Canadian truck drivers, and 40%, or some 16,000 of U.S. truck drivers traveling into Canada would be sidelined if the requirement begins.

“This is not a trucking issue. This is a Canada-U.S. economic issue,” Laskowski told Reuters, adding about 70% of that C$650 billion ($507 billion) U.S.-Canada trade moves by truck.

The American Trucking Associations (ATA), together with others, is seeking to block U.S. President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate in court.

A U.S. appeals court issued a temporary stay last month blocking the requirements. The court found “all else equal, a 28 year-old trucker spending the bulk of his workday in the solitude of his cab is simply less vulnerable to COVID-19 than a 62-year-old prison janitor.”

The Justice Department has asked another court to throw out the temporary stay, and a decision could come as soon as mid-December.

Supply chain problems caused by the pandemic has contributed to inflation in both countries rising to decades high.

“Given the nature of our industry and makeup of our workforce, (it) could have devastating impacts on the supply chain and the economy,” ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement.

In written comments filed with the Labor Department, the ATA said the nation’s motor carriers could lose up to 37% of their drivers to “retirements, attrition to smaller carriers and/or conversion to independent contractor owner-operators.”

Motor carriers move 70% of all U.S. freight tonnage.

Laskowski said there are already 18,000 job vacancies for truck drivers in Canada and he is pushing to delay the Jan. 15 deadline to give companies more time to deal with the situation.

Canada’s Transport, Health and Trade ministries did not comment when asked whether truckers would be given more time.

A Transport Ministry spokesman said it encourages “all Canadian industries to develop COVID-19 vaccination requirements for their employees.”

Despite the potential disruptions, some 70% of Canadians support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s strict mandates, according to an EKOS Research poll.

“We’ll be seeing shortages of goods in stores” if the vaccine requirement deadline is not delayed, said Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

($1 = 1.2826 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

 

Prosecutors charge parents of Michigan teen in school shooting

By Brendan O’Brien and Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Prosecutors on Friday charged the parents of a 15-year-old boy accused of murdering four students at his Michigan high school with involuntary manslaughter, saying the couple appear to have bought him the weapon as a Christmas present and ignored warning signs that he might be planning the rampage.

James and Jennifer Crumbley each face four counts and are expected to be arraigned later on Friday, three days after authorities say their son, Ethan, carried out the deadliest U.S. school shooting of 2021. He faces two dozen charges and is being held without bond.

“These charges are intended to hold the individuals who contributed to this tragedy accountable and also send a message: that gun owners have a responsibility,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald told a news conference on Friday.

Four days before the shooting, Ethan accompanied his father to a local gun shop, where James Crumbley bought a semi-automatic handgun, prosecutors said.

Later that day, Ethan posted photos of the gun on social media, writing, “Just got my new beauty today” and adding a heart emoji. His mother posted the next day that the two of them were “testing out his new Christmas present,” McDonald said.

Prosecutors described several chilling warning signs in the days leading up to the shooting. On Nov. 21, a teacher saw Ethan Crumbley searching for ammunition on his phone during class and alerted school officials, who left messages for his mother that went unreturned.

In a text message to her son that day, Jennifer Crumbley wrote, “LOL, I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught,” prosecutors said.

The morning of the shooting, a teacher discovered a drawing that Ethan Crumbley had made depicting a handgun, a bullet, and a bleeding figure. The words “Blood everywhere” and “The thoughts won’t stop – help me” were also written on the sheet, among other messages, according to McDonald.

“It is impossible not to conclude that there is reason to believe he might hurt someone” based on the drawings, McDonald said.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were summoned to the school, where they were instructed to get Ethan into mental health counseling within 48 hours, McDonald said. They “resisted” the idea of taking their son home from school and did not search his backpack or ask him about the gun, she said.

When news of an active shooter at the school broke shortly after 1 p.m. EST, Jennifer Crumbley sent Ethan a text message, urging him, “Don’t do it,” according to prosecutors. A few minutes later, James Crumbley called police to report that the gun was missing and he believed his son might be the shooter.

The gun had been stored in an unlocked drawer in the parents’ bedroom, McDonald said.

It was not immediately clear whether James and Jennifer Crumbley had legal representation.

Parents are rarely charged in connection with children’s school shootings. Unlike some states, Michigan does not legally require gun owners to keep their firearms secured from children.

The attack is the latest in a decades-long string of mass shootings at U.S. schools.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien and Joseph Ax; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

 

Democracy activist Law urges Hong Kong voters to ignore Dec. 19 election

LONDON (Reuters) – Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law called on voters in his home city to ignore a legislative election this month, the first under sweeping new rules imposed by Beijing, saying they should not lend the vote any legitimacy.

China announced in March broad changes to the former British colony’s electoral system, reducing the number of directly elected representatives and increasing the number of Beijing-approved officials in an expanded legislature.

Candidates in the election, scheduled for Dec. 19 after being postponed for more than a year due to the coronavirus, are also vetted for their patriotism.

“Just ignore them,” Law said in an interview from London at  the  Reuters Next conference. “We should not give any legitimacy to the election, we should not pretend we have an election – it is just a selection by Beijing.”

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Law’s remarks. Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam said in September that the aim of changes to the electoral system is to ensure “patriots administer Hong Kong.”

China has said Law is a “criminal suspect wanted by the Hong Kong police” for national security offences.

In the interview, Law, who fled Hong Kong in 2020 and was granted asylum by the United Kingdom, cast Chinese President Xi Jinping as an “emperor” who tolerated no dissent.

The system of democracy in Hong Kong, he said, was dead but its spirit lived on in the hearts of the people.

“Democracy, if you are talking about a system, it is definitely not there – but if you are talking about the spirit of the people, fighting for democracy, it is still there.”

(Editing by Nick Tattersall)

 

Cementing ties with France, UAE places $19 billion order for warplanes, helicopters

By John Irish

DUBAI (Reuters) -The United Arab Emirates ordered 80 Rafale fighter jets and 12 military helicopters on Friday, deepening economic and political ties with France through an arms contract worth 17 billion euros ($19.20 billion).

The largest ever overseas sale of the French warplane was sealed as French President Emmanuel Macron began a two-day trip to the Gulf, during which he will also visit Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“These contracts are important for the economy and create jobs in France. What is good for French men and women, I defend ardently,” Macron told reporters, dismissing concerns by activists that French arms sales in the Gulf were fuelling conflicts in the region.

The French presidency said the deal, signed at a ceremony between Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MBZ) and Macron on the sidelines of the Dubai Expo 2020, is worth $19 billion.

The first French warplanes will be delivered from 2027, officials, and would create some 7,000 jobs.

Macron’s visit comes at a time when Gulf Arab states have voiced uncertainty about the United States’ focus on the region even as they seek more weapons from their key security ally.

The French leader has forged a good relationship with MBZ with investments flowing between the two countries. Paris has a permanent military base in the Emirati capital.

Shares in Dassault Aviation SA , the Rafale’s maker, rose more than 9%.

It is the biggest bulk purchase of the Dassault-made Rafale, other than by the French army, and comes after deals in Greece, Egypt and Croatia this year.

Abu Dhabi also ordered 12 Caracal helicopters. It is the French code name for the H225M, the multirole military version of the Super Puma.

The on-off negotiations for the Rafale fighter jets took more than a decade with Abu Dhabi publicly rebuffing France’s offer to supply 60 Rafale jets in 2011 as “uncompetitive and unworkable”. Abu Dhabi already has French-built Mirage 2000 warplanes.

“This French commitment in the region, this active cooperation in the fight against terrorism, the clear positions we have taken mean that we have increased our proximity to the UAE,” Macron said.

“And at a time when they undoubtedly asked themselves more questions about other historical partners … I think that this strengthens France’s position,” he said referring to the United States.

Defense sources said the Rafale would replace the Mirage 2000 fleet but is unlikely to displace the American-built F-35 as the UAE continues to hedge its security with two major suppliers, France and the United States.

The deal could nonetheless be seen as a signal of impatience as the U.S. Congress hesitates on approving an F-35 deal amid concerns about the UAE’s relationship with China, including the prevalence of Huawei 5G technology in the country.

“That says a lot about the extraordinary aura that Abu Dhabi has acquired over Paris’ ideological and strategic thinking — It is the first time that a close U.S. partner in the Arab world will rely more on French technology than American technology,” said Jalel Harchaoui, a senior fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Paris is one of the UAE’s main arms’ suppliers, but it has faced increasing pressure to review its sales because of the conflict between a Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“France is going ahead with these sales despite the UAE playing a leading role in the atrocity-marred military operations led by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “The French president should denounce the human rights violations in these three counties.

($1 = 0.8856 euros)

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Tim Hepher, Karishma Singh, Simon Cameron-Moore and David Evans)