Tag Archives: U.S.

U.S. to schools: Give transgender students bathroom rights

A gender-neutral bathroom is seen at the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California September 30, 2014.

By Megan Cassella

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration told U.S. public school districts across the country on Friday to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity, rather than their gender at birth.

The new guidance comes as the Justice Department and North Carolina battle in federal court over a state law passed in March that prohibits people from using public restrooms not corresponding to their biological sex.

Officials from the Education and Justice departments told schools that while the new guidance does not carry legal weight, they are obligated not to discriminate against students, including based on their gender identity.

“Our guidance sends a clear message to transgender students across the country: here in America, you are safe, you are protected and you belong – just as you are,” Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement accompanying the letter sent to school districts nationwide.

The guidance contains an implicit threat that those not abiding by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.

As a condition of receiving federal funds, the letter said, a school agrees that it will not treat any person in its educational programs or activities differently on the basis of sex.

It added that the administration’s interpretation of existing regulations means that a school cannot treat a transgender student differently from other students of the same gender identity.

The issue of access to bathrooms by transgender people flared into a national controversy after North Carolina passed a law in March that made it the first state in the country to ban people from using multiple occupancy restrooms or changing rooms in public buildings and schools that do not match the sex on their birth certificate.

The U.S. Justice Department this week asked a federal district court in North Carolina to declare that the state is violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban.

North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, and the state’s secretary of public safety sued the agency in a different federal court in North Carolina, accusing it of “baseless and blatant overreach.”

(Reporting by Megan Cassella and Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Frances Kerry)

Russia will act to neutralize U.S. Missile shield threat

A view shows the command center for the newly opened ballistic missile defense site at Deveselu air base

By Vladimir Soldatkin

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) – A ballistic missile defense shield which the United States has activated in Europe is a step to a new arms race, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, vowing to adjust budget spending to neutralize “emerging threats” to Russia.

The United States switched on the $800 million missile shield at a Soviet-era base in Romania on Thursday saying it was a defense against missiles from Iran and so-called rogue states.

But, speaking to top defense and military industry officials, Putin said the system was aimed at blunting Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

“This is not a defense system. This is part of U.S. nuclear strategic potential brought onto a periphery. In this case, Eastern Europe is such periphery,” Putin said.

“Until now, those taking such decisions have lived in calm, fairly well-off and in safety. Now, as these elements of ballistic missile defense are deployed, we are forced to think how to neutralize emerging threats to the Russian Federation,” he said.

Coupled with deployment in the Mediterranean of U.S. ships carrying Aegis missiles and other missile shield elements in Poland, the site in Romania was “yet another step to rock international security and start a new arms race”, he said.

Russia would not be drawn into this race. But it would continue re-arming its army and navy and spend the approved funds in a way that would “uphold the current strategic balance of forces”, he said.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said on Thursday that the shield would not be used against any future Russian missile threat.

Frank Rose, deputy U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, warned at the time that Iran’s ballistic missiles could hit parts of Europe, including Romania.

Putin said the prospect of a nuclear threat from Iran should no longer be taken seriously and was being used by Washington as an excuse to develop its missile shield in Europe.

The full defensive umbrella, when complete in 2018 after further development in Poland, will stretch from Greenland to the Azores.

It relies on radars to detect a ballistic missile launch into space. Sensors then measure the rocket’s trajectory and destroy it in space before it re-enters the earth’s atmosphere. The interceptors can be fired from ships or ground sites.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Lidia Kelly and Richard Balmforth)

Urgent measures needed on living conditions in Greek migrant camps

People queue for free food at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni

STRASBOURG (Reuters) – Urgent measures are need to address overcrowding and poor living conditions in refugee and migrant camps in Greece, Europe’s top rights watchdog warned on Wednesday.

The Council of Europe, which brings together 47 countries, said some facilities were “sub-standard” and able to provide no more than the most basic needs such as food, hygiene products and blankets.

The report echoes warnings by other rights groups and aid agencies who say Greece has been unable to care properly for the more than 800,000 people reaching its shores in the last year, fleeing wars or poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

The Council described dire living conditions in several sites visited on a March 7-11 trip, just before the European Union and Turkey reached a deal that reduced arrivals but increased the number of people held in detention awaiting asylum decisions or deportation.

It said in its report that people who reached Greece were locked away in violation of international human rights standards and lacked legal access.

At Greece’s Nea Kavala temporary transit camp, people were left burning trash to keep warm and sleeping in mud-soaked tents, according to the report.

The Council called for the closure of a makeshift camp in Idomeni, where some 10,000 people have been stranded en route to northern Europe due to the closure of Macedonia’s border.

Germany has taken in most of the 1.3 million refugees and migrants who reached Europe across the Mediterranean in the past year, triggering bitter disputes among the 28 EU member states on how to handle the influx.

Europe’s deal with Turkey last month gave its leaders some breathing space but has come under pressure since Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, one of the sponsors of the accord, stepped down.

The morality and legality of the deal has been challenged by human rights groups, however, and a provision to grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel to Europe in exchange for Ankara’s help remains politically contentious.

In a separate report, a trio of European Parliamentarians on Tuesday described the poor conditions faced by people who have been returned to Turkey under the deal.

“We have seen how the migration policies imposed by the European Union have terrible consequences on the lives of thousands of people,” said Cornelia Ernst, a German member of the European Parliament and a co-author of that report.

“Turkey has been hired as a deportation agency, putting into practice the migration policies designed in Brussels.”

The left-wing deputies said on their May 2-4 visit to Turkey they had met people who complained of not being able to claim asylum in Europe, which would run counter to international humanitarian law.

They also described poor detention conditions, confiscation of private property and widespread difficulties in getting access to legal help or information, among other issues.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Hugh Lawson)

Georgian army begins U.S. led military excersize, angering Russia

Georgian servicemen attend an opening ceremony of U.S. led joint military exercise "Noble Partner 2016" in Vaziani

By Margarita Antidze

TBILISI (Reuters) – The Georgian army began two weeks of military exercises with the United States and Britain on Wednesday, drawing an angry response from former Soviet master Russia which called the war games “a provocative step”.

About 650 soldiers from the United States, 150 from Britain and 500 from Georgia were taking part in the maneuvers, with Washington dispatching an entire mechanized company including eight Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and, for the first time, eight M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks.

Georgia’s Defence Minister Tina Khidasheli said the drills were an important event for the South Caucasus republic.

“This is one of the biggest exercises that our country has ever hosted, this is the biggest number of troops on the ground, and the largest concentration of military equipment,” Khidasheli told Reuters.

But the exercises went down badly in Moscow where the Russian Foreign Ministry last week warned they could destabilize the region, a charge denied by Georgian officials.

“These exercises are not directed against anyone. There is no trace of provocation,” Georgia’s Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili said in a statement.

Russia defeated Georgia in a short war in 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, and Moscow continues to garrison troops there and to support another breakaway region, Abkhazia.

The exercises were run out of the Vaziani military base near Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

Russian forces used to be based there until they withdrew at the start of the last decade under the terms of a European arms reduction agreement.

“The importance of these exercises is to improve interoperability between Georgia, the United States and the United Kingdom. … It enables us to prepare Georgia’s contribution to a NATO response force,” Colonel Jeffrey Dickerson, the U.S. director of the exercises, told Reuters.

The United States has spoken favorably of the idea that Georgia might one day join NATO, something Russia firmly opposes.

(Editing by Alexander Winning/Andrew Osborn)

Quietly, Vietnam hosts arms gathering attended by U.S. companies

Soldiers hold rifles while marching during a celebration to mark Reunification Day in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

By My Pham and Idrees Ali

HANOI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vietnam hosts a defense symposium this week attended by top American arms manufacturers, ahead of a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama and as Washington weighs whether to lift an arms embargo on its former enemy.

Secrecy has surrounded the event staged by the communist country and attended by firms including Boeing <BA.N> and Lockheed Martin <LMT.N>. It coincides with the biggest arms buildup in the country since the Vietnam War.

There has been no mention in state-controlled media and defense reporters are not covering the forum. Efforts by Reuters to gain permission to attend have been unsuccessful and Vietnam’s defense ministry could not be reached for comment.

Vietnam has accelerated efforts to build a military deterrent and is the world’s eighth largest weapons importer, as neighbor China intensifies its push to fortify South China Sea islands it has either occupied or built from scratch.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think-tank, which tracks defense trade over five-year periods, Vietnam’s total arms imports during 2011-2015 represented a 699 percent jump from 2006-2010.

The Hanoi symposium comes amid debate within the U.S. administration over whether to respond to Vietnam’s longstanding request to remove an arms embargo that is one of the last major vestiges of the Vietnam War era.

Washington eased the embargo in late 2014, but has said any decision to lift it completely would hinge on the extent to which Vietnam has demonstrated progress in improving its human rights record. Its top envoy in that field, Tom Malinowski, was in Hanoi earlier this week.

Vietnam has been in talks with Western and U.S. arms manufacturers for several years now to boost its fleets of fighter jets, helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft, although Russia, its traditional supplier, maintains a dominant position.

Industry sources say Hanoi is keen on U.S. weapons yet wary of the threat of a future embargo even if the current one ends. The countries do have a common concern in China, however, whose assertiveness in the South China Sea has alarmed Washington.

Obama is due to start his Vietnam visit on May 22, the first by a U.S. president in a decade, underlining the rapidly warming relationship between the countries at a time of testy ties and growing mistrust between Hanoi and Beijing, which have competing claims to the Paracel and Spratly islands.

MODERNIZATION NEEDS

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin confirmed the company was attending the Hanoi event.

Boeing is also attending, although the firm made it clear it was not in contravention of the embargo.

“I would like to point out that any defense-related sales to Vietnam will follow development of U.S. government policy on Vietnam,” a spokesman said.

“We believe Boeing has capabilities in mobility and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance platforms that may meet Vietnam’s modernization needs.”

Those needs have included the purchase of six modern Kilo-class submarines from Russia equipped with Klub cruise missiles, Russian-built S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries, and from Israel, Galil assault rifles and AD-STAR 2888 radars.

Its navy is making Tarantul-class corvettes, known as Molniyas, modeled on Russian designs and equipped with 16 missiles with a range of 130 km (80 miles).

Though the communist parties that run China and Vietnam officially have brotherly ties, experts say Beijing’s brinkmanship has forced Vietnam to recalibrate its defense strategy.

A report in the defense ministry’s People’s Army Newspaper Online in March quoted the vice defense minister, Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, as saying Vietnam’s relationship with the United States lacked defense industry cooperation, and Hanoi wanted Washington “to provide modern, suitable and adaptable technology”.

Its outreach so far has been weighted towards Russia, India and Israel in procurements, but analysts say it is unlikely to seek formal military alliances and would stick to its foreign policy of not relying on a single power.

It has, however, mulled joint exercises with another South China Sea claimant at odds with China, the Philippines, and has received recent visits by Singaporean and Japanese warships at its new international port at Cam Ranh Bay, a strategic deepwater base that is home to its submarines.

Tim Huxley, a regional security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore, said Vietnam’s interest in getting the arms embargo lifted was not only about access to U.S. technology, but boosting its bargaining power.

“It reflects concern about what’s happening in the South China Sea and its need to restructure and re-arm, with a greater emphasis on greater naval and air capability,” he said.

“It wants to widen options available and have more choices in the international market place in terms of range of technology and its negotiating position.”

(Additional reporting by Mai Nguyen in HANOI; Writing and additional reporting by Martin Petty in MANILA; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

U.S. to switch on European missile shield despite Russian alarm

U.S. Defense Secretary Carter testifies on operations against the Islamic State on Capitol Hill in Washington

By Robin Emmott

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – The United States’ European missile defense shield goes live on Thursday almost a decade after Washington proposed protecting NATO from Iranian rockets and despite Russian warnings that the West is threatening the peace in central Europe.

Amid high Russia-West tension, U.S. and NATO officials will declare operational the shield at a remote air base in Deveselu, Romania, after years of planning, billions of dollars in investment and failed attempts to assuage Russian concerns that the shield could be used against Moscow.

“We now have the capability to protect NATO in Europe,” said Robert Bell, a NATO-based envoy of U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter. “The Iranians are increasing their capabilities and we have to be ahead of that. The system is not aimed against Russia,” he told reporters, adding that the system will soon be handed over to NATO command.

The United States will also start construction on a second site in Poland on Friday that is due to be ready in 2018, giving NATO a permanent, round-the-clock shield in addition to radars and ships already in the Mediterranean.

Russia is incensed at such of show of force by its Cold War rival in formerly communist-ruled eastern Europe where it once held sway. Moscow says the U.S.-led alliance is trying to encircle it close to the strategically important Black Sea, home to a Russian naval fleet and where NATO is also considering increasing patrols.

The readying of the shield also comes as NATO prepares a new deterrent in Poland and the Baltics, following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. In response, Russia is reinforcing its western and southern flanks with three new divisions.

Despite U.S. assurances, the Kremlin says the missile shield’s real aim is to neutralize Moscow’s nuclear arsenal long enough for the United States to make a first strike on Russia in the event of war.

The shield relies on radars to detect a ballistic missile launch into space. Tracking sensors then measure the rocket’s trajectory and intercept and destroy it in space, before it re-enters the earth’s atmosphere. The interceptors can be fired from ships or ground sites.

The Russian ambassador to Denmark warned a year ago that Danish warships would become targets for Russian nuclear missiles if Denmark joined the shield project by installing radars on its vessels. Denmark is upgrading at least one frigate to house a ballistic missile sensor.

Turkey is already hosting a U.S. radar and the Netherlands has equipped ships with radars. The United States also has four ships in Spain as part of the defenses, while all NATO nations are contributing funding.

“Ballistic missile defense sites could pose threats to the stability and strategic assets of the Russian Federation,” Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushko, told Reuters last month.

‘ROGUE STATES’

U.S. officials dismiss the Russian view as “strategic paranoia” and blame Moscow for breaking off talks with NATO in 2013 that were aimed at explaining how the shield would operate.

The United States says Russia was seeking a treaty limiting the capability and range of ballistic missile interceptors. “No government could agree to that,” U.S. adviser Bell said.

Russian officials are concerned about technology that the United States says it does not have, including a missile defense interceptor capable of speeds of 10 km (6.2 miles) per second that could destroy Russian missiles.

First agreed by the U.S. government 2007 and then canceled and relaunched by the newly-elected U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009, the missile defense shield’s stated aim is to protect North America and Europe from so-called rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. That is part of a U.S. strategy that includes missile interceptors in California and Alaska.

Ballistic missiles, which differ from cruise missiles because they leave the earth’s atmosphere, can travel distances of up 3,000 km (1,875 miles).

Despite a historic deal between world powers and Tehran to limit Iran’s nuclear program, the West believes Iran’s Revolutionary Guards continue to develop ballistic missile technology, carrying out two tests late last year.

“They are looking for greater distance and accuracy,” said Douglas Barrie, an aerospace defense specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). “They can still miss by hundreds of meters, but that doesn’t rule out firing against a city or a very large airfield.”

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

U.S. leads 25 strikes against Islamic State

A plume of smoke rises above a building during an air strike in Tikrit March 27, 2015. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

WASHINGTON(Reuters) – The United States and its allies conducted 25 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, according to the coalition leading the daily operations against the militant group.

In a statement released on Monday, the Combined Joint Task Force said 16 strikes near nine Iraqi cities were concentrated near Falluja and Mosul, where they hit six units of Islamic State fighters as well as two dozen rockets and a dozen rocket rails, among other weapons.

The strikes also hit a bunker, weapons caches and four tactical units near other cities, including Al Baghdadi, Albu Hayat, Bayji, Habbaniyah, Hit, Kisik and Sultan Abdallah, the task force said.

In Syria, nine strikes near Al Shadaddi, Manbij, Mar’a and Palmyra hit six units of militant fighters as well as six Islamic State fighting positions, four vehicles, an improvised explosive device, and other targets, according to the statement.

(Reporting by Washington newsroom)

U.S. says it, allies to do more to combat Islamic State

A F/A-18E/F Super Hornets of Strike Fighter Attack Squadron 211 (VFA-211) lands on the flight deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) aircraft carrier

By Phil Stewart

STUTTGART, Germany (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday that Washington and its allies had agreed to do more in their campaign to defeat Islamic State, but that more risks lay ahead.

He made the comment following talks in Germany with defense ministers and representatives from 11 other nations participating in the alliance.

He said the United States greatly regretted the death of a Navy SEAL in an attack by the jihadist group in northern Iraq on Tuesday. He named the man as Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating.

“These risks will continue… but allowing ISIL safe haven would carry greater risk for us all,” he added, using an acronym for Islamic State.

“…We also agreed that all of our friends and allies across the counter-ISIL coalition can and must do more as well, both to confront ISIL in Iraq and Syria and its metastases elsewhere.”

The talks included ministers from France, Britain and Germany and were planned well in advance of Tuesday’s attack, in which Islamic State fighters blasted through Kurdish defenses and overran a town.

The elite serviceman was the third American to be killed in direct combat since the U.S.-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014 to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State, and is a measure of its deepening involvement in the conflict.

Offering new details about Keating’s mission, Carter said the SEAL’s job was to operate with Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces to train and assist them north of the city of Mosul.

“That part of the peshmerga front came under attack… and they found themselves in a firefight,” Carter said.

In mid-April the United States announced plans to send an additional 200 troops to Iraq and put them closer to the front lines of battle to advise Iraqi forces.

In late April, President Barack Obama announced he would send an additional 250 special operations forces to Syria, greatly expanding the U.S. presence on the ground there to help draw in more Syrian fighters to combat Islamic State.

Carter said the risks extended to pilots flying a U.S.-led campaign of daily air strikes. “Every time a pilot goes up in an airplane above Syria or Iraq they’re at risk,” he said.

The Islamist militants have been broadly retreating since December, when the Iraqi army recaptured Ramadi, the largest city in the western region. Last month, the Iraqi army retook the nearby region of Hit, pushing the militants further north along the Euphrates valley.

But U.S. officials acknowledge that the military gains are not enough.

Iraq is beset by political infighting, corruption, a growing fiscal crisis and the Shi’ite Muslim-led government’s fitful efforts to seek reconciliation with aggrieved minority Sunnis, the bedrock of Islamic State support.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Ralph Boulton and John Stonestreet)

Oil Plows through $45 a barrel; U.S. producers rush to lock in prices

Oil pump jacks are seen next to a strawberry field in Oxnard

y Liz Hampton

HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. oil producers pounced on this month’s 20 percent rally in crude futures to the highest level since November, locking in better prices for their oil by selling future output and securing an additional lifeline for the years-long downturn.

The flurry of dealing kicked off when prices pierced $45 per barrel earlier in April. It picked up in recent weeks, allowing producers to continue to pump crude even if prices crash anew.

While it was not clear if oil prices will remain at current levels, it may also be a sign producers are preparing to add rigs and ramp up output.

This week, Pioneer Natural Resources Co;, a major producer in the Permian shale basin of West Texas, said it would add rigs with oil prices above $50 per barrel.

Selling into 2017 tightened the structure of the forward curve, with December 2017’s premium to December 2016; known as a contango, narrowing to $1.30, its tightest since June 2015. That spread had been as wide as $2.15 a barrel just four days earlier.

Open interest in the December 2017; WTI contract was at a record high of 122,533 lots on Friday, up about 20,000 lots from the start of April.

“U.S. producers have been quick to lock in price protection as the market rallies given that the vast number of companies remain significantly under hedged relative to historically normal levels,” said Michael Tran, director of energy strategy at RBC Capital Markets in New York.

It was not clear which companies embarked on the forward selling. In the past a handful of producers such as Anadarko Petroleum; have sporadically hedged in large chunks.

But trade sources pointed to increased activity among financial instruments for the balance of 2016, calendar year 2017 and even 2018.

The uptick in producer hedging activity came as benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures finished April up 20 percent for the biggest monthly increase in a year. Prices have rebounded by as much as 80 percent on expectations of falling U.S. production after touching a 12-year low in February.

On Friday, Baker Hughes reported oil drillers removed another 11 from operation the week to April 29, bringing the total oil rig count to 332, its lowest since November 2009.

The calendar 2017 strip week climbed to $49.44 on Thursday, its strongest since early December. In January, it had traded as low as $37.38 a barrel.

To outlast the downturn, many producers like Continental Resources;, are deferring completions on already drilled wells, known as DUCs.

“There are some companies that will hedge at $45 and $50, giving them more incentive to bring those DUCs on line,” said Hakan Carapcioglu, an energy market analyst with Ponderosa Advisors, a Denver-based consultancy.

To be sure, many have questioned the fundamentals backing the recent oil rally, particularly as U.S. crude inventories currently stand at a record 540.6 million barrels, according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration. [EIA/S]

(Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by David Gregorio and Alan Crosby)

Fed’s Kaplan says may back June or July rate rise

A guard walks in front of a Federal Reserve image before press conference in Washington

By David Milliken and Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan said on Friday that he could back a rise in U.S. interest rates as soon as June or July, if U.S. economic data firms up as he expects.

Kaplan, who does not currently vote this year on the Federal Open Market Committee, said interest rates should rise gradually but that financial markets had underestimated the Fed’s readiness to follow December’s rate rise with another move.

“We’ll see how the second quarter unfolds but I think the market may well be underestimating how soon we might move next,” Kaplan said at an event in London hosted by think-tank OMFIF.

“If the second-quarter data is firming you will see me advocating in the not too distant future that we try to take the next step. We will see what meeting, whether that means June or July or what else. I’d like to see it happen,” he told reporters after.

The Fed kept rates on hold at 0.25-0.5 percent this week and signaled it was in no rush to raise them again soon, citing slowing economic activity despite an improved labor market.

The message pushed the dollar sharply lower and helped drive oil prices to their highest so far this year.

For economists it also added to a feeling that has been growing since the start of the year that U.S. rates may not be set to diverge from those in Europe and Japan as much as many had predicted.

Kaplan’s remarks were the first from a U.S. policymaker after this week’s Fed rate decision, and appeared calculated to drive home a more hawkish message on rates.

If GDP growth rebounds this quarter, as expected, “I personally will be moving toward advocating some removal of accommodation sooner rather than later,” Kaplan said in a Bloomberg TV interview after his speech.

“I will also advocate that we take these steps in a gradual and patient manner,” he said, expressing a cautious view on normalizing rates held widely at the Fed.

LOWER PEAK

Kaplan also said he expected rates to peak at a lower level than seen historically.

In forecasts released last month, all but one of the Fed’s 17 policymakers said they believe it will be appropriate to raise rates at least twice this year. Traders are betting on just one hike.

The Fed raised rates last December for the first time in nearly a decade but has kept them unchanged since then over worries about global growth and low inflation.

Kaplan forecast U.S. gross domestic product growth this year at 2.0 percent, slightly faster than he projected last month.

U.S. employers can continue to add jobs at a “healthy” pace without overheating the economy, largely because of a global labor surplus putting downward pressure on inflation, he said.

But Kaplan also expressed confidence that inflation, which has undershot the Fed’s 2.0 percent target for years, will return to that level over the medium term as the downward pressure from a strong U.S. dollar and cheap oil abates.

He told reporters he would be looking to see whether other economic indicators caught up with measures of a labor market that was rapidly closing in on full employment.

“It’s going to have to get reconciled one way or the other. It’s either going to happen with the PCE (inflation) and other numbers firming, or other numbers weakening,” he said.

“We still believe the consumer in the U.S. is strong and has the capacity to be spending.”

The state of the debate ahead of Britain’s June 23 referendum on whether to stay in the European Union could also affect Kaplan’s view about a Fed hike on June 15.

Sterling could suffer a “sudden depreciation” if Britain left the EU, he said, with ripple effects for the world economy.

(Reporting by Marc Jones, David Milliken and Ann Saphir; Editing by Clive McKeef and James Dalgleish)