Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke twice with Russian ambassador before taking office, The Washington Post reports.}

Jeff Sessions, while still a US senator, spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador, encounters he did not disclose when asked during his confirmation hearing to become attorney general about possible contacts between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, The Washington Post reported, citing Justice Department officials.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what US intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the US presidential race, the Post reported.

Sessions in a statement denied ever meeting “with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign”.

“I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false,” the statement read.

The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election, the Post said.

Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired last month after he discussed US sanctions on Russia with Kislyak before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates.

When Sessions spoke with Kislyak in July and September, he was a senior member of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee as well as one of Trump’s top foreign policy advisers, according to the Post.

Sessions played a prominent role supporting Trump after formally joining the campaign in February 2016.

At his January 10 Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Sessions was asked by Democratic Senator Al Franken what he would do if he learned of any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of the 2016 campaign, the Post reported.

“I’m not aware of any of those activities,” Sessions responded, according to the Post. He added: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”

Officials said Sessions did not consider the conversations relevant to the lawmakers’ questions and did not remember in detail what he discussed with Kislyak, according to the Post.

“There was absolutely nothing misleading about his answer,” Sarah Isgur Flores, Sessions’ spokeswoman, told the Post.

“Last year, the Senator had over 25 conversations with foreign ambassadors as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, including the British, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Indian, Chinese, Canadian, Australian, German and Russian ambassadors.”

Justice officials said Sessions met with Kislyak on September 8 in his capacity as a member of the armed services panel rather than in his role as a Trump campaign surrogate, the Post reported.

“He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign – not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee,” Flores told the Post.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Washington, former associate US attorney general Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera: “Everyone knows Jeff Sessions was up to his ears in the Trump campaign, that’s why he’s attorney-general now.”

But he noted Trump has made powerful enemies early on in his presidency.

“Mr Trump has so alienated the press that they’re out to get him. And there are many people in the intelligence community that are probably out to get Mr Trump too because he’s derided them, [accused] them of doing things equivalent to the Nazis. So he’s going to have an intelligence community that’s looking for things,” Fein added.

Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said t he US House of Representatives intelligence committee will investigate allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.

“We have reached a written agreement, the minority and the majority in the House intelligence committee, that we will investigate allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign,” Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, said on MSNBC.

The committee said in a statement that its Republican chairman, Devin Nunes, and Schiff had agreed that their investigation will seek answers to questions including: “Did the Russian active measures include links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns or any other US Persons?”

Source:Al Jazeera

{UN probe finds Syrian air force deliberately attacked aid convoy, while rebels used human shields in eastern Aleppo.}

Both sides in last year’s battle for Syria’s Aleppo city committed war crimes, including a “deliberate” bombing of a humanitarian convoy by the Syrian government, according to a new United Nations investigation.

The UN Commission of Inquiry’s report released on Wednesday said Syrian government and allied Russian forces “pervasively used” unguided munitions to bomb densely populated areas in rebel-held eastern Aleppo between July and its fall on December 22, amounting to the war crime of indiscriminate attacks.

“Throughout the period under review, the skies over Aleppo city and its environs were jointly controlled by Syrian and Russian air forces … (They) use predominantly the same aircraft and weapons, thus rendering attribution impossible in many cases,” the report said.

Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city and former commercial hub, had been divided into rebel and government parts since 2012.

The recapture of its eastern sector in late December by government forces was the biggest blow to Syria’s rebel movement since fighting started in 2011.

Syrian helicopters unleashed toxic chlorine bombs “throughout 2016” on Aleppo, a banned weapon that caused hundreds of civilian casualties there, the report said.

At least 5,000 pro-government forces also encircled eastern Aleppo in a “surrender or starve” tactic, it said.

In a major new finding, the investigators also accused the Syrian government of a “meticulously planned and ruthlessly carried out” air strike on a UN and Syrian Red Crescent convoy at Orum al-Kubra, in rural western Aleppo on September 19 which killed 14 aid workers.

President Bashar al-Assad’s government has fiercely denied responsibility for the convoy’s bombardment and a separate UN probe in December said it was impossible to establish blame.

But after analysing satellite images, forensic evidence and other material, the inquiry determined that “Syrian air forces targeted (the) humanitarian aid convoy”.

“By using air-delivered munitions with the knowledge that humanitarian workers were operating in the location, Syrian forces committed the war crimes of deliberately attacking humanitarian relief personnel, denial of humanitarian aid, and attacking civilians,” the report said.

During the recapture of eastern Aleppo, pro-government forces arrested doctors and aid workers and committed reprisal executions, the report said.

{{Crimes on rebel side}}

According to the report, opposition groups shelled government-controlled western Aleppo, indiscriminately firing with no clear military target.

As the opposition resistance was crumbling and civilians tried to escape, some rebel armed groups prevented civilians from fleeing eastern Aleppo, using them as “human shields”, and attacked the residential Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud – both war crimes.

The US-led coalition did not conduct any offensive air missions over Aleppo in the second half of the year, the UN investigators said.

The findings – released as Syrian peace talks continue in the Swiss city of Geneva – was based on 291 interviews with victims and witnesses, as well as analysis of forensic evidence and satellite imagery.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Geneva, said the authors of the report stated that there was “just no accountability”.

“Even though this is being documented, even though the world knows this is going on … UN investigators said the fact of the matter is no side in this conflict feels that they are accountable when it comes to committing these atrocities,” he said.

“The bigger question now is, if this is documented, what is going to happen?” he said.

“What the press was told was that the UN is preparing a dossier so if there is a tribunal that eventually happens, the evidence is ready to try to prosecute those who are accused of doing war crimes.”

Russia and China blocked in 2014 a request for the International Criminal Court to open up investigations of war crimes committed during the war in Syria.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons in the war that has killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced almost half the country’s population since 2011.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Slovakia’s school system riddled with institutional racism, fails to prepare for life after school, rights groups say.}

Romani children in Slovakia are segregated in schools, bullied by teachers and misdiagnosed as mentally disabled because of anti-Roma racism, according to human rights groups.

The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and Amnesty International said on Wednesday that Romani children in primary school, aged between five and 11, were systematically denied their rights to education, trapping them in a “cycle of poverty and marginalisation”.

The report comes almost two years after the European Commission launched infringement proceedings against Slovakia for discrimination and segregation in education.

“Slovakia’s abject failure to address deeply ingrained prejudices within the education system is blighting the future of generations of Romani children from the moment they step into the classroom,” said ERRC President Dorde Jovanovic.

There are as many as 500,000 Roma in Slovakia, mostly in the country’s east and south, comprising almost 10 percent of the population.

“The piecemeal reforms and periodic declarations of intent by successive governments cannot obscure the fact that the discrimination and segregation of Roma in primary education remains widespread, and that the Slovak authorities are fundamentally failing to address them,” the groups said in a joint report.

“Under national, European and international law, discrimination in the field of education is prohibited in Slovakia. However, in practice, Slovak authorities have not accompanied the ban on discrimination with concrete measures to address or prevent it,” they added.

Roma in Slovakia are the second largest minority after Hungarians.

Wednesday’s report was based on research carried out by the two groups in October and November in four regions: Sarisske Michalany; Moldava nad Bodvou; Rokycany and Krompachy.

Robert Kalinak, interior minister, said that programmes to “improve the situation” had been prepared as he accused the groups of exaggerating their claims on segregation, according to local media.

{{Institutional racism}}

Researchers visited six Romani settlements and studied dozens of schools.

While many in the country blame Roma for failing to encourage their children to attend schools, little attention is paid to institutional racism, the report said.

“Segregation of Romani children in mainstream primary schools persists in Slovakia, either in schools that are fully or primarily composed of Roma pupils, or in Roma-only classes,” the report said.

“Romani children educated in mixed educational settings [including Romani and non-Roma children] often face racial prejudice and harassment by non-Roma classmates and teachers,” it added, calling on the education ministry to address the issue.

At one school in Sarisske Michalany, a teacher told researchers that she would not send her own children to a school with Romani pupils.

“Did you see the children from Ostrovany [a school for Roma]? How they speak? How they smell? No wonder the non-Roma don’t want to be with them … It’s a little zoo,” the teacher reportedly said.

{{Fabricating mental disability}}

According to a 2016 report by the state school watchdog, 21.74 percent of pupils reported the use of derogatory language, including anti-Roma slurs, by teachers in schools.

“In Slovakia, Romani children have been overrepresented in special schools and classes for children with ‘mild mental disabilities’ for decades,” the report said.

“Many have been misdiagnosed … as a result of culturally-biased diagnostic tools and anti-Roma prejudice among psychological and pedagogical experts. These children are condemned to low-quality education and limited opportunities for further education and employment.”

The report also documented a so-called white flight, when non-Roma parents remove their children from schools when they feel there are too many Romani pupils.

“Romani children do not start education on an equal footing with non-Roma children and segregation entrenches inequality at every stage of their lives,” the report said.

Dafina Savic, founder of Canada-based Romanipe, a group advocating for human rights of Roma, told Al Jazeera: “Segregation not only deprives young Roma from a normal educational experience, but also from eventually successfully integrating into society, since their misdiagnosis prevents them from accessing higher education and certain jobs.”

Schools across Europe have failed to integrate Roma children, she added, describing persistent racial segregation.

“Roma are seated separately from non-Roma children, are placed at the back of the class, or are given a lower curriculum,” Savic said. “Educational systems across Europe are not proving safe spaces for Roma children, first and foremost because teachers and administrative [staff] have their prejudices.”

She said that abuse against Roma would only be wiped out when governments addressed a history of persecution, including slavery, genocide during the Holocaust and forced sterilisation.

“It is only then that the emancipation rather than the integration of Roma can occur,” she said. “An essential step in challenging the root causes of anti-gypsyism today lies in giving Roma the opportunity to voice their interests and influence the decision-making process which affects them directly.”

Source:Al Jazeera

{Democrat says committee will investigate claims of collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Moscow.}

The US House of Representatives intelligence committee will investigate allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, the top Democrat on the panel has said.

“We have reached a written agreement, the minority and the majority in the House intelligence committee, that we will investigate allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign,” Democratic Representative Adam Schiff told MSNBC on Wednesday.

US intelligence analysts have concluded that Russia tried to help Trump win the White House by discrediting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her party through cyber attacks.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, expelled Russian diplomats in retaliation in December.

Trump has denied any of his associates had contacts with Moscow before last year’s election and dismissed the controversy as a “scam” perpetrated by a hostile news media.

Moscow has denied the accusations.

Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Monday that US intelligence officials had not yet presented the panel with evidence of contacts between Trump campaign staff and Russian intelligence.

Nunes was a member of Trump’s presidential transition team.

The committee, which has been probing contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia, said in a statement that Nunes and Schiff had agreed on a classified six-page document laying out the scope of their investigation.

It said one question they would seek to answer was whether the Russian actions included “links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns or any other US Persons”.

The statement did not refer specifically to the Trump campaign.

Earlier on Wednesday, Nunes told Fox News that the committee would receive a briefing from intelligence officials on Thursday.

Trump fired his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, last month for misleading Vice President Mike Pence over his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

Separately, then-US Senator Jeff Sessions spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador, encounters he did not disclose when asked during his confirmation hearing to become attorney general about possible contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing justice department officials.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, the Post reported.

Source:Al Jazeera