TDB Top 5 International Stories: Monday 13th March 2017

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5:Refugees Fleeing Violence in Central America Hope for Asylum in Mexico

Women and children from Central America began arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers during the summer of 2014. Referring to the “urgent humanitarian situation,” President Barack Obama called on Congress to build new detention centers, hire new immigration judges, and increase border surveillance as tens of thousands of unaccompanied children were detained by U.S. immigration officials. At the same time, the United States backed a Mexican government initiative to increase patrols, detentions, and deportations along Mexico’s southern border. The idea was to stop Central Americans from getting into Mexico, let alone the United States.

But the gang violence, kidnappings, and extortion sending families fleeing from the “Northern Triangle” comprising El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala hasn’t stopped. The area has the highest murder rate in the world outside a war zone, and people are still coming to Mexico. Only now, as photographer Alice Proujansky documents, they are taking new routes and facing new dangers.

“Entire families arrive with little more than backpacks,” Proujansky said. “Women and children are particularly vulnerable: increased enforcement on freight trains has driven migrants to ride buses and walk on isolated routes where they face robbery, assault, and sexual violence.”

The Intercept

4: Fake News About a Secret Nazi UFO Base In Antarctica Refuses to Die

This researcher at Cambridge has a PhD and still had to take time to prove why the Nazi Antarctic UFO base is a hoax.

Before we get into this let’s make one thing clear: the secret Nazi UFO base in Antarctica doesn’t exist. The Nazis did go to Antarctica, but they didn’t stash priceless European art in a subterranean Antarctic lair where they also happened to be developing flying saucers. That would be a totally insane thing to believe.

But as recently as 2016, articles mentioning the possible existence of this very thing can be found in tabloids like The Mirror, which reported on a possible Nazi UFO under Antarctic ice, as well as The Daily Star, which suggested that the Nazi UFO base may have ties to the giant alien ice pyramids under Antarctica.

Vice News

3: Turkey FM calls Netherlands the ‘capital of fascism’

Turkey’s leaders continued their verbal assault on the Netherlands on Sunday with its foreign minister accusing his NATO ally of being “the capital of fascism”.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made the comments in France where he spoke to whip up support among Turkish immigrants for constitutional reforms to expand the powers of the Turkish presidency.

On Saturday, Cavusoglu was denied landing rights by the Netherlands, where he planned to hold a rally in Rotterdam. Holding political rallies for another country’s domestic policies is illegal in Holland.

“The Netherlands – the so-called ‘capital of democracy’ – and I say this in quotation marks because they are actually the capital of fascism,” Cavusoglu said on Sunday in the northeastern French city of Metz.

Aljazeera

2: Immigrant Rights Leader Released After Hundreds Rally Outside His Check-in with Deportation Officer

We begin with an update on the case of prominent immigrant rights advocate Ravi Ragbir, whom we interviewed Thursday on Democracy Now! right before his check-in with a deportation officer. Ragbir, originally from Trinidad, immigrated to the United States legally but has a 15-year-old criminal conviction. He’s avoided deportation since 2011 due to a series of stays that could end under President Trump. After he left our studios, Ragbir spoke at a press conference and rally, where hundreds gathered to support him before he went inside, unsure if he would come back out. He was accompanied to his check-in by his wife, his attorney, pastors and four elected officials. He emerged with mixed news. Even though he has a stay in place until 2018, he was told to return for another check-in next month. Officials also instructed Ragbir, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a U.S.-born daughter, to prepare his travel documents, which are often the first step toward deportation.

Democracy Now

1: Elizabeth Warren says Trump pushed out prosecutors to install ‘cronies’

The progressive senator Elizabeth Warren accused Donald Trump of firing a prominent prosecutor to install “cronies” , warning on Sunday of “a massive fight” in the Senate over his picks for new US attorneys.

On Saturday, Trump fired Preet Bharara, the US attorney of the southern district of Manhattan, where the prosecutor had pursued corruption cases against members of both the Republican and Democratic parties. In November, Bharara met with Trump and his nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and said he had “agreed to stay on” after conversations with both.

But on Friday afternoon, Sessions abruptly ordered 46 prosecutors, nearly all appointees of Barack Obama, to resign “effective immediately”. Bharara refused to resign and was fired, saying in a brief public statement: “One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served.”

The Guardian