Airstrike kills 44 migrants in Libyan detention center
BENGHAZI, Libya — An airstrike hit a detention center for migrants near the Libyan capital of Tripoli early Wednesday, killing at least 44 people and wounding dozens of others in an attack that the U.N. human rights chief said could amount to a war crime.
The Tripoli-based government blamed the attack on forces associated with Gen. Khalifa Hifter, whose Libyan National Army has been waging an offensive against rival militias in the capital of the war-torn North African country since April.
It refocused attention and raised questions about the European Union’s policy of cooperating with the militias that hold migrants in crowded and squalid detention centers to prevent them from crossing the Mediterranean to seek better lives in Europe. Most of them were apprehended by the Libyan coast guard, which is funded and trained by the EU to stem the flow of migrants.
At the United Nations, the Security Council scheduled an emergency session for later Wednesday on the airstrike in Tripoli’s Tajoura neighborhood, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent investigation.
Hifter’s forces said they were targeting a nearby military site, not the detention center. There also were suspicions of involvement by foreign countries allied with his forces. Countries assisting Hifter include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
Rouhani: Iran will enrich uranium to ‘any amount we want’
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president warned that Tehran will increase its enrichment of uranium to “any amount that we want” beginning on Sunday, putting further pressure on European nations to save its faltering nuclear deal and offer a way around intense U.S. sanctions.
President Hassan Rouhani’s threat, combined with Iran surpassing the stockpile limits of the 2015 atomic accord, could narrow the estimated one-year window it would need to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon, something Iran denies it wants but the deal sought to prevent.
But as tensions rise a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the deal, it looks unlikely that Europe can offer Iran a way to sell its oil on the global market despite U.S. sanctions.
All this comes the U.S. has rushed an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and F-22 fighters to the region and Iran recently shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. “Be careful with the threats, Iran. They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!” Trump tweeted in response to Rouhani’s warning.
On Wednesday, Iran also marked the anniversary of the U.S. Navy shooting down an Iranian passenger jet in 1988, a mistake that killed 290 people and shows the danger of miscalculation in the current crisis.
Trump says US should start manipulating the dollar
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused China and Europe of playing a “big currency manipulation game.” He said the United States should match that effort, a move that directly contradicts official U.S. policy not to manipulate the dollar’s value to gain trade advantages.
In a tweet, the president said if America doesn’t act, the country will continue “being the dummies who sit back and politely watch as other countries continue to play their games — as they have for so many years.”
Trump’s own Treasury Department in May found that no country meets the criteria of being labeled a currency manipulator, although the report did put China and eight other countries on a watch list.
A country manipulates its currency when it drives down the value to make its exports cheaper and foreign imports more expensive.
As a candidate in 2016, Trump repeatedly charged that China was manipulating its currency and as president he would immediately label China as a currency manipulator.
Some big farms collect big checks from Trump aid package
MINNEAPOLIS — When President Donald Trump’s administration announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers struggling under the financial strain of his trade dispute with China, the payments were capped. But many large farming operations had no trouble finding legal ways around them, records provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act show.
The government paid out nearly $2.8 million to a Missouri soybean-growing operation registered as three entities at the same address. More than $900,000 went to five other farm businesses, in Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and two in Texas. Three other farming operations collected more than $800,000. Sixteen more collected over $700,000. And the data list more than 3,000 recipients who collected more than the $125,000 cap.
Recipients who spoke to AP defended the payouts, saying they didn’t cover their losses from the trade war, and they were legally entitled to them. U.S. Department of Agriculture rules let farms file claims for multiple family members or other partners who meet the department’s definition of being “actively engaged in farming.”
But critics including U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has long fought for subsidy limits, say it’s the latest example of how loopholes in federal farm subsidy programs allow large farms to collect far more than the supposed caps on that aid.
Grassley said in a statement to AP that some of the nation’s largest farms are receiving huge subsidies “through underhanded legal tricks. They’re getting richer off the backs of taxpayers while young and beginning farmers are priced out of the profession. This needs to end. The Department of Agriculture needs to re-evaluate its rules for awarding federal funds and conduct more thorough oversight of where it’s funneling taxpayer dollars.”
Navy SEAL sentenced for posing with dead Iraq war casualty
SAN DIEGO — A Navy SEAL who was acquitted of killing a wounded Islamic State captive but convicted of posing with the corpse was sentenced by a military jury Wednesday to a reduction in rank and four months of confinement.
A judge, however, credited Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher with enough time already spent in custody to ensure he won’t be locked up.
Gallagher turned to his wife, shook his head and pretended to unpin his “anchors” — the insignia of a chief — and fling them across the courtroom. He then smiled and hugged her.
The sentence will not go into effect until it is approved by the commanding officer overseeing the court-martial.
Earlier, Gallagher addressed the jury that had acquitted him Tuesday of murder, attempted murder and other counts stemming from an incident during a 2017 deployment to Iraq.