Tag: Amnesty International

Good Wednesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has recommended designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization. It would be the first time the United States designated a unit of another government’s military as a terrorist group, and some American officials caution it could put troops and intelligence officers at risk. • President Trump hosted Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president, at the White House on Tuesday. But while the cuts have activated some aspects of the economy in the short term, officials now concede they will not be enough to deliver the 3 percent annual growth the president promised over the long term. • For years, the Pentagon has maintained that no civilians have been killed in American airstrikes and raids in Somalia. In a new report released Tuesday, however, Amnesty International put the death toll at 14 since 2017 alone. The report linked the killings to Mr. Trump’s decision to relax rules for preventing civilian casualties. • The Supreme Court adopted a strict interpretation of a federal immigration law, saying it required the detention of immigrants facing deportation without the possibility of bail if they had committed crimes, including minor ones, no matter how long ago they had been released from criminal custody.

Eleven years since he lost re-election, former San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre remains in the psyche of the city attorney’s office. We have now seen two city attorneys elected since then promising that they would never do that. She is running for the District 3 seat on the County Board of Supervisors, and that will be a race we and everyone else who cares about the county will follow intensely. Civic San Diego Lawsuit Resolution? The City Council is getting briefed in closed session Tuesday on the state of two lawsuits that have challenged the legality of the city’s downtown redevelopment agency. The first lawsuit, and the one we’ve had our eye on for years, was filed by Murtaza Baxamusa, a former board member at Civic. We don’t know what the city’s attorneys plan to tell the City Council in closed session Tuesday about the suit, but a settlement has been looming for months. – Cory Briggs has filed his own lawsuit against Civic, again over the legality of the city delegating some planning responsibility to the agency. The lawsuit is over a year old, but somehow we hadn’t previously known – and it doesn’t look like anyone else has yet reported – that Briggs was also involved in the legal challenge to Civic. What’s at stake: Backing up a bit, a major settlement could fundamentally change Civic’s role in city development.

Eleven years since he lost re-election, former San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre remains in the psyche of the city attorney’s office. We have now seen two city attorneys elected since then promising that they would never do that. She is running for the District 3 seat on the County Board of Supervisors, and that will be a race we and everyone else who cares about the county will follow intensely. Civic San Diego Lawsuit Resolution? The City Council is getting briefed in closed session Tuesday on the state of two lawsuits that have challenged the legality of the city’s downtown redevelopment agency. The first lawsuit, and the one we’ve had our eye on for years, was filed by Murtaza Baxamusa, a former board member at Civic. We don’t know what the city’s attorneys plan to tell the City Council in closed session Tuesday about the suit, but a settlement has been looming for months. – Cory Briggs has filed his own lawsuit against Civic, again over the legality of the city delegating some planning responsibility to the agency. The lawsuit is over a year old, but somehow we hadn’t previously known – and it doesn’t look like anyone else has yet reported – that Briggs was also involved in the legal challenge to Civic. What’s at stake: Backing up a bit, a major settlement could fundamentally change Civic’s role in city development.

1 isn’t alone doing so at the Saudi International this week. 5 Bryson DeChambeau are all making statements with their decisions to play in the inaugural European Tour event in Saudi Arabia. They do so by choosing to play amid the still smoldering outrage over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. concluded Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing. Four of the top five players in the Official World Golf Ranking are helping to move golf’s new relationship with the crown prince forward. When does playing golf become playing politics? Of course, Amnesty International’s issues with Saudi Arabia go beyond Khashoggi’s murder. Maybe the tour pros in Saudi Arabia can take solace knowing they aren’t acting much differently than most corporate titans did when mixing with the Saudi delegation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week. The Washington Post concluded the same. “It is not the Saudi Arabian people who ordered Khashoggi murdered,” Kenneth Roth, head of the Human Rights Watch, told France’s AFP during the World Economic Forum last week.