Month: August 2019

The Los Angeles Opera said on Tuesday it will investigate accusations of sexual misconduct against Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, who described the claims as inaccurate.

The Los Angeles Opera, where Domingo is general director, was responding to accusations made by eight singers, a dancer and others in the classical music world in a report by the Associated Press.

The news agency reported allegations by the women of inappropriate behavior. The Associated Press said it also had spoken to almost three dozen other musicians, voice teachers and backstage staff who said they had witnessed what the report described as “sexually tinged” behavior by Domingo dating back three decades in various cities.

“LA Opera will engage outside counsel to investigate the concerning allegations about Placido Domingo,” the opera house said in a statement. The LA Opera is “committed to doing everything we can to foster a professional and collaborative environment where all our employees and artists feel equally comfortable, valued and respected.”

Domingo, in a statement distributed by his publicist Nancy Seltzer, called the accusations “deeply troubling, and as presented, inaccurate.”

“Still, it is painful to hear that I may have upset anyone or made them feel uncomfortable — no matter how long ago and despite my best intentions,” Domingo’s statement said. “I believed that all of my interactions and relationships were always welcomed and consensual.”

Future performances

The Philadelphia Orchestra Association said on Tuesday it had withdrawn an invitation to Domingo to appear as part of its opening night on Sept. 18.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York, where Domingo is due to perform in “Macbeth” next month and “Madama Butterfly” in November, said in a statement that it took accusations of sexual harassment and abuse of power seriously but would await the results of the LA Opera investigation “before making any final decisions about Mr Domingo’s future at the Met.”

Domingo, 78, is one of the most famous opera singers and directors in the world and the LA Opera described him on Tuesday as a “dynamic force” there for more than 30 years. He was one of the “Three Tenors,” along with Jose Carreras and the late Luciano Pavarotti, who brought opera to a wider audience with concerts around the world in the 1990s.

Changing standards

In the statement released by his publicist, Domingo added that while he would not intentionally harm, offend or embarrass anyone, “I recognize that the rules and standards by which we are — and should be — measured against today are very different than they were in the past.”

Hundreds of women have publicly accused powerful men in business, politics, the news media, sports and entertainment of sexual harassment and abuse since October 2017, fueled by the #MeToo social movement.

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President Donald Trump sought to take credit Tuesday for a major manufacturing complex in western Pennsylvania in his latest effort to reinvigorate the Rust Belt support that sent him to the White House. He was cheered on by fluorescent-vest-clad workers who were paid to attend by Shell, their employer, which is building the facility.

Despite Trump’s claims, Shell announced its plans to build the complex in 2012, midway through President Barack Obama’s term in the White House.

The event was billed as an official White House event, but Trump turned much of it into a campaign-style rally, boasting of achievements he claims as president and assailing his would-be Democratic rivals for the 2020 election.

“I don’t think they give a damn about Western Pennsylvania, do you?” he prodded the crowd.

Trump was visiting Shell’s soon-to-be completed Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex, which will turn the area’s vast natural gas deposits into plastics. The facility is being built in an area hungry for investment and employment, though critics claim it will become the largest air polluter in western Pennsylvania.

Trump contends that America’s coal, oil and manufacturing are reviving and he deserves the credit. He’s been focusing on his administration’s efforts to increase the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels in defiance of increasingly urgent warnings about climate change. And he’s embracing plastic at a time when the world is sounding alarms over its impact.

“We don’t need it from the Middle East anymore,” Trump said of oil and natural gas, proclaiming the employees “the backbone of this country.”

As for the new complex, he declared, “This would have never happened without me and us.”

Trump’s appeals to blue-collar workers helped him win Beaver County, where the plant is located, by more than 18 percentage points in 2016, only to have voters there turn to Democrats in 2018’s midterm elections. In one of a series of defeats that led to Republicans’ loss of the House, voters sent Democrat Conor Lamb to Congress after the prosperity promised by Trump’s tax cuts failed to materialize.

Today, the much of the area is still struggling to recover from the shutting of steel plants in the 1980s that sent unemployment to nearly 30%. Former mill towns like Aliquippa have seen their population shrink, though Pittsburgh has lured major tech companies like Google and Uber, fueling an economic renaissance in a city that reliably votes Democratic.

Trump claimed that his steel and aluminum foreign-trade tariffs have saved the industries and that they are now “thriving,” exaggerating the recovery of the steel industry, particularly when it comes to jobs, which have largely followed pace with broader economic growth.

Trump took credit for the addition of 600,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. Labor Department figures show that roughly 500,000 factory jobs have been added since his presidency started.

Manufacturing has also started to struggle anew this year as the administration has intensified its trade war with China and factory production has declined. Pennsylvania has lost 5,600 manufacturing jobs so far this year, according to the Labor Department.

The region’s natural gas deposits had been seen, for a time, as its new road to prosperity, with drilling in the Marcellus Shale reservoir transforming Pennsylvania into the nation’s No. 2 natural gas state. But drops in the price of oil and gas caused the initial jobs boom from fracking to fizzle, leading companies like Shell to turn instead to plastics and so-called cracker plants — named after the process in which molecules are broken down at high heat, turning fracked ethane gas into one of the precursors for plastic.

The company was given massive tax breaks to build the petrochemicals complex, along with a $10 million site development grant, with local politicians eager to accommodate a multibillion-dollar construction project.

But “fracking for plastic” has drawn alarm from environmentalists and other activists, who warn of potential health and safety risks to nearby residents and bemoan the production of ever more plastic. There has been growing concern over the sheer quantity of plastic on the planet, which has overwhelmed landfills, inundated bodies of water and permeated the deepest reaches of the ocean. Microplastics have been found in the bodies of birds, fish, whales and people, with the health impacts largely unknown.

“Of all the things we could invest in, of all the things we should be prioritizing, of all the companies we should be giving our taxpayer money to, this seems like the worst of all worlds,” said David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, a statewide environmental advocacy organization.

Trump defended the investment in plastics, claiming pollution in the ocean is “not our plastic.”

“It’s plastics that’s floating over in the ocean and the various oceans from other places,” he told reporters before boarding Air Force One.

A spokesman for Shell, Ray Fisher, said the company has “dedicated a great deal of time and resources” to ensure emissions from the plant meet or exceed local, state and federal requirements. “As designed, the project will actually help improve the local air shed as it relates to ozone and fine particulates,” he said.

The project currently has 5,000 construction workers. Once operational, however, the number of permanent employees at the site will shrink to 600.

The area still faces economic headwinds. The nearby Beaver Valley Power Station, a nuclear plant that has employed 850 people, has announced plans to close in 2021. And the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant, once the state’s largest coal-powered plant, announced Friday that it would close this fall, 19 months earlier than expected, at a cost of at least 200 jobs.

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Rarely has a candidate gone far in a US presidential race highlighting a singular issue, but Democrat Jay Inslee is aiming to buck that trend with his commitment to tackling climate change.

Unless he does something to dramatically change his trajectory — he has less than one percent support in polls — Inslee, currently the governor of Washington state, likely will be an also-ran in the crowded race to decide who challenges President Donald Trump in 2020.

But what he has already achieved makes his candidacy worthy: launching a Democratic policy debate on climate change and how to prevent environmental disaster over the coming decades.

Since entering the race in March, Inslee has repeatedly hit the panic button on climate, demanding the United States reverse course and take global warming and environmental protections far more seriously.

For Inslee and several other Democratic candidates, the science is clear: dramatic action over the next decade is needed to reduce carbon pollution, or irreparable harm will result.

“Unless we defeat the climate crisis, everything else we’ve worked on will be moot,” the square-jawed Inslee, 68, told voters at the Iowa State Fair.

Inslee is quick to highlight his economic accomplishments as governor. He has also savaged Trump as a “white supremacist” who is dividing Americans and is hurting farmers with his trade war with China. 

But “climate change is the big banana, and we’ve got to make sure we take care of it,” he told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of a recent Iowa Democratic dinner featuring 20 of the party’s presidential hopefuls. 

Trump, Inslee has stressed, has denied the climate crisis, ending important Obama-era regulations and pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord.

And on Monday, Trump rolled back key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, the popular law that helped save the bald eagle and grizzly bear.

“I’ll stand up against him on his weakest point, which is his environmental degradation,” Inslee said.

US voters have rarely considered climate change a top-priority presidential election issue, but that is changing. An April CNN poll labeled it as the single most important issue to Democratic primary voters, topping health care.

As a candidate, Inslee has introduced a sweeping and sophisticated climate mission, which popular liberal congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised as the “gold standard.”

It calls for zero carbon emissions across the economy within the next quarter century, including 100 percent carbon-neutral electricity and zero-emission new cars and buses by 2030.

The plan would require a staggering $9 trillion in investment and create eight million jobs. It would also likely encounter fierce resistance from the fossil fuel industry, and from many Republicans in Congress who oppose such drastic steps.

Clean energy economy

Inslee, who himself drives an electric car and wants to end the use of coal, has hammered away on the issue — most of his speaking time at the Democratic debates has addressed climate change. 

And that likely has inspired leading Democratic candidates to release their own ambitious climate plans.

Inslee insists he is a multi-faceted candidate who can beat Trump “like a $2 mule” in the election. 

He stood up to the president when he instituted a ban on arrivals from Muslim-majority countries, and blasted the administration’s family separations at the US-Mexico border as “the darkest moment” of Trump’s presidency.

He points to securing the largest teacher pay raise in the nation, expanding paid family leave and instituting what he says is the first public health option in the United States.

“If you do things to bring diversity to your community, to bring people together instead of intolerance, if you build a middle class instead of trickle down, just giving everything to the top one percent, if you take care of clean air and clean water, you have the biggest economic growth in America,” Inslee added. 

“That’s what we’ve done in the state of Washington.”  

And he explained climate change is not a singular issue, but one that affects health, national security, and the economy.

“We know the biggest job creator right now is in clean energy,” he said.

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Guatemala’s incoming president Alejandro Giammattei has vowed to seek better terms for his country from an unpopular migration deal agreed with Washington last month, but any room for maneuver is seen as likely to be hampered by weakness in the national Congress.

Preliminary results from Sunday’s election gave Giammattei, a conservative, a runoff victory with 58% of the vote, well ahead of his center-left opponent, former first lady Sandra Torres, on 42%.

Still, his Vamos Party won just 8% of the vote in June’s congressional election, giving it around a tenth of the seats in a legislature bristling with nearly 20 parties. The biggest bloc of seats will be controlled by his rival Torres.

Speaking a few hours before he was declared the winner, the 63-year-old Giammattei said he wanted to see what could be done to improve the accord that outgoing President Jimmy Morales made under pressure from his American counterpart Donald Trump that seeks to stem U.S.-bound migration from Central America.

Giammattei will not take office until January, by which time Guatemala may be under severe pressure from the deal, which effectively turns the country into a buffer zone by forcing migrants to apply for asylum there rather than in the United States.

“I hope that during this transition the doors will open to get more information so we can see what, from a diplomatic point of view, we can do to remove from this deal the things that are not right for us, or how we can come to an agreement with the United States,” Giammattei told Reuters in an interview.

Threatened with economic sanctions if he said no, Morales agreed in late July to make Guatemala a so-called safe third country for migrants, despite endemic poverty and violence that have led to a constant flow of people northward.

“It’s not right for the country,” Giammattei said of the deal. “If we don’t have the capacity to look after our own people, imagine what it will be like for foreigners.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Giammattei on Monday, saying in a statement the United States looked forward to working with Guatemala on “the underlying conditions driving irregular migration,” without giving more details.

Asked about Giammattei’s comments, U.S. border patrol chief Carla Provost said in an interview with Fox News: “It certainly is a concern. We need both Mexico and Guatemala to continue doing what they’re doing,” referring to Mexico’s campaign to block migrants from crossing its border with the United States.

Concerns Growing

The safe third country agreement is deeply unpopular in Guatemala.

A poll published this month by Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre showed more than eight out of 10 rejected the idea of the country accepting foreign migrants seeking asylum.

It is unclear how much Giammattei will be able to do to change the deal, which would require Hondurans and Salvadorans to apply for asylum in Guatemala rather than the United States.

It also foresees granting U.S. visas to some Guatemalan workers.

The veteran bureaucrat has promised to erect an “investment wall” on the border with Mexico to curb migration. He has also proposed bringing back the death penalty.

Giammattei, who took Monday off after his landslide victory, inherits a country also struggling with a 60% poverty rate and one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere.

Adding to his challenges, Fitch Ratings said the divided political landscape will make it harder for the president to reverse declining tax collection that the agency cited in April when it revised Guatemala’s sovereign outlook to negative.

“The incoming administration will have limited support in an atomized Congress, raising the risks for continued political gridlock,” Fitch Director Carlos Morales said in a statement.

Weak governance and economic development are ongoing risks to the country’s rating, Fitch said.

Many Guatemalans are fed up with the political class after investigations by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a U.N. anti-corruption body, led to the arrest of then-President Otto Perez in 2015, and then threatened to unseat his successor Morales, a former television comedian.

Morales terminated the CICIG’s mandate from next month, and Giammattei’s failure to reverse that decision has stirred concerns about his commitment to fight corruption.

Adriana Beltran, director of citizen security at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a think tank, said the CICIG might just have a future “if Guatemalans take to the streets and there is enough pressure from within.”

But the Trump administration was unlikely to do much to complement such efforts, Beltran added.

“Their focus is how to pressure Giammattei to agree to the third country agreement,” she said. “Anti-corruption is not a priority for this (U.S.) administration.”

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Australia on Tuesday announced a Aus$500 million ($340 million) climate change package for Pacific island countries, which have been increasingly vocal in demanding their powerful neighbor curb its carbon emissions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the funding, drawn from Australia’s existing international aid budget, would help Pacific island nations invest in renewable energy and climate change resilience.

The climate-sceptic leader made the announcement before traveling to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu, where island nations threatened by rising seas have vowed to put global warming at the top of the agenda.

Smaller members of the 18-nation grouping have been sharply critical of Australia’s climate policies ahead of this year’s summit amid a diplomatic push from Canberra to counter China’s growing power in the region.

High-level representatives from the likes of Tuvalu, Palau and Vanuatu have criticized Australia for not doing enough, with Fiji’s Frank Bainimarama saying Canberra’s reliance on coal poses an “existential threat” to low-lying islands.

There has also been disquiet in the Pacific that Australia recently approved the giant Adani coal mine in Queensland state.

Morrison has staunchly defended Australia’s climate record, insisting the country will meet its 2030 emissions reduction target set under the Paris Agreement. 

“The $500 million we’re investing for the Pacific’s renewable energy and its climate change and disaster resilience builds on the $300 million for 2016-2020,” he said in a statement.

“This highlights our commitment to not just meeting our emissions reduction obligations at home but supporting our neighbors and friends.”

Greenpeace said the package was nothing more than a diversion of funds from Australia’s Pacific aid program and “a slap in the face to regional leaders”.

“This $Aus500 million accounting trick will do nothing to address the cause of the climate crisis that threatens the viability of the entire Pacific,” Greenpeace’s Pacific head Joseph Moeono-Kolio said in a statement.

The tussle over climate action comes as Australia attempts to reassert its influence in the Pacific through its “step-up” strategy, which some regional leaders have warned is likely to fail without meaningful climate action.

The PIF summit officially opens late Tuesday and continues until Thursday.

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A Vietnamese military official advocates developing a more modern, better skilled navy that can hold off complex threats, mainly what experts believe to be increasing pressure from China.

A rear admiral and political commissar in Hanoi told the official Viet Nam News August 6 that the navy could not be “taken by surprise at any development.

“In this complicated situation that poses many threats to the country’s defense and security, given the Navy’s role as the key defender of the country’s sovereignty, the Viet Nam People’s Navy must do more to build a strong, developed, skilled and modern naval force that can fulfill all assigned missions,” said the commissar, Phạm Văn Vững.

The commissar’s words follow the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel in March — Vietnam says at the hands of China.

More recently, Chinese coast guard boats have approached a Vietnamese undersea energy exploration site near Vanguard Bank in the South China Sea. China and Vietnam vie for sovereignty over tracts of the sea where these two incidents have occurred. These two upsets are just the latest between the territorial rivals dating back centuries.

Naval improvements would help Vietnam deter China, analysts believe, though Vietnamese naval firepower is unlikely to come near equaling that of China.

“I think all they can think of doing is being a bit of a deterrent,” said Murray Hiebert, deputy director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Neither Vietnam nor China wants somebody to fire the first shot. That would be pretty serious. So, Vietnam sends in vessels to sort of block China.”

Navy, present and future

Today’s Vietnamese navy has 65 vessels including six submarines and six frigates, according to research database GlobalFirePower.com. It needs a “mastery of modern weapons” and “careful planning” of logistics issues, the commissar said earlier this month via Viet Nam News.

China today has one of the world’s most powerful navies at 714 vessels including 76 submarines, 33 destroyer and an aircraft carrier, GlobalFirePower.com says.

China claims about 90 percent of the disputed sea, overlapping Vietnam’s smaller claim as well as tracts that four other governments call their own. The other claimants are Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Chinese maritime activity alarms particularly Vietnam because China controls the full Paracel archipelago, a South China Sea tract vehemently claimed by Hanoi. Much of Vietnam’s population resents China over the maritime dispute.

“Vietnam realized that they had to modernize their navy to cope with the harassment from the Chinese coast guard,” said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Foreign help

The Vietnamese navy should work with foreign governments, the commissar was quoted saying. It “must effectively coordinate with other military forces and civilian forces to build a whole-nation defense and people-based defense, while at the same time, maintaining diplomatic efforts, especially in terms of exchanges with naval forces from other countries,” he said.

The Southeast Asian country acquired six U.S. patrol boats this year. It normally taps Russia for weaponry, such as missile stealth frigates, Hiebert said.

Washington may eventually push to send its aircraft carriers to Vietnam once a year, Thayer said. The U.S. government has been massing allies in Asia over the past two years to help contain China’s maritime expansion.

More spats ahead?

China and Vietnam are used to conflicts over maritime sovereignty, and new ones come up despite diplomatic moves to solve previous ones.

They had already gotten into “confrontations” over fuel exploration near Vanguard Bank in the 1990s, said Carl Thayer, Southeast Asia-specialized emeritus professor with the University of New South Wales.

Vietnam backed away from the site last year but never agreed to stay away in the long term, Thayer said. This time, he said, Chinese vessels reached Vietnam’s continental shelf.

“So, now we have the arrival of this Chinese ship this year, and it’s operating on the Vietnamese side of the exclusive economic zone,” Thayer said.

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The lawyer of the man suspected of opening fire in a mosque in Norway says his client is not cooperating with investigators.

“He is exercising his right not to be interrogated,” the lawyer said Monday.  “He is not admitting any guilt.”

The suspected gunman, 21-year-old Philip Manshaus, appeared in court Monday to face charges of attempted murder and murder in connection with last Saturday’s attack outside of the capital, Oslo.   

His face and neck were covered with bruises and he had two black eyes.  

No one was killed at the mosque, but hours later police found the body of the gunman’s stepsister at another location.

In addition, the mosque shooting is being treated as an attempted terror attack.  Rune Skjold, Oslo deputy police inspector, said Sunday, police have discovered evidence of the gunman’s “right-wing extremist views” and alleged hostility against immigrants.

There were only three people at the al-Noor Islamic Center when Manshaus entered the place of worship Saturday.

He began shooting at two men, but another man, a 65-year-old retired Pakistani Air Force officer, was able to tackle the gunman.

Mohammad Rafiq, the retired military officer, told Reuters in a video interview, that when he tackled the gunman “the pistol and the gun fell away.”

Rafiq suffered minor injuries.  

Irfan Mushtaq, the head of the mosque, entered the scene shortly after the shooting.  He told AFP that he saw “one of our members is sitting on the perpetrator. . . ”

Skjold said the people in the mosque showed “great courage.”  

“There is no doubt that the swift and firm response from the persons inside the mosque stopped the aggressor and prevented further consequences,” Skjold said.  “Trying to neutralize an armed person is always dangerous.”

Rafiq’s age had mistakenly been reported earlier as 75. 

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A Belgian company has become the first to announce it is cutting ties with Myanmar’s military after a United Nations fact-finding mission called on businesses to sever all financial links to the country’s generals. 

Satellite communications firm Newtec said in a statement it would “follow the recommendations by the UN and stop commercial ties with Mytel,” a local mobile phone operator partially owned by the military. 

The call from a panel of three UN experts came a year after they first said Myanmar’s top generals should be prosecuted for genocide for their role in a 2017 crackdown believed to have killed thousands of Rohingya Muslims. 

“We will never knowingly sell to any organization or company linked to the Tatmadaw’s campaign of violence… and the atrocities committed against the Rohingya,” Newtec said, using the local name for Myanmar’s military.

A company that handles public relations for Mytel did not respond to a request for comment. 

Mixed Reactions

Christopher Sidoti, a human rights lawyer and member of the UN panel, praised Newtec for following the recommendations. 

“It’s a very welcome decision. We’re pleased to see such prompt action on their part and certainly hope that it’s the first among many,” he told VOA. 

But Mark Farmaner, a human rights campaigner who named Newtec on a “dirty list” of firms doing business with Myanmar’s military early this year, said Newtec should have acted sooner. 

“Newtec have known for nine months that they were working for the Burmese military, and didn’t care,” he told VOA, using an alternative word for Myanmar.   

“They are only ending their involvement now because of negative publicity after the fact-finding mission report, not because it is morally the right thing to do.”

Threat of Legal Action

In a letter sent last November, the company’s CEO, Thomas Van den Driessche, threatened to sue Farmaner’s pressure group, Burma Campaign UK, if it publicized Newtec’s relationship with the military. 

“If you would decide on including Newtec on your ‘Dirty List’, we reserve all rights and will hold you liable for any damages that Newtec might suffer from such actions,” he wrote.   

He also incorrectly stated that Mytel was “28% owned by the government” and “in no way involved” with the military. “Your allegations are therefore slanderous,” he added. 

In fact the 28% share is held by a military-owned company named Star High.

In response Farmaner wrote: “You seem a little uninformed about the situation in Burma and your own client in the country.”

He added: “You may think that as a large company you can bully a small campaign group with legal threats but we will not be intimidated.”

Newtec did not respond to a request for comment about its threat of legal action. 

Companies Reviewing Military Ties

Sidoti said Newtec’s decision was “one of several pieces of good news” the UN mission had received since publishing a report last week detailing the generals’ business interests and naming dozens of foreign companies with ties to the military.

“We’ve had a number of reports coming back to us of questions being asked in parliaments and companies that are reviewing their associations with some of the Myanmar military-aligned companies,” he added. 

Myanmar’s military has not responded to last week’s report but it has repeatedly denied the mission’s allegations and says its campaign against the Rohingya was a legitimate counter insurgency operation. 

The country’s foreign ministry said in a statement last week that it “categorically rejects the latest UN report and its conclusions.” It added that the fact-finding mission was established “based on unfounded allegations.” 

Officials at the ministry did not answer several calls seeking comment on Newtec’s decision to cut ties with Mytel. 

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In 1988 – sensing a need –  religious leaders began delivering meals to people with HIV and AIDS who couldn’t leave their homes. From that simple idea, the non-profit Food and Friends has grown into a Washington, D.C., institution, bringing thousands of meals a day to the sick and those in need. VOA’s Unshin Lee reports.

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The acting U.S. Homeland Security chief on Sunday defended raids last week on food processing plants in Mississippi searching for hundreds of undocumented migrants, but acknowledged “the timing was unfortunate,” just days after a gunman targeted and killed 22 Hispanics in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.

Kevin McAleenan told NBC’s Meet the Press that of the 680 migrants detained in the raids on operations at five companies, 200 had criminal records and will be subject to deportation to their native countries.

Television footage showed children weeping when they realized parents had been detained in the raids and would not be picking them up as their school day ended last Wednesday. But McAleenan said the raids were “done with sensitivity” and child care issues taken into consideration.

He said 32 of the migrants arrested were released within an hour of their detention and 270 within a day, often times because of child care concerns.

A policy at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of Homeland Security, calls for prosecution of companies that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants before arresting their migrant workers. But McAleenan deflected a question of why the workers, not the companies, were charged.

He said that “of course” the companies had committed a crime in hiring the workers.

“This case will be pursued,” he said.

Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris told NBC, “I don’t know why they did what they did. Employers have to be responsible.” She accused the administration of President Donald Trump of a “campaign of terror” against immigrants, “making people afraid to go to work, to go to school.”

McAleenan said the raids had been planned for a year and complement stricter immigration enforcement at the southern U.S. border with Mexico to thwart migrants, mostly Central Americans, from entering the U.S. to seek asylum.

“We have to have internal enforcement” against undocumented migrants who are working in the U.S. without official authorization, he said. But the raids, he said, could have been postponed after the massacre at a Walmart store in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, allegedly carried out by a white nationalist who police said targeted “Mexicans.”

Trump has made tough immigration enforcement a hallmark of his White House tenure as he heads to his 2020 re-election campaign. He has called the surge of migrants reaching the border “an invasion.”

On Friday, he said, “If people come into our country illegally, they’re going out.”  

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The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has protested Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest visit to Ukraine’s Crimea region, calling a it a “gross violation” of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“Attempts by the Russian side and the mass media to describe such ‘visits’ as ‘ordinary’ domestic trips by Russian officials are futile,” the ministry said in a statement on August 11, adding that Crimea was an “integral part” of Ukraine.

On August 10, Putin was shown on state television in a leather jacket at a biker show organized by the Night Wolves motorcycle club in Sevastopol, a city in the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow seized in 2014.

The Night Wolves club is known for its allegiance to the Kremlin.

Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power by the pro-European Maidan protest movement the previous month.

Moscow has also fomented unrest and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where more than 13,000 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014.

Putin’s visit to Sevastopol took place as tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Moscow to demand fair municipal elections. More than 250 people were detained by police.

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