WORLD BRIEFLY
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
UN urges more
airline passenger
info in terror fight
UNITED NATIONS
(AP) — The U.N. political
chief on Tuesday urged the
world’s nations to share
information about airline
passengers as part of a
stepped up response to the
growth of “transnational
terrorism” sparked by
the Islamic State group’s
expanding areas of attack.
Jeffrey Feltman also told
the U.N. Security Council
that it is “critical” to improve
the global response to
“foreign terrorist fighters”
leaving Syria and Iraq, even
though many are still in
conflict zones.
He was briefing the
council on Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres’ latest
report on IS — also known
as ISIL and Daesh. It said
European member states
have reported that between
15 percent and 40 percent of
their nationals and residents
who traveled to Iraq and
Syria to fight have returned
— and some governments
highlighted a rising number
of female returnees.
“A proportion of
those returning present a
significant threat and are
facing appropriate legal
and control measures,” the
secretary-general’s report
said. “Other returnees are
reported to have become
disillusioned with the
fighting and the distorted
ideology of ISIL and
therefore represent a lower
threat.”
In a separate report to the
Security Council circulated
late Tuesday, a panel of
experts that monitors
sanctions against IS said
it has received various
estimates of the current
number of fighters for the
extremist group. They range
from 12,000 to 20,000 in
Syria and Iraq to 33,000
fighters in the wider Middle
East, “including 15,000
foreign terrorist fighters,” the
report said.
In December, the
Security Council urged
all 193 member states to
address “the gravity of
the threat” posed by IS by
adopting laws and sharing
intelligence, biometric,
biographical data and
financial information related
to extremist groups — and
by requiring airlines
operating in their territories
to provide advance
information on passengers to
national authorities.
According to the report,
only 56 nations have
shared advance passenger
information to date, and
implementation of the
council’s call for countries
to share passenger name
records “continues to be
uneven.” While some
countries have voluntarily
provided passenger name
records from ocean and
sea traffic and cruise ships,
“a lack of appropriate
regulation continues to
represent a significant
vulnerability,” the report
said.
East Oregonian
Feltman reiterated that
although the Islamic State
group’s income and the
territory under its control
are shrinking, it “still
appears to have sufficient
funds to continue fighting.”
Moreover, he said, the group
has expanded its attacks
from Iraq and Syria to their
neighbors.
Sparks fly as
Vatican conference
challenges China
on organs
VATICAN CITY
(AP) — Participants at
a Vatican conference on
organ trafficking challenged
China on Tuesday to allow
independent scrutiny to
ensure it is no longer using
organs from executed
prisoners, saying Chinese
assurances aren’t enough to
prove the transplant program
has been reformed.
Sparks flew in the
afternoon session of the
meeting as China’s former
vice health minister, Dr.
Huang Jiefu, sought to
assure the international
medical community that
China was “mending its
ways” after declaring an end
to the prisoner harvesting
program in 2015.
He provided scant data
to rebut critics, however,
showing only two slides
indicating an increased
number of living and
deceased donors in recent
years and China’s recent
efforts to crack down on
black market transplant
activities.
Huang first publicly
acknowledged the inmate
harvesting organ program
in 2005 and later said
as many as 90 percent
of Chinese transplant
surgeries using organs from
dead people came from
executed prisoners. He has
spearheaded a reform effort
and pledged that China put
an end to the program in
2015. But doubts persist
that China is meeting its
pledge, given its lack of
Page 7A
transparency, the severe
shortage of organ donors
and China’s longstanding
black-market organ trade.
Huang’s colleague,
Dr. Haibo Wang, stressed
the sheer impossibility
of trying to fully control
China’s transplant activity
since there are 1 million
medical centers and 3
million licensed doctors
operating in the country. As
a result, China proposed at
the Vatican meeting that the
World Health Organization
form a global task force to
help crack down on illicit
organ trafficking.
Dr. Jacob Lavee,
president of Israel’s
transplant society, insisted
in response that WHO be
allowed to conduct surprise
inspections and interview
donor relatives in China.
“As long as there is
no accountability for
what took place ... there
can be no guarantee for
ethical reform,” he told
the conference in a heated
exchange.
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Saturday, April 1, 2017
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