SECOND DAY

'No way to stop it': millions of pigs culled across Asia as swine fever spreads
Experts say region is losing the battle to stop the biggest animal disease outbreak the
planet has ever faced
South-east Asia is battling to contain the spread of highly contagious African swine fever, known
as “pig Ebola”, which has already led to the culling of millions of pigs in China and Vietnam.
African swine fever, which is harmless to humans but fatal to pigs, was discovered in China in
August, where it has caused havoc, leading to more than 1.2m pigs being culled. China is home to
almost half of the world’s pigs and the news sent the global price of pork soaring.
There is no vaccination for African swine fever, which causes pigs to internally haemorrhage until
they die, so the only option to contain the disease is to kill any contaminated animals. Some
estimates say that in Chinaup to 200m animals may eventually be slaughtered. The virus can last
for several weeks on anything from clothes to vehicles, allowing for it to easily travel long
distances.
It has spread like wildfire across Asia, causing growing devastation to the pig farmers of Vietnam
and Cambodia and putting Thailand, Asia’s second-biggest pork producer, on “red alert”. Cases
have increased in Mongolia, North Korea and Hong Kong in recent weeks, while South Korea is
blood testing pigs at the border.
The UN Food and Agriculture organisation (UNFAO) and regional experts fear that Myanmar,
Philippines and Laos will be next because they are all highly susceptible to an outbreak, due to
the struggle to control the movement of pigs and pig products across porous borders.
“This is the biggest animal disease outbreak we’ve ever had on the planet,” said Dirk Pfeiffer, a
veterinary epidemiologist at City University of Hong Kong and expert on African swine fever. “It
makes the foot and mouth disease and BSE outbreaks pale in comparison to the damage that is
being done. And we have no way to stop it from spreading.” Currently the battle to contain the
disease is being lost. “There are concerns that the disease will continue to spread across the
countries in south-east Asia,” said Dr Wantanee Kalpravidh, regional manager for UNFAO, who
said they believed the swine fever cases being reported by governments in the region were
“underestimates”.
Wantanee said problems included the lack of compensation for pig farmers in south-east Asia
whose herds were culled, giving them little reason to report a disease outbreak, and fears that
banning movement of pigs and pork across borders would only create a “black market which
would be impossible to control”.
The implications of the outbreak are already being felt beyond Asia. Global pork prices have risen
by almost 40%, and long term it is likely to lead to more pork imports from Europe and America to
meet demand, which will also push up global meat prices. Market analyst Rabobank said global
pork supplies could fall by 8%.
In Vietnam, the first swine fever case was detected in January this year in northern Vietnam, not
far from the border with China. Last week, agriculture minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong confirmed the
virus had now spread to 48 of the country’s 63 provinces. The country has now culled about 2m
pigs, or 6% of the country’s herd, a figure that is expected to rise steeply.
“The world and Vietnam have never faced such an extremely dangerous, difficult, complicated and
expensive epidemic as this,” Cuong said in a statement last month.
The economic and social impact is likely to be huge for Vietnam. Pork accounts for 75% of all
meat consumed in the country and it is an industry worth 94tn dong (£32m). Overall, the
agriculture sector in Vietnam employs almost 50% of the workforce, with pork farming a significant
part of that.
Speaking in parliament, Cuong urged consumers and businesses to stockpile pork ahead of likely
shortages towards the end of the year. The government has also mobilised police and military to
help contain the outbreak but has stopped short of declaring it a national emergency.
In Cambodia, around 2400 pigs have died or been culled due to the disease in the past two
months, while in Hong Kong two separate cases led to there being no fresh pork in the country for
a week.
But Pfeiffer was not optimistic Thailand – which has more than 2m pigs – could resist the
pandemic spreading from neighbouring Vietnam and Cambodia, or China, for much longer, saying
it could probably enter “through pork products brought in illegally from Vietnam and China, even if
just by tourists or truck drivers”.
“The virus survives so well and there are so many people travelling particularly between China
and Thailand, it’s hard to see how it could be contained for much longer,” he added.
Mexico becomes Trump's wall in bid to avoid US tariffs
Under pressure from Trump, Mexico has increased security on the Guatemala border – and
large numbers of migrants have been held
As Donald Trump’s deadline for new tariffs on Mexican imports draws near, Mexico has stepped
up security along its porous border with Guatemala – deploying police and soldiers to its southern
frontier and arresting prominent migration activists.
Trump last week pledged to impose 5% tariffs on Mexican products on 10 June
unless Mexico stops Central American migrants from traveling through its territory.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office six months ago promising to protect
migrants’ rights and avoid doing the “dirty work” of any foreign government.
But as US officials reiterated Trump’s threats this week, their counterparts south of the border
have made a show of taking steps to stem the flow of migrants streaming out of Central America.
Mexican immigration officials and navy marines corralled a caravan of Central American migrants
on Wednesday, less than a day after it crossed into the country and had barely marched up the
highway under the scorching hot sun.
The column of men women and children had barely walked 12km on Mexican soil before it was
stopped; previous caravans have successfully travelled nearly 4,000km across the length of the
country to the US border.
“We have the full right to do it, we’re a sovereign country, we have migratory laws, which we have
to apply and have to be respected,” said interior minister Olga Sánchez Cordero.
On the same day, police arrested two members of the migrants’ rights organisation Pueblo Sin
Fronteras (People Without Borders), which coordinates caravans crossing Mexico.
Pueblos Sin Frontera said the detentions followed a pattern of harassment from the authorities in
both countries against individuals assisting migrants and an attempt at “criminalising” the
caravans.
On Thursday the finance ministry’s financial intelligence unit announced it had blocked the
accounts of 26 people for “their probable link with human trafficking and illicit support of migrant
caravans”.
Recent weeks have already seen a proliferation of immigration checkpoints in southern Mexico
and police raids on migrant centers.
A string of caravans – some of them as many as 5,000 people – have set out from Central
America over the past year. Caravan members have told reporters that large numbers offer safety
from bandits and corrupt police officers and that the groups coalesced organically, often after they
were promoted on social media.
But the Mexican government fears Trump’s tariffs will damage the manufacturing-for-export
economy.
Figures released this week showed arrests at the US-Mexico border reached their highest level in
a decade.
Observers say Mexico prefers not to mix issues such as trade and immigration in its dealings with
the US, but the Trump administration is attempting to push ever increasing responsibility for
stopping migrants to its southern neighbour.
“They want Mexico to stop migrants by all means possible,” said Stephanie Leutert, director of the
Mexico Security Initiative at the Strauss Center at the University of Texas. “They want to
outsource both enforcement and asylum processing, it seems.”
In negotiations Thursday in Washington, Mexico reportedly offered to send 6,000 members of its
newly formed national guard – a militarised police with immigration enforcement powers – to its
southern border.
US negotiators also proposed returning detained Guatemalans to Mexico and sending asylum
seekers from El Salvador and Honduras back to Guatemala, according to the Washington Post.
Mexico’s foreign ministry spokesman Roberto Velasco Álvarez tweeted Thursday that no
agreement had been reached, but added: “The US position is focused on migratory control
measures. Ours is on development.”
López Obrador has promoted development in Central America as the solution to slowing
migration, though analysts say such plans would take decades to unfold.
Meanwhile, the factors driving migrants from Central America – hunger, climate
change, unemployment, crime and violence – remain in place.
“People don’t stop leaving their countries of origins,” said Salva Lacruz, coordinator with the Fray
Matías de Córdova Human Rights Centre in Tapachula.
Topics
US envoy says Russia still stands with Maduro, contradicting Trump
Elliott Abrams says Russians ‘have not abandoned’ Nicolas Maduro despite US president’s
tweet
The US special envoy for Venezuela has said that Moscow has “not abandoned” the regime
of Nicolás Maduro and that the Russian presence in the South American country has not
significantly changed since the failed uprising in April led by opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Donald Trump tweeted earlier this week that “Russia has informed us that they have removed
most of their people from Venezuela”, but the claim was quickly disputed by the Kremlin.
Elliott Abrams, who was appointed as special envoy in January, said on Thursday that the
Russian role was not as vital to Maduro’s survival as the Cuban military presence, but remained
important. And while some specialist forces may have left the country, he said “the Russians have
not abandoned the regime”.
“The Russians are the second greatest outside influence after Cuba. There were, I’d say, a year
or two ago, a thousand Russians. Then it was down closer to zero. Then it ticked up again a
couple of months ago when about 125 Russians arrived,” Abrams told the Guardian.
“Some of them I assume have left because some of them had specific tasks to conduct and would
have completed those tasks and left,” Abrams added. “We believe that one of the things they were
doing was repairing air defense systems which had become damaged by the series of blackouts
in February. And I think once you do that you don’t need to stay – you’ve completed the task. So
the fact that they would leave does not suggest that the Russians are not helping Maduro.”
Russian military advisers flew into Caracas in late March in what has widely seen as a gesture of
Kremlin support for the embattled leader in the face of Guaidó’s challenge to his authority.
Guaidó is recognised as Venezuela’s legitimate interim leader by more than 50 countries,
including the US, most of Europe and much of Latin America. On 30 April, he declared an uprising
to remove Maduro and received emphatic verbal support from the Trump administration, but
Guaidó’s appeal failed to convince the Venezuelan military to switch sides.
It is unclear what prompted Trump to claim that “most” Russians had left Venezuela. The
Guardian has learned that the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told his US counterpart
that there were 96 Russian military personnel left in Venezuela, but US officials believe there may
be up to 150 still in the country.
Abrams would not comment on precise numbers but stressed that the Russian presence was
considerably smaller than Cuba’s, which he estimated as 2,500, including Maduro’s personal
bodyguards.
On Tuesday, the US further tightened restrictions on travel to Cuba by US citizens, and Trump
has threatened a “full and complete embargo” on the island if it does not end support for Maduro.
Abrams, a veteran hawk on Latin America, argued that, as US sanctions tighten, Cuba may
became more dependent on the flow of Venezuelan oil.
“This is not existential for Russia in any way,” Abrams said. “I think Putin is taking advantage of an
opportunity that he saw in the western hemisphere. That opportunity may diminish. It may
disappear. It’s not that big a deal for Russia. I think they’re much more flexible about the future of
Maduro than the Cubans are.”
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday said the west was “crazy” for supporting
Guaidó. He described the national assembly leader as “likeable” but he warned that the world
would plunge into chaos if there were no rules.
“If we adopt this way of coming to power – a man walks into a square, lifts up his eyes to heaven
and declares himself president before God – would this be normal or not?” Putin asked news
agencies at an economic forum in St Petersburg.
After the failure of the April uprising, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said that Maduro
had a plane ready to fly him to Cuba, but had been persuaded to stay in power by the Kremlin.
In retrospect, Abrams said: “We will never know whether he would have gone because, on and
off, over time, he has very often had a plane fuelled and ready to go.”
In off-the-record remarks last week that were leaked to the Washington Post, Pompeo conceded
that it was “devilishly difficult” to keep the Venezuelan opposition factions united.
“The moment Maduro leaves, everybody’s going to raise their hands and [say]: ‘Take me, I’m the
next president of Venezuela.’ It would be forty-plus people who believe they’re the rightful heir to
Maduro,” the secretary of state is quoted as saying.
Asked about the remarks, Abrams said: “I’ve dealt with a lot of democratic oppositions and they’re
all fractious. And the reason they’re fractious is that they’re democratic.
“In my experience, the degree of democracy within a movement or party when it is in opposition is
predictive of the degree of democracy when it takes power.”
Macron to Trump at D-day ceremony: fulfil the promise of Normandy
French president praises multilateralism of Nato and EU while offering gratitude to US
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has appealed directly to Donald Trump to fulfil the
“promise of Normandy” by embracing pillars of the postwar peace such as the European Union
and Nato as the two leaders marked the D-day landings 75 years ago.
In a speech that trod a fine diplomatic line, Macron offered both sincere expressions of gratitude
for the valour of US troops in the second world war and vehement calls for the White House to re-
engage with the principles of multilateralism.
Speaking in front of 15,000 people gathered at the American cemetery and memorial in Colleville-
sur-Mer, the resting place for 9,387 US troops killed in the Normandy campaign, Macron
repeatedly name-checked Trump, even at times turning to face the US president who was sitting
behind him.
“Dear Donald Trump, the United States is never greater than when it is fighting for the freedom of
others,” Macron said from a stage erected by a wall of the missing. “The United States of America
is never greater than when it shows its loyalty. Loyalty to the universal values that the founding
fathers defended, when nearly two and a half centuries ago France came to support its
independence. What we owe you is to show ourselves worthy of the heritage of peace that you
have left us.
“Being worthy of the promise of Normandy means never forgetting that free people, when they join
forces, can surmount any adversity,” Macron went on. “We shall never cease to perpetuate the
alliance of free peoples. That is what the victorious sides did, when they created the United
Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That is what a few years later the leaders
of Europe did in bringing about the European Union. The lessons of Colleville-sur-Mer are clear:
liberty and democracy are inseparable.”
Trump, who has described Nato as obsolete in the past and had used this week’s state visit to the
UK to spend time with leading lights of the Brexit camp such as Nigel Farage, offered no visible
reaction to Macron’s comments beyond an awkward smile.
Macron had leavened his overtly political speech with repeated emphasis of France’s thankfulness
and sense of obligation to those who fought and died to liberate his country and the rest
of Europe from Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
“On behalf of France, I bow down before their bravery,” Macron said before bestowing five of the
veterans at the ceremony, all now in their 90s, with the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest award.
“We know what we owe to you veterans: our freedom. On behalf of my nation I just want to say:
thank you.”
When it came to Trump’s turn to speak, the president told the stories of some of those on the
stage who had been part of the D-day landings on 6 June 1944, when 73,000 US troops landed at
Utah and Omaha beaches as part of Operation Overlord, the codename given to the land, naval
and air operations that remain the largest amphibious operation ever waged. The American
cemetery, spread across 70 hectares (172.5 acres) of landscaped acres, overlooks Omaha
beach, where on D-day alone about 3,000 US troops were killed, wounded or reported missing.
Among the 35 veterans on the stage who stepped on to the beaches of Normandy 75 years ago
was Russell Pickett, the sole survivor now of Company A of the 29th Division, 116th Regiment,
which suffered 96% casualties within half an hour of battle on Omaha beach, made infamous by
the opening scenes of the Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan.
As the two leaders personally thanked Pickett, Trump steadied and hugged the 94-year-old as the
veteran appeared to stumble as he got up from his seat.
Trump also emphasised the achievements of the generation in America that liberated Europe and
then went on to defeat communism and put a man on the moon.
“The men behind me will tell you that they are just the lucky ones,” he said. “As one of them
recently put it, all the heroes are buried here. But we know what these men did. We know how
brave they were. They came here and saved freedom. And then they went home and showed us
all what freedom is all about.”
In typical fashion Trump added: “And today, America is stronger than ever before.”
The US president did, however, appear to offer some reassurance to those worried by his
scepticism about the value of multilateral organisations.
“To all of our friends and partners – our cherished alliance was forged in the heat of battle, tested
in the trials of war and proven in the blessings of peace,” he said. “Our bond is unbreakable.”
After the speeches, Macron and his wife, Brigitte, walked among the veterans who had sat behind
them to hear their stories. The Normandy event, like others in France and the UK, is widely seen
as being one of the last great remembrance ceremonies at which the generation involved in the D-
day landings is likely to be in attendance in significant numbers.
The Trumps also shook some hands when talking to the veterans but then awkwardly waited at
the side of the stage for the Macrons before both couples walked to a vantage point overlooking
Omaha beach to spend a minute in silence before watching a flypast of French and US planes.
Trump and Macron held 30 minute private talks in Caen, the nearby French city heavily bombed
during the invasion.
A French official said the mood between the two presidents was constructive. Trump stressed that
– although the US-France relationship might have had its ups and downs in the past – “right now it
is outstanding”.
Macron said the legacy of the Normandy beaches lived on in shared values, with the two countries
working “to preserve democracy and freedom”, in joint military action in west Africa and in Middle
East diplomacy.
Issues discussed included the approach to Iran after the US withdrew from a nuclear deal and
reimposed harsh economic sanctions.
Addressing reporters, Trump sought to play down differences on Iran, saying neither he nor
France wanted Iran to have nuclear weapons.
Macron said: “We share the same objectives on Iran … First, they don’t get nuclear weapons …
Second, we want to reduce their ballistic activity, third, to contain them regionally. The fourth
common objective, after all, is peace in the region. We want to deliver those objectives together.
That is the point and all the other debates are about technicalities.”

Nancy Pelosi tells Democrats: I want Trump 'in prison' but not impeached
House speaker reportedly told Democrats ‘I don’t want to see him impeached’ in a closed-
door meeting
Follow the latest in US politics – live
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has told Democrats calling for Donald
Trump’s impeachment that she would rather see the president in prison.
Pelosi made the remarks during a closed-door meeting with senior Democratic lawmakers this
week amid a heated debate within the party over whether to launch impeachment proceedings
against Trump, according to a report by Politico.
Pressed on the issue by Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, Pelosi said
of Trump: “I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison.”
Pelosi’s spokeswoman, Ashley Etienne, would not confirm the speaker’s comments.
“Speaker Pelosi and the chairs had a productive meeting about the state of play with the Mueller
report,” Etienne said. “They agreed to keep all options on the table and continue to move forward
with an aggressive hearing and legislative strategy, as early as next week, to address the
president’s corruption and abuses of power uncovered in the report.”
A spokesman for Nadler directed inquiries to the speaker’s office.
Pelosi, who has held firm despite growing calls for a formal impeachment inquiry within her
caucus, made the case for defeating Trump in the 2020 election with the hopes that he will be
prosecuted for his alleged crimes.
Her comments nonetheless mark a further escalation of the rhetoric she has employed against the
president in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in April of the Trump-Russia
investigation, which detailed 11 instances in which Trump or his campaign sought to obstruct
justice.
In recent weeks, Pelosi accused the president of engaging in “a cover-up”, characterized his
actions as “villainous to the constitution” and made a joking reference to the 25th amendment –
which allows a president to be removed from office if he is deemed unfit to serve.
Trump had responded to the speaker by questioning her mental fitness and ignited further
controversy by sharing a doctored video that was edited to suggest, falsely, that Pelosi was
impaired.
House Democrats have meanwhile grown increasingly frustrated with the White House’s efforts
to stonewall their requests for documents and subpoenas relating to the Mueller report, rendering
it difficult to investigate further the special counsel’s findings.
The Trump-led blockade, coupled with a public statement by Mueller himself in late May saying he
could not exonerate the president of committing a crime, has prompted more Democrats to
embrace an impeachment inquiry and ramped up the pressure on Pelosi.
Although Pelosi has not ruled out an impeachment entirely, she has said pursuing that path would
be “divisive” and play directly into Trump’s hands as he embarks on his re-election campaign.
Nadler would not say if his committee would launch impeachment proceedings without Pelosi’s
blessing, stating in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the speaker “will have the largest
single voice” in the matter.
“We’re investigating all the things we would investigate, frankly, in an impeachment inquiry,”
Nadler said.
“Let me put it this way,” he added. “It may very well come to a formal impeachment inquiry. We
will see.”