There is heightened tension in Libya between two parallel governments who are also creating diplomatic tension among global super powers over who to support in the North African country’s clashes of power.

Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA) forces ruling eastern Libya from Benghazi has divided support for the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord based in Tripoli and led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj who was appointed in 2015 after a political agreement.

Haftar’s forces which does not recognized the unity government, has launched an attack on Tripoli after taking over the oil-rich south of Libya earlier this year before advancing through largely unpopulated desert regions toward the capital.

The LNA bombed an airport in Tripoli and the World Health Organization (WHO) has counted 254 deaths with more than 1,200 people injured since Haftar’s offensive began in early April.

While the United Nations, European Union, Italy and the UK have called on Haftar to halt the fighting and withdraw from Tripoli, U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly backed the former general in Muammar Gaddafi’s army against US’s public position.

Diplomatic sources told Bloomberg that Trump indicated in a phone call with Haftar last week that the U.S. supported an assault on the country’s capital to depose the UN-backed government. This was preceded by an earlier phone call by White House National Security Adviser John Bolton who gave Haftar the impression of a U.S. green light for an offensive on Tripoli.

Two people familiar with the matter claim the positions of Trump and Bolton were taken after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with the U.S. president on April 9 and urged him to back Haftar.

He also spoke with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Haftar supporter, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a day before the White House statement on the call with Haftar saying they discussed “ongoing counterterrorism efforts” and “recognized Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources.”

Earlier, the White House Secretary of State Michael Pompeo had said: “We have made clear that we oppose the military offensive by Khalifa Haftar’s forces and urge the immediate halt to these military operations against the Libyan capital.”

This stance was supported by the U.S. charge d’affairs in Libya, Peter Bodde, who has warned Haftar against advancing on Tripoli. In February, he reportedly told Haftar during a meeting in Abu Dhabi that the capital was a red line.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Bloomberg News in an interview that he’s not aware of the details of Trump’s phone calls but choosing sides or encouraging the military force to govern was a bad idea.

“You’ve got to get all the parties at the table. What would be a big mistake is to back one group over the other. Haftar cannot conquer and hold Tripoli,” said Graham.

“It would be Syria all over again if he tried to conquer Tripoli by military force,” he added.

Haftar is also enjoying the support of Russia, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates as he claims his offensive is intended to combat Islamist terrorism in Libya.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Friday dismissed the military solution in Libya as championed by Haftar. “What we’ve said before and what I do support is Field Marshal Haftar’s support in terms of his role in counterterrorism, but where we need Field Marshal Haftar’s support is in building democratic stability there in the region,” he said.

However, France did not join the call by the EU for Haftar to agree to a ceasefire and return to the peace talks. Like the US, France did not back the failed UN Security Council emergency meeting to address the situation in Libya which was vetoed by Russia and the U.S.

In 2017, French president Emmanuel Macron invited Haftar and Sarraj to Paris for talks in an attempt to broker a power-sharing deal. The two agreed to elections to help resolve the conflict but it has never happened.

The situation in Libya immediately followed the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 after an international military intervention led by France, the United States and Britain.

In its latest crackdown on immigration, the Trump administration is considering placing travel restrictions on countries whose citizens have a high rate of overstaying their visas in the U.S., a move that could affect some African countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump has, since assuming power, focused strongly on the flow of migrants at the southwest border, but has not paid much attention to the scores of migrants who overstay a visa each year.

A 2006 report by the Pew Research Center estimated that up to 45 per cent of the undocumented population entered the country on a valid visa, but did not depart. According to the organization’s latest analysis, about 11 million undocumented immigrants reside in the U.S.

Trump’s newly proposed travel restrictions would, therefore, not specifically target countries due to the race of their inhabitants or their domestic conditions. The restrictions would be based on the percentage of visitors who overstay their tourist or business visas, reports The Wall Street Journal.

It is significant to note that many of the countries whose citizens have the highest rates of overstaying their visas are African nations like Chad, Djibouti, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Liberia, Somalia, and South Sudan.

In some of these African countries, armed conflicts and brutal regimes are rife, thus, many of its citizens seek asylum in the U.S. Statistics from the United States Department of Homeland Security, however, show that the total number of people these African countries send to the U.S. each year is, in fact, very small.

In 2017, for instance, 16 per cent of visitors from Somalia overstayed their visas, but that 16 per cent represents only 24 total people. For the United Kingdom that has a low overstay rate, only 0.54 per cent of visitors overstayed their visas that same year, however, that percentage represents over 25,690 people.

Analysts are, therefore, wondering why the Trump administration should target these African countries for visa restrictions when their citizens are only a small portion of visa overstays.

In an interview with Pacific Standard magazine, Patrice Lawrence, a director at the UndocuBlack Network, an activist organization that advocates for undocumented black people in the U.S., said she believes that Trump could be looking for ways to target immigrants because of their identities.

“I think it’s a deliberate attempt to continue to paint that picture—because that’s what makes people upset.

“It feels [to them] like brown and black people coming in to take over,” Lawrence said.

Others believe that this latest immigration crackdown is just to target the countries he allegedly called “shithole” recently. During a meeting in January 2018, Trump reportedly referred to Haiti and some African nations as “shithole countries“ and asked why their nationals should be admitted to the U.S.

Critics have also compared the newly proposed travel restrictions to Trump’s recent travel ban from several Muslim-majority countries due to his concerns over terrorism. According to many, Trump could use this potential visa sanctions to target black people just as he would have targeted Muslims in the proposed travel ban.

“The reasons keep changing about why it is that they want to keep people out. And that’s because there is no honest reason, except racism and xenophobia. They don’t want people in this country who have any adjacency to black or brown people,” Lawrence said.

Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Department counted 701,900 overstays of non-immigrant visas in the fiscal year 2017, representing 1.3 per cent of all short-term visitors to the U.S. in that year.

When news of the prospective travel restrictions was first reported Sunday, the White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said that reducing overstays remains a priority for the administration.

He told The Wall Street Journal that the White House could issue a related presidential proclamation as soon as this week.

In 2004, Congress called for the development of a biometric system to track arrivals and departures from the U.S., but successive administrations have not been able to implement this, reports Politico.

Ivanka Trump, eldest daughter and advisor of U.S. President Donald Trump is in Ethiopia as part of her two-nation Africa tour to launch an initiative aimed at economically empowering women in the continent.

Autism families in Ontario are reeling in the wake of the Doug Ford government’s abrupt shift to fee-for-service, income-geared and limited funding for autism.

We are no doubt going to see new rounds of parental advocacy, political pressure and litigation.

As an associate professor, teacher and autism behaviour analyst, I can write about autism and talk about it until I turn blue in the face (and I do).

But as an “Autism Mom,” I know the details of autism from a close perspective.

From the crooked pathways to diagnosis, the blaming and shaming from schools, other parents and professionals to raising a child with autism into adulthood, each step can be unpredictable and disheartening. But it doesn’t have to be.

We can’t fix autism, and nor do we want to, because autism is part of our unique and cherished children. But we can make that journey an easier one, a supported one. It can be a journey with empathy, understanding and yes, even financial help — especially within those critical early years.

Yet right now Ontario is choosing a different, uglier path.

As a supposed consolation for autism funding changes, the Ontario Ministry of Education promises to boost school funding. This is as we hear class sizes will expand and teachers’ unions predict 18,000 positions could be eliminated over the next four years!

And did anyone notice none of the Ontario autism announcements include further training and funding for registered early childhood educators?

These are the professionals with expertise in early child development who form part of Ontario’s kindergarten educator team — the people who are potentially best-equipped and positioned to support our children during critical early years.

This is just one reason why Ontario’s plan is short-sighted, inadequate and wrong.

One problem with Ontario’s plan

With one in every 66 children and youth in Canada now diagnosed with autism, the health, educational and social dilemmas of how to respond to autism can seem overwhelming.

But in fact there is much we can do, especially for the 56 per cent of children diagnosed with autism by age six.

In a new research study I worked on that compared data about educational and developmental outcomes of children from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, we found that quality early childhood education pre-emptively lowers the need for later special education.

That means with quality early childhood education, some children who might have required special education won’t. For children with exceptionalities, such as autism, such quality early education can lower the intensity of supports later on.

For children with autism, evidence-based interventions are critical to success.

Our children with autism struggle with social communication. Yet, learning communication skills through a type of intensive applied behaviour analysis, often known as intensive behavioural intervention (IBI), is significant. So is the presence of peers.

Behavioural programs are often provided at home and in clinics; rarely are they hosted within day cares or kindergartens, where inclusive early childhood education programscould provide an essential forum for learning skills.

But in order for our children with autism to benefit from on-site pre-school and school therapies, a significant investment in adequate educator supports is required.

Fewer human resources in the early years is not the answer to reducing long-term financial and emotional costs for families whose best hope is early intervention.

Recently, I have been working with a team of my colleagues in inclusive education at Memorial University. We are part of the Canadian Research Centre on Inclusive Education.

All of us know that the earlier we can provide education and therapy in inclusive settings to our young children who are struggling or have disabilities like autism, the better.

Yet, right now, our educational systems don’t take the time to teach our early childhood educators much about autism.

Early childhood education and special education have developed as separate knowledge and specialty fields. While our society has moved towards inclusive classrooms, there is a lag in both educator training and funding.

Our children with autism are also excluded from child-care services: for example, 35 per cent of early childhood education programs in one Toronto study exclude children with disabilities.

In our recent study, we found that few national or international reports about quality early childhood education include information that is specific to autism spectrum diagnoses.

‘Early intervention’ - how?

Our school systems routinely exclude children with autism or make school attendance a challenge. Educators aren’t all taught to recognize the red flags of autism and all of our 13 Canadian jurisdictions support autism differently.

Parents are often told to wait and see when they have developmental or academic concerns.

If systems aren’t in place for early screening how do we get to early intervention?

While my own son’s diagnosis came far too late for early intervention, early intervention works. When our young children (and our adolescents and adults with autism) can’t get to a diagnosis, can’t get past wait lists, can’t afford intervention, are excluded from child care and can’t stay in school, this is more than a disability issue.

It’s a family issue, a gender issue and often a mental health issue. It is a human rights issue — just check Article 23 of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child.

Mothers of children with autism have a significant and ongoing impact on their opportunities to work. As a result, we now have families with the challenges of learning to raise children with autism along with lower income.

I used to be many things in many places from coast-to-coast across our country: a resource teacher, an autism consultant, a guidance counsellor.

But like all of our families raising and supporting children with autism, I will forever continue to be a parent of a child, adolescent and adult with autism.

Our family never accessed intensive behaviour therapy in a peer environment or early diagnosis. But I once fled back to Ontario to obtain mental health services for my child, and I feel nothing but gratitude for that moment in our family’s history.

I can’t help but remember all of those other young children that have never been offered either quality early or later interventions, and could benefit immensely.

Author: Kimberly Maich Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland

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