sportsgame:fencing

  • First-ever private border wall built in #New_Mexico

    A private group announced Monday that it has constructed a half-mile wall along a section of the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico, in what it said was a first in the border debate.

    The 18-foot steel bollard wall is similar to the designs used by the Border Patrol, sealing off a part of the border that had been a striking gap in existing fencing, according to We Build the Wall, the group behind the new section.

    The section was also built faster and, organizers say, likely more cheaply than the government has been able to manage in recent years.

    Kris Kobach, a former secretary of state in Kansas and an informal immigration adviser to President Trump, says the New Mexico project has the president’s blessing, and says local Border Patrol agents are eager to have the assistance.

    “We’re closing a gap that’s been a big headache for them,” said Mr. Kobach, who is general counsel for We Build the Wall.


    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/27/first-ever-private-border-wall-built-new-mexico
    #privatisation #murs #barrières_frontalières #USA #Mexique #frontières #business #complexe_militaro-industriel
    ping @albertocampiphoto @daphne

    • The #GoFundMe Border Wall Is the Quintessential Trump-Era Grift

      In 2012, historian Rick Perlstein wrote a piece of essential reading for understanding modern conservatism, titled “The Long Con” and published by the Baffler. It ties the right’s penchant for absurd and obvious grifts to the conservative mind’s particular vulnerability to fear and lies:

      The strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers points up evidence of another successful long march, of tactics designed to corral fleeceable multitudes all in one place—and the formation of a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began.

      Lying, Perlstein said, is “what makes you sound the way a conservative is supposed to sound.” The lies—about abortion factories, ACORN, immigrants, etc.—fund the grifts, and the grifts prey on the psychology that makes the lies so successful.

      Perlstein’s piece is all I could think of when I saw last night’s CNN story about the border wall GoFundMe, which seemingly has actually produced Wall. According to CNN, the group We Build the Wall says it has produced a half-mile of border wall in New Mexico. CNN was invited to watch the construction, where Kris Kobach, who is general counsel for the group, spoke “over the clanking and beeping of construction equipment.”

      #Steve_Bannon, who is naturally involved with the group, told CNN that the wall connects existing fencing and had “tough terrain” that means it was left “off the government list.” The half-mile stretch of wall cost an “estimated $6 million to $8 million to build,” CNN reported.

      CNN also quoted #Jeff_Allen, who owns the property on which the fence was built, as saying: “I have fought illegals on this property for six years. I love my country and this is a step in protecting my country.” According to MSN, Allen partnered with United Constitutional Patriots to build the wall with We Build the Wall’s funding. UCP is the same militia that was seen on video detaining immigrants and misrepresenting themselves as Border Patrol; the Phoenix New Times reported on the “apparent ties” between the UCP and We Build the Wall earlier this month.

      This story is bursting at the seams with an all-star lineup of right-wing scammers. The GoFundMe itself, of course, has been rocked by scandal: After the effort raised $20 million, just $980 million short of the billion-dollar goal, GoFundMe said in January that the funds would be returned, since creator Brian Kolfage had originally pledged that “If for ANY reason we don’t reach our goal we will refund your donation.” But Kolfage quickly figured out how to keep the gravy train going, urging those who had donated to allow their donations to be redirected to a non-profit. Ultimately, $14 million of that $20 million figure was indeed rerouted by the idiots who donated it.

      That non-profit became #We_Build_The_Wall, and like all good conservative con jobs, it has the celebs of the fever swamp attached to it. Not only #Kris_Kobach, a tenacious liar who failed at proving voter fraud is a widespread problem—but also slightly washed-up figures like Bannon, Sheriff David Clarke, Curt Schilling, and Tom Tancredo. All the stars are here!

      How much sleazier could it get? Try this: the main contractor working at the site of New Wall, according to CNN, is Tommy Fisher. The Washington Post reported last week that Trump had “personally and repeatedly urged the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers” to give the contract for the border wall to the company owned by Fisher, a “GOP donor and frequent guest on Fox News,” despite the fact that the Corps of Engineers previously said Fisher’s proposals didn’t meet their requirements.

      Of course, like all good schemes, the need for more money never ceases: On the Facebook page for the group, the announcement that Wall had been completed was accompanied with a plea for fans to “DONATE NOW to fund more walls! We have many more projects lined up!”

      So, what we have is: A tax-exempt non-profit raised $20 million by claiming it would be able to make the federal government build Wall by just giving it the money for it and then, when that didn’t happen, getting most of its donors to reroute that money; then it built a half-mile of wall on private land for as much as $8 million, which went to a firm of a Fox News star whom President Trump adores.

      Perlstein wrote in the aforementioned piece that it’s hard to “specify a break point where the money game ends and the ideological one begins,” since “the con selling 23-cent miracle cures for heart disease inches inexorably into the one selling miniscule marginal tax rates as the miracle cure for the nation itself.” The con job was sold through fear: “Conjuring up the most garishly insatiable monsters precisely in order to banish them from underneath the bed, they aim to put the target to sleep.”

      The Trump era is the inartful, gaudy, brazen peak of this phenomenon. This time, instead of selling fake stem cell cures using the language of Invading Liberals, the grifters are just straight-up selling—for real American dollars—the promise of building a big wall to keep the monsters out.

      https://splinternews.com/the-gofundme-border-wall-is-the-quintessential-trump-er-1835062340

    • Company touted by Trump to build the wall has history of fines, violations

      President Donald Trump appears to have set his sights on a North Dakota construction firm with a checkered legal record to build portions of his signature border wall.
      The family-owned company, #Fisher_Sand_&_Gravel, claims it can build the wall cheaper and faster than competitors. It was among a handful of construction firms chosen to build prototypes of the President’s border wall in 2017 and is currently constructing portions of barrier on private land along the border in New Mexico using private donations.
      It also, however, has a history of red flags including more than $1 million in fines for environmental and tax violations. A decade ago, a former co-owner of the company pleaded guilty to tax fraud, and was sentenced to prison. The company also admitted to defrauding the federal government by impeding the IRS. The former executive, who’s a brother of the current company owner, is no longer associated with it.
      More than two years into his presidency, Trump is still fighting to build and pay for his border wall, a key campaign issue. After failing to get his requests for wall funding passed by a Republican-held Congress during his first two years in office, Trump has met resistance this year from a Democratic-controlled House. His attempt to circumvent Congress through a national emergency declaration has been challenged in the courts.
      On May 24, a federal district judge blocked the administration from using Defense Department funds to construct parts of the wall. The Trump administration has since appealed the block to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals and in the interim, asked the district court to allow building to continue pending appeal. The district court denied the administration’s request.
      Despite the uncertainty, construction firms have been competing to win multimillion-dollar contracts to build portions of wall, including Fisher Sand & Gravel.

      Asked by CNN to comment on the company’s history of environmental violations and legal issues, the company said in a statement: “The questions you are asking have nothing to do with the excellent product and work that Fisher is proposing with regard to protecting America’s southern border. The issues and situations in your email were resolved years ago. None of those matters are outstanding today.”
      Catching the President’s attention
      The company was founded in North Dakota in 1952 and operates in several states across the US. It’s enjoyed public support from North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer, who as a congressman invited the company’s CEO, Tommy Fisher, to Trump’s State of the Union address in 2018. Cramer has received campaign contributions from Fisher and his wife. A photo of the event shared by Fisher in a company newsletter shows Tommy Fisher shaking Trump’s hand.
      The Washington Post first reported the President’s interest in Fisher. According to the Post, the President has “aggressively” pushed for the Army Corps of Engineers to award a wall contract to Fisher.
      The President “immediately brought up Fisher” during a May 23 meeting in the Oval Office to discuss details of the border wall with various government officials, including that he wants it to be painted black and include French-style doors, according to the Post and confirmed by CNN.
      “The Army Corps of Engineers says about 450 miles of wall will be completed by the end of next year, and the only thing President Trump is pushing, is for the wall to be finished quickly so the American people have the safety and security they deserve,” said Hogan Gidley, White House deputy press secretary.
      A US government official familiar with the meeting tells CNN that the President has repeatedly mentioned the company in discussions he’s had about the wall with the head of the Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite.
      Fisher has recently made efforts to raise its public profile, both by upping its lobbying efforts and through repeated appearances on conservative media by its CEO, Tommy Fisher.

      In the past two years, for example, the company’s congressional lobbying expenditures jumped significantly — from $5,000 in 2017 to $75,000 in 2018, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit that tracks lobbying expenditures.

      When asked about Fisher Sand & Gravel’s lobbying, Don Larson, one of Fisher’s registered lobbyists, said: “I am working to help decision makers in Washington become familiar with the company and its outstanding capabilities.”
      Media Blitz
      As part of a media blitz on outlets including Fox News, SiriusXM Patriot and Breitbart News, Tommy Fisher has discussed his support for the border wall and pitched his company as the one to build it. In a March 5 appearance on Fox & Friends, Fisher said that his company could build 234 miles of border wall for $4.3 billion, compared to the $5.7 billion that the Trump administration has requested from Congress.
      Fisher claimed that his firm can work five-to-10 times faster than competitors as a result of its construction process.
      The President has also touted Fisher on Fox News. In an April interview in which he was asked about Fisher by Sean Hannity, Trump said the company was “recommended strongly by a great new senator, as you know, Kevin Cramer. And they’re real. But they have been bidding and so far they haven’t been meeting the bids. I thought they would.”
      Despite the President’s interest, the company has thus far been unsuccessful in obtaining a contract to build the border wall, beyond that of a prototype.

      Earlier this year, Fisher put its name in the running for border wall contracts worth nearly $1 billion. When it lost the bid to Barnard Construction Co. and SLSCO Ltd., Fisher protested the awards over claims that the process was biased. In response, the Army Corps canceled the award. But after a review of the process, the Army Corps combined the projects and granted it to a subsidiary of Barnard Construction, according to an agency spokesperson.
      It’s unclear whether the project will proceed, given the recent decision by a federal judge to block the use of Defense Department funds to build parts of the border wall and the administration’s appeal.
      Fisher, which has a pending lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims over the solicitation process, is listed by the Defense Department as being among firms eligible to compete for future border contracts.

      It has moved forward with a private group, We Build the Wall, that is building sections of barrier on private land in New Mexico using private money raised as part of a GoFundMe campaign. Kris Kobach, the former Kansas Secretary of State who is now general counsel for the group, said a half-mile stretch is nearly complete, at an estimated cost of $6 million to $8 million.

      In a statement, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said Fisher Industries has told them that the company has begun construction on private property along the border “in the approximate area of a USBP border barrier requirement that was not prioritized under current funding.”
      The spokesperson added: “It is not uncommon for vendors” to demonstrate their capabilities using “their own resources,” but the agency goes on to “encourage all interested vendors” to compete for border contracts “through established mechanisms to ensure any construction is carried out under relevant federal authorities and meets USBP operational requirements for border barrier.”
      In responses provided to CNN through Scott Sleight, an attorney working on behalf of the company, Fisher maintained that it’s “committed to working with all appropriate federal government officials and agencies to provide its expertise and experience to help secure America’s southern border.”
      The company says it has “developed a patent-pending bollard fence hanging system that [it] believes allows border fencing to be constructed faster than any contractor using common construction methods.” It also added: “Fisher has been concerned about the procurement procedures and evaluations done by the USACE to date, and hopes these issues can be remedied.”
      Relationship with Sen. Cramer
      A month after attending the 2018 State of the Union address with Cramer, Fisher and his wife, Candice each contributed the $5,400 maximum donation to Cramer’s campaign for the US Senate, Federal Election Commission records show.
      Fisher also donated to several Arizona Republicans in the 2018 election cycle, including giving the $5,400-maximum donation to Martha McSally’s campaign, records show.
      A recent video produced by Fisher Sand & Gravel demonstrating its ability to construct the wall includes a clip of Cramer at the controls of a track-hoe lifting sections of barrier wall into place, saying “this is just like XBOX, baby.” Cramer was joined at the demonstration by a handful of other Republican lawmakers from across the country.

      Cramer has been publicly critical of how the Army Corps has handled its border wall construction work, arguing that it has moved too slowly and expressing frustration over how it has dealt with Fisher. In an interview with a North Dakota TV station, Cramer said that he believes the corps “made a miscalculation in who they chose over Fisher” and that the company had been “skunked so to speak.” Cramer added that Fisher “remains a pre-qualified, high level, competitor.”

      In an interview with CNN, Cramer said that the company has come up in conversations he has had with administration officials, including the President and the head of the Army Corps, but while the senator said that he would “love if they got every inch of the project,” he added that he has “never advocated specifically for them.”
      "Every time someone comes to meet with me, whether it’s (Acting Defense Secretary) Shanahan, General Semonite, even with Donald Trump, they bring up Fisher Industries because they assume that’s my thing," Cramer said.
      “One of the things I’ve never done is said it should be Fisher,” Cramer said. “Now, I love Fisher. I’d love if they got every inch of the project. They’re my constituents, I don’t apologize for that. But my interest really is more in the bureaucratic process.”
      According to an administration official familiar with the situation, Cramer sent information about Fisher to the President’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner, who then passed it along to the Army Corps of Engineers for their consideration. The source tells CNN that Kushner was not familiar with the company prior to getting information about them from Cramer.
      Cramer said he does recall passing along information about the company to Kushner, but that he did not know what Kushner did with the information.
      On May 24, Cramer told a North Dakota radio station that the President has asked him to examine the process of how federal border wall projects are awarded.
      “We’re going to do an entire audit,” Cramer said. “I’ve asked for the entire bid process, and all of the bid numbers.” Cramer told CNN the President said he wanted the wall built for the “lowest, best price, and it’s also quality, and that’s what any builder should want.”
      Asked about aspects of the company’s checkered legal record, Cramer said “that level of scrutiny is important, but I would hope the same scrutiny would be put on the Corps of Engineers.”
      Environmental violations
      Though its corporate headquarters are in North Dakota, Fisher has a sizable footprint in Arizona, where it operates an asphalt company as well as a drilling and blasting company. It’s there that the company has compiled an extensive track record of environmental violations.
      From 2007 to 2017, Fisher Sand & Gravel compiled more than 1,300 air-quality violations in Maricopa County, culminating in the third highest settlement ever received by the Maricopa County Air Quality Department, according to Bob Huhn, a department spokesperson. That’s a record number of violations for any air-quality settlement in the county, Huhn said. The settlement totaled more than $1 million, though the department received slightly less than that following negotiations, Huhn said.
      Most of the violations came from an asphalt plant that the company was running in south Phoenix that has since closed. While the plant was still running, the City of Phoenix filed 469 criminal charges against the company from August to October of 2009, according to a city spokesperson.
      According to a 2010 article in the Arizona Republic, Fisher reached an agreement with Phoenix officials to close the plant in 2010. As part of the deal, fines were reduced from $1.1 million to an estimated $243,000 and all criminal charges were reduced to civil charges.
      Mary Rose Wilcox was a member of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors at the time the city and county were fighting Fisher over the asphalt plant, which was located in her district. “They tried to persuade us they were good guys since they were a family-owned company. But they were spreading noxious fumes into a residential area,” Wilcox said. “We tried to work with them, but their violations were just so blatant.”
      Michael Pops, a community activist who lived in the area around the plant, remembers fighting with Fisher for six years before the plant finally shut down. “The impact they had on this community was devastating,” Pops said, adding many low-income residents living near the asphalt plant were sickened from the fumes the plant emitted.
      The company has also racked up more than 120 violations with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality from 2004 until as recently as last summer, according to the department.
      In 2011, Fisher agreed to a Consent Judgement with ADEQ over numerous air quality violations the company had committed. As part of that settlement, Fisher agreed to pay $125,000 in civil penalties, and that it would remain in compliance with state air quality standards. Within two years Fisher was found to be in violation of that agreement and was forced to pay an additional $500,000 in fines, according to the state’s attorney general’s office.
      Legal trouble
      Internally, the company has also confronted issues.
      In 2011, Fisher Sand & Gravel agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a sexual discrimination and retaliation suit filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The lawsuit charged that the company violated federal anti-discrimination laws when it “subjected two women workers to egregious verbal sexual harassment by a supervisor and then fired one of them after she repeatedly asked the supervisor to stop harassing her and complained to a job superintendent.”
      The settlement required Fisher to provide anti-discrimination training to its employees in New Mexico and review its policies on sexual harassment.
      Micheal Fisher, a former co-owner of Fisher and Tommy’s brother, was sentenced to prison in 2009 for tax fraud, according to the Justice Department. Fisher pleaded guilty to “conspiracy to defraud the United States by impeding the [Internal Revenue Service], four counts of aiding in the filing of false federal tax returns for FSG and four counts of filing false individual tax returns,” according to a Justice Department release.
      The company also admitted responsibility for defrauding the US by impeding the IRS, according to the DOJ. Citing a long standing policy of not commenting on the contracting process, the Army Corps declined to comment on whether Fisher’s history factored into its decision not to award Fisher a contract.

      https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/31/politics/fisher-sand-and-gravel-legal-history-border-wall/index.html

    • Private US-Mexico border wall ordered open by gov’t, fights back and is now closed again

      The privately funded portion of the U.S.-Mexico border wall is now fully secure and closed again after one of its gates had been ordered to remain open until disputes about waterway access could be resolved.

      “Our border wall & gate are secure again and we still have not had a single breach. I want to thank the IBWC for acting swiftly and we look forward to working with you on our future projects,” triple amputee Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage posted to Twitter on Tuesday night.

      Kolfage created We Build The Wall Inc., a nonprofit that is now backed by former Trump Administration Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. The group crowd-funded more than $22 million in order to privately build a border wall and then sell it to the U.S. government for $1.

      A portion of that wall has been constructed in Texas for between $6 and $8 million. The 1-mile-long wall is located on private property near El Paso, Texas, and Sunland Park, New Mexico.

      However, the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) had ordered a 33-foot gate within the private border wall to remain open – not locked and closed – over a waterway access issue, according to BuzzFeed News. The IBCW addresses waterway issues between the U.S. and Mexico.

      “This is normally done well in advance of a construction project,” IBWC spokesperson Lori Kuczmanski said. “They think they can build now and ask questions later, and that’s not how it works.”

      BuzzFeed reported that the IBWC said the gate “had blocked officials from accessing a levee and dam, and cut off public access to a historic monument known as Monument One, the first in a series of obelisks that mark the U.S.–Mexico border from El Paso to Tijuana.”

      By Tuesday night, the IBWC said the gate would remain locked at night and issued a statement.

      “The U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (USIBWC) will lock the privately-owned gate on federal property at night effective immediately due to security concerns,” it said.

      The statement continues:

      The USIBWC is continuing to work with We Build the Wall regarding its permit request. Until this decision, the private gate was in a locked open position. We Build the Wall, a private organization, built a gate on federal land in Sunland Park, N.M., near El Paso, Texas, without authority, and then locked the gate closed on June 6, 2019. The private gate blocks a levee road owned by the U.S. Government. After repeated requests to unlock and open the private gate, the United States Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (USIBWC), accompanied by two uniformed law enforcement officers from the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office, removed the private lock, opened the gate, and locked the gate open pending further discussions with We Build the Wall. The gate was also opened so that USIBWC employees can conduct maintenance and operations at American Dam.

      The USIBWC did not authorize the construction of the private gate on federal property as announced on We Build the Wall’s Twitter page. The USIBWC is not charged with securing other fences or gates as reported by We Build the Wall. The international border fences are not on USIBWC property. The USIBWC did not open any other gates in the El Paso area as erroneously reported. Other gates and the border fence are controlled by other federal agencies.

      When the proper documentation is received for the permit, USIBWC will continue to process the permit application.

      Before the statement had been released, Kolfage posted to Twitter.
      https://a

      mericanmilitarynews.com/2019/06/private-us-mexico-border-wall-ordered-open-by-intl-group-later-closed-locked-after-security-concerns/

  • Mur à la frontière russo-ukrainienne : Kiev manque de fonds pour le projet

    L’Ukraine a renforcé seulement plusieurs centaines de mètres de la frontière avec la Russie en y construisant une clôture métallique avec des barbelés.

    http://fr.sputniknews.com/international/20150815/1017582922.html
    #Russie #Ukraine #mur #barrière_frontalière #frontières
    cc @albertocampiphoto @marty @daphne

    • Ukraine completing ‘wall’ with Russia in #Kharkiv region

      Head of Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service Viktor Nazarenko said that the authority is completing the creation of an intellectual guarding model for the state border with Russia in Kharkiv region. Works are underway in Sumy and Luhansk regions.


      https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/ukraine-completing-wall-russia-kharkiv-region.html

    • Ukraine’s ’European Rampart’ Risks Getting Lost In The Trenches

      Ukrainian border guard Oksana Ivanets winds her way past a 2-meter-tall green metal fence topped with coiled razor wire and through serpentine, timber-lined trenches to a bedroom-sized bunker built to withstand a direct hit from a 152-millimeter artillery shell.

      Out of a small window that looks north into a sprawling field of golden sunflowers, she points to a spot on the horizon where Ukraine ends and the territory of its adversary begins.

      “It’s only about 400 meters to the Russian border,” says Ivanets, dressed in a forest-green uniform.

      This outpost was a part of the first segment of an ambitious $520-million, four-year defense plan announced by then-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk with great fanfare at the peak of the war in eastern Ukraine against Moscow-backed separatists in late summer 2014.

      Dubbed in its early days “Project Wall” and known also as “The European Rampart,” the barrier was intended to fortify a significant section of Ukraine’s porous eastern frontier while both literally and symbolically separating the country from its Soviet-era hegemon.

      But four years on, it’s not exactly the bulwark the government planned.

      A struggling economy has forced a fourfold reduction in its budget and pushed its scheduled completion date to 2020. And an embezzlement scandal has put the entire project in question. Fresh indictments this month have brought it back into the public eye.

      For some, the section of the wall that stands today is more a physical reminder of the country’s enduring corruption than a symbol of progress and security.

      Yatsenyuk responded in English via e-mail to RFE/RL questions about the project, insisting that it has been a success.

      “This is part of one of the greatest achievements of the post-Maidan government and the efforts of all Ukrainian people: restoring the country’s defense capabilities,” he argued, using the colloquial term for Ukraine’s 2014 street uprising that ousted a Moscow-friendly president.

      ’It Can’t Stop Tanks’

      As it stands, the wall project covers merely a fraction of Ukraine’s 2,300-kilometer eastern border with Russia. It comprises 170 kilometers of trenches; 72 kilometers of fencing; a 165-kilometer patrol road; a 19-kilometer ground strip fitted with seismic sensors to detect objects of more than 60 kilograms; and four frontier posts with 17-meter-high watchtowers equipped with security and thermal-imaging cameras.

      There is also a 20-kilometer section of fencing and trenches in the war-torn Luhansk region to the south.

      In some places, there are natural boundaries that prevent crossings.

      “It would be naive to expect that this type of structure...would make any difference,” Oleksiy Melnyk, a Ukrainian political and security analyst at the Kyiv-based Ruzumkov Center, a nongovernmental public-policy think tank, says of a possible Russian attack. “This so-called wall is not suitable, in military terms.”

      Border guard Ivanets still views it with optimism. She says that even the work so far is better than nothing, adding that something needed to be done to try to safeguard Ukraine and, in particular, Kharkiv, from the same fate as occupied regions to the south.

      Kharkiv, an industrial city 480 kilometers from Kyiv, is the country’s second-largest city with 1.4 million residents and a Ukrainian military stronghold. It withstood an initial attempt by pro-Russia separatists to seize control in 2014.

      Swaths of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions with more than 4 million inhabitants and a 400-kilometer border with Russia remains under the control of Moscow-backed separatists. Kyiv and international observers accuse Russia of exploiting Ukraine’s loss of control there, slipping its forces and equipment easily across the border to back separatist offensives and even launch its own when those fighters need extra help against government troops.

      “It was determined that if a Russian attack against the Kharkiv region is initiated, they will try to go right through this point,” says Ivanets.

      She concedes that the wall would not defeat a Russian offensive. But that’s not its point.

      “It gives us time to organize the first line of defense while we wait for the [Ukrainian] Armed Forces to arrive,” she says. “We understand very well that it can’t stop tanks.”

      ’For 100 Years We Didn’t Need A Wall’

      It’s this aspect of the project that has drawn ridicule from many Ukrainians. A well-known journalist and commentator called the wall a “pathetic fence,” and a member of parliament described it as a “4 billion-hryvnya pit.”

      It has also angered residents of border towns and villages who complain it’s an eyesore and a barrier that has disrupted their lives. Some complain it keeps family and friends apart. Local farmers bemoan the loss of fields that stretched into Russian territory where their livestock used to graze.

      A major reason locals were able to move so freely across the border and constructing the project has been such a headache is that the countries’ shared border was never properly demarcated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

      “We lived here without a wall for 100 years. It’s a big shame to [build it] now,” 83-year-old Alisivka village resident Lyubov Dekhnich says during a break from picking raspberries outside the house her family built in 1955.

      Beyond the barrier itself, new bureaucratic procedures for crossing official border points have been put into effect, further limiting freedom of movement.

      Until recently, both Russian and Ukrainian citizens could cross the administrative border with internal passports. Today, to the chagrin of locals, they need international passports.

      “They must understand that that there’s an aggressor on the other side,” Ivanets says of such complaints, adding that she hopes critics will come around at some point. “We must keep Russia out.”

      Corruption Allegations

      Project Wall’s construction should have been faster, wider, and better, according to Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU).

      That FBI-trained anticorruption agency — formed in the wake of the Euromaidan protests as Kyiv set out to implement crucial reforms to secure Western aid — found that some of the patrol roads along the wall where border guards cruise in fourwheelers, for instance, were narrower than the planned three meters and that at least $365,000 was stolen from its budget.

      Eight people from the Border Guard Service of Ukraine and local contractors were detained in August and November 2017 for alleged embezzlement. On July 5, NABU announced it had completed its pretrial investigation into their actions and prepared an indictment for special anticorruption prosecutors to send to court.

      While it is unclear who was behind the alleged scheme — especially since an order from the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) made all information about the wall project a state secret — some point the finger at Yatsenyuk, as the wall was his idea.
      Yatsenyuk calls those who accuse him of orchestrating any wrongdoing “Goebbels-style” liars perpetuating “Kremlin propaganda.”

      “Moscow openly does not want to have a border between Ukraine and Russia,” he says. “Therefore, the Kremlin is making tremendous efforts to disrupt or discredit any border project.”

      “Even if contractors and local officials had something stolen (the investigation will have to prove it in court), how could [a] prime minister be involved in this?” he adds in an e-mail.

      Russian Activity ’Practically Every Day’

      Yatsenyuk argues that his brainchild has also succeeded in halting smuggling and illegal migration while helping Ukraine secure a visa-free regime with the European Union and lay the groundwork for possible NATO membership.

      “Our partners have always made it clear that Ukraine has to create a reliable border with Russia,” he says.

      Ukraine secured visa-free travel with the EU in June 2017, but it is unclear what role the construction of the wall played in that agreement. And with the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk grinding on, NATO membership remains a distant prospect.

      Driving along the fence, Ivanets says the only border violators around there these days are wild boars and deer that roam the surrounding forests and tall grass.

      But a greater threat looms just over yonder.

      Ivanets says the most extensive and aggressive Russian military activity was observed along the Kharkiv border throughout 2014 and 2015, but that border guards still see men in military uniforms on the Russian side “practically every day,” sometimes driving armored personnel carriers.

      A Completed ’Wall’ By 2020 — Maybe

      The war in eastern Ukraine is in its fifth year, with no end in sight. More than 10,000 people have been killed and a peace deal known as the Minsk II accord has failed to stick.

      Recently, the rhetoric from Moscow and Kyiv has become more aggressive, with Russian President Vladimir Putin predicting just days after his Helsinki summit with U.S. President Donald Trump a “serious risk of escalation” in eastern Ukraine.

      As Ukrainian troops continue still dug in and preparing for the worst, Ukraine is pressing on with Project Wall.

      The chief of the Ukrainian Border Guards Service, Petro Tsyhykal, predicted recently that the Kharkiv section of the wall would be completed by the end of this year, with more construction planned in Luhansk, Sumy, and Chernihiv scheduled for completion in 2020.

      “We understand that this is a matter of national security,” he says, “so we need to complete it under any conditions.”


      https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-s-european-rampart-risks-getting-lost-in-the-trenches-/29396996.html
      cc @reka

  • Tunisian Athlete Refuses to Play against Israeli
    http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=17731

    Sara Besbes, Tunis and Africa’s fencing champion, Tuesday refused to play against an Israeli player during the 2011 World Fencing Championship in Catania, southern Italy, according to Panorama.It website.
     
    It said Besbes, who comes from a family of great fame in fencing, reached the final round where she had to play against an Israeli player. However, she stood still on the platform, pointing her sword toward the ground and refusing to move as a sign she was boycotting the Israeli athlete but without officially announcing it to avoid punitive measures by the judges.