A World Trade Organization arbitrator will step into a years-old dispute brought by China over U.S. anti-dumping measures.

A trade official said Friday the arbitration was triggered automatically after the U.S. objected to Beijing’s request for authorization to retaliate against more than $7 billion worth of U.S. goods in the case.

The case originated with a Chinese challenge nearly five years ago over 40 U.S. anti-dumping rulings against Chinese goods, which the U.S. says were sold below market value.

In 2017, the WTO’s appellate body ruled largely in favor of China. Beijing insists the U.S. has not complied.

The arbitrator has until Oct. 21 to rule on the issue, but such cases often go past the deadline.

The standoff comes amid a high-profile showdown between China and the Trump administration over trade.
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A Turkish-U.S. citizen and former NASA scientist jailed in Turkey on terrorism charges plans to file an appeal to Turkey’s top court after a lower appeals court reduced his sentence this week, his lawyer said on Friday.

Serkan Golge was visiting family in southern Turkey when he was arrested in a crackdown following a failed military coup in 2016 which the government blames on supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Golge’s case is similar to that of American pastor Andrew Brunson, whose ongoing detention in Turkey in connection with the coup attempt is the cause of a major row between NATO allies Washington and Ankara, and has led to U.S. President Donald Trump imposing sanctions on Turkey.

In a ruling on Wednesday, Turkey’s Court of Appeals changed Golge’s conviction charge to aiding, rather than being a member of, a terror organization, and to reduce his 7-1/2-year prison sentence to five years. Golge denied both charges.

“We have already filed an appeal for his release to a higher court and we will go to the Yargitay [appeals court] afterwards,” Ali Bilgin, a lawyer representing Golge in Turkey, told Reuters.

Washington welcomed Wednesday’s ruling and said it would follow the case closely along with those of other citizens and local U.S. mission employees.

“We welcome the Turkish Court of Appeals’ decision to reduce the sentence against Dr. Golge,” U.S. state Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Thursday. She also called for Golge’s release in a case that lacks “credible evidence.”

Golge was visiting family in southern Turkey when he was arrested. Turkey has detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of civil servants over suspected links to the coup attempt, the U.N. human rights office said in March. Of those detained, 77,000 have been formally charged and kept in jail during trial, the interior minister said in April.

Cleric Gulen denies involvement in the attempted putsch in which 250 people were killed.

Along with sanctions, Trump has imposed double traded tariffs on Turkey, exacerbating a slide in the lira.
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The United States is getting “very, very close” to having to move forward on its trade deal with Mexico without Canada, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Friday.

There is just over a week to go before an Oct. 1 deadline to publish the text of a deal to update the North American Free Trade Agreement and the United States and Canada have still not agreed on terms, Hassett told Fox News Channel.

“We’re still talking to Canada, and we’re getting very very close to the deadline where we’re going to have to move ahead with Mexico all by themselves,” said Hassett, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

“I’m a little surprised that the Canadians haven’t signed up yet,” Hassett added. “I worry that politics in Canada is trumping common sense because there’s a very good deal that was designed by Mexico and the U.S. to appeal to Canada. And they’re not signing up and it’s got everybody over here a little bit puzzled.”

 
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The United States is prepared to go on the offensive in cyberspace to ensure adversaries know there is a price to pay for hacks, network intrusions and other types of attacks.

President Donald Trump signed a new National Cyber Strategy on Thursday, calling for a more aggressive response to the growing online threat posed by other countries, terrorist groups and criminal organizations.

“My administration will use all available means to keep America safe from cyber threats,” Trump said in a statement, calling the new strategy an “important step.”

Other key officials called the new strategy an important and badly needed change.

“We’re not just on defense,” National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters. “We’re going to do a lot of things offensively, and I think our adversaries need to know that.”

“Our hands are not tied as they were in the Obama administration,” he added.

Strategy effective immediately

The strategy, which takes effect immediately, is being billed by the Trump administration as the first “fully articulated” cyberstrategy in 15 years, providing direction to various departments and agencies on how best to protect their data as well as the private data of millions of Americans.

The internet has brought prosperity and productivity to American lives and those across the world, Bolton said. 

“We must do more to ensure it is secure and remains an engine of American growth,” he added.

He said the ultimate goal is “to create the structures of deterrence that will demonstrate to adversaries that the cost of their engaging in operations against us is higher than they want to bear.”

​Midterm elections

The new strategy comes less than two months before the U.S. midterm elections Nov. 6, and as key security and intelligence officials have amplified their warnings that Russia and other adversaries, such as China, Iran and North Korea, may seek to use cyber means to interfere.

“I remain deeply concerned about threats from several countries,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said during a security conference outside Washington earlier this month, warning the threats are even more pervasive.

“Influence efforts online are increasingly being used around the globe,” Coats said. “The weaponization of cybertools and the relative lack of global guardrails significantly increases the risk.”

Promoting responsible behavior

The new U.S. cyberstrategy seeks to allay some of those concerns by promoting responsible behavior in cyberspace, urging nations to adhere to a set of norms, both through international law and voluntary standards.

It also calls for specific measures to harden U.S. government networks from attacks, like the June 2015 intrusion into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which compromised the records of about 4.2 million current and former government employees, an attack attributed to China.

And the strategy calls for the U.S. to continue to name and shame bad cyber actors, calling them out publicly for attacks when possible, along with the use of economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

“Not every response to a cyberattack would be in the cyber world,” Bolton said, calling offensive cyber tools “part of the range of instruments of national power that we have.”

​Obama directive reversed

As for what offensive cyber measures might look like, Bolton would not say. But White House officials contend they have already made it easier for the military to hack back by reversing a directive from the Obama administration known as PPD-20, which created what they describe as a lengthy approval process for any offensive operation.

Military officials have said that newfound flexibility is being put to use.

“We are engaged every single day against our adversaries,” U.S. Cyber Command Commander General Paul Nakasone said at a security conference earlier this month.

“It may not be readily apparent because we are doing this very closely held,” Nakasone said, adding, “the forces that are working are well-trained, extremely capable and ready to do what’s necessary.”

Earlier criticism

The Trump administration has come under criticism at times for its approach to cybersecurity, raising concerns earlier this year when it eliminated the National Security Council’s cybersecurity coordinator.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office also said that the administration’s efforts lacked “a more clearly defined, coordinated and comprehensive approach,” a charge repeated by some members of Congress.

But Bolton said the new strategy should ease such concerns.

“I’m satisfied that this allows us the comprehensive look at strategy across the entire government,” Bolton said. “Each agency knows its lane and is pursuing it vigorously.”

The new strategy also places a heavy emphasis on working with allies.

“There will be consultations, there have been already, with friends and allies because many of us are vulnerable to the same hostile actions,” Bolton said. “It’s very important that we work through our alliance structures where we can do that.”

White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman contributed to this article.
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A U.S. federal court has indicted the son of the former president of Guinea and his wife for allegedly enslaving a young Guinean girl in their luxurious Dallas, Texas, home for 16 years.

Mohamed Toure and Denise Cros-Toure were charged with forced labor and harboring an alien for financial gain.

Their attorney said the government’s case is “riddled with salacious allegations, fabrications and lies.”

But U.S. attorneys said the Toures brought the unidentified girl to the United States from her village in Guinea in 2000. They said she was at least 5 years old but could have been as old as 13.

Neighbors helped her escape in 2016 and brought her to the YWCA to live.

She told investigators the couple forced her to work from sunup deep into the evening, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children.

Neighbors also reported seeing the young girl painting the house, mowing the lawn and gardening.

The couple refused to let her attend school and never paid her. She also told authorities they would beat her with belts and electrical cords, and once yanked an earring from her ear, leaving a scar.

The Toures face up to 30 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted.

Mohamed Toure is the son of the late Ahmed Sekou Toure, the first president of Guinea after it gained independence from France in 1958. He served until he died of a heart attack in 1984.
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A substantial percentage of U.S. military vets store guns loaded and ready to use, according to an American study that could have implications for suicide prevention.

“American veterans have a higher suicide risk than demographically matched U.S. adults and most of their suicides are actually related to firearm injury,” said lead author Dr. Joseph Simonetti of the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Colorado.

“On average, about 20 veterans die every day by suicide and about two-thirds of those suicides are firearm-related,” he told Reuters Health.

Simonetti and colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in 2015, including 1,044 who had served in the military.

About 45 percent of veterans said they owned firearms and one in three of those gun owners reported storing at least one weapon loaded and unlocked.

Only about one in five gun-owning veterans kept all their guns locked and unloaded.

Storing weapons loaded and unlocked was reported by 34 percent of male veterans who own firearms and by 13 percent of female vets who were gun owners, according to the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Personal beliefs an influence

Respondents’ personal beliefs tended to influence their storage decisions, the authors found. For example, storing a firearm loaded and unlocked was more common among people who said guns were not useful for protection if someone had to take the time to load or unlock them. This group also felt having a gun at home increased safety.

“One of the more interesting findings was that we asked veterans whether or not they agreed having a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide for household members and only 6 percent agreed that a firearm in the home was a suicide risk    factor,” Simonetti said.

“But … we also asked veteran firearm owners … ‘If somebody in your household is at risk for suicide, what would you do?’ Eighty-two percent reported they would do something to limit firearm access for that household member. In fact, 25 percent said they would remove the gun from the home in that case.”

‘Really great study’

The results “are confirming what I suspected would be the case,” said Rajeev Ramchand, who studies firearm suicide prevention at research firm RAND Corporation in Washington, DC.

“It is now incumbent upon us to develop communication campaigns and strategies to help shift people’s internal perceptions of risks.”

“It’s a really great study because it really gives us a target for focusing on our suicide prevention campaigns,” Ramchand, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

The study was funded in part by the department of Veterans Affairs. VA efforts to prevent suicide among former service members include training health care providers to discuss firearm safety and distributing firearm “cable locks,” which can be attached to a gun to block its barrel or the use of ammunition.

Contentious subject

Gun control of any sort is a contentious topic in the U.S. But Simonetti believes both sides of the debate are likely to support safe storage practices.

“Nearly every gun advocacy organization out there including the NRA actually does promote the idea that guns should be stored safely when not in use,” he said. “I (just) don’t think most organizations have outlined exactly what that means.”

Ramchand is optimistic. “For so long we had a dearth of information about firearm storage. So this was a really great study to help us come up with data-driven policies and recommendations,” he said.
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President Donald Trump will call for global action on the world drug problem, lay out his vision of the U.S. role in the world, and urge a halt to the spread of weapons of mass destruction during next week’s gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters Thursday that Trump’s focus “will be very much on the United States,” its role and the relations it wants to build, and “how we can make the American people proud, and what actions we can show that really live up to that.”

“He is looking forward to talking about foreign policy successes the United States has had over the past year and where we’re going to go from here,” she said. “He wants to talk about protecting U.S. sovereignty,” and “we want to continue to build relationships” with other countries that “share those values.”

‘Call to Action’ on drugs

Haley said Trump would address a high-level event Monday on the Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem, which 124 countries have already signed up to support. She said the U.S. was looking forward to more signatories.

The president will address the assembly’s 193 member nations Tuesday morning.

Haley said Trump would talk about the generosity of the United States. “But he’ll also lay down a marker that while the United States is generous, we’re going to be generous to those who share our values, generous to those who want to work with us, and not those that try and stop the United States or say they hate America, or are counterproductive to what we’re doing,” she said.

She said Trump on Wednesday would chair a Security Council meeting that was expanded from focusing on Iran to nonproliferation, including chemical weapons attacks in Syria and Britain.

Haley predicted, “I’m sure that is going to be the most watched Security Council meeting ever.”

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, chaired two Security Council meetings, one in 2009 focusing on nuclear disarmament and another in 2014 on “foreign terrorist fighters.”

Pompeo on N. Korea

Haley said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would chair a council meeting Thursday to look at North Korea’s progress toward denuclearization — which she called “baby steps” — and the council’s commitments to enforce tough sanctions.

The White House said Trump would hold “pull-aside” meetings with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Maria Fernanda Espinosa, the General Assembly president. He will have longer bilateral meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, French President Emmanuel Macron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May.

On the social side, Haley said the president and his wife, Melania, would host a reception for all delegates Monday night. Trump will also host a reception Tuesday evening for foreign ministers of the 15 current Security Council member nations and the five countries that will be joining the council Jan. 1.
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An attorney for two Native American brothers pulled from a Colorado State University tour earlier this year has demanded the school make policy changes, saying Thursday that campus officers violated the teens’ constitutional rights by patting them down without any suspicion of a crime.

A letter from American Civil Liberties Union attorney Sarah Hinger calls for the university to revisit its campus police policies and training to avoid another situation like the April 30 encounter, which resulted in the teens’ being “humiliated, scared and literally marginalized.”

Police video shows two officers stopping Thomas Kanewakeron Gray and Lloyd Skanahwati Gray, who were then 19 and 17, respectively, during a group admissions tour and checking their pockets. The brothers from New Mexico had called the school their top choice.

Police said a mother on the tour had called 911, saying she was worried because the Grays were “real quiet” and wore dark clothing.

‘False promises’ of change

“My boys were publicly humiliated and told that their looks alone make them suspicious characters,” mother Lorraine Kahneratokwa Gray said in a statement. “We are all disappointed, not only with CSU’s meager response, but also with their false promises to right this wrong.”

The was one of numerous examples of racial profiling to make headlines this year. 

A Smith College employee called police last month on a black student at the all-girls school in Massachusetts because she appeared “out of place.” The school president announced the hiring of an outside investigator and ordered every employee to undergo mandatory anti-bias training. 

Meanwhile, Colorado State University has taken only “small steps” after promises to change protocols for campus tours, the ACLU said.

A message requesting comment from university spokesman Mike Hooker was not immediately returned.

The school previously said it would refund the money that the teens spent on travel and take steps to prevent a similar situation from happening again, including the use of lanyards or badges to identify tour guests.

University President Tony Frank decried the incident, saying the brothers “wound up frightened and humiliated because another campus visitor was concerned about their clothes and overall demeanor — which appears to have simply been shyness.”

The ACLU wants Frank to order additional campus police training and a review of policies dictating how officers and dispatchers respond to “bias-based” reports on campus.

In an interview, Hinger told The Associated Press that the ACLU is not taking “any avenues off the table” — including possible legal action — should the university not follow through on its requests.

“Although they were never suspected of a crime, the Gray brothers were detained and searched by CSU police officers,” Hinger’s letter said. “In addition to violating their constitutional rights, this experience left the brothers humiliated, frightened and with an understanding that they were unwelcome on the CSU campus.”

‘Paranoid’ caller

Police have not identified the 911 caller, except to say she was a white, 45-year-old mother of another prospective student on the tour. In the call, she acknowledged she might be “completely paranoid” about the teens, whom she guessed were Hispanic.

She said their clothing had “weird symbolism or wording,” which turned out to represent metal bands.

She also said they were disinterested and evasive, adding that they wouldn’t provide their names when asked. The older brother said he had approached the tour guide during a stop in the library to introduce himself and his brother after the two had gotten lost on campus and arrived late.

The brothers, both Mohawk, are originally from upstate New York and are graduates of the Santa Fe Indian School, a New Mexico high school.
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