A U.S. federal judge has awarded a Washington Post journalist and his family nearly $180 million in their lawsuit against Iran over his 544 days in captivity and torture while being held on internationally criticized espionage charges.The order in the case filed by Jason Rezaian came as Iranian officials appeared to begin restoring the internet after a weeklong shutdown amid a security crackdown on protesters angered by government-set gasoline prices sharply rising. The U.S. government has sanctioned Iran’s telecommunications minister in response to the internet shutdown.U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington entered the judgment late Friday in Rezaian’s case, describing how authorities in Iran denied the journalist sleep, medical care and abused him during his imprisonment.“Iran seized Jason, threatened to kill Jason, and did so with the goal of compelling the United States to free Iranian prisoners as a condition of Jason’s release,” Leon said in his ruling.The judge later added: “Holding a man hostage and torturing him to gain leverage in negotiations with the United States is outrageous, deserving of punishment and surely in need of deterrence.”Iran never responded to the lawsuit despite it being handed over to the government by the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which oversees U.S. interests in the country. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.Rezaian and his lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. Martin Baron, the executive editor of the Post, said in a statement that Rezaian’s treatment by Iran was “horrifying.”“We’ve seen our role as helping the Rezaians through their recovery,” Baron said. “Our satisfaction comes from seeing them enjoy their freedom and a peaceful life.”Rezaian’s case, which began with his 2014 gunpoint arrest alongside his wife Yeganeh Salehi, showed how the Islamic Republic can grab those with Western ties to use in negotiations. It’s a practice recounted by human rights groups, U.N. investigators and the families of those detained.Despite being an accredited journalist for the Post with permission to live and work in Iran, Rezaian was taken to Tehran’s Evin prison and later convicted in a closed trial before a Revolutionary Court on still-unexplained espionage charges.Iran still focuses on the case even today, as a recent television series sought to glorify the hard-liners behind the arrest.It remains unclear how and if the money will be paid. It could come from the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, which has distributed funds to those held and affected by Iran’s 1979 student takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and subsequent hostage crisis. Rezaian named Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, this year designated as a terrorist organization by the Trump administration, as a defendant in the case.
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Month: November 2019
24 People Swept Away in Kenya Landslides
Twenty-four people have been swept away in massive landslides in villages in Kenya’s West Pokot County, 350 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, the capital, following relentless rainstorms. Twelve bodies, including those of seven children, have been recovered, County Commissioner Apollo Okello told Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.Okello said two children were pulled out alive and “rushed to the hospital.”Rescue efforts have been hampered because roads have been transformed into rivers and bridges have been washed away.
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Trump Non-Committal About Signing Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Bills
President Donald Trump was non-committal Friday about signing bi-partisan legislation supporting pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. In a telephone call to “Fox and Friends,” Trump seemed torn between supporting human rights and gaining a trade deal with China. Trump said, “Look we have to stand with Hong Kong.” However, he added, “But I’m also standing with President Xi (Jinping). He’s a friend of mine. He’s an incredible guy.”Trump said the world’s two largest economies are “in the process of making the largest trade deal in history and if we could do that that would be great.” The U.S. legislation, consisting of two bills, is aimed at insuring that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify favorable U.S. trading terms. It also threatens sanctions for human rights violations.In his “Fox and Friends” call, Trump also boasted that he is responsible for preventing a violent incursion from China into Hong Kong to quell the pro-democracy rallies.”If it weren’t for me, Hong Kong would have been obliterated in 14 minutes. He’s got a million soldiers, standing outside of Hong Kong,” said the president, referring to the Chinese president. Trump also said he had asked the Chinese leader to refrain from any actions that would negatively impact the bilateral trade talks.The U.S. legislation supporting the Hong Kong activists passed unanimously in the Senate and received only one negative vote in the House. If Trump would veto the legislation, lawmakers can override the president’s veto with two-thirds votes in both the Senate and the House.Hong Kong’s anti-government protests began in June in opposition to a proposed bill – now withdrawn – that would have allowed Hong Kong citizens to be extradited to the mainland. The protests quickly turned into wider calls for democracy and opposition to growing Chinese influence. The protests also spread to local universities.Many Hong Kongers are outraged by the steady erosion of the “one country, two systems” policy that Beijing has used to govern Hong Kong since Britain returned it to China in 1997.
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Officials: Don’t Eat Romaine Grown in Salinas, California
U.S. health officials Friday told people to avoid romaine lettuce grown in Salinas, California, because of another food poisoning outbreak.The notice comes almost exactly one year after a similar outbreak led to a blanket warning about romaine.Officials urged Americans not to eat the leafy green if the label doesn’t say where it was grown. They also urged supermarkets and restaurants not to serve or sell the lettuce, unless they’re sure it was grown elsewhere.The warning applies to all types of romaine from the Salinas region, include whole heads, hearts and pre-cut salad mixes.“We’re concerned this romaine could be in other products,” said Laura Gieraltowski, lead investigator of the outbreak at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Voluntary labelingOfficials said their investigation led to farms in Salinas and that they are looking for the source of E. coli tied to the illnesses. Salinas is a major growing region for romaine from around April to this time of year, when growing shifts south to Yuma, Arizona.After last year’s pre-Thanksgiving outbreak tied to romaine, the produce industry agreed to voluntarily label the lettuce with harvest regions. Health officials said that would make it easier to trace romaine and issue more specific public health warnings when outbreaks happen.Officials never identified exactly how romaine might have become contaminated in past outbreaks. But another outbreak in spring 2018 that sickened more than 200 people and killed five was traced to tainted irrigation water near a cattle lot. (E. coli is found in the feces of animals such as cows.)It’s not clear exactly why romaine keeps popping up in outbreaks, but food safety experts note the popularity of romaine lettuce and the difficulty of eliminating risk for produce grown in open fields and eaten raw.Tighter safety measuresIndustry groups noted that they tightened safety measures following last year’s outbreaks, including expanding buffer zones between growing fields and livestock.“It’s very, very disturbing. Very frustrating all around,” said Trevor Suslow of the Produce Marketing Association.The CDC says 40 people have been reported sick so far in 16 states. The most recent reported illness started Nov. 10. The agency says it’s the same E. coli strain tied to previous outbreaks, including the one from last Thanksgiving.The CDC’s Gieraltowski said that suggests there’s a persisting contamination source in the environment.
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California Boosts Pot Taxes, Shocking Unsteady Industry
California is increasing business tax rates on legal marijuana, a move that stunned struggling companies that have been pleading with the state to do just the opposite.Hefty marijuana taxes that can approach 50 percent in some communities have been blamed for pushing shoppers into California’s tax-free illegal market, which is thriving. Industry analysts estimate that $3 are spent in the illegal market for every $1 in the legal one.The California Cannabis Industry Association said in a statement that its members are “stunned and outraged.”The group said the higher taxes that will take effect Jan. 1 will make it even worse for a legal industry struggling under the weight of heavy regulation and fees, local bans on pot sales and growing and a booming underground marketplace.Illicit market“Widening the price … gap between illicit and regulated products will further drive consumers to the illicit market at a time when illicit products are demonstrably putting people’s lives at risk,” the group said, referring to the national vaping health crisis.Los Angeles dispensary owner Jerred Kiloh, who heads the United Cannabis Business Association, said the increased levies added to the heavily taxed market “seems like a slap in the face.”The changes involve taxes paid by legal businesses, which ultimately are passed along to consumers at the retail counter.Josh Drayton of the cannabis association predicted that an eighth-ounce purchase of marijuana buds, typically priced around $40 to $45, would be pushed up to $50 or more in the new year.For consumers, “ultimately, they’ll feel that at the register,” Drayton said.Mark-up rateA major change involves what’s known as the mark-up rate, which is used when calculating taxes in certain business transactions, such as when a retailer purchases wholesale cannabis that will in turn be sold to consumers. The mark-up rate is being pushed up more than 30 percent from its current mark.Casey Wells, a spokesman for the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, said in a statement that the new rate was determined after the agency analyzed thousands of transactions in California’s computerized marijuana-tracking system.Separately, cultivation tax rates are being increased by inflation, as required by law. For example, the tax on an ounce of dry buds will climb to $9.65 from $9.25, an increase of just more than 4 percent.Illegal competitionLast week, the state’s top cannabis regulator, Lori Ajax, told an industry conference that the legal marketplace can expect more strain and turbulence for at least a couple of years as it deals with sustained competition from illegal sales, industry layoffs and fallout from a national vaping crisis.California Assemblyman Rob Bonta said in a statement that the state should be cutting marijuana taxes to encourage more businesses to move into the regulated market.“This short-sighted move ignores the realities that licensed businesses are at the breaking point, with many struggling to survive,” the Oakland Democrat said.
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Self-Confessed Chinese Spy Spills Secrets in Australia
A self-confessed Chinese spy has given Australia’s counterespionage agency inside intelligence on how Beijing conducts its interference operations abroad and revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, media reported.Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told reporters Saturday that the detailed accusations of China infiltrating and disrupting democratic systems in Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan are “very disturbing.”The Nine network newspapers reported Chinese defector Wang “William” Liqiang told ASIO, the country’s counterespionage agency, that he was involved in the kidnapping in 2015 of one of five Hong Kong booksellers suspected of selling dissident materials. The incident has been a reference point for protesters during the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong.Demonstrators march during a protest over the disappearance of booksellers in Hong Kong, Jan. 10, 2016.He would be the first Chinese intelligence operative to blow his cover.“I have personally been involved and participated in a series of espionage activities,” Wang reportedly said in a sworn statement to ASIO in October.He revealed he was part of a Hong Kong-based investment firm, which was a front for the Chinese government to conduct political and economic espionage in Hong Kong, including infiltrating universities and directing harassment and cyberattacks against dissidents.Using a South Korean passport, Wang said he meddled in Taiwan’s 2018 municipal elections and claimed there were plans to disrupt the presidential vote on the democratic self-ruled island next year. China claims Taiwan as its territory to be reunited by force if necessary.Wang said he faced detention and possible execution if he returned to China.Seeking asylumHe said he currently was living in Sydney with his wife and infant son on a tourist visa and had requested political asylum.Australia’s Home Affairs Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond Saturday to a faxed request for comment on Wang.In Hong Kong, calls to the China Innovation Investment Limited office went unanswered Saturday. The company was identified by Wang as a front for Chinese intelligence operations in the city.According to its website, CIIL is an investment holding company incorporated in Cayman Islands in February 2002 and listed on Hong Kong’s stock exchange in August the same year. It has investments in several companies in Hong Kong and China involved in energy storage products, lightning products, energy saving and media terminals.Frosty Australia-China relationsResource-rich Australia relies on China for one-third of its export earnings, but relations have been frosty for some time.The Australian government has been trying to neutralize China’s influence by banning foreign political donations and all covert foreign interference in domestic politics.“These are very disturbing reports,” Frydenberg said. “The matter is now in the hands of the appropriate law enforcement agencies.”“The government makes no apologies for the strong measures that we’ve taken to ensure that we have foreign interference laws in place,” he added. “We will always stand up for our national interest whether it’s on matters of foreign policy, foreign investments or other related issues.”Former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis warned on Friday that the Chinese government was seeking a “takeover” of Australia’s political system.Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed such concern, saying that national intelligence agencies were on top of any threats.
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Cambodia Backs China on Hong Kong Protests
Cambodia this week reiterated its support for China’s attempts to quell violent protests in Hong Kong, citing its adherence to the “One China” policy.Protesters and police have clashed for months in the semi-autonomous region, initially sparked by opposition to legislation that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong residents to mainland China. More recently, protests have adopted a more strident pro-democracy tone, rejecting communist China’s influence over the economic hub.Phay Siphan, the Cambodian government spokesperson, speaks during a press conference at the Council of Ministers, Phnom Penh, July 25, 2019. (Kann Vicheika/VOA Khmer)Speaking with VOA Khmer, Cambodian government spokesperson Phay Siphan said Cambodia sides with Beijing in its efforts to end the strife.“The Royal Government of Cambodia has stated many times that it is important we respect the One China policy,” he said, adding that the kingdom views unrest in Hong Kong as an internal Chinese matter.Cambodia’s stance has drawn increasing scrutiny as protests intensify in Hong Kong, highlighted by a recent standoff between student protesters and security officials at the Hong Kong Baptist University, which saw the campus shrouded in tear gas and smoke from Molotov cocktails.Phay Siphan signaled that nothing has changed from Cambodia’s point of view. “We classify Hong Kong as the territory of China and that there should not or must not be interference from others for any reason at all,” he said.Similar statements of supportOn the issue of noninterference, China made similar comments in support of Cambodia during Phnom Penh’s crackdown on the country’s political opposition, NGOs and media organizations starting in 2017.In August, Cambodia first issued a statement supporting China’s effort to quell protests in Hong Kong. In response, China’s embassy in Phnom Penh released a Khmer-language statement thanking Cambodia for its support on a sensitive and divisive issue.Where does US stand?Earlier this week, the U.S. Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act that requires an annual review of Hong Kong’s trade status and sanctions for officials involved in human rights abuses. Another bill would prohibit the sale of nonlethal munitions to Hong Kong.White House officials initially indicated President Donald Trump would sign the bills into law. Friday, however, Trump gave mixed signals on what he intends to do.“We have to stand with Hong Kong, but I’m also standing with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping],” Trump said on Fox News.The bills have elicited strong reactions from Chinese state media, with the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times labeling it the “Support Hong Kong Violence Act.” The Chinese government and state media have accused the U.S. of inciting unrest in Hong Kong.How much sway does US have?In Cambodia, Phay Siphan weighed in on the U.S. legislation, saying the bills would have little sway over Beijing.“I see the world order today and the United States does not have influence on the issue of Chinese sovereignty at all,” he said.Chheang Vannarith, an analyst with the Asia Vision Institute in Cambodia, echoed Beijing’s position.“The interference of the United States has been the cause of prolonging the situation and making it increasingly complicated,” he said. “Without foreign interference, the situation might have been in control.”By contrast, Cambodia-based political analyst Lao Monghay said the U.S. has consistently sided with democratic movements across the world.American advocacy, he said, “is a weapon to resist control by the Chinese system, be it in Hong Kong, other countries, and the world.”Hul Reaksmey of VOA Khmer contributed to this report.
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Campus Siege Winds Down as Hong Kong Gears up for Election
A Hong Kong university campus under siege for more than a week was a deserted wasteland Saturday, with a handful of protesters holed up in hidden refuges across the trashed grounds, as the city’s focus turned to local elections.The siege neared its end as some protesters at Polytechnic University on the Kowloon peninsula desperately sought a way out and others vowed not to surrender, days after some of the worst violence since anti-government demonstrations escalated in June.“If they storm in, there are a lot of places for us to hide,” said Sam, a 21-year-old student, who was eating two-minute noodles in the cafeteria, while plotting his escape.Another protester, Ron, vowed to remain until the end with other holdouts, adding, “The message will be clear that we will never surrender.”A protester who calls himself “Riot Chef” and said he was a volunteer cook for protesters smokes in a canteen in Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Nov. 23, 2019.Many arrestsAbout 1,000 people have been arrested in the siege in the Chinese-ruled city, about 300 of them younger than 18.Police have set up high plastic barricades and a fence on the perimeter of the campus. Toward midday, officers appeared at ease, allowing citizens to mill about the edges of the cordon as neighborhood shops opened for business.Rotting rubbish and boxes of unused petrol bombs littered the campus. On the edge of a dry fountain at its entrance lay a Pepe the frog stuffed toy, a mascot protesters have embraced as a symbol of their movement.A worker repairs toll booths that were damaged during protests, at the Cross Harbour Tunnel near Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Nov, 23, 2019.Scores of construction workers worked at the mouth of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, closed for more than a week after it was first blockaded, to repair toll booths smashed by protesters and clear debris from approach roads.The road tunnel links Hong Kong island to the Kowloon area.Elections SundayThe repairs got underway as a record 1,104 people gear up to run for 452 district council seats in elections Sunday.A record 4.1 million Hong Kong people, from a population of 7.4 million, have enrolled to vote, spurred in part by registration campaigns during months of protests.Young pro-democracy activists are now running in some of the seats that were once uncontested and dominated by pro-Beijing candidates.The protests snowballed since June after years of resentment over what many residents see as Chinese meddling in freedoms promised to Hong Kong when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.Beijing has said it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula by which Hong Kong is governed. It denies meddling in the affairs of the Asian financial hub and accuses foreign governments of stirring up trouble.Trump says he spoke to XiIn an interview with Fox News Channel on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping that crushing the protests would have “a tremendous negative impact” on efforts to end the two countries’ 16-month-long trade war.“If it weren’t for me Hong Kong would have been obliterated in 14 minutes,” Trump said, without offering any evidence.“He’s got a million soldiers standing outside of Hong Kong that aren’t going in only because I ask him, ‘Please don’t do it, you’ll be making a big mistake, it’s going to have a tremendous negative impact on the trade deal,’ and he wants to make a trade deal.”
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Nearly One Year Later, American Remains Jailed in Moscow
In late December, it will be one year since Moscow detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan on espionage charges. During his 11 months in the infamous Lefortovo prison, Whelan has denied the allegations and complained of systematic mistreatment. His family in the U.S. is working to bring the former Marine home. Yulia Savchenko met with Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, in Washington to get the latest on the case.
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Former USAGM Official Sentenced to Three Months for Theft
A former State Department official and senior employee of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) was sentenced Friday to three months in prison for theft of government property.Haroon Ullah, who from October 2017 to April 2019 served as chief strategy officer for the agency that oversees Voice of America, pleaded guilty in June of swindling tens of thousands of dollars by submitting falsified invoices and by billing the government for personal trips to promote his book.Under federal sentencing guidelines, Ullah faced 10 to 16 months in prison for theft of government property.Prior to Ullah’s sentencing, prosecutors and defense lawyers had agreed to a 60-day sentence to be served over 30 weekends as long as Ullah paid more than $34,000 in restitution, roughly the amount he purloined during a nine-month stealing spree.Ullah made the payment Friday. But federal Judge T.S. Ellis said a higher sentence was warranted as a “general deterrence” to other government employees who might engage in similar conduct.’There has to be a consequence'”I think if you steal this much money from the government, there has to be a consequence,” Ellis told Ullah in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. “The sentence must stand as a warning to others not to engage in this conduct.”Ullah will likely begin his prison term in early January after the Bureau of Prisons assigns him to a facility, Mark Schamel, one of Ullah’s attorneys, said. The prison term will be followed by a three-year supervised release and 30 days of community service, during which he’ll be required to speak to senior government employees to warn them that falsifying expense documentation is a crime.USAGM, formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors, is an independent U.S. government agency that oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.In a statement in June, after Ullah’s guilty plea, USAGM said that once “information about irregularities” involving Ullah’s expenses came to light, “agency leadership referred this matter to the Office of the Inspector General.””The agency’s own internal oversight and audit processes for travel-related expenditures alerted agency officials to potential fraud,” the statement said. “Mr. Ullah’s employment was terminated a number of months ago, as a result of the agency’s own investigation.”Former Kerry aideBefore joining USAGM as a high-level executive in late 2017, Ullah, who holds a doctorate and is a published author and recognized expert on countering violent extremism, worked as an adviser on former Secretary of State John Kerry’s policy planning staff.Ullah’s legal travails stemmed from his extensive travels during his 18 months with USAGM. In court documents, Ullah admitted to submitting for reimbursement multiple falsified hotel invoices; falsifying taxi receipts; double-billing third party sponsors and USAGM for the same trips; and billing the agency for personal trips.”He would obtain logos and other graphics online and use either an invoice generator or Microsoft Excel in order to create fraudulent hotel invoices,” according to the prosecutor’s sentencing memo.At the same time he was stealing from USAGM, Ullah used similar methods to defraud Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. by submitting no fewer than 12 forged documents, according to the memo.With his family members sitting in the second row of the courtroom, Ullah took the stand to express remorse for his criminal acts, breaking down at one point as he recounted explaining his actions to his mother.”I lost my way,” he said. “I lost my moral compass.”In an interview, Schamel said Ullah’s “life goal is to find a way to make America safer and stop the radicalization of people in America.”
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Trump Hears From Vaping Opponents, Industry Executives
After weeks of mixed signals from President Donald Trump about his administration’s plans to ban flavored vaping products, the White House convened a meeting Friday between proponents and opponents of the electronic cigarette industry.In a spirited discussion that the White House billed as a “listening session,” Trump heard from anti-vaping stakeholders who pleaded with him to stick to his September commitment to ban all flavors in e-cigarettes, including menthol.Anti-vaping activists insist that youth e-cigarette usage is an epidemic fueled largely by kid-friendly flavors such as mango and cotton candy.“We have stories of young people who say, ‘I started because this is cool and literally within days I lost control,’ ” Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said. “Kids sleep with these products, because they need to wake up [to vape] in the middle of the night.”“Parents are in pain and we need you,” Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, said to Trump. She urged the administration to ban all flavors, implement an age limit of 21 and ban advertising, as per Trump’s “original solution.”JUUL Labs Chief Executive Officer K.C. Crosthwaite listens during a meeting with President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 22, 2019, on youth vaping and the use of electronic cigarettes.Announced banIn September, the administration announced it would ban the sale of most flavors of e-cigarette devices after dozens of deaths and many more mysterious deaths linked to vaping were reported. But Trump has since reversed course, amid pressure from interest groups and lawmakers.The White House meeting was attended by the industry’s biggest players, including K.C. Crosthwaite, chief executive officer of JUUL Labs, Ryan Nivakoff, chief executive officer of NJOY, and Howard Willard, chief executive officer of Altria Group.During the meeting, proponents of the industry pushed back and said that they can “market flavors responsibly.”The suggestion was dismissed by Senator Mitt Romney from Utah. Last month, Romney introduced a bill that would ban flavored e-cigarettes and apply cigarette taxes to the devices, among other measures aimed at curbing teen vaping.“Sixty-six percent of the kids addicted to these products are saying they didn’t even know it had nicotine in it, they thought it was just a candy-type product,” Romney said, blaming the industry for enticing children with flavors such as cotton candy and “unicorn poop.”U.S. President Donald Trump listens to U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, during a listening session on the regulation of nicotine vaping and e-cigarettes in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 22, 2019.Health advocates weighed in as well.“The vast majority of young people who vape use flavored products, and most say they wouldn’t vape if the products didn’t come in flavors,” Linda Richter, director of policy research at the New York-based Center on Addiction, told VOA. “Therefore, removal of all flavored vaping products from the market, including mint and menthol, which are appealing to kids, would considerably help to deter and reduce youth vaping.”While anti-vaping activists insist all flavors must be banned, Trump asked participants about the advantage of keeping menthol as the only flavor allowed. Industry proponents say that a large number of smokers are menthol smokers and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes help smokers migrate to a lower-risk product.ProhibitionOn several occasions, Trump brought up the effects of prohibition on addictive substances.“With the alcohol, you look at cigarettes, you look at all. If you don’t give it to them, it’s going to come here illegally,” he said. “Instead of having a flavor that’s at least safe, they’re going to be having a flavor that’s poison.”The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reported that 47 deaths and more than 2,000 illnesses had been linked to vaping.Trump indicated his administration will soon make a decision on an age limit.“Age is a big factor. We have to come up with our number at some point,” he said.President Donald Trump listens to American Vaping Association President Greg Conley, right, during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 22, 2019, on youth vaping and the electronic cigarette epidemic.The discussion was heated at times, with Greg Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, accusing anti-vaping activists in the room of receiving funding from Michael Bloomberg, a possible Trump political opponent.“These groups have 160 million reasons from Michael Bloomberg to not come to the table and compromise,” Conley said.In September, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a $160 million initiative to end youth e-cigarette use.The e-cigarette industry also tried to play up the job creation angle by claiming that 151,000 jobs will be in jeopardy and 13,000 small businesses will close if Trump implements the flavor ban.Romney rejected the statistics and said he puts “the kids first” over industry employees.White House spokesman Judd Deere said the gathering was aimed at giving Trump and administration officials “an opportunity to hear from a large group, representing all sides, as we continue to develop responsible guidelines that protect the public health and the American people.”Trump ended the hourlong discussion by saying, “We want to take care of our kids.”
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President Trump Meets at White House With 22 College Champion Teams
President Donald Trump on Friday met with athletes and coaches from 22 collegiate national championship teams.The traditional honorary White House visit for champion college and pro sports teams has become a politically-loaded event in Trump’s presidency.President Donald Trump talks with members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Women’s Hockey Team during the NCAA Collegiate National Champions Day at the White House, Nov. 22, 2019.Some athletes, including members of the World Cup winning women’s national soccer team, have declined invitations. Others, like the NBA Golden State Warriors and the NFL Philadelphia Eagles, have been disinvited after players criticized the president. Others have warmly embraced Trump.Trump, an avid golfer, spent a few moments with each team Friday, but lingered a little bit longer with Stanford University’s men’s golf team. He invited all the champs to come take a peek at the Oval Office.”So far, nobody’s turned that one down,” Trump joked.
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FBI Lawyer Suspected of Altering Russia Probe Document
An FBI lawyer is suspected of altering a document related to surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, a person familiar with the situation said Friday.President Donald Trump, who has long attacked as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign, immediately touted news reports about the allegations to assert that the FBI had tried to “overthrow the presidency.”Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz testifies on Capitol Hill, June 19, 2018, in Washington.The allegation is part of a Justice Department inspector general investigation into the early days of the FBI’s Russia probe, which was ultimately taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller and resulted in charges against six Trump associates and more than two dozen Russians accused of interfering in the election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on Dec. 9. Witnesses in the last two weeks have been invited in to see draft sections of that document.The release of the inspector general report is likely to revive debate about the investigation that has shadowed Trump’s presidency since the beginning. It is centered in part on the FBI’s use of a secret surveillance warrant to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.Fox News Chief National Correspondent Ed Henry, left, is welcomed by co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt on the “Fox & Friends” television program in New York, Sept. 6, 2019.“This was spying on my campaign — something that has never been done in the history of our country,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Friday. “They tried to overthrow the presidency.”The allegation against the lawyer was first reported by CNN. The Washington Post subsequently reported that the conduct of the FBI employee didn’t alter Horowitz’s finding that the surveillance application of Page had a proper legal and factual basis, an official told the Post, which said the lawyer was forced out.A person familiar with the case who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to AP only on the condition of anonymity confirmed the allegation. Spokespeople for the FBI and the inspector general declined to comment Friday.The FBI obtained a secret surveillance warrant in 2016 to monitor the communications of Page, who was never charged in the Russia investigation or accused of wrongdoing. The warrant, which was renewed several times and approved by different judges in 2016 and early 2017, has been one of the most contentious elements of the Russia probe and was the subject of dueling memos last year issued by Democrats and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee.Republicans have long attacked the credibility of the warrant application since it cited information derived from a dossier of opposition research compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy whose work was financed by Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign.“They got my warrant — a fraudulent warrant, I believe — to spy on myself as a way of getting into the Trump campaign,” Page said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox’s “Mornings with Maria” “There has been a continued cover”-up to this day. We still don’t have the truth, but hopefully, we’ll get that soon.”FBI Director Chris Wray has told Congress that he did not consider the FBI surveillance to be “spying” and that he has no evidence the FBI illegally monitored Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. Wray said he would not describe the FBI’s surveillance as “spying” if it’s following “investigative policies and procedures.”Attorney General William Barr has said he believed “spying” did occur, but he also made clear at a Senate hearing earlier this year that he had no specific evidence that any surveillance was illegal or improper. Barr has appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate how intelligence was collected, and that probe has since become criminal in nature, a person familiar with the matter has said.But Trump insists that members of the Obama administration “at the highest levels” were spying on his 2016 campaign. “Personally, I think it goes all the way. … I think this goes to the highest level,” he said in the Fox interview. “I hate to say it. I think it’s a disgrace. They thought I was going to win and they said, ‘How can we stop him?’”
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Lawyer: Genocide Case Against Myanmar Based on ‘Compelling’ Evidence
An attorney assisting Gambia with its lawsuit against Myanmar alleging state-sponsored genocide at the U.N.’s top court said Thursday that he was confident that the West African nation would win the case based on copious, strong evidence of army atrocities against the Muslim Rohingyas. “The evidence is plentiful,” Paul Reichler, an attorney at Foley Hoag LLC in Washington, told Radio Free Asia’s Myanmar service. He spoke a day after the Myanmar government announced that State Counselor and Foreign Affairs Minister Aung San Suu Kyi would lead a team in defending the country at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands. “There are many, many fact-finding reports by U.N. missions, by special rapporteurs, by human rights organizations,” Reichler said. “There is satellite photography, and there are many, many statements by officials and army personnel from Myanmar, which all together show that the intention of the state of Myanmar has been to destroy the Rohingya as a group in whole or in part,” he said. FILE – An aerial view shows burned villages once inhabited by the Rohingya, seen from the Myanmar military helicopters that carried U.N. envoys to northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, May 1, 2018.“And we’re very confident that at the end of the day the evidence will be so compelling that the court will agree with The Gambia,” he said. In the lawsuit, filed 10 days ago, Muslim-majority Gambia accuses Myanmar of breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention for the brutal military-led crackdown on the Rohingya in 2017 that left thousands dead and drove more than 740,000 across the border into Bangladesh. The West African country sued on behalf of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The first public hearings at the ICJ will be held Dec. 10-12. Myanmar has largely denied that its military was responsible for the violence in Rakhine state, which included indiscriminate killings, mass rape, torture and village burnings, and it has defended the crackdown as a legitimate counterinsurgency against a group of Muslim militants. The government has also dismissed credible evidence in numerous reports and satellite imagery that points to the atrocities, and it has claimed that the Rohingya burned down their own communities and blamed soldiers for the destruction. Myanmar’s powerful military and civilian-led government are together working with legal experts to take on the lawsuit, Agence France-Presse reported Thursday, quoting military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun. FILE – Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi participates in the ASEAN-Japan summit in Nonthaburi, Thailand, Nov. 4, 2019.Separate cases pertaining to the persecution of the Rohingya have been filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and in an Argentine court, the latter of which names Aung San Suu Kyi and top military commanders deemed responsible for the atrocities. Myanmar has refused to cooperate with the ICC because the country is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the international court. On Thursday, Christine Schraner Burgener, the U.N.’s special envoy on Myanmar, welcomed the Southeast Asia country’s decision to defend itself before the ICJ. Burgener ended a 10-day mission to Myanmar on November 21, during which she met with government and military officials, diplomats, think tanks and U.N. agencies. “She welcomed the government’s position on the case filed by The Gambia to the International Court of Justice that, as a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide since 1956, Myanmar would take its international obligations seriously and would defend itself in front of the ICJ,” said a statement issued by the U.N.’s Myanmar office. State responsible for army actions Some of Myanmar’s top rights attorneys, meanwhile, weighed in on Aung San Suu Kyi’s decision to appear before the ICJ. “As foreign minister, it is reasonable that she will lead the defense team,” said Thein Than Oo, one of the founding members of the Myanmar Lawyers’ Network. “As a leader of the country, Daw [honorific] Aung San Suu Kyi has consistently denied the accusations. This charge is not just for human rights violations. She will be defending the genocide accusation. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has consistently denied that charge. I think she will deny it in the court, too. She has to.” FILE – A boy searches for useful items among the ashes of burned dwellings after a fire destroyed shelters at a camp for internally displaced Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state near Sittwe, May 3, 2016.Kyee Myint, chairman of the Union Attorney and Legal Aid Association, noted that the state counselor’s team has very little time to prepare itself for the case. “We’ve got a very short period for preparation,” he said. “It’s less than 20 days. They should give us between three and six months, so that we have enough time to prepare the defense.” Kyee Myint also said that Aung San Suu Kyi should point out to the ICJ her limited authority over the military, as mandated in Myanmar’s constitution. “During the defense at the court, she should demonstrate her limited authorities over the military, showing them a copy of the 2008 constitution,” he said. “If she is willing to take the fall when the military is silent, that’s up to her.” But Reichler said that would provide no protection for Aung San Suu Kyi. “The army is part of the state. The civilian government is part of the state,” he said. “The state is responsible for the behavior of agents, of its organs, of its entities, of its ministries and of its military forces,” he added. “The idea that there are people in the government who oppose genocide … does not absolve the state of the responsibility that it has for operations of a different part of its government,” Reichler said. “The state is responsible whether the civilians support that genocide or not. It is the state that is carrying it out, whether it is the civilians or the military,” he said. Damage to country’s image Representatives from Myanmar’s political parties defended the government. Pyone Kathy Naing, a lawmaker from the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said that the West has misunderstood the term “clearance operation,” referring to the action that Myanmar security forces took in Rohingya communities in Rakhine state in 2017 in response to deadly attacks by a Muslim militant group. “The term ‘clearance operation’ is misunderstood in the Western world,” she said. “The military’s clearance operations were to clear out the terrorists — not to drive out the [Muslims]. We need to clarify it.” “For the lawsuit, we need to counter strategically with a highly expert legal team,” she added. Soe Thein, an independent legislator and former minister of the president’s office agreed, saying, “We need to fight back with an expert international legal team — spending millions of dollars.” Oo Hla Saw, a lower-house lawmaker from the Arakan National Party (ANP), raised concern about the impact that the ICJ lawsuit would have on Myanmar. “This lawsuit’s impact on our society will be huge, especially because our country’s image will be damaged whether we win or lose, since we are accused of rights violations,” he said. “The second thing is economic impact,” he said. “We will be isolated. We might be sanctioned by large Western countries. Nobody can be sure, but the impact will be huge because Western countries and the OIC countries will be influencing these motives.” “This will be a very big problem for us,” he added. Reported by Ye Kaung Myint Maung, Khin Khin Ei, Nay Myo Htun, Thet Su Aung, Thiha Tun and Phyu Phyu Khaing for RFA’s Myanmar service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung and Kyaw Min Htun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
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WHO: Spike in Violence in DRC Threatens Progress Made in Ebola Fight
The World Health Organization warns escalating violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces is threatening to reverse major gains made in bringing the region’s Ebola epidemic to an end. The agency reports 3,298 cases of Ebola, including 2195 deaths, resulting in an overall fatality rate of 67%.Health officials are pleased with the progress that has been made in tackling the Ebola outbreak in recent weeks. Last week, the World Health Organization recorded only seven cases of this deadly disease, an all-time low.Unfortunately, the agency says an uptick in violence between the national army, FARDC, and the rebel Allied Democratic Forces is threatening these gains. Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies program Mike Ryan says the prevailing lack of access and lack of security is a major obstacle to international efforts to prevent the Ebola virus from spreading. “We believe we have the resources on the ground from a public health operation’s point of view to end the Ebola outbreak. The difficulty we collectively face at the moment is just when we need that unlimited and unfettered access to communities, we have lost that access in key areas and this is a very dangerous and alarming development in this response,” he said. Ryan said the violence is hampering efforts to reach communities at risk of Ebola. He says Oicha health zone, in North Kivu, a rebel stronghold, is a very dangerous area to access. He called this problematic as a very serious chain of transmission has been identified there.He said only one case of Ebola has been found in Oicha. However, for security reasons health workers are unable to go to the community to do the forensic tracking and tracing of contacts needed to prevent the Ebola virus from spreading.“Why are we so concerned about one case? But at this stage in the outbreak, one case matters. One case can re-ignite this whole outbreak. And, right now, one case where we do not have access to that community, means the virus will get ahead of us again,” he said.Ryan said WHO and partners have been in similar situations before, and do not want to be there again. He said a way must be found to deal with the security issues so health workers can reach at-risk communities and bring the epidemic to an end.
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Vietnam Arrests Prominent Blogger Pham Chi Dung
Vietnamese authorities arrested blogger and independent journalist Pham Chi Dung, a prominent government critic and VOA contributor, in Ho Chi Minh City Thursday.In a statement posted online, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security accused Dung of “dangerous” anti-state actions, including “fabricating, storing, and disseminating information, as well as other materials opposing the Vietnamese government.”State media said Dung carried out “anti-regime activities such as producing anti-state articles, [and] cooperating with foreign media.”Dung, 53, president of the outlawed Independent Journalist Association of Vietnam (IJAVN), could face a jail sentence of five to 20 years if found guilty, local media said.Dung, who writes regularly on VOA’s Vietnamese Blog, faced similar allegations in 2012.IJAVN vice president Nguyen Tuong Thuy told VOA that Dung’s arrest was “a dangerous move to silence dissenting voices and repress freedom of speech in Vietnam.”IJAVN’s website has been blocked since Dung’s arrest. Thuy said he fears “the arrest will have a big impact on the group’s activities and its members,” as authorities continue to investigate the group.Dung established IJAVN as a “civil society organization,” July 4, 2014, and has said that America’s Independence Day inspired him to create a platform to advocate for freedom of the press, freedom of expression and democracy.A screenshot taken Nov. 22, 2019, shows Pham Chi Dung’s Facebook cover photo.“The arrest of Pham Chi Dung is the continuation of an intensified crackdown against political activists and bloggers in Vietnam,” freelancer Duong Van Thai, a Vietnamese political asylum seeker in Thailand and a former state-run media reporter in Vietnam, told VOA. “The arrest showed Hanoi’s desire to exercise greater control over the freedom of speech.”Nguyen Tuong Thuy noted that Dung’s criticism of the government had intensified of late, likely triggering his arrest.“He has written more aggressively in a stronger style, but Pham Chi Dung is still the same!” Thuy saidDung resigned from the Communist Party in 2013, ending 20 years of membership. In the years since, Reporters Without Borders has lauded him as an “information hero.” In addition to VOA, he has contributed to NBC News and Nikkei Asian Review.The Vietnamese government continues to ban independent or privately-owned media outlets. It exerts strict control over radio and TV stations and printed publications, and routinely block access to politically sensitive websites.
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UK’s Disgraced Prince Andrew Faces Uncertain Role in Future
Prince Andrew is scaling back travel and facing an uncertain future as he steps away from the royal role he has embraced for his entire adult life.
The latest blow came Friday afternoon when the board of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra announced that it was cutting ties to Andrew, who had been its patron.
The 59-year-old prince has suffered numerous setbacks in the six days since the broadcast of a disastrous TV interview from Buckingham Palace during which he defended his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died in a New York prison in August in what the New York City medical examiner ruled was a suicide.
The Times newspaper said in an editorial Friday that the debacle demonstrates the need for “urgent reform” of the royal household. The paper urged Andrew’s older brother and heir to the throne, Prince Charles, to take steps to streamline and make the royal family “more modest.”
The disgraced prince scuttled plans for a trip to Bahrain that had been planned to support his Pitch(at)Palace project, according to the British news media, even though he is struggling to keep that enterprise going despite cutting ties to dozens of other charities.
He did go horseback riding with his mother, 93-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, near Windsor Castle on Friday afternoon despite harsh November weather. The monarch has not commented publicly on her son’s troubles.
There was a visceral public backlash to the TV interview _ particularly because Andrew did not express sympathy for Epstein’s young female victims that led politicians to debate the future of the monarchy in a televised debate ahead of the Dec. 12 national election. Shortly after the interview, Andrew announced that he was halting his royal duties “for the foreseeable future.”
Up until now, Andrew, the queen’s third child, had been able to skate away from troublesome questions about his private life and his extravagant lifestyle. His association with Epstein had been known for more than eight years, but it only took him down after he went on TV to discuss it.
Andrew is trying to find a way to keep alive at least one of his projects without relying on the prestige and real estate of the royal family.
Buckingham Palace officials said Andrew would try to maintain Pitch(at)Palace as a non-royal charity that eventually would not be centered at any of the royal palaces. The prince founded the project in 2014 to link up young entrepreneurs with established business people. In the past, idea and product pitches for the program have taken place at St. James’ Palace.
According to its website, Pitch(at)Palace has helped 931 start-up businesses and created nearly 6,000 new jobs. It boasts a 97% survival rate for new companies started by its alumni.
Andrew was expected to remove himself from the many other charities with which he’s been involved over the years, a diverse group that sheds light on his interests and reflects the varied demands made on a senior royal.
Among them have been the Army Officers’ Golfing Society, which promotes golf in the British Army, and the Maimonides Interfaith Foundation, which is devoted to the use of art and dialogue to improve relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians.
The prince also was involved with a group fighting malaria and a charity helping deaf children throughout the Commonwealth, which includes Britain and many of its former colonies.
The Falklands War veteran also was expected to drop his ceremonial role with many military units. In addition, he has resigned as patron of The Outward Bound Trust, an educational charity that helps young people have adventures in the wild with which he had been involved with for decades, and was to step down as chancellor of Huddersfield University, university officials said.
Despite these many embarrassments and the dramatic drop in his work responsibilities, Andrew was not expected to face money pressures, although the details of his financial picture have not been made public.
He has long received financial backing from the queen’s private accounts and there was no indication that this would change. He was likely, however, to close or severely downsize his well-staffed personal office at Buckingham Palace.
When he served as Britain’s international trade envoy, Andrew relied extensively on public funding and was criticized for his deluxe travel style when going overseas on official business. He left that role in 2011, in part because questions were already being asked about his relationship with Epstein, who had already been convicted of sex offenses.
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Central African Leaders Discuss Ways to Spur Slow Growth
Heads of state and officials from the Central African bloc CEMAC are meeting in Yaounde to discuss the economies of the six-nation bloc, said to be the least developed on the African continent.CEMAC’s development has been slowed by the spillover of the Boko Haram crisis into Cameroon, carnage in the Central African Republic and political tensions in countries that have some of the world’s longest serving leaders.CEMAC consists of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville.Hundreds of merchants from Gabon and Equatorial Guinea buy and sell goods at the Cameroon border market of Kiossi, located on the boundary line of the two neighboring states.Cameroonian vegetable and fruits seller Ahmad Njimuluh says he’d like to see free movement of people between CEMAC member states.He says between the western Cameroon town of Foumbot where he comes from, and Gabons capital of Libreville there are 68 regular police and customs check points and about 30 other control points which have been found to illegally extort money from commuters.In November 2017, CEMAC heads of state meeting in Chad said they had reached a milestone agreement to lift visa requirements for its citizens traveling within the regional bloc.But Gabon-born Roger Ngembou, political consultant with CEMAC, says that except for the border between Chad and Cameroon, where citizens travel freely, nothing has changed.He says a survey carried out this year on why CEMAC’s growth is slow and projects are hardly implemented indicates that countries are reluctant to open up to each other due to security threats and corruption. He says it is imperative for CEMAC member states to make movement between its citizens visa-free so they can benefit from the opportunities their huge market of close to 60 million people offers.The economic growth rate in central Africa is barely 1.5 percent. The president of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, says the region needs to reexamine some of its policies to speed growth.Nguesso says for the sub-regional integration they have been asking for to be successful, he and his peers should first of all provide basic infrastructure like roads, rail and air transport, telecommunications and a viable electricity network. He says they have to tackle corruption which is making their countries poorer. He says while waiting for funding to develop the infrastructure, he and Cameroon’s President Paul Biya have decided to build a road linking the town of Pointe-Noire in his country and Douala in Cameroon.CEMAC has plans to create a regional airline, roads that link the 6 countries, inter-state hospitals and universities. But Ngembou said he doubts their ability to execute the plans with the ongoing economic, social and political tensions in the region.Cameroon, the region’s main economic engine, is dealing with Boko Haram, and a separatist crisis in two of its regions, and tensions over Biya’s 37 years in power.In Equatorial Guinea, an attempt last year to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang, who has been in power for four decades, was foiled by his military.And the Central African Republic has yet to stabilize since rebels overthrew the president there in 2013.
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Leading White Democrats Court Black Votes; Some Find Trouble
Coming out of their debate in a key center of black America, the leading Democratic presidential contenders aimed for the party’s crucial black and minority vote, with the scramble putting internal party tensions on display.From black protesters disrupting Elizabeth Warren to the lone black woman in the race chiding white, upstart Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the dynamics in Atlanta highlighted the push for crucial black and other minority support with less than three months before primary voting begins. They further underscored some candidates’ vulnerabilities in trying to assemble the coalition necessary to win the nomination — and defeat President Donald Trump in the general election.Warren electrified a raucous and racially diverse crowd in the Clark-Atlanta University gymnasium as she tries to expand her support beyond the white liberal base that boosted her in the primary polls this summer. But the Massachusetts senator had to endure protests of a black school-choice group that threatened to overshadow her message aimed squarely at black women — Democrats’ most loyal faction.Buttigieg, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor who leads caucus polls in overwhelmingly white Iowa, spent the day defending remarks relating his experience as a gay man to the systemic racism facing African Americans. Kamala Harris, the California senator and only black woman in the race, blasted his approach as “naive.”Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, left, speaks with the Rev. Al Sharpton at a breakfast event in Atlanta, Georgia, Nov. 21, 2019.Like Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders invoked his biography, as the child of an immigrant family with casualties in the Holocaust, to connect with African Americans’ struggle against oppression and white supremacy. Harris, still lagging the front-runners, has not criticized the way Sanders talks about race, but the Vermont senator still must prove he can get more black votes than he did in losing the 2016 nominating fight.All those contenders are trying to catch Vice President Joe Biden, whose considerable lead among black voters leaves him atop most national polls. Biden spent Thursday meeting with black Southern mayors, led by Atlanta’s Keisha Lance Bottoms, one of his top campaign surrogates. But it wasn’t all smooth for Biden, as immigration activists interrupted him in South Carolina demanding he pledge to halt deportations on his first day in office. Biden refused.For those chasing Biden, Warren offered perhaps the strongest display Thursday.Before an energetic crowd at Clark-Atlanta, the senator called for a “full-blown national conversation about reparations” for slavery, and she praised black women for helping build the country and advancing social and economic justice. She bemoaned structural impediments beyond slavery, naming Jim Crow segregation, modern-day mass incarceration and red-lining practices that make it harder for minorities to get mortgage loans.“Black history is American history,” Warren said. “And American history teaches us that racism has for generations shaped every crucial aspect of our economic and political system.”She offered a litany of policy proposals: new spending at historically black schools, legalizing marijuana, overhauling federal housing policy, student loan debt forgiveness, even repealing the 1994 crime law — which Biden sponsored as a Delaware senator.“I am not afraid,” she said to roars. “And you cannot be afraid, either.”Yet for a time, it looked as if Warren might not be able to deliver the rare formal speech that aides had built up as a seminal moment in her campaign. Moments into her address, dozens of black protesters from a school-choice group interrupted. They stood down only after Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley took the microphone from Warren.“The senator is here to talk about fighters like you,” said Pressley, who is black. In drowning out Warren, she said, the group was keeping the senator from telling the story of black women already marginalized.Buttigieg, meanwhile, found no such defender as he enjoys a newfound lead in Iowa, the first-caucus state, but shows negligible black support in more diverse primary states that follow. So, he was left to contend with Harris alone.Their flap spun off the mayor saying Wednesday during a debate segment on race that he has “felt like a stranger” in his own country because his civil rights as a gay man were left to the whims of politicians.During a post-debate event, Harris lambasted Buttigieg for comparing the struggles of black and LGBTQ communities. A Democrat who wants a winning coalition, she said, “should not be … saying one group’s pain is equal than or greater” than another’s.Buttigieg pushed back, telling reporters, “There’s no equating those two experiences,” and maintaining that he hadn’t done so.Sanders understands as well as any candidate that Democratic presidential politics demands more than just enthusiastic white support. The Vermont senator battled Hillary Clinton to a surprise draw in Iowa in 2016 and trounced her in New Hampshire, another mostly white Democratic electorate. Yet with overwhelming black support, Clinton then dominated Sanders in South Carolina and across the Deep South, building an early delegate lead she never relinquished.This time, he’s intent on building black support earlier in the campaign, and on Thursday, he noticeably leaned more on biographical details than he did for much of his 2016 campaign, even as he ticked through his usual list of progressive policy remedies.Now 78, he told the crowd — gathered around a statue of Morehouse alumnus Martin Luther King Jr. — of his 1960s activism, describing himself and his fellow white students as “not quite so brave” as black citizens in the more dangerous Jim Crow South. But, Sanders said, “I was arrested and went to jail fighting housing segregation in Chicago.”And he wanted them to know his family history.“Some of you know, I’m Jewish,” Sanders said. “My father came to this country from Poland. He came fleeing anti-Semitism. A lot of people in my father’s family did not make it out of Poland.“They were murdered by the father of white supremacy, Adolf Hitler,” Sanders continued. “So, I learned at a very young age what racism and white supremacy and Aryanism and all that crap is about.”Far from the campaign trail, former President Barack Obama offered advice to Democrats considering those varied approaches. The first black president, speaking at a party fundraiser in California, warned against absolute judgments as candidates navigate a fraught issue.“There’s a way of talking about race that says we can be better,' and there's a way of talking about race that saysyou are bad’ or that `you don’t get it,”’ he said, later adding, “When we invite people to their better selves, we tend to bring people in.”
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UN: Bodies of at Least 6 Migrants Found on Libyan Coast
At least six bodies of Europe-bound migrants were found on Libya’s Mediterranean coast on Friday, while another 90 were intercepted by Libya’s coast guard, the U.N. migration agency said.
Libya has emerged as a major transit point for African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty to Europe. Most migrants make the perilous journey in ill-equipped and unsafe rubber boats.
The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration tweeted that the bodies washed up on the shores of the Libyan port of al-Khums.
In recent years, the EU has partnered with Libya’s coast guard and other local groups to stem the dangerous sea crossings. Rights groups, however, say those policies leave migrants at the mercy of armed groups or confined in squalid detention centers rife with abuses.
Separately, Libya’s eastern parliament Thursday accused the Italian government of violating the country’s sovereignty by flying a drone near the frontlines of the ongoing war between the Tripoli-based U.N.-backed government and the east-based, self-styled Libyan National Army.
“The Libyan parliament demands that the Italian authorities provide an official explanation to this act of aggression on Libya’s sovereignty,” read the statement issued by the LNA-allied parliament.
In a Wednesday press conference Ahmed al-Mosmari, the LNA spokesman said their forces had shot down an Italian drone near the city of Tarhouna, a town about 40 miles (60 kilometers) south of Tripoli.
In response, the office of Italy’s Joint Chief of Staffs issued a statement Wednesday affirming that an Italian drone crashed in Libyan territory while it was on a mission to support efforts aimed at stemming migrant sea crossings. The statement added that the plane was following a flight plan that had been communicated in advance to Libyan authorities.
Since 2015, Libya has been divided between two governments, in the east and the west. In April, the LNA launched an offensive to capture Tripoli from the U.N.-backed government. While the LNA enjoys the support of France, Russia and Key Arab countries, the Tripoli-based government is backed by Italy, Turkey and Qatar.
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Ex-CIA Officer to be Sentenced in China Spy Conspiracy
A former CIA officer who pleaded guilty to an espionage conspiracy with China could be facing more than two decades in prison.
Fifty-five-year-old Jerry Chun Shing Lee is scheduled for sentencing Friday in federal court in Alexandria.
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage, but prosecutors and defense lawyers disagree about the extent of the crime.
Prosecutors say Chinese intelligence officers gave Lee more than $840,000 and that Lee likely gave them all the information he had from a 13-year career as a CIA case officer. They are seeking a prison term of more than 20 years.
Defense lawyers say the government never proved that the money came from China or that Lee ever carried out any plans to deliver government secrets. They’re asking for a 10-year sentence.
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Cambodian Leader Sings Praises of US After Letter From Trump
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sun has signaled he would welcome better relations with the United States after a conciliatory letter from President Donald Trump and a meeting with Washington’s new envoy.
Hun Sen posted on his Facebook page a summary of the Nov. 1 letter from Trump, along with an account of how he told Ambassador Patrick Murphy about Cambodia’s goodwill toward the United States.
Washington has long been critical of Hun Sen’s poor record on human rights and democracy. It has taken a sterner attitude since Cambodia’s Supreme Court in late 2017 dissolved the sole credible opposition party, which ensured that Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party would win the 2018 general election.
Trump’s letter, a copy of which was leaked Friday, recounted positive past elements of the U.S. Cambodian relationship, while acknowledging difficulties'' in recent years.color revolution” of the sort that upended established regimes in Eastern and Central Europe and the Middle East. The late 2017 crackdown saw an opposition leader arrested for alleged treason because he had taken part in a seminar led by a U.S. democracy promotion organization.
The president reassured Hun Sen that the United States “respects the sovereign will of the Cambodian people and we do not seek regime change.”
Hun Sen has been in power for 34 years and has said he intends to serve until 2028. He has been quick to crack down on any opposition, accusing them of seeking a
Trump counseled Hun Sen to “put Cambodia back on the path of democratic governance.”
“As a first step, I hope you would re-evaluate certain decisions taken by your government that the United States firmly believes puts at great risk the Kingdom (of) Cambodia’s long-term sovereignty, stability, and economic development.”
The letter did not elaborate, but the advice appeared to be a reference to Cambodia’s relations with China, which has become its major political and economic backer, and with which it also has increasingly close military links. Beijing has promoted itself to much of Southeast Asia as a friendly ally that doesn’t make aid contingent on honoring human rights.
Trump’s letter ended with an offer to have the two countries’ foreign policy teams commence discussions.
Ahead of the 2016 U.S. election, Hun Sen publicly expressed his preference for Trump, saying “If Trump wins, the world might change and it might be better, because Trump is a businessman and a businessman does not want war.”
He said that Hillary Clinton as president would have difficult relations with Russia, “But if Trump wins, Trump and Putin might become friends.”
In his Facebook post, Hun Sen also said he told Ambassador Murphy on Thursday that he was grateful to the United States for frequently giving support to Cambodia, even before it got its independence from France in 1953.
“This gesture is witness that friendship and good cooperation between the two countries existed quite some time ago,” Hun Sen wrote.
Hun Sen said he had also accepted an invitation from Trump, in a separate letter to leaders of all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to attend a special summit meeting in the U.S. sometime in the first quarter of next year.
Murphy arrived to take his post in September and has generally avoided heated rhetoric in his public comments while affirming U.S. policy promoting human rights and democracy, presenting the possibility for a face-saving opportunity to improve relations.
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In Thailand, Pope Tells Bishops, Priests to Spread the Faith
Pope Francis Friday called on bishops in Thailand to keep their doors open for priests and to spread the faith as their missionary predecessors did.”Be close to your priests, listen to them and seek to accompany them in every situation, especially when you see that they are discouraged or apathetic, which is the worst of the devil’s temptations. Do so not as judges but as fathers, not as managers who deploy them, but as true elder brothers.”Francis gave a speech to the Asian Bishops Conference at the Shrine of Blessed Nicholas Bunkerd Kithamrung in Sam Phran, 56 kilometers west of capital Bangkok.Huge crowds, including faithful from Vietnam, Cambodia and China welcomed the pope when he earlier arrived for a meeting with clergy and seminarians at Saint Peter’s Parish in Nakhon Pathom province. Francis concluded the day’s celebrations with a Mass dedicated to young people at Bangkok’s Cathedral of the Assumption.
Francis is only the second pope to visit Thailand. Pope John Paul II, now Saint John Paul II, was the first in 1984.
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Ethiopia’s Ruling Coalition Merges Into Single Party
Three of the four ethnic-based parties in Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front or EPRDF, voted Thursday to become one single party.The newly formed party, created just months ahead of the general election in May, is called the Prosperity Party.Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement that Prosperity is “committed to strengthening and applying a true federal system, which recognizes the diversity and contributions of all Ethiopians.”The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front or TPLF, which dominated EPRDF before Abiy became prime minister, refused to participate in Thursday’s vote.”The whole process is a total sham,” said Getachew Reda, a senior TPLF member. The prime minister didn’t follow the right procedures . . . it was wrong as well as undemocratic.”Last month, TPLF warned in a statement that a merged party would “put Ethiopia on the road to disintegration.”
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