Month: October 2019

The United States on Friday rejected Chinese accusations that political motives were behind a delay in issuing a visa to a top Beijing space official bound for an international conference in Washington this week. 
 
Wu Yanhua, vice chairman of the China National Space Administration, was the only official absent from the International Astronautical Congress panel on Monday at the outset of the conference. The panel included heads of space agencies from Germany, Russia, India, the United States, France and Japan. 
 
The Chinese official was at the conference on Friday, its last day, after receiving a visa. 
 
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Wednesday said the United States was “weaponizing the visa issue, repeatedly disregarding its international responsibilities and obstructing normal international exchanges and cooperation.” 
 
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus pushed back, saying: “The United States rejects the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s unfounded and baseless characterization of U.S. visa policies toward China.” She added that discussing individual visa cases was prohibited by law. 
 
“In all of our visa adjudications, we are committed to ensuring national security while also facilitating legitimate travel,” she said. 

Other battles
 
The friction over visas was the latest battle between Beijing and Washington, already locked in a bitter trade dispute. They have also long differed on issues of human rights, the disputed South China Sea and Chinese-claimed Taiwan. 
 
The moderator of Monday’s panel said Yanhua’s absence resulted from a scheduling conflict.  

The Chinese spokeswoman said Wednesday that China is an important participant in the congress and sends delegations every year. 
 
China applied for the visas in July, and on Oct. 12 the delegation from the China National Space Administration went for visa interviews at the U.S. Embassy. But the head of the delegation still did not have his visa as the congress began, Hua said. 
 
Chinese diplomats in the United States must now give advance notice of any meetings with state, local and municipal officials, as well as at educational and research institutions, senior State Department officials said last week. 

‘Reciprocity’
 
The officials told reporters the move was an effort to “add reciprocity” to the way U.S. diplomats are treated in China. 
 
The congress, held in different countries annually, hosted roughly 60 Chinese delegates and over 70 Russian delegates among thousands of other attendees from around the world, organizers said. Last year it was held in Germany.  

The last time the United States hosted was in 2001 in Houston, Texas. China hosted the event in 2013. 
 
Local co-organizer Sandy Magnus told Reuters it was never the intention of the congress to “politicize” the registration process and that planning committees had reached out to China and Russia, another U.S. rival, more than a year in advance to pre-empt visa issues. 
 
“We had set up a process, and unfortunately the execution of that process was not ideal, for whatever reason. We got information from them kind of late,” Magnus, a former NASA astronaut, said of the Chinese delegation. 

…

Prominent activist Jawar Mohammed does not rule out challenging his erstwhile ally, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in next year’s election, he told Reuters on Friday, after days of demonstrations by his supporters resulted in dozens of deaths.

Jawar’s ability to organize street protests helped propel Abiy to power last year, ushering in sweeping political and economic reforms. Abiy won the Nobel peace prize this month for his regional peacemaking achievements.

But this week, Jawar’s supporters demonstrated against Abiy after Jawar said police had surrounded his home and tried to withdraw his government security detail.

Late on Friday, the police commissioner for Oromiya told Reuters that 67 were people killed in the region in the two days of protests this week, a dramatic jump in the number of deaths from earlier reports.

Sixty-two of the dead were protesters while five were police officers, Oromiya regional police commissioner Kefyalew Tefera said by phone. Thirteen died from bullet wounds and the rest from injuries caused by stones, he said.

On Thursday, authorities and hospital officials had reported that protests in the capital and other cities resulted in 16 deaths and dozens of wounded. It was not immediately clear how many of the 16 were included in the tally of 67 reported in Oromiya.

The violence underscored the dilemma facing Abiy, who must retain support in Ethiopia’s ethnically based, federal system but not be seen to favor one group.

But kingmakers like media mogul Jawar are flexing their muscles. Like Abiy, Jawar comes from the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest. His supporters have stopped believing in Abiy’s promises of reform, he said, accusing Abiy of centralizing power, silencing dissent, and jailing political prisoners – like his predecessors.

Amnesty International says that, since Abiy took office, there have been several waves of mass arrests of people in Oromiya perceived to be opposed to the government. Detainees were not charged or taken to court, Amnesty’s Ethiopia researcher Fisseha Tekle said.

“The majority of people believe the transition is off track and we are backsliding towards an authoritarian system,” Jawar said, sitting in his heavily guarded home-office in the center of the capital, Addis Ababa. “The ruling party and its ideology will be challenged seriously not only in the election but also prior to the elections.”

The prime minister’s spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment. Abiy has not commented on this week’s violence.

On Friday afternoon, the defense ministry said the army had been deployed to seven cities where there had been protests this week. The forces have been deployed “to calm the situation in collaboration with elders and regional security officers,” Major General Mohammed Tessema told a press conference in Addis Ababa.

Strident Parties

The four ethnically based parties in the coalition that has ruled Ethiopia since 1991 are facing increasing competition from new, more strident parties demanding greater power and resources for their own regions.

“For a prime minister whose popular legitimacy relies on his openness, recent protests in Oromiya could be politically suicidal,” said Mehari Taddele Maru, an Addis Ababa-based political analyst. “It signals a significant loss of a populist power base that propelled him to power.”

If next year’s elections are fair – as Abiy has promised they will be – they will test whether the young prime minister can hold together his fractious nation of 100 million people and continue to open up its state-owned economy, or whether decades of state repression have driven Ethiopians into the arms of the political competition.

Jawar said he hadn’t decided who else he would support in next year’s polls, or whether he would run himself. His Twitter feed has been teasing the possibility last weekend: “The story about me running for office is just speculation. I am running to lose weight.”

He refused to be drawn on Friday, telling Reuters: “I don’t exclude anything.”

His remarks were his strongest criticism yet of Abiy, with whom he was photographed frequently last year, but the split follows pointed remarks by Abiy to parliament on Tuesday.

Abiy said, without naming anyone, “Media owners who don’t have Ethiopian passports are playing both ways … If this is going to undermine the peace and existence of Ethiopia … we will take measures.”

The comments were widely seen as a dig at Jawar, who is Ethiopian-born but has a U.S. passport and returned from exile last year.

Abiy didn’t create Ethiopia’s ethnic divisions, but he must address them, said Abel Wabella, a former political prisoner who is now editor of the Amharic-language newspaper Addis Zeybe.

Jawar is “testing the waters,” he said. “Ethnic federalism creates monsters … if Abiy fails to dismantle the power groups based on ethnicity, and to address the structural problems we have as a nation, we will end up in civil war.”

…

Bolivians blocked streets in La Paz on Friday demanding an audit of a controversial election count that handed President Evo Morales a outright win and with it a fourth consecutive term that would extend his rule to nearly two decades.

Morales, 59, who swept to power in 2006 as the country’s first indigenous leader, claimed victory in the Sunday vote and railed against the opposition who he accused of leading a coup d’etat with foreign backing.

Anti-government protests had begun on Sunday, when an official vote count was suspended for almost a day. A confident Morales said then his socialist party MAS would get an outright win, despite an official rapid count data showing the left-wing leader heading to a second round against rival Carlos Mesa.

The final official count showed Morales with an over 10-point over Mesa on Thursday night, which meant he would avoid a risky second round head-to-head – even as the election monitors, the opposition and foreign governments criticized the count.

On Friday, roads in the north and south of La Paz were blocked by protesters, with normally busy streets empty of cars.

In the morning, there were few signs of violence, as people marched with banners saying “No to dictatorship.”

The official election observer, the Organization of American States, has already called for a second round despite Morales’ 10-point win, while the United States, European Union, Brazil and others adding their voice.

In the region, left-leaning governments in Mexico and Venezuela have backed Morales, a former union leader for coca farmers who has overseen steady growth and relative stability in one of South America’s poorest countries.

“There has to be a second round,” Marco Antonio Fuentes, a departmental official in La Paz, said Friday. “The electoral arbitrator is unfortunately not reliable,” referring to the vote count halt that saw one senior electoral official resign.

Mesa, a former president who leads the Citizen Community party, has claimed to have evidence of electoral fraud. “The government is despising the popular vote,” he told local television channel Unitel on Friday.

The vote count, with 99.99% of the votes counted, showed Morales with 47.07% of the vote to Mesa’s 36.51%.

Officials and diplomats raised concerns the conflict could hit Bolivia’s ties with global trade partners and an economy that is already straining under declining gas exports.

Jaime Duran, a fiscal and budgetary deputy minister, said in comments to the Red Uno channel that the conflict in recent days “will undoubtedly” have an effect on the economy, though reassured there no issues with supplies of fuel and food.

…

When Nanticha “Lynn” Ocharoenchai organized Thailand’s first climate strike in March, more than half of the 50 people who showed up at the rally in Bangkok were students at international schools and expatriates. 
 
The same day, Ralyn “Lilly” Satidtanasarn, then age 11, and a group of fellow pupils submitted an open letter to the prime minister, calling for urgent action on climate change. 
 
“The fact that Lilly and I can do this draws a lot from being in international schools,” said Lynn, 21. 
 
There they received classes on the environment, whereas most Thai state schools do not teach the subject, Lynn noted in an interview a week after graduating from Chulalongkorn University.  

The young pair are often said to be Thailand’s version of Greta Thunberg, the teenage Swedish activist who has inspired other children worldwide to skip school and demonstrate in the streets about the need to halt global warming and its impacts. 
 
Lynn’s mission is to boost awareness among the Thai public about climate change in a country that is witnessing warmer temperatures, sea level rise, floods and droughts. 
 
Its capital, Bangkok, built on the floodplains of the Chao Phraya River, is expected to be among the urban areas hit hardest as the climate heats up. 
 
Nearly 40% of Bangkok may be inundated each year as soon as 2030 because of more extreme rainfall, according to the World Bank. 
 
But Lynn said that while many Thais are directly experiencing the growing effects of climate change, some Asian social norms made it hard for her to achieve her aims. 
 
“In Asia, we have a culture of seniority, and young people aren’t supposed to speak up for themselves and are not supposed to speak against adults,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a Bangkok coffee shop. 
 
Local link lacking 
 
Lynn’s interest in climate change was sparked through writing articles on the environment as a journalism intern. 
 
In March, she read about Thunberg, which prompted her to create a Facebook event for a climate strike in Bangkok. 
 
“I could truly relate to her frustration and depression, and just feelings of hopelessness,” said Lynn. 
 
“For years I cried in my bedroom, and I’m sad and I’m just, like, no one’s going to do anything about it. But I figured if Greta can do it … I can probably do something too,” she said. 
 
Since she set up the Facebook page “Climate Strike Thailand,” it has attracted almost 5,000 followers. 
 
“Initially I had no idea about Thai social media and how to deal with Thai culture and Thai people and changing their mindset, but since March I’ve learned so much,” she said. 
 
Tara Buakamsri, Thailand director for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said young people in provinces outside Bangkok have long campaigned on environmental issues affecting their hometowns, such as opposing gold mines or coal-fired power plants. 
 
But there has been no networking platform to link them with groups in the capital, and Climate Strike Thailand has yet to spread beyond middle-class and international school students, he added. 
 
“While the recent climate strikes are connected to climate change issues [at] the international level, they have yet to connect on the local level,” said Buakamsri.  

‘Just the beginning’ 
 
Since the first March strike, Lynn has led two more, in May and September. 
 
For the third, about 200 young people marched to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, demanding that the government declare a climate emergency and shift to 100% renewable energy by 2040. 
 
In 2015, Thailand signed the Paris climate agreement and pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% to 25% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. 
 
But new coal-fired power plants have since been promoted both in Thailand and neighboring countries, which activists say contradicts climate change goals. 
 
“These climate strikes are by no means methods to solve the problem,” Lynn said. “It’s just the beginning where you acknowledge the problem.” 
 
Lilly, meanwhile, now 12, has been meeting with business and government officials, urging them to care more about the environment. 
 
Her persistence over the last two years has paid off, and she is widely credited for a pledge by more than 40 national retailers to ban plastic bags by next year. 
 
“I see no progress made by the government,” she told journalists recently. “I only see progress made by Lynn and me.” 

…

Under a broad plane tree near Albania’s border with Greece, Jorgji Ilia filled a battered flask from one of the Vjosa River’s many springs. 
 
“There is nothing else better than the river,” the retired schoolteacher said. “The Vjosa gives beauty to our village.” 
 
The Vjosa is temperamental and fickle, changing from translucent cobalt blue to sludge brown to emerald green, from a steady flow to a raging torrent. Nothing holds it back for more than 270 kilometers (170 miles) in its course through the forest-covered slopes of Greece’s Pindus mountains to Albania’s Adriatic coast. 
 
This is one of Europe’s last wild rivers. But for how long? 
 
Albania’s government has set in motion plans to dam the Vjosa and its tributaries to generate much-needed electricity for one of Europe’s poorest countries, with the intent to build eight dams along the main river. 

Hydropower boom
 
It’s part of a world hydropower boom, mainly in Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and less developed parts of Europe. In the Balkans alone, about 2,800 projects to tame rivers are underway or planned, said Olsi Nika of EcoAlbania, a nonprofit that opposes the projects. 
 
Some tout hydropower as a reliable, cheap and renewable energy source that helps curb dependence on planet-warming fossil fuels. But some recent studies question hydropower’s value in the fight against global warming. Critics say the benefits of hydropower are overstated — and outweighed by the harm dams can do.  

Rivers are a crucial part of the global water cycle. They act as nature’s arteries, carrying energy and nutrients across vast landscapes, providing water for drinking, food production and industry. They’re a means of transportation for people and goods, and a haven for boaters and anglers. Rivers are home to a diversity of fish — including tiny minnows, trout and salmon — and provide shelter and food for birds and mammals. 
 
But dams interrupt their flow, and the life in and around them. While installing fish ladders and widening tunnels to bypass dams helps some species, it hasn’t worked in places like the Amazon, said Julian Olden, a University of Washington ecologist. 
 
Dams block the natural flow of water and sediment. They also can change the chemistry of the water and cause toxic algae to grow. 

Some will lose property
 
Those who live along the riverbank or rely on the waterway for their livelihood fear dams could kill the Vjosa as they know it. Its fragile ecosystem will be irreversibly altered, and many residents will lose their land and homes. 
 
In the 1990s, an Italian company was awarded a contract to build a dam along the Vjosa in southern Albania. Construction began on the Kalivac dam but never was completed, plagued with delays and financial woes. 
 
Now, the government has awarded a new contract for the site to a Turkish company. Energy ministry officials rejected multiple interview requests to discuss their hydropower plans.  

Many locals oppose the plans. Dozens of residents from the village of Kute joined nonprofits to file what was Albania’s first environmental lawsuit against the construction of a dam in the Pocem gorge, a short distance downriver from Kalivac. They won in 2017, but the government has appealed. 
 
The victory, while significant, was just one battle. A week later, the government issued the Kalivac contract. EcoAlbania plans to fight that project, too. 
 
Ecologically, there is a lot at stake. 
 
A recent study found the Vjosa was incredibly diverse. More than 90 types of aquatic invertebrates were found in the places where dams are planned, plus hundreds of fish, amphibian and reptile species, some endangered and others endemic to the Balkans. 

Thwarting fish
 
Dams can unravel food chains, but the most well-known problem with building dams is that they block the paths of fish trying to migrate upstream to spawn. 
 
As pressure to build dams intensifies in less developed countries, the opposite is happening in the U.S. and Western Europe, where there’s a movement to tear down dams considered obsolete and environmentally destructive. 
 
More than 1,600 have been dismantled in the U.S., most within the past 30 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers. In Europe, the largest-ever removal began this year in France, where two dams are being torn down on Normandy’s Selune River. 
 
With so few wild rivers left around the globe, the Vjosa also is a valuable resource for studying river behavior. 
 
“Science is only at the beginning of understanding how biodiversity in river networks is structured and maintained,” said researcher Gabriel Singer of the Leibniz-Institute in Germany. “The Vjosa is a unique system.”  

For Shyqyri Seiti, it’s much more personal. 
 
The 65-year-old boatman has been transporting locals, goods and livestock across the river for about a quarter-century. The construction of the Kalivac dam would spell disaster for him. Many of the fields and some of the houses in his nearby village of Ane Vjose would be lost. 
 
“Someone will benefit from the construction of the dam, but it will flood everyone in the area,” he said. “What if they were in our place? How would they feel to lose everything?” 
 
But the mayor, Metat Shehu, insisted that his community “has no interest” in the matter. 
 
“The Vjosa is polluted. The plants and creatures of Vjosa have vanished,” Shehu said. The biggest issue, he added, is that villagers are being offered too little to give up their land. He hopes the dam will bring investment to the area. 

‘Irreparable’ damage
 
Jonus Jonuzi, a 70-year-old farmer who grew up along the river, is hopeful the Vjosa will stay wild. 
 
“Albania needs electrical energy. But not by creating one thing and destroying another,” he said. “Why do such damage that will be irreparable for life, that future generations will blame us for what we’ve done?” 
 
This was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. 

…

Alaska’s famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has joined a new global partnership billed as the World Series of long-distance sled dog racing and aimed at bringing more fans to the cold-weather sport.

The Iditarod has teamed up with Norway pet food supplement company and series creator, Aker BioMarine, and other races in Minnesota, Norway and Russia for the inaugural QRILL Pet Arctic World Series, or QPAWS, next year.

Logistics were still being worked out, but the series will use a joint point system over a still-undetermined time frame, GPS tracking and an online platform to follow the racing teams. Talks with potential broadcast outlets also are under way, organizers say.

“Together with Iditarod and the other unique events, we will make QPAWS a winning TV concept in order to build the sport for the future,” series project manager Nils Marius Otterstad said in an email to The Associated Press. He said the Iditarod was approached about the idea a year ago and agreed to move forward on it during this year’s race in March.

The other races

At 1,000 miles (1,610 kilometers), the Iditarod will be the longest race among those participating the first year, as well as serve as the finale to the series next March. The series also will feature races kicking off in late January with the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in Minnesota, followed by the Femundlopet in Norway in early February by the Volga Quest in Russia a week later.

Discussions also are under way to add other races, including the 1,000-mile (1,610-kilometer) Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race traversing Alaska and Canada’s Yukon each February. Marti Steury, the Quest’s executive director for Alaska, said Quest officials are watching to see how the first year goes.

Participants in any of the QPAWS races don’t have to join the circuit if they prefer to stick to just one contest, according to the Iditarod’s new CEO, Rob Urbach. Because the races are so globally distant and scheduled so closely together, he said the circuit could take place over two years.

“The complexity of our racing is unique in the world of sports, and therefore may see some different ways to do the series,” he said.

The Iditarod is already well-steeped in technology, despite the low-tech aspect of the trail, which spans two mountain ranges and the frozen Yukon River before it heads up the wind-scrubbed Bering Sea Coast to the finish line in the Gold Rush town of Nome. Sleds are equipped with GPS trackers that allow fans to follow them online and enable organizers to ensure no one is missing.

Race volunteers and contractors working out of an Anchorage hotel process live video streamed from village checkpoints, using satellite dishes. Some volunteers handle race-standing updates sent through equipment that activates a super-size hot spot in the most remote places with satellite connections.

Troubled time for Iditarod

The move to QPAWS follows a troublesome time for the Iditarod that was marked in recent years by multiple challenges, including escalating pressure from animal-welfare activists over multiple dog deaths, a 2017 dog-doping scandal and the loss of major sponsors.

Urbach, a former CEO of USA Triathlon, recently met with representatives of the Iditarod’s harshest critic, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA’s executive vice president Tracy Reiman called the new racing circuit a “World Series of Cruelty” destined for failure.

“Just as Ringling Bros. circus struggled to find an audience for its abusive elephant shows, the dogsledding industry is desperately scrambling for viewers — but kind people today have no interest in watching dogs being forced to run until their paws bleed, they choke on their own vomit, and they drop dead on the trail,” Reiman said in an email.

Branding expert Conor O’Flaherty said the venture has the potential to create a bigger audience.

“What’s important for a sport like this is it not only represents the distinct community, it also represents part of cultural history that’s important to protect,” said O’Flaherty, managing director at New York-based SME Branding.

Urbach contends QPAWS will go far in raising the exposure of long-distance mushing and better educate the public about the special relationship the dogs have with their human teammates. 

“You could argue that the sport needs a rejuvenation,” said Urbach, who took the helm of the Iditarod in July.

Mushers interested, cautious

With so many details about the series still unknown, many mushers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Defending champion Pete Kaiser said he plans to participate only in the Iditarod.

“My main concerns are, what do you have to do to win this thing and what are the logistics,” he said.

Three-time winner Mitch Seavey, who comes from a multigenerational family of mushers, also is watching developments closely.

“I’m in favor of the Iditarod and other races doing new things. We need to change our demographic. We need to change our fan base, or at least expand it. We need to modernize and appeal to more people,” Seavey said. “Give them a chance. That’s what I’m saying.”

…

The Sri Lankan parliament on Wednesday passed an ambitious interim budget weeks before a presidential election, with 1.47 trillion rupees ($8.11 billion) in spending for the first four months of 2020.

The interim budget, passed unanimously in the 225-member parliament, expects 745 billion rupees in government revenue in the first four months of next year and sought permission to raise up to 721 billion rupees as loans.

The two presidential front-runners, former wartime defense chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa and housing minister Sajith Premadasa, have promised a number of handouts including free of charge fertilizers and higher wages, threatening Sri Lanka’s fiscal consolidation path.

Both, however, have yet to release their policy framework with the election scheduled for Nov. 16. The winner will serve until 2024.

The interim budget targets a fiscal deficit of 2.2% of GDP, government officials have told Reuters. Official budget documents presented in parliament did not mention the 2020 deficit target.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said in his presentation of the interim budget that Sri Lanka could still see 3% economic growth in 2019 despite challenges including subdued growth following the Easter Sunday bombing attacks by Islamist militants in April, which killed more than 250 people and hurt the important tourism industry.

The $87 billion economy’s growth eased to a 17-year low of 3.2% in 2018 and the International Monetary Fund expects the pace to slow to 2.7% in 2019 this year.

A Reuters poll has predicted 2019 growth will be the lowest in nearly two decades.

Parliamentary elections are likely early next year under a new president. The new government could then decide the full year budget, officials said.

The government had originally aimed at a budget deficit of 3.5% for 2020. However, the government is compelled to revise down the target after a political crisis and the bombings.

Investor confidence nosedived last year after President Maithripala Sirisena abruptly sacked his prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and dissolved parliament. That was later ruled unconstitutional, and Wickremesinghe was reinstated.

The crisis created panic and uncertainty among investors, who dumped Sri Lankan government bonds and other assets, sending the rupee currency to record lows.

($1 = 181.3000 Sri Lankan rupees)

…

The House approved legislation Wednesday to better protect the country’s elections from foreign interference, the third major bill the Democratic-controlled chamber has passed this year addressing problems that arose in the 2016 presidential election. 
 
The 227-181 vote came as lawmakers continued to pursue an impeachment inquiry centered on allegations that President Donald Trump improperly solicited election help from Ukraine ahead of the 2020 vote. It also came months after special counsel Robert Mueller finished his report on 2016 election interference, finding numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia but not enough evidence to establish a conspiracy between the two. Democrats want to prevent such actions in the future and ensure that campaigns know they are illegal. 
 
The Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy Act, or SHIELD Act, would require that candidates and political committees notify the FBI and other authorities if a foreign power offers campaign help. It also would tighten restrictions on campaign spending by foreign nationals and require more transparency in political ads on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. 

Ban on exchanges with foreigners
 
And it would explicitly prohibit campaigns from exchanging campaign-related information with foreign governments and their agents. The latter provision was aimed at reports that officials in Trump’s 2016 campaign shared polling data with a person associated with Russian intelligence. 
 
Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who was the bill’s chief sponsor, said it would close loopholes that allow dishonest behavior, increase disclosure and transparency requirements, and ensure that anyone who engages with foreign actors to influence the outcome of an election will be held accountable by law. 
 
“Most Americans know that foreign governments have no business interfering in our elections,” said Lofgren, who chairs the House Administration Committee. “We should all be able to agree that we need to protect our democracy — and with a sense of urgency. This is not a partisan opinion. Nothing less than our national security is at stake.”  

But Illinois Representative Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the Administration panel, called the bill a thinly disguised bid by Democrats to prop up impeachment. “That’s why we’re here today: not to make real, legislative progress on preventing foreign interference in our elections, but to push partisan politics for the Democratic agenda,” he said. 
 
The White House threatened to veto the bill if it reached the president’s desk, saying it was redundant, overly broad and unenforceable. The bill’s “expansive definitions seem designed to instill a persistent fear among Americans engaged in political activity that any interactions they may have with a foreign national could put them in legal jeopardy,” the White House said. 
 
Davis called the bill’s language on social media overly broad and said Facebook and other private companies were already taking significant steps to help prevent election interference on their platforms. As written, the Democratic bill poses a threat to the First Amendment, he said, noting that it is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups. 

‘Wrong balance’
 
The ACLU said in a statement that the SHIELD Act “strikes the wrong balance, sweeping too broadly and encompassing more speech than necessary to achieve its legitimate goals” of preventing foreign interference in U.S. elections. 
 
The bill came as a bipartisan Senate committee said Russia’s large-scale effort to interfere in the 2016 election was a “vastly more complex and strategic assault on the United States than was initially understood.” 
  
In a report earlier this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee described Kremlin-backed social media activities as part of a “broader, sophisticated and ongoing information warfare campaign designed to sow discord in American politics and society.” 
  
Senators urged Trump to warn the public about efforts by Russia and other countries to interfere in U.S. elections — a subject he has largely avoided — and to take steps to thwart attempts by hostile nations to use social media to meddle in the 2020 presidential contest. 
 
The House approved a separate bill in June that would require paper ballots in federal elections and authorize $775 million in grants over the next two years to help states secure their voting systems. 
 
Lawmakers also approved a bill in March aimed at reducing the role of big money in politics, ensuring fair elections and strengthening ethics standards. The measure would make it easier for people to register and vote, tighten election security and require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns. 
 
Republicans called the bill a power grab that amounts to a federal takeover of elections and could cost billions of dollars. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said the proposal was dead on arrival in the Senate. McConnell has declined to bring up a stand-alone bill on election security, though he supported an effort to send $250 million in additional election security funds to states to shore up their systems ahead of 2020. 
 
House Democrats are conducting an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, including his request on a July phone call for the country to open an investigation into potential 2020 Democratic rival Joe Biden and his family. Trump said he did nothing wrong and called the conversation “perfect.” 

…

Bolivian President Evo Morales said Wednesday his opponents are trying to stage a coup against him as protests grow over a disputed election he claims he won outright, though a nearly finished vote count suggests it might head to a second round.

The leftist leader needs a 10 percentage-point margin over his closest rival to avoid a December runoff in which he could risk being defeated by a united opposition in his bid for a fourth consecutive term in office.

The vote count Wednesday had him with a 9.48 percentage point lead with 3.22% of the votes from Sunday’s election left to count. He led former President Carlos Mesa 46.49% to 37.01%.

Mesa has warned of fraud and international vote monitors have expressed concern at an earlier unexplained daylong gap in reporting results before a sudden spurt in Morales’ vote percentage. Opposition backers have staged rowdy protests since the vote.

Authorities said Wednesday that the count had been stalled again because attacks on vote-count centers in three regions had prevented final tabulation of results.

Morales claims conspiracy

Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president and the region’s longest-ruling leader, repeated his claim that he won outright and said his opponents were conspiring to oust him.

“I want to denounce to the people and the world that a coup d’etat is underway,” Morales said at a news conference at which he did not take any questions. “The right wing has prepared it with international support.”

Morales did not specify where the alleged international support for the coup is coming from, but he regularly rails against U.S. imperialism in Latin America.

He cited the burning by protesters of electoral offices in two cities where votes are being tallied as proof of the coup. Protesters also burned ballots in a third city.

“We are waiting for a report from the Electoral Tribunal, although the TREP (a quick count) has already said that we won,” the president said.

The tribunal’s quick count webpage, whose results are not binding, showed Morales with a 10.1 percentage point lead over Mesa, with about 96% of polling place counts verified Wednesday.

‘Gigantic fraud going on’

“If there is anyone who breaks the constitutional order it is Evo Morales,” Mesa said later in the day. “It’s clear that there’s a gigantic fraud going on.”

Opposition leaders have called on Bolivians to defend “the citizen vote and democracy” in the streets against suspicions of fraud by Morales’ party, while backers of the president marched in the capital Wednesday to show their support for the leader.

Suspicions of electoral fraud rose when officials abruptly stopped releasing results from the quick count of votes hours after the polls closed Sunday with Morales topping the eight other candidates, but also falling several percentage points short of the percentage needed to avoid the first runoff in his nearly 14 years in power.

Yet, the president claimed an outright victory late Sunday, telling supporters that the votes still to be counted — largely from rural areas where he is most popular — would be enough to give him an outright victory.

Twenty-four hours later, the body suddenly released an updated figure, with 95% of votes counted, showing Morales just 0.7 percentage point short of the 10-percentage point advantage needed to avoid a runoff.

Vote monitors concerned

That set off an uproar among the opposition and expressions of concern by international monitors.

The observer mission of the Organization of American States asked for explanations and the European Union and the U.N. expressed concern about the electoral process and called for calm. The United States and Brazil, among others, also expressed concerns.

Michael G. Kozak, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, warned Wednesday that Bolivian authorities will be held accountable if the process isn’t fair.

“I think you will see pretty strong response from the whole hemisphere, not just the U.S.,” Kozak said during a House hearing.

Support from Maduro

In Caracas, Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, voiced support for his ally Morales.

“It is a coup d’etat foretold, sung and, one can say, defeated,” he said.

The crisis was aggravated by the resignation of the vice president electoral council, Antonio Costas, who said he disagreed with the decision to interrupt transmission of the vote count.

On Tuesday, the Andean nation saw a second night of violent protests in several cities. Then Wednesday, a strike that mostly affected transportation erupted in Santa Cruz, the most populous eastern region and an opposition stronghold, while Morales supporters clashed with his foes in one of the city’s slums.

Protesters in other regions announced that they would join to demand respect for the vote.

…

For the first time, U.S. health regulators have judged a type of smokeless tobacco to be less harmful than cigarettes, a decision that could open the door to other less risky options for smokers.

The milestone announcement on Tuesday makes Swedish Match tobacco pouches the first so-called reduced-risk tobacco product ever sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration.

FDA regulators stressed that their decision does not mean the pouches are safe, just less harmful, and that all tobacco products pose risks. The pouches will still bear mandatory government warnings that they can cause mouth cancer, gum disease and tooth loss.

But the company will be able to advertise its tobacco pouches as posing a lower risk of lung cancer, bronchitis, heart disease and other diseases than cigarettes.

The pouches of ground tobacco, called snus — Swedish for snuff and pronounced “snoose” — have been popular in Scandinavian countries for decades but are a tiny part of the U.S. tobacco market.

Users stick the teabag-like pouches between their cheek and gum to absorb nicotine. Unlike regular chewing tobacco, the liquid from snus is generally swallowed, rather than spit out. Chewing tobacco is fermented; snus goes through a steamed pasteurization process.

Long-term data

FDA acting commissioner Ned Sharpless said the agency based its decision on long-term, population-level data showing lower levels of lung cancer, emphysema and other smoking-related disease with the use of snus.

Sharpless added that the agency will closely monitor Swedish Match’s marketing efforts to ensure they target adult tobacco users.

“Anyone who does not currently use tobacco products, especially youth, should refrain from doing so,” he said in a statement.

Stockholm-based Swedish Match sells its snus under the brand name General in mint, wintergreen and other flavors. They compete against pouches from rivals Altria and R.J. Reynolds. But pouches account for just 5% of the $9.1 billion U.S. market for chew and other smokeless tobacco products, according to Euromonitor market research firm.
 
And public health experts questioned whether U.S. smokers would be willing to switch to the niche product.

“Snus products have a bit of a challenge” among smokers who are used to inhaling their nicotine, said Vaugh Rees, director of Harvard University’s Center for Global Tobacco Control.

U.S. smoking rate

The U.S. smoking rate has fallen to an all-time low of 14% of adults, or roughly 34 million Americans. But smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., responsible for some 480,000 deaths annually.

The FDA’s decision has been closely watched by both public health experts and tobacco companies.
 
Public health experts have long hoped that alternatives like the pouches could benefit Americans who are unable or unwilling to quit cigarettes and other traditional tobacco products. Tobacco companies are looking for new products to sell as they face declining cigarette demand due to tax increases, health concerns, smoking bans and social stigma.

The FDA itself also has much at stake in the review of snus and similar tobacco alternatives.

Congress gave the FDA the power to regulate key aspects of the tobacco industry in 2009, including designating new tobacco products as “modified risk,” compared with traditional cigarettes, chew and other products.
 
But until Tuesday, the FDA had never granted permission for any product to make such claims.
 
The FDA is reviewing several other products vying for “reduced risk” status, including a heat-not-burn cigarette alternative made by Philip Morris International. While electronic cigarettes are generally considered less harmful than the tobacco-and-paper variety, they have not been scientifically reviewed as posing a lower risk.
 

…

A top U.S. Census Bureau official says the agency has pivoted away from verifying addresses and is now kicking off a campaign to recruit and hire as many as a half million temporary workers to help with the largest head count in U.S. history next spring.

Timothy Olson, the agency’s associate director for field operations, said Tuesday that 32,000 workers verified 50 million addresses over an almost two-month period that ended more than a week ago.

Olson called the address verification process a success.

The agency already has 900,000 people who have applied for 2020 Census jobs, but the bureau wants a potential pool of 2.7 million applicants to choose from.

The 2020 Census head count will be the first decennial census when respondents are encouraged to answer questions online.
 

…

Iran will not be allowed to participate in any international judo competitions until it allows its athletes to face Israelis.

The International Judo Federation (IJF) on Tuesday issued an indefinite ban “until the Iran Judo Federation gives strong guarantees and prove that they will respect the IJF Statutes and accept that their athletes fight against Israeli athletes.”

IJF investigated Iran’s policy after Iranian Saeid Mollaei walked off the Iranian team during last year’s world championships in Tokyo. Mollaei, who was the reigning champion, claimed that he had been pressured to deliberately lose in the semifinals in order to avoid facing Israelis.

The IJF accused the Iranian government of pressuring its athletes and flouting international completion rules.

Iran has denied pressuring Mollaei, who is now in hiding in Germany.

But the IJF investigation into the incident found that Iran’s actions “constitute a serious breach and gross violation of the Statutes of the IJF, its legitimate interests, its principles and objectives.”

Iran is expected to appeal the ban to the Switzerland-based Court for Arbitration of Sport.

…

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has started photocopying inmate letters and other mail at some federal correctional facilities across the U.S. instead of delivering the original parcels, in an attempt to combat the smuggling of synthetic narcotics like K-2, officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

The program is being implemented at a “number of Bureau facilities impacted by the increased introduction of synthetic drugs,” the agency said in a statement to the AP. At those jails and prisons, Bureau of Prisons employees are currently copying incoming mail and then distributing the copies to inmates, the agency said.

Officials would not say how many staff members are being assigned to make photocopies or whether they are removing correction officers to perform the task. The initiative raises questions about whether the agency, which has been plagued by chronic staffing shortages and violence, is reassigning staff members to spend time making photocopies instead of watching inmates.

The Bureau of Prisons has faced increased scrutiny since billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was able to take his own life behind bars at a federal facility in New York in August. Across the board, the agency has been down 4,000 jobs since 2017. Staffing shortages are so severe that guards routinely work overtime shifts day after day, sometimes being forced to work mandatory overtime.

 In the wake of Epstein’s death, Attorney General William Barr removed the agency’s acting director and named Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the prison agency’s director from 1992 until 2003, to replace him.

Officials did not provide details on the specific jails and prisons where the program is being implemented, but a person familiar with the matter told AP that one of the facilities is USP Canaan, a high-security penitentiary for male inmates in Pennsylvania. The person spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss jail operations.

Officials say wardens at each of the facilities have discretion under current policy to order the photocopying because they “may establish controls to protect staff, inmates, and the security, discipline, and good order of the institution.”

The agency is also exploring the possibility of using an off-site vendor to scan general correspondence and then send it as electronic files to kiosks in the correctional facilities where inmates would be able to view and print the letters.

The choice to have mail photocopied depends on the size and security level of the correctional facility, as well as the “degree of sophistication of the inmates confined, staff availability, and other variables,” the statement said.

…

Associate Justice Elena Kagan said Monday that it “behooves” the U.S. Supreme Court to realize in these polarized times that there’s a danger of the public seeing it as just a political institution — and to strive to counter that perception.

Speaking at the University of Minnesota, Kagan said the high court’s legitimacy depends on public trust and confidence since nobody elected the justices.

“We have to be seen as doing law, which is distinct from politics or public policy, and to be doing it in a good faith way, trying to find the right answers,” she said.

Kagan acknowledged that the justices can be “pretty divided” on how to interpret the Constitution. But she said the view that politics guides their decisions is an oversimplification. The justices decide most of their cases unanimously or by lopsided margins, she said.

The justice didn’t mention a Marquette University Law School poll released earlier Monday in which 64% of respondents said they believe the law, rather than politics, mostly motivates the high court’s decisions. But the findings dovetailed with her remarks.

“It behooves us on the court to realize that this is a danger and make sure it isn’t so,” she said.

Kagan, 59, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 and is a member of the court’s liberal wing, said she believes none of the justices decide cases for partisan political reasons, but they do have different legal philosophies and approaches to constitutional issues.

Sometimes there’s no way to decide some cases without the results seeming political, she said, “but I think especially in these polarized times, I think we have an obligation to make sure that that happens only when we truly, truly can’t help it.”

Gerrymandering case

Kagan said she took the unusual step, for her, of reading part of her dissent from the bench in a gerrymandering case this summer because it was such an important issue and that she strongly disagreed with the 5-4 decision.

The conservative majority ruled that partisan gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts was none of its business. The decision freed state officials from federal court challenges to their plans to reshape districts to help their parties.

“I thought that the court had gotten it deeply wrong,” she said.
 
Kagan appeared as part of a lecture series sponsored by the University of Minnesota Law School that, in past years, has brought Justices John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to campus.
 

…

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro questioned on Friday whether a far-reaching oil spill on the nation’s northeastern shore may have been a criminal act designed to harm a major oil auction scheduled for November.

“Coincidence or not, we have the transfer-of-rights auction,” said Bolsonaro in a Facebook Live video, referring to an oil bidding scheduled for Nov. 6, in which an array of major oil players will compete for $26 billion worth of production rights in large offshore oil areas of Brazil.

“I wonder, we have to be very responsible about what we say — could it have been a criminal act to harm this auction? It’s a question that’s out there.”

Bolsonaro offered no evidence for his statements.

Oil has been washing up on the shore of northeastern Brazil for two months, but its origin has remained a mystery. On Wednesday, Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA said it had cleaned up some 200 tons of the oil from Brazil’s beaches.

On Thursday, the head of Brazil’s environmental regulator said tests had proved the oil was Venezuelan. He said that the cause of the spill was criminal in nature, as it would otherwise have been reported.

He added, however, that Venezuela may not be responsible for the spill, even if the oil originated there.

Venezuela has denied responsibility for the oil.
 

…

At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday.

The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions’ property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Those incidents include 12 cases of vandalism involving white supremacist symbols and 35 cases in which white supremacist propaganda was distributed.

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US to Seek Death Penalty for Accused Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter

The massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue was the deadliest attack ever on Jewish Americans in the US

The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels. It has counted 780 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2019, compared to 785 incidents during the same period in 2018.

The ADL’s tally of 12 arrests for white supremacist plots, threats and attacks against Jewish institutions includes the April 2019 capture of John T. Earnest, who is charged with killing one person and wounding three others in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. The group said many of the cases it counted, including the Poway shooting, were inspired by previous white supremist attacks. In online posts, Earnest said he was inspired by the deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman killed 51 people in March.

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Nearly 50 Killed in New Zealand Mosque Attacks; 4 in Custody

Mass shootings at two mosques full of worshippers attending Friday prayers killed at least 49 people on what the prime minister called ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’

The ADL also counted three additional 2019 cases in which individuals were arrested for targeting Jews but weren’t deemed to be white supremacists. Two were motivated by Islamist extremist ideology, the organization said.

The ADL said its Center on Extremism provided “critical intelligence” to law enforcement in at least three of the 12 cases it counted.

Last December, authorities in Monroe, Washington, arrested a white supremacist after the ADL notified law enforcement about suspicions he threatened on Facebook to kill Jews in a synagogue. The ADL said it also helped authorities in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, identify a white supremacist accused of using aliases to post threatening messages, including a digital image of himself pointing an AR-15 rifle at a group of praying Jewish men.

In August, an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force arrested a Las Vegas man accused of plotting to firebomb a synagogue or other targets, including a bar catering to LGTBQ customers and the ADL’s Las Vegas office. The ADL said it warned law enforcement officials about the man’s online threats.

“We cannot and will not rest easy knowing the threat posed by white supremacists and other extremists against the Jewish community is clear and present,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.

The ADL said it counted at least 30 additional incidents in which people with an “unknown ideology” targeted Jewish institutions with acts of arson, vandalism or propaganda distribution that the group deemed to be anti-Semitic or “generally hateful,” but not explicitly white supremacist.

“These incidents include the shooting of an elderly man outside a synagogue in Miami, fires set at multiple Jewish institutions in New York and Massachusetts, Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogue windows in Chicago, damaged menorahs in Georgia and New Jersey, as well as a wide range of anti-Semitic graffiti,” an ADL report said.

…

A committee guiding OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy has suggested other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains use Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the national opioid crisis.

The committee of unsecured creditors said in a letter sent Sunday to the parties and obtained by The Associated Press that the country “is in the grips of a crisis that must be addressed, and that doing so may require creative approaches.”

It’s calling for all the companies to put money into a fund in exchange for having all their lawsuits resolved.

The committee includes victims of the opioid crisis plus a medical center, a health insurer, a prescription benefit management company, the manufacturer of an addiction treatment drug and a pension insurer. It says that the concept may not be feasible but invited further discussion. It does not give a size of contributions from the company.

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Opioid Settlement Talks Broaden Ahead of 1st Federal Trial

Under the proposal, the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson would pay a total of $18 billion over 18 years

The same committee has been aggressive in Purdue’s bankruptcy, saying it would support pausing litigation against members of the Sackler family who own Purdue in exchange for a $200 million fund from the company to help fight the opioid crisis.

Paul Hanly, a lead lawyer for local governments in the lawsuits, said in a text message Sunday evening that he’d heard about the mass settlement idea, calling it “most unlikely.”

The proposal comes as narrower talks have not resulted in a settlement. Opening statements are to be held Monday in the first federal trial over the crisis. The lawsuit deals with claims from the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga and Summit against a half-dozen companies. More than 2,000 other state and local governments plus Native American tribes, hospitals and other groups have made similar claims.

There have been talks aimed at settling all claims against the drugmakers Johnson & Johnson and Teva and the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson ahead of the trial. One proposal called for resolving claims against them nationally in exchange for cash and addiction treatment drugs valued at a total of $48 billion over time.

The committee’s proposal went to those five companies plus nine others that face lawsuits.

Opioids, including both prescription painkillers and illegal drugs such as heroin and illicitly made fentanyl, have been linked to more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000.

…

 The still popular former mayor of Baltimore and brother of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Thomas D’Alesandro III, died Sunday at 90.

The family said he had been suffering from complications from a stroke.

Pelosi, who is leading a congressional delegation in Jordan, issued a statement calling her brother “the finest public servant I have ever known…a leader of dignity, compassion, and extraordinary courage.”

D’Alesandro was known around Baltimore as “Young Tommy,” because his father, “Big Tommy,” was also mayor and a U.S. congressman.

“Young Tommy” was president of the Baltimore City Council and was elected mayor in 1967, leading Baltimore through four of the most tumultuous years in the city’s history. His challenges included a number of labor strikes that paralyzed city services, the push for urban renewal, and the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 from which Baltimore has never fully recovered.

D’Alesandro was also the first Baltimore mayor to appoint African-Americans to important city positions.

After deciding not to run for a second term in 1971, D’Alesandro went into private law practice and could still be seen dining in Italian restaurants and attending Baltimore Oriole baseball games until just before his death.

…

The mayor of riot-stricken Barcelona pleaded Saturday for calm after violent protests by Catalan separatists rocked Spain’s second largest city for a fifth consecutive night.

“This cannot continue. Barcelona does not deserve it,” Mayor Ada Colau told reporters, adding that Friday’s violence was the worst so far.

Protesters clashed with police again later Saturday despite efforts by some citizens to mediate by gathering between the two sides. There was also a skirmish between separatist supporters and police in a square in Spain’s capital, Madrid. Authorities are bracing for more protests in the coming days.

Supreme Court verdict

Radical separatists have fought with police every night in Barcelona and other Catalan cities following huge peaceful protests by people angered by Monday’s Supreme Court verdict that sentenced nine separatist leaders to prison for their roles in a failed 2017 secession attempt.

More than 500,000 people gathered in downtown Barcelona Friday in a massive show of support for the secession movement that is backed by roughly half of the wealthy northeastern region’s 5.5 million voters.

Before night fell, several hundred masked youths had surrounded the headquarters of the National Police and started a street battle that raged into the night in Barcelona, a popular tourist destination.

“The images of organized violence during the night in Barcelona have overshadowed the half a million people who demonstrated in a peaceful and civic manner to show they rejected the verdict,” said Catalan interior chief Miquel Buch, who oversees the regional police.

Rioters have burned hundreds of trash bins and hurled gasoline bombs, chunks of pavement, acid and firecrackers, among other objects, at police. They have used nails to puncture the tires of police vans and fireworks to hit one police helicopter, without doing it serious damage.

Residents, tourists flee

Outnumbered officers in riot gear from both Catalonia’s regional police and Spain’s national police have used batons, rubber and foam bullets, tear gas and water cannon to battle back.

Residents and tourists have run for cover.

“It has been quite scary,” said Deepa Khumar, a doctor from Toronto visiting for a medical conference. “This place, it looks like a war zone.”

Authorities say more than 500 people have been hurt this week, including protesters and police. Eighteen people remained hospitalized, at least one in very serious condition. Police have made more than 150 arrests.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that 101 police officers were injured Friday and that 264 police vehicles have been severely damaged in the week’s riots.

‘We feel so anguished’

A small group of supporters of Spanish unity approached the police headquarters that has been the focus of separatists’ rage to give officers flowers and gifts Saturday.

“We feel so anguished,” said 54-year-old economist María Jesús Cortés. “There used to be a nice atmosphere here in Barcelona. Everybody with their own ideas, and that was it. We used to live in peace.”

Minister Grande-Marlaska asked Catalonia’s regional president to explicitly condemn the escalating violence and express his support for law enforcement officials.

“We have gone five days in which there has not been a firm condemnation of violence” by Catalan leader Quim Torra, Grande-Marlaska said.

Torra has called on protesters to respect the nonviolent tenets of the separatist movement that has surged over the past decade.

But Saturday Torra and his vice president, Pere Aragonès, used a televised address mostly to criticize the Supreme Court verdict. Aragonès also insinuated that the national police, whom are controlled by Madrid, had acted too aggressively with protesters.

Torra demanded to meet Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to push his agenda for secession and freedom for the prisoners.

“We ask once again the acting Spanish PM to set the date and time to sit with us at a negotiating table,” Torra said. “Today this is more necessary than ever before.”

The prime minister’s office responded that “the government of Spain has always been in favor of dialogue, but within the confines of the law.”
 

…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Syrian government forces to move out of areas near the Turkish border so he can resettle up to 2 million refugees there, his spokesman told The Associated Press on Saturday. The request will top Erdogan’s talks next week with Syria’s ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Arrangements along the Syrian-Turkish border were thrown into disarray after the U.S. pulled its troops out of the area, opening the door to Turkey’s invasion aiming to drive out Kurdish-led fighters it considers terrorists. 

Abandoned by their American allies, the Kurds — with Russia’s mediation — invited Damascus to send troops into northeastern Syria as protection from Turkish forces. That has complicated Turkey’s plan to create a “safe zone” along the border, where it can resettle Syrian refugees now in Turkey. Most of those refugees fled Syria’s government. 

Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said Ankara does not want either Syrian forces or Kurdish fighters in the border area because refugees would not go back to areas under their control. 

Turkey has said it wants to oversee that area. 

“This is one of the topics that we will discuss with the Russians, because, again, we are not going to force any refugees to go to anywhere they don’t want to go,” he said. “We want to create conditions that will be suitable for them to return where they will feel safe.” 

Turkey has taken in about 3.6 million Syrians fleeing the conflict in their homeland but now wants most of them to return. So far, very few have returned to an enclave Turkey already took over and has controlled since 2017. 

Under an agreement made by the U.S. and Turkey on Thursday, a five-day cease-fire has been in place. Turkey expects the Kurdish fighters to pull back from a border area. 

Agreement on pullback

A senior Syrian Kurdish official acknowledged for the first time that the Kurdish-led forces agreed to the pullback, stating that his forces would move 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the border. 

Redur Khalil, a senior Syrian Democratic Forces official, told the AP that the withdrawal would take place once Turkey allowed the Kurdish-led force to evacuate its fighters and civilians from Ras al-Ayn, a border town under siege by Turkish-backed forces. He said that the Kurdish-led force was preparing to conduct that evacuation Sunday, if there were no further delays. 

Khalil said Kurdish-led fighters would pull back from a 120-kilometer (75-mile) stretch along the border from Ras al-Ayn to Tal Abyad, moving past the international highway. 

“We are only committed to the U.S. version, not the Turkish one,” Khalil said. 

A previous agreement between the U.S. and Turkey over a “safe zone” along the Syria-Turkish border floundered over the diverging definitions of the area. 

Erdogan has said the Kurdish fighters must withdraw from a far larger length of the border, from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border — more than 440 kilometers (260 miles) — or else the Turkish offensive will resume Tuesday. 

But U.S. officials say the agreement pertains to the smaller section between the two towns. Kalin confirmed that is the area affected by the pause in fighting, but said Turkey still wanted the larger zone. 

Sticking point

Two days into the cease-fire, the border town of Ras al-Ayn has been the sticking point in moving forward. 

“We hope that as of tonight or tomorrow, they will stick to this agreement and leave the area,” Kalin said. 

The Kurdish official meanwhile said his force had negotiated with the Americans the details of its pullback from the border, starting with the Ras al-Ayn evacuation. But he said the evacuation stalled for 48 hours because Turkish-backed forces continued their siege of the town. 

A partial evacuation took place Saturday. Medical convoys were let into part of the town still in Kurdish hands, evacuating 30 wounded and four bodies from a hospital. Khalil said the plan to complete the evacuation from Ras al-Ayn was now set for Sunday. 

Turkish officials denied violating the cease-fire or impeding the fighters’ withdrawal, blaming the continued violence on the Kurds. 

If Kurdish fighters then pull back from the 120-kilometer border area, it is uncertain what the arrangement would be along the rest of the northeastern border, most of which remains solely in the hands of Kurdish-led fighters. 

Last week, Syrian forces began deploying into Kurdish areas, moving only into one location directly on the border, the town of Kobani, and a few positions further south. 

Khalil said the Syrian government and its ally Russia did not want to deploy more extensively in the area, apparently to avoid frictions with Turkey. 

“We noticed there was no desire [from the Russians and Syria] to have the Syrian military on the dividing line between us and the Turks except in Kobani,” he said. 

The border town of Kobani also stands between Turkish-controlled Syrian territories to the west and Kurdish-held eastern Syria. 

Khalil said it was not clear what would happen after his forces’ withdrawal and the end of the five-day cease-fire. 

“The deal essentially is handing Syrian land to a foreign country. This is not good. It is bad for us,” he said. “We have nothing to win. The only win is the international sympathy.” 

…

Yazidi families would not feel safe returning to their homes in Iraq until Islamic State militants accused of atrocities against the religious minority face justice, according to a doctor awarded Saturday for his work with Yazidi women and children.

Mirza Dinnayi, a Yazidi activist named the winner of the Aurora humanitarian prize for helping 1,000 Yazidi women and children seek medical treatment in Europe, said prosecutions were key to help the “completely traumatized” community.

“Yazidis need to trust the authorities in Iraq in order to establish peace and make a process of reconciliation and transitional justice. This has not happened,” Dinnayi said.

UN declares genocide

Islamic State rampaged through the Yazidi religious community’s heartland in Sinjar, northern Iraq, in 2014, slaughtering thousands of people, in what the United Nations has called a genocide.

About 7,000 women and children were kidnapped to become sex slaves or fighters. Almost 3,000 of them remain unaccounted for, according to community leaders.

The jihadist group was driven out of the region in 2017, but many Yazidi still live in camps, afraid to return.

Some militants have faced trial in Iraq but on charges of belonging to a terrorist group rather than for alleged war crimes and genocide — something that has fueled a sense of distrust in authorities among the Yazidi community, Dinnayi said.

“The recognition of genocide is the first step in order to satisfy the victims,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview from Armenia where the award ceremony was held.

The problem was exacerbated by Iraqi laws allowing rapists to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims and the lack of a specific crime for sexual slavery, Dinnayi said.

Fears of IS escape

The 46-year-old added he was also concerned that a recent Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces in neighboring Syria could further hamper efforts to see justice done, by providing militants jailed there with a “big opportunity” to escape.

Kurdish officials have said almost 800 Islamic State-affiliated foreigners, many of them women and children, escaped from a camp after the Turkish incursion began last week.

There are also fears that jihadists held in jails in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria could flee.

Prize money goes to aid groups

Dinnayi, who lives in Germany, was awarded the $1 million prize for his work helping more than 1,000 Yazidi women and children seek medical treatment in Europe.

The prize money would go to his organization, Air Bridge Iraq, and two other aid groups helping people who suffered at the hands of Islamic State militants, he said.

The Aurora prize runner-ups were Zannah Mustapha, a lawyer who set up a school for children affected by violence in northeastern Nigeria, and Yemeni lawyer Huda Al-Sarari, who investigated human rights abuses in the war-torn country.

The annual Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity was founded by Armenia-based 100 LIVES, a global initiative that commemorates a 1915 massacre in which up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Muslims.

…

Voters in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire are accustomed to taking the lead on important political decisions. With a critical 2020 presidential election looming, these voters are increasingly occupied with the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. And their opinions are as divided as those in the rest of the nation.

Outside a recent rally for former Vice President Joe Biden — the focus of President Donald Trump’s alleged attempt to invite foreign interference into the 2020 election — a group of Trump’s supporters protested, saying the impeachment inquiry was proof of the country’s toxic partisan atmosphere.

“People in New Hampshire are vehemently opposed to the impeachment,” said Lou Gargiulo, vice chair of Trump for New Hampshire. “They view it as something that does nothing to help the country, only to further divide. It’s a divisive process that serves no positive purpose.”

Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump pressured Zelenskiy for help digging up dirt on Biden and his son, Hunter, is being viewed very differently by Americans through the prism of political ideologies and partisanship.

A  composite average of public opinion surveys by the polling website Five Thirty-Eight shows the country is split, with 49.5% of voters supporting impeachment and 44.2% opposed. Broken out, many surveys by respected firms such as Pew Research and Gallup show a majority of voters in favor of the impeachment of Trump.  According to the Gallup Poll on Oct. 16, 52% were in favor of impeachment while 46% were opposed.  

WATCH: Voters Divided Over Impeachment Inquiry

Voters Divided Over Trump Impeachment Inquiry video player.

For Gargiulo, “President Trump was having a conversation with another world leader talking about concerns. There are clearly issues in Ukraine with corruption, and he was looking to try to address it.”

But Democratic voter Marsha Miller said the call was clearly wrong and part of a larger pattern of illegal and dishonest behavior by Trump.

“You know there’s been corruption as the foundation, and I feel he took that set or lack of principles into the White House,” Miller said. “And you see it every day. You see it with every institution that we’ve had has in fact been jeopardized because of his corruption, his greed, his all about me — it’s not the country that he cares about.”

She emphasized it was time for political courage from Democrats in so-called swing districts — areas that went for Trump in 2016 or that show the potential to vote for him in 2020.

This is a key concern for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats who seek to retain their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2020 election.

If the impeachment inquiry advances too quickly, voters could accuse Democrats of rushing to judgment against Trump. He often characterizes the investigations into his administration as “witch hunts” and an effort by Democrats to invalidate his presidency because they fear they cannot win the 2020 presidential election.

Cathy Robertson Souter, a self-described independent in New Hampshire, is one of those all-important voters who could help swing public opinion on impeachment and the 2020 election. At a Biden campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, she said his message about the dangers Trump poses to American democracy resonated with her.

She said she was troubled by the conduct and shifting explanations of the president and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

“We can’t let this happen to our country,” she said. “It’s insane, because they’re going after the whistleblower? I’m sorry, didn’t you say you did it? You said he did it? He [Trump] said he did it. Giuliani said he did it. What’s the argument? And he wants to go after the whistleblower to say that he wants to interview him. It sounds really threatening.”

But nationwide, the Republican argument that Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is distracting Congress from conducting its work on behalf of voters resonates for many. Even in Cameron, Illinois, where farmers are most concerned about the impact Trump’s trade policies will have on their business, impeachment is a distraction.

“Get serious,” Wendell Shauman, a farmer, said he would tell House Democrats if he had the opportunity. The impeachment probe is “just gamesmanship out there and I think the rest of the country thinks you’re just a ship of fools.”

Democrats are taking the political risk of passing articles of impeachment in the House, all the while knowing the chances that the Republican-majority Senate would convict the president are remote.

Trump supporter Marianne Costabile lives in a formerly Republican congressional district in Orange County, California, which flipped to the Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, sending former educator Katie Porter to Congress. Costabile said she’s considering moving out of the district because of the political changes, but she said she believes the impeachment inquiry will be politically ruinous for Democrats.

“They’re digging and digging and digging, and they won’t be done until they [have] dug a grave for themselves,” Costabile said.

While the impeachment inquiry has further heightened partisan political tensions across the country, many voters also have expressed concern those divides will be long-lasting. And many voters are concerned about the adverse impact Trump is having on political norms and institutions.

“He’s been on sale all along so, you know, you get what you get,” said Debbi Sanfilippo, a former schoolteacher from Long Island, New York. “He still hasn’t turned in his tax returns. He still hasn’t turned in his financial papers. So, how do we know [what] we don’t know? So, basically he’s a liar.”

Ramon Taylor, Carolyn Presutti and Kane Farabuagh contributed to this report.

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Lizbeth Garcia tended to her 3-year-old son outside a tent pitched on a sidewalk, their temporary home while they wait for their number to be called to claim asylum in the United States.

The 33-year-old fled Mexico’s western state of Michoacan a few weeks ago with her husband and five children — ages 3 to 12 — when her husband, a truck driver, couldn’t pay fees that criminal gangs demanded for each trailer load. The family decided it was time to go when gangs came to their house to collect.

“I’d like to say it’s unusual, but it’s very common,” Garcia said Thursday in Juarez, where asylum seekers gather to wait their turn to seek protection at a U.S. border crossing in El Paso, Texas.

Mexicans are increasingly the face of asylum in the United States, replacing Central Americans who dominated last year’s caravan and a surge of families that brought border arrests to a 13-year-high in May. Arrests have plummeted since May as new U.S. policies targeting asylum have taken hold, but Mexicans are exempt from the crackdown by virtue of geography.

A legal principle that prevents countries from sending refugees back to countries where they are likely to be persecuted has spared Mexicans from a policy that took effect in January to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their claims wind through U.S. immigration courts. They are also exempt from a policy, introduced last month, to deny asylum to anyone who travels through another country to reach the U.S. border without applying there first.

Mexico resumed its position in August as the top-sending county of people who cross the border illegally or are stopped at official crossings, surpassing Honduras, followed by Guatemala and El Salvador. Mexicans accounted for nearly all illegal crossings until the last decade as more people from Central America’s “Northern Triangle” countries decided to escape violence and poverty.

Fewer Mexicans are crossing from the peaks reached in May, but the drop in Central Americans is much sharper, making Mexicans the biggest part of the mix, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures. Mexicans arrested or stopped at the border fell 8% from May to August, but border crossers were down 80% from Guatemala, 63% from Honduras and 62% from El Salvador during the same period.

It is unclear precisely what is driving the change, perhaps some mix of U.S. policies and violence in Mexico. The Mexican government’s retreat from an attempted capture of a son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman on Thursday followed a ferocious shootout with cartel henchman that left at least eight people dead.

“Given the deterioration in the security situation in many parts of Mexico, with homicide levels that are exceeding even the record high numbers from 2018, it seems likely that more Mexicans are fleeing their hometowns out of fear and the growing sense that the Mexican government, at all levels, is either unable or unwilling to protect them,” said Maureen Meyer, director for Mexico and migrant rights at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights research group.  

People traveling as families accounted for 23% of all Mexicans arrested or stopped at the border in August, a major shift from earlier immigration waves when nearly all Mexicans came as single men, according to CBP figures. Another big change: 36% of Mexicans presented themselves at official crossings — the U.S. government’s prescribed way to claim asylum — instead of earlier times when nearly all tried to cross illegally.   

The U.S. government has limited detention space for families and, under a court settlement, must release families within 20 days. Asylum-seeking families have generally been released in the United States with an ankle monitor on the head of the household and a notice to appear in backlogged immigration courts, where cases can take years to resolve. That changed for everyone except Mexicans with the new U.S. limits on asylum and its policy to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico, known officially as “Migrant Protection Protocols” and colloquially as “Remain in Mexico.”

“It’s a pretty drastic change from what we have been observing in the past couple of years,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. “Now the word has been spread out, and the Mexicans are the only ones that can apply for asylum right now.”

In Phoenix, only about 40 to 50 people are being released in the U.S. each day, roughly half from the height of arrivals. One of the places families get released to is The Welcome Center, an abandoned elementary school-turned-shelter run by the International Rescue Committee that can host about 70 people now but is increasing its capacity by nearly quadruple.

Since opening July 27, the Welcome Center has seen 567 people come through, IRC spokesman Stanford Prescott said. Nearly 64% were Mexican, and nearly 7 percent were Guatemalans. In March and June, before the Welcome Center opened but when IRC and others were already assisting migrant families, Guatemalans were about 76% of families served.  

At a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, roughly 30% of families that the Dilley Pro Bono Project is serving are Mexican, compared with only 1% prior to this month.

Mexicans, like all nationalities, still must wait in Mexico, usually for months, to make initial claims under ticketing systems that were created last year because the U.S. processes a limited number of claims each day.

In Juarez, about 100 families make up the camp of tents that lines both sides of a side street leading to the city’s main promenade and Paso Del Norte border crossing, where asylum claims are processed. Some at the camp said they were coming because of a lack of jobs in southern Mexico.

A man who did not give his name said he left Michoacan because a gang said it would force his 18-year-old son to join. He and others living in a tent camp said there were two shootings near the camp, one Wednesday and one on Tuesday. The first shooting prompted him to get a hotel room for his family, though he left his tent in place on the sidewalk.

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A senior pilot at Boeing said he might have unintentionally misled regulators, according to a series of internal company messages that were released Friday.

The revelation of the messages came as Boeing continues to struggle with the fallout from two fatal crashes that have grounded its 737 Max airplanes.

The transcript of the messages shows that in 2016 the 737 Max’s then-chief technical pilot, Mark Forkner, told a co-worker that the aircraft’s flight system, called MCAS, was “egregious” and “running rampant” while he tested it in a flight simulator.

The MCAS system has been tied to the crashes of the 737 Max airplanes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Forkner said in one text message, “I basically lied to the regulators [unknowingly].”

Boeing revealed messages

Boeing provided the internal messages to lawmakers, who are holding hearings this month on the 737 Max airplanes.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called the newly released document “concerning” and demanded an explanation about why the company delayed before revealing the messages.

“I expect your explanation immediately regarding the content of this document and Boeing’s delay in disclosing the document to its safety regulator,” FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson wrote in a letter Friday to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

Muilenburg, who was stripped of his chairman title by Boeing’s board last week, is scheduled to testify before Congress this month.

Forkner left Boeing last year and joined Southwest Airlines — the largest operator of the Boeing 737.

Forkner’s lawyer, David Gerger, said in a statement, “If you read the whole chat, it is obvious that there was no ‘lie.’ ” He said Forkner’s messages showed that the pilot thought the flight simulator was not working and “absolutely thought this plane was safe.”

Two fatal crashes

An Ethiopia Airlines 737 Max crashed just after takeoff in March, killing all 157 people on board. Five months earlier, the same type of plane flown by the Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 189 people.

Investigators have focused on the MCAS system in the planes, a new automated flight system that was not included in previous versions of the 737. Investigators believe a faulty sensor in the MCAS system pushed the nose of each plane down and made it impossible for the pilots to regain control.

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A United Nations mission in Afghanistan said more civilians have been killed or injured in the past quarter than in any three-month period in the last decade.

A report released Thursday said the 1,174 civilian deaths and 3,139 injuries in the third quarter of this year marked a 42% increase compared with the same period last year.

 In the previous quarter, 785 civilians were killed and 1,254 were wounded.

The latest figures brings to more than 8,000 the number of casualties in the first nine months of 2019. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said most of those were caused buy anti-government insurgents.

The report said women and children accounted for more than 41% of casualties this month, with 631 children being killed and 1,830 injured.

“The harm caused to civilians by the fighting in Afghanistan signals the importance of peace talks leading to a cease-fire and a permanent political settlement to the conflict; there is no other way forward,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan. “Civilian casualties are totally unacceptable, especially in the context of the widespread recognition that there can be no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.”
 

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Not only do women already earn 82 cents for every dollar a man makes, but they also pay more for personal products and services like razors, shampoo, haircuts and clothes.

This so-called “pink tax” follows a woman from the cradle to the grave, over her entire life span, according to the research, including a 2015 report from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA).

The New York City DCA analyzed almost 800 items in 35 product categories and found that items for female consumers cost more than products for men across 30 of those categories.

Overall, women’s products cost 7% more than similar products for men. Women pay more than men for comparable personal care products 56% of the time.

The report found women pay: 

 — 7%  more for toys and accessories  

—  4%  more for children’s clothing

—  8% more for adult clothing 

—  13% more for personal care

—  8% more for senior/home health care products

Baby clothes specifically for girls cost more than clothes for boys. Girls’ shirts can cost up to 13% more than boys’ clothes. Toys marketed to girls cost up to 11% more than toys for boys, even when it’s the exact same item in different colors.

“I have no doubt that it’s real,” says Surina Khan, CEO of the Women’s Foundation of California. “We just have to go to any store, and you can see that, let’s say, a pink razor blade versus a blue one that men use, the pink one costs more. Haircuts cost more. Women’s clothing cost more. It’s definitely present and part of our reality.”

It even costs more for women to get old.

The report found that braces and supports for women cost 15% more; canes cost 12% more; and personal urinals 21% more for female senior citizens. 

The price differences suggest women pay a yearly “gender tax” of about $1,351, despite buying the same products and services as men.

“I absolutely think it’s gender discrimination,” Khan says. “Some people will say that it’s more expensive to cut women’s hair, but that is clear gender discrimination, because really it depends on whether you have long hair or short hair, about the amount of time that it takes to cut your hair. Many women have short hair. They shouldn’t have to pay more than a man for a short haircut.”

The National Retail Federation, which calls itself the world’s largest retail trade association, declined to comment for this article. However, Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at Ball State University, says the price differences are similar to discounts for senior citizens. 

“Senior citizens aren’t as fussy about when they see the movie, but they are fussier about what price they’re willing to pay for it, so we give them discounts,” Horwitz says. “Sellers engage in this behavior all the time. What bothers us about this one is that the way they’re dividing up groups is by gender.”

Horwitz also says the real problem is that girls and women are socialized to want the pink items.

“There is no reason why women shouldn’t be able to walk into the drugstore and buy the men’s razors. Right?” he says. “And if they did, and if they were clear that they didn’t care, there wouldn’t be a more expensive women’s version.”

Congress is making a move to end the pink tax. In April, Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California, and Republican Congressman Tom Reed of New York, introduced a bipartisan bill with 50 co-sponsors. The Pink Tax Repeal Act would require that comparable products marketed toward men and women be priced equally. 

“I think that if you’re charging women more and people are paying it, then there’s motivation to do that. But it’s discriminatory, and it needs to stop,” Khan says. “It has a cumulative effect over our lifetime because if we’re paying more for products, and earning and owning less, then it’s basically contributing to gender inequality.”

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