Month: October 2019

Crude oil contaminating the northeastern coast of Brazil has reached the town of Maragogi, one of the region’s main tourist beaches, its mayor said Thursday.

Images on local television showed dozens of people in Maragogi, known for its natural pools of crystalline water, shoveling and raking the sand in an attempt to remove the sludge from the coast. The region is known as the “Brazilian Caribbean.”

As a truck from Brazil’s environmental agency loaded up with oil-stained sand, some volunteers, apparently without supervision from authorities, joined the work with small shovels.

Environmental regulator Ibama reported there are at least 178 locations in nine Brazilian states that have been affected by the oil. In terms of expanse, it is Brazil’s largest-ever environmental disaster, according to David Zee, an oceanographer at Rio de Janeiro’s state university.

The government’s response has been questioned by ocean experts and environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace. As in Maragogi, in recent weeks many Brazilians have worked to remove oil from the contaminated beaches without proper equipment or instruction from authorities.

“Just like with the spread of fires in the Amazon, the government again was late to respond,” Ricardo Baitelo, coordinator of Greenpeace Brazil, said to The Associated Press.

The Brazilian Environment Minister, Ricardo Salles, rebuffed the criticism Wednesday and told local press all necessary means had been adopted for the crude’s identification and collection.

Ibama did not respond to The Associated Press’s phone and email requests for information regarding the number of people and equipment working on the operation.

The origin of the oil remains a mystery. Salles said it likely originated in Venezuela, which Venezuela’s government denies, and that the circumstances of the spill are unknown.

Authorities’ primary hypothesis is that the crude spilled into the water from a boat navigating near Brazil’s coast.

Workers from Ibama, state-run oil company Petrobras and other volunteers have collected hundreds of tons of crude, but the mysterious oil slicks could continue to wash ashore.

A month and a half after oil began appearing on the coast, Salles said he did not know how much oil was still at sea and could reach the mainland in coming days.

Zee expressed concern the oil spill could advance toward the south of Bahia state and damage the Abrolhos region that contains one of the nation’s largest coral reefs.

“The more time that passes with new oil appearing, it’s confirmed that the ocean is absorbing ever more toxic substances, some of which are carcinogenic. The contaminated zones will take at least 25 years to recover,” said Zee. “Brazil has no emergency plan, equipment, nor trained personnel to intervene in a disaster situation like this.”
 

…

The United States is requiring all Chinese diplomats in the country and Chinese officials traveling to the U.S. on official business to give the State Department advance notice of meetings with local, state and federal officials, as well as educational and research institutions.

Chinese diplomats are not required to obtain permission for the meetings; they need only to notify the State Department in advance. In China, U.S. diplomats are required to obtain permission for such meetings.

“What we’re trying to accomplish here is just to get closer to a reciprocal situation, hopefully with the desired end effect of having the Chinese government provide greater access to our diplomats in China,” said a senior State Department official Wednesday in a phone briefing to reporters. 

“Unfortunately in China, U.S. diplomats do not have unfettered access to a range of folks that are important for us to do our job. That includes local and provincial-level officials, academic institutions, [and] research institutes,” said the official, adding that U.S. diplomats have to seek advanced permission from China, and that such requests are “frequently denied.”

Chinese object

The Chinese government was apprised of this requirement last week. The U.S. State Department received one such notification Wednesday.

The latest restrictions imposed by the US State Department on Chinese diplomats are in violation of the Vienna Convention.
So far, the Chinese side does not have similar requirements on American diplomats and consular officers in China.

— Chinese Embassy in US (@ChineseEmbinUS) October 16, 2019

The latest action comes amid heightened diplomatic tension between the two nations over issues including Hong Kong, human rights and trade.

But U.S. officials told reporters that Wednesday’s announcement had been in the works for some time and was “not directly linked” to any other part of relations between the U.S. and China.

Last Monday, the U.S. put 28 Chinese organizations in the so-called “Entity List,” barring U.S. companies from doing business with them. The Chinese companies affected are involved in the abusive treatment over the Uighur ethnic minority in its western Xinjiang province, and include high-tech firms that do considerable global business.

Last Tuesday, the State Department announced new restrictions on visas issued to senior Chinese officials who are said to be responsible for the repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Iran policy came under strong criticism at a Senate hearing in which Democrats and some Republicans accused him of emboldening Iran by pulling U.S. troops out of Syria.

Trump’s Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, the sole witness at Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, rebuffed the criticism of the president’s decision earlier this month to begin a U.S. troop pullout from northern Syria shortly before Turkey launched a long-threatened offensive against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish forces in the region. Since then, Syrian Kurdish forces have appealed for and received help from troops under the command of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia, both allies of Iran.

“The president’s decision with respect to Syria is not going to change our Iran strategy or the efficacy of it,” Hook said, referring to the U.S. strategy of imposing maximum pressure on Iran to stop perceived malign behaviors, including support for Shiite militias in Syria who have defended Assad from a years-long rebellion.

Hook said the administration’s regular tightening of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran over the past year has raised the cost of Iranian involvement in the Syrian conflict. “Iran doesn’t have the money that it used to, [in order] to support Assad and its proxies,” Hook said. “So Iran is going to face a dilemma. They can either support guns in Syria or prioritize the needs of their own people at home.”

“Withdrawing troops in northern Syria and green-lighting Turkey’s brutal incursion gives new life to [Islamic State militants] and hands over the keys of our national security to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, Iran and Assad,” countered U.S. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democratic member of the committee. “All the sanctions in the world aren’t going to fix that.”

Small contingents of U.S. forces had been training and fighting alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northern Syria in recent years, helping them to destroy the Islamic State’s caliphate in Syria and keep it from regrouping.

Hook also faced tough questioning from several Republican committee members who have been critical of Trump’s decision to withdraw the troops and leave the SDF to face Turkey’s offensive on its own.

“This is the most screwed-up decision I’ve seen since I’ve been in Congress,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “If we withdraw all of our forces [from Syria] and abandon the oil fields, Iran will surely go in and seize the oil fields. It will undercut the maximum pressure campaign, and our friends in Israel will be in a world of hurt,” he added.

Northeastern Syria is home to that nation’s largest oil fields. There have been no reports of Iran deploying its own troops to that region.

U.S. Republican Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida also told Hook that they saw the U.S. troop pullout from Syria as emboldening Iran. But committee Chairman Jim Risch of Idaho did not raise the troop pullout issue, instead saying that he saw the U.S. maximum pressure campaign as working by reducing the funding that Iran has been able to provide to its proxies throughout the Middle East.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service.

…

A Cuban man who had sought asylum in the United States has died while being held at an immigration jail in Louisiana. 
 
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed Wednesday that Roylan Hernandez Diaz, 43, had died at a private detention facility of an apparent suicide. 
 
Hernandez Diaz applied for asylum at a border bridge in El Paso, Texas, in May. According to ICE, he was deemed “inadmissible” by border agents and had been in detention since. 
 
The Richwood Correctional Center near Monroe is one of eight Louisiana jails that now house mostly immigrants, including asylum-seekers. 
 
Of the 15,000 immigrants being held by ICE across the country, 8,000 are in Louisiana, the Associated Press reported. 
 
Hernandez Diaz was the second person to die in ICE custody this month. Nebane Abienwi, 37, of Cameroon died of a brain hemorrhage at a detention facility in San Diego. 

…

Twelve U.S. Democratic presidential candidates squared off in a spirited debate Tuesday night, all looking to confront President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, even as their Democratic congressional cohorts have accused Trump of political wrongdoing and opened an impeachment inquiry against him. 
 
The dozen challengers all support the four-week-old impeachment probe, although Trump’s removal through impeachment remains unlikely. The candidates, however, wasted no time before telling a national television audience why Trump should be impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives to face trial in the Republican-majority Senate. 

In his opening statement, former Vice President Joe Biden, one of Trump’s top challengers, declared, “This president is the most corrupt … in all our history,” an assessment echoed across the debate stage. 

‘No one is above the law’

Another leading candidate, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, said, “Sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics. Donald Trump broke the law. No one is above the law. Impeachment must go forward.” 
 
Tuesday’s debate was the fourth in a string of almost monthly get-togethers for the Democratic challengers seeking to win the party’s nomination to face Trump. But with the 12 candidates lined up on a stage at Otterbein University in the Midwestern state of Ohio, it was the largest such gathering and came as new drama has engulfed the U.S. political world about a year before voters head to the polls in the national balloting. 
 
House Democrats opened the quick-moving impeachment probe after a whistleblower in the U.S. intelligence community raised questions about whether Trump had put his own political survival ahead of U.S. national security concerns when he asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for “a favor” in a late July call. Trump called for Kyiv to open an investigation into the role played by Biden in helping oust a Ukrainian prosecutor when he was former President Barack Obama’s second in command, and also to probe the lucrative service of Biden’s son Hunter on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. 
 
Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing, although the younger Biden, 49, told ABC News this week that he exercised “poor judgment” in serving on the Burisma company board because it had become a political liability for his father. 
 
The elder Biden said he had never discussed with Hunter Biden his decision to join the Ukrainian company’s board, which he left earlier this year. Hunter Biden now has pledged not  to work for any foreign company if his father is elected president. 

Trump’s criticism
 
Trump has repeatedly described his call with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” said he has done nothing wrong and assailed the impeachment probe as another attempt to overturn his 2016 election victory. 

The elder Biden, at 76 on his third run for the U.S. presidency, is the nominal leader in national surveys of Democratic voters of their choice as the party’s standard bearer to face Trump, 73, and he often defeats Trump in hypothetical polling matchups. So does Warren, a former Harvard law professor, who has edged close to Biden or sometimes even surpassed him in national polls of Democrats as their favorite presidential candidate. 
 
Biden and Warren, 70, were at center stage Tuesday, alongside Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist who currently stands as the third choice among Democrats. Sanders, 78, recently suffered a heart attack, raising questions about his health as the oldest of the presidential contenders. 

The candidates railed against income inequality in the United States, where the income gap between corporate chieftains and everyday workers is pronounced. 
 
“We need a wealth tax to protect the next generation,” Warren said. She has called for a 2% annual tax on the wealthiest of Americans, those with more than $50 million in assets. 
 
“No one on this stage wants to protect billionaires,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, but she stopped short of Warren’s plan. Klobuchar said she would repeal “significant portions” of tax-cutting legislation Trump pushed through Congress earlier in his administration. Biden warned against “demonizing wealth,” but he said he would double the taxation of capital gains collected by stock investors. 
 
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said the tax debate in Washington, however, often devolves into lawmakers “saying all the right things and nothing happens.”
 
The candidates trailing the top three hopefuls faced a daunting challenge on the debate stage: how best to distinguish themselves from the front-runners and gain new traction in national polls and surveys of voters in states where Democrats are holding party nominating contests starting in February. 
 
All nine currently are polling in the single digits, compared with Biden and Warren in the upper 20% range, with Sanders about 15%. 

Next debate

The national Democratic Party has set standards even higher for those who want a place on the stage for the next debate on November 20. The candidates must have bigger polling numbers — at least 3% support in four national polls or 5% support in polls of people in states that are early on the voting calendar — and more financial support, from at least 165,000 individual donors. 
 
The other challengers Tuesday night were California Senator Kamala Harris, who has slipped in the polls in recent months and has refocused her efforts in going after Trump; New Jersey Senator Cory Booker; former U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro; former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas; tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang; U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; and Tom Steyer, a wealthy environmental activist who launched national television ads calling for Trump’s impeachment long before Washington political figures undertook the current inquiry. 

…

“Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman — aka prisoner No. 77806-112 — reported Tuesday to a federal prison in California to serve a two-week sentence in a college admissions scandal that ensnared dozens of wealthy mothers and fathers trying to get their children into elite schools. 
 
Huffman’s husband, actor William H. Macy, dropped her off at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, a low-security prison for women in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to TASC Group, which represents Huffman. 
 
The prison has been described by media as “Club Fed,” making its way onto a Forbes list in 2009 of America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons. 
  
Like all inmates, Huffman would be issued a prison uniform and underwear and referred to by her number once inside the prison, where she will share a room and open toilet with three other inmates, according to a TASC Group publicist who declined to be named in accordance with company policy. 
  
Huffman, 56, “is prepared to serve the term of imprisonment Judge [Indira] Talwani ordered as one part of the punishment she imposed for Ms. Huffman’s actions,” the TASC Group said in a statement that provided no further details. 
 
Officials at the prison did not immediately return two phone calls seeking comment. 
 
The federal judge in Boston sentenced Huffman last month to 14 days in prison, a $30,000 fine, 250 hours of community service and a year’s probation after she pleaded guilty of fraud and conspiracy for paying an admissions consultant $15,000 to have a proctor correct her daughter’s SAT answers. 
 
Huffman tearfully apologized at her sentencing, saying, “I was frightened. I was stupid and I was so wrong.” 
  
Huffman was the first parent sentenced in the scandal that exposed the lengths some parents will go to to get their children into elite schools and reinforced suspicions that the college admissions process is slanted toward the rich. 
 
The judge noted that Huffman took steps “to get one more advantage” for her daughter in a system “already so distorted by money and privilege.” 
 
The facility where Huffman will serve her time has housed well-known inmates in the past, including “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss. 
  
Huffman will likely be assigned work duty, and prisoners at the Dublin institution are subjected to five bed counts a day. They have access to a gym, a library and a TV room, the TASC spokesman said. 
 
He said Huffman intends to read, walk in the courtyard and exercise as much as she can. 
 
Huffman was one of 51 people charged in the scandal. She paid $15,000 to boost her older daughter’s SAT scores with the help of William “Rick” Singer, an admissions consultant at the center of the scheme. Singer, who has pleaded guilty, was accused of bribing a test proctor to correct the teenager’s answers. 
  
The amount Huffman paid is relatively low compared with other alleged bribes in the scheme. Some parents were accused of paying up to $500,000. 
  
The scandal was the biggest college admissions case ever prosecuted by the Justice Department. 
  
Prosecutors said parents schemed to manipulate test scores and bribed coaches to get their children into schools by having them labeled as recruited athletes for sports they didn’t play. 

…

Eight-year-old Sara hardly speaks anymore. She spends most of her time watching cartoons on a mobile phone in a rugged pink cover.   
 
One of her legs is severed above the knee, the other is broken. 
 
On Thursday, about 15 minutes after her family decided to flee the area, a bomb fell about 8 meters from Sara and her three siblings.   
 
Doctors say hospitals in northeastern Syria are already working beyond their capacity, as aid organizations evacuate their foreign staff.  As Turkey continues to fight for a strip of land along its southern border, doctors say this war is turning into an unmitigated health disaster. 
 
“Any further crisis will destroy us,” said Dr. Furat Maqdesi Elias, who heads the Al Salam Hospital in Qamishli, a city on the Syrian border with Turkey. “What do NGOs and the U.N. give us?  They give us zero.” 
 
Many Syrians here blame the United States for abandoning this region, after supporting Kurdish-led fighters against Islamic State militants for years. Turkey has long maintained it would create a buffer zone between it and the once-U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces vigorously if it had to. It began assaults on the Kurdish region nearly a week ago. 
 
Turkey blames the PKK, a Kurdish militant group it equates with the SDF, which has been attacking Turkey for decades, leading to thousands of deaths. 

Sara’s mother, Nariman, blames herself. 
 
“It’s my fault,” she said. “We should have evacuated when things started happening.” 
 
‘Humanitarian situation spirals’ 
 
Sara doesn’t yet know that her 13-year-old brother Mohammad died in the bombing. Nariman whispers his name, and then hushes her daughter as she whimpers. 
 
A door closes, and Sara starts. 
 
“See what happened to her?” Nariman asked. “When she hears a door close, she thinks it’s a bomb.” 
 
Nariman and her husband, Youssef, and their other two children are now staying with friends while Sara is in the hospital. The house is still standing, she said, but they are too afraid to go home. 
 
They are among approximately 200,000 people who have been displaced since this war began less than a week ago. Roughly 70,000 are children, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund. 

Families are not the only ones fleeing in northeastern Syria. On Tuesday, Doctors Without Borders announced it would be pulling its foreign staff out of the region and stopping most of its activities. The organization said the decision comes “as the humanitarian situation spirals further out of control, and needs are likely to increase.” 
 
The International Rescue Committee also suspended health services on Tuesday after one of its facilities was hit by what IRC officials think was an airstrike, and two of the organization’s ambulances were damaged.   
 
“Many hospitals have had to close, and those that remain open are overwhelmed with casualties,” said Misty Buswell, Middle East policy director at the International Rescue Committee, in a statement Tuesday. “We expect to see an increase in deaths from what are usually preventable diseases because of this, as there simply are not enough facilities to support those who have been displaced.” 
 
Chaos continues 
 
Before the crisis began, Sara was at the top of her class in school, her mother said, and liked to play soccer. 

“Now, she doesn’t talk to us,” Nariman said, stroking Sara’s hair. 
 
Other children in Qamishli are mostly inside as she speaks, and soldiers pace the sidewalks. Some businesses are open, but the usually noisy city is mostly quiet.   
 
Reports of chaos in other cities litter the internet, with videos of Russian soldiers playing with electronic barriers, abandoned as the U.S. pulled out. Other videos show heavy fighting at the border between Syria and Turkey.   
 
Hundreds of military deaths have been reported in the past six days, and at least 42 civilians have been killed and 123 wounded, according to the International Rescue Committee. 
 

Soldiers say one key city has changed hands several times, with the SDF occasionally wresting it back from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, formerly known as the FSA, a rebel group. 
 
Some roads have been taken by the group, and families from the region are unable to get to each other, as the alternate route is a well-known haven for Islamic State sleeper cells. 
 
“This area used to be a safe place,” Youssef said. “Everyone lived together from all over Syria. Then one day everything changed.” 

…

Along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, tens of thousands of New Yorkers and tourists celebrated the world’s largest display of Italian-American pageantry on Columbus Day, while New Mexico and a growing list of states and municipalities ditched the holiday altogether for the first time.

The Italian navigator namesake who sailed to the modern-day Americas in 1492, Christopher Columbus has long been considered by some scholars  and Native Americans as an affront to those who had settled on the land thousands of years prior to his arrival. 

While the earliest  commemoration of Columbus Day dates back to 1866 in New York City,  as a celebration to honor the heritage and contributions of the now-17 million Italian-Americans living in the United States, the movement behind “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” began more than a century later, in 1977, by a delegation of Native nations.

The resolution, presented in Geneva at the United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, paved the way for cities like Berkeley, California to officially replace the holiday 15 years later.

Yet to organizers of the 75th annual Columbus Day Parade, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus remains worth celebrating.

“Columbus discovered America. If it weren’t for Columbus, who knows where we’d be today,” said Aldo Verrelli, Parade Chairman with the Columbus Citizens Foundation.

“[With] any of those people in those days, we have to remember the good that they did,” Verrelli said. Let’s forget about all the other controversy.”

It’s a sentiment and a suggestion that has long divided Americans: honor tradition, or correct history and rectify the past.

“There were Native Americans that were here before, but [Columbus] basically discovered the New World, and that’s why we’re here today,” said Joe Sanfilippo, a participant at the New York Columbus Day Parade.

“The Europeans essentially tried to eradicate us,” U.S. Congresswoman Deb Haaland (D-NM) told VOA. “They brought disease. They banished us to reservations later on when the U.S. government became an active force.”

Since Berkeley’s decision to rename the holiday in 1992, more than 130 cities have followed suit. Joining several states — including Minnesota, Alaska, Vermont, Oregon and South Dakota — New Mexico became the latest state to legally replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2019, celebrated for the first time on Monday.

One of the first two Native American women elected to U.S. Congress and member of the Laguna Pueblo, Haaland describes her mission as one to “correct history” and honor the resilience of America’s Indigenous Peoples on the national stage. On October 11, she co-sponsored a national resolution to designate the second Monday in October as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

“There’s 573 distinct tribes right now in our country. And we’re all diverse. And I just I think that it’s an excellent way for us to celebrate the diversity and recognize that when other indigenous people come to this country, that there’s a place for them also,” Haaland said of the renamed holiday.

America, she adds, was never “discoverable” in the first place, a “misnomer” that runs in direct contradiction to decades-old American history textbooks and the people who defend Christopher Columbus’s legacy.

“In their minds, accepting the truth, is somehow shifting the power — [in] that it contributes to the loss of power by minority over the majority,” said Regis Pecos, former governor of Cochiti Pueblo. “I think that these attitudes and behaviors are so deeply entrenched, that it is really based upon fear of losing a narrative, as false as that narrative is.”

Festival attendees in the state’s capitol, Santa Fe, say the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day marks progress.

“History is always written by the winners. And then now, we[ve] come to a generation [where] we start to think about what we used to think is right is wrong now,” said attendee Silvia Sian.

At the Columbus Day Parade in New York, others argue it shouldn’t be an either-or decision.

“Those who want to honor Columbus, then they keep that day,” said New York resident Heather Fitzroy. “But those who want to honor the ones who lived before us, like the indigenous people of America, if they want to honor them, then that’s OK too.”

…

Police in northern Nigeria rescued nearly 70 men and boys from a second purported Islamic school where they were shackled and subjected to “inhuman and degrading treatments.”

The raid in Katsina, the northwestern home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, came less a month after about 300 men and boys were freed from another supposed Islamic school in neighboring Kaduna state where they were allegedly tortured and sexually abused.

“In the course of investigation, sixty-seven persons from the ages of 7 to 40 years were found shackled with chains,” Katsina police spokesman Sanusi Buba said in a statement.

“Victims were also found to have been subjected to various inhuman and degrading treatments.”

The raid occurred on Oct. 12 in Sabon Garin in the Daura local government area of Katsina state. Police issued a statement Monday and said they were working to reunite the victims with their families.

Police arrested one man, 78-year-old Mallam Bello Abdullahi Umar, for running what they called an “illegal detention/remand home.”

Lawai Musa, a trader who lived near the center, told Reuters by phone that families sent unruly men and boys there believing it was an Islamic teaching facility that would straighten them out and teach them Islamic beliefs.

“The way he is treating the children is un-Islamic” he said. “We are not happy, they were treated illegally.”

Islamic schools

Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria. Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), a local organization, estimates about 10 million children attend them.

In June, President Buhari, himself a Muslim, said the government planned to ban the schools, but would not do so immediately. After the incident in Kaduna, the president issued a statement calling on traditional authorities to work with government to expose “unwanted cultural practices that amount to the abuse of children.”

Buhari’s office declined to immediately comment on the Katsina raid, saying it would issue a statement after a full briefing from police.

“The command enjoins parents to desist from taking their children/wards to illegal, unauthorized or unapproved remand/rehabilitation centers,” the police statement said.
 

…

California’s top utility regulator blasted Pacific Gas and Electric on Monday for what she called “failures in execution” during the largest planned power outage in state history to avoid wildfires that she said “created an unacceptable situation that should never be repeated.”
 
The agency ordered a series of corrective actions, including a goal of restoring power within 12 hours, not the utility’s current 48-hour goal.

“The scope, scale, complexity, and overall impact to people’s lives, businesses, and the economy of this action cannot be understated,” California Public Utilities Commission President Marybel Batjer wrote in a letter to PG&E CEO Bill Johnson.
 

PG&E last week took the unprecedented step of cutting power to more than 700,000 customers, affecting nearly 2 million Californians. The company said it did it because of dangerous wind forecasts but acknowledged that its execution was poor.
 
Its website frequently crashed, and many people said they did not receive enough warning that the power was going out.
 
“We were not adequately prepared,” Johnson said at a press conference last week.

PG&E spokespeople did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment on the sanctions.

In addition to restoring power faster, the PUC said the utility must work harder to avoid such large-scale outages, develop better ways to communicate with the public and local officials, get a better system for distributing outage maps, and work with emergency personnel to ensure PG&E staff are sufficiently trained.
 
She ordered the utility to perform an audit of its performance during the outages that began Wednesday, saying the utility clearly did not adopt many of the recommendations state officials have made since utilities was granted the authority to begin pre-emptive power shutoffs last year. The review is due by Thursday, and she ordered several PG&E executives to appear at an emergency PUC hearing Friday.

Governor’s criticism
 
Gov. Gavin Newsom has also criticized PG&E for its performance during the outage, blaming what he called decades of mismanagement, underinvestment and lousy communication with the public. On Monday the Democratic governor urged the utility to compensate affected customers with a bill credit or rebate worth $100 for residential customers or $250 for small businesses.

Newsom said the shutoffs affected too many customers for too long, and it is clear PG&E implemented them “with astounding neglect and lack of preparation.”

Batjer’s letter also said that PG&E’s service territory, design of its transmission lines and distribution network and “lack of granularity of its forecasting ability” mean it can’t do pre-emptive power shut-offs as strategically as some other utilities, but she said it must work harder to reduce the number of customers affected by future outages.
 

…

American Simone Biles became the most decorated gymnast in world championship history on Sunday when she won the beam and floor finals to take her career tally to 25 medals.

Soon after securing a convincing victory on the beam in Stuttgart to overtake Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo’s record tally of 23 world medals, the 22-year-old Biles successfully defended her floor title to win medal number 25.

The four-time Olympic champion is now the owner of 19 gold medals across four championships against 12 for Scherbo, who competed in five world events between 1991 and 1996.

Making her final appearance of the week in front of a raucous crowd, Biles wasted no time as she landed a superb triple-twisting double back flip — known as the Biles II – on her first pass.

Biles’s double layout with a half turn — another skill named after her — put her out of bounds for a 0.1 penalty but she did enough to post a winning score of 15.133.

“Honestly, I just couldn’t move. I was so tired,” Biles said of her final pose on the stage.

“This is really the best worlds performance I have ever put out.”

The Americans took a one-two finish as Sunisa Lee finished with 14.133 for the silver medal, while Russian Angelina Melnikova came third.

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Olympic Champ Simone Biles Says She was Abused by Doctor

Simone Biles watched as her friends and former Olympic teammates came forward to detail abuse at the hands of a now-imprisoned former USA Gymnastics team doctor.Drawing in part from their strength, the four-time gold medalist acknowledged Monday she is among the athletes who were sexually abused by Larry Nassar.Biles, who won five medals overall at the 2016 Olympics, released a statement via Twitter outlining that abuse.

BEAM BRILLIANCE

Earlier, Biles delivered a polished routine on the beam before a full twisting double tuck dismount for an impressive 15.066.

Although Biles had twice before won the world beam title, in 2014 and 2015, it has not always been plain sailing for her on the apparatus.

Her slip on the landing of a front tucked somersault at the 2016 Rio Olympics meant she had to settle for a bronze in the event. Last year again, she dropped off the beam during the women’s all-around final at the world championships.

But she has regained her swagger this week, under the watchful eyes of balance beam coach Cecile Landi, and posted top scores in all four attempts — qualifying, the team and all-around finals and Sunday’s apparatus final.

“It meant a lot because Cecile has really been working on bringing my confidence back up to where it used to be on the beam,” Biles said.

“To go out there and nail the routine, just like I do in practice, it felt really good and I knew she was really proud.”

As another title-winning score was announced in the arena, Biles punched the air in jubilation before joining celebrations with the U.S. team.

“I was really excited,” she added. “I thought it was going to be at least 14.8, 14.9, but to see 15, I was like well that’s pretty crazy, so I was very proud.”

Last year’s winner Liu Tingting of China took silver with 14.433, while team mate Li Shijia won the bronze.

Biles finished her campaign in Stuttgart with five gold medals from six events to mark ideal preparations for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

Her barnstorming run included a record fifth all-around gold, an individual vault title, as well as helping the U.S. to a fifth straight world team title.

…

Parents of the British teen killed when his motorcycle collided with car allegedly driven by an American diplomat’s wife are on their way to the U.S. hoping to seek justice.

Harry Dunn, 19, died in August in near the Croughton Royal Air Force base in Northhamptonshire, which is used by the U.S. Air Force as a communications center.

Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, told the BBC the family hopes to meet with the suspected driver, identified by British police and Prime Minister Boris Johnson as Anne Sacoolas, wife of an American intelligence officer based at Croughton.

Sacoolas claimed diplomatic immunity and returned to the United States while the case was still being investigated. She has since written a letter of apology to Dunn’s family.

But Charles said Sunday, “It’s nearly seven weeks now since we lost our boy, sorry just doesn’t cut it.

“That’s not really quite enough,” she told Sky News. “But I’m still really open to meeting her, as are the rest of us. I can’t promise what I would or wouldn’t say, but I certainly wouldn’t be aggressive.”

Charles also said the family was thankful to receive a letter Saturday from the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab that said since Sacoolas had left Britain, “immunity is no longer pertinent”.

The family is hoping Sacoolas will return to Britain.  They have even called on U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene on their behalf.

But Trump told a news conference Wednesday that Sacoolas would not return. Harry Dunn’s death was a “terrible accident,” the president said but he noted that driving on the worn side of the road “happens”.

…

California has become the first U.S. state to ban all production and sale of animal fur products.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill that will make it illegal to make, sell and even donate any new item made using animal fur starting in 2023.

The bill excludes used items, taxidemy products, fur taken with a hunting license and fur used by Native American tribes for religious purposes.

Violators of the ban will face fines of up to $500, or even $1,000 for repeat offenses.

“The signing of AB44 underscores the point that today’s consumers simply don’t want wild animals to suffer extreme pain and fear for the sake of fashion,” Kitty Block, the head of the Humane Society of the United States said in a statement.

But the Fur Information Council of America condemned the ban as being part of a “radical vegan agenda” and has threatened a court challenge.

Along with the fur ban, Newsom also approved a ban on the use of most animals in circuses. Exceptions will be made for dogs and horses.

“California is a leader when it comes to animal welfare, and today that leadership includes banning the sale of fur,” Newsom said in a statement. “But we are doing more than that. We are making a statement to the world that beautiful wild animals like bears and tigers have no place on trapeze wires or jumping through flames.”

…

Armed men stormed a mosque in the volatile north of Burkina Faso as worshippers were at prayer, killing 16 people and sending residents fleeing, security sources and locals said Saturday.

The attack on the Grand Mosque in the town of Salmossi on Friday evening underscores the difficulties faced by the country in its battle against jihadists.

One source said 13 people died at the scene and three succumbed to their injuries later. Two of the wounded are in critical condition.

“Since this morning, people have started to flee the area,” one resident from the nearby town of Gorom-Gorom said.

He said there was a “climate of panic despite military reinforcements” that were deployed after the deadly attack.

Although hit by jihadist violence, many Burkinabes oppose the presence of foreign troops — notably from former colonial ruler France — on their territory.

Terrorism, foreign military

On Saturday, a crowd of about 1,000 people marched in the capital Ouagadougou “to denounce terrorism and the presence of foreign military bases in Africa.”

“Terrorism has now become an ideal pretext for installing foreign military bases in our country,” said Gabin Korbeogo, one of co-organizers of the march.

“The French, American, Canadian, German and other armies have set foot in our sub-region, saying they want to fight terrorism. But despite this massive presence … the terrorist groups … are growing stronger.”

Jihadists arrive in 2015

Until 2015, the poor West African country Burkina Faso was largely spared violence that hit Mali and then Niger, its neighbors to the north.

But jihadists, some linked to Al-Qaida, others to the so-called Islamic State group, started infiltrating the north, then the east, and then endangered the southern and western borders of the landlocked country.

Combining guerrilla hit-and-run tactics with road mines and suicide bombings, the insurgents have killed nearly 600 people, according to a toll compiled by AFP.

Civil society groups put the number at more than 1,000, with attacks taking place almost daily.

Burkina’s defense and security forces are badly equipped, poorly trained and have shown themselves to be unable to put a halt to the increasing violence.

France has a force of 200 in Burkina Faso but also intervenes frequently as part of its regional Barkhane operation.

Almost 500,000 people have fled their homes because of the violence, according to the U.N. refugee agency, which has warned of a humanitarian crisis affecting 1.5 million people.

Almost 3,000 schools have closed, and the impact on an overwhelmingly rural economy is escalating, disrupting trade and markets.

…

Britain remains a long way from agreeing on a final Brexit deal and the next few days will be critical if it is to reach departure terms with the European Union, a Downing Street source said Saturday.

Negotiators for Britain and the EU entered intense talks over the weekend to see if they can break the Brexit impasse before a crucial summit next week and a deadline for Britain to leave the bloc Oct. 31.

News of progress in the talks sent financial markets surging Friday after Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar identified a pathway to a deal following months of acrimony.

But on Saturday the deputy leader of the Northern Irish party that holds a key role in the talks signaled his concern about the mooted proposal and the Downing Street source said Britain remained ready to leave without a deal if needed.

“We’ve always wanted a deal,” the person said, on condition of anonymity. “It is good to see progress, but we will wait to see if this is a genuine breakthrough.

“We are a long way from a final deal and the weekend and next week remain critical to leaving with a deal on Oct. 31. We remain prepared to leave without a deal on Oct. 31,” the source said.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that Johnson, the face of Britain’s 2016 campaign to leave the EU, was now desperate to secure a deal after security chiefs warned that leaving in a disorderly manner could inflame tensions in Northern Ireland.

Ireland has proved the toughest nut to crack in the Brexit talks, specifically how to prevent the British province of Northern Ireland from becoming a backdoor into the EU’s markets without having border controls.

Ireland fears controls on the 500-km (300-mile) border with Northern Ireland would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of sectarian and political conflict that killed more than 3,600 people.

Johnson is likely to talk to senior EU leaders Monday to reassess the situation, the source said.
 

…

Turkey’s military said it captured a key Syrian border town under heavy bombardment Saturday in its most significant gain since an offensive against Kurdish fighters began four days ago, with no sign of relenting despite mounting international criticism.

Turkish troops entered central Ras al-Ayn, according to Turkey’s Defense Ministry and a war monitor group. The ministry tweeted: “Ras al-Ayn’s residential center has been taken under control through the successful operations in the east of Euphrates” River. It marked the biggest gain made by Turkey since the invasion began Wednesday.

The continued push by Turkey into Syria comes days after President Donald Trump pulled U.S. forces out of the area, making Turkey’s air and ground offensive possible, and said he wanted to stop getting involved with “endless wars.” Trump’s decision drew swift bipartisan criticism that he was endangering regional stability and risking the lives of Syrian Kurdish allies who brought down the Islamic State group in Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces was the main U.S. ally in the fight and lost 11,000 fighters in the nearly five-year battle against IS.

Turkish troops and allied Syrian opposition fighters have made gains recently capturing several northern villages in fighting and bombardment that left dozens of people killed or wounded. The invasion also has forced nearly 100,000 people to flee their homes amid concerns that IS might take advantage of the chaos and try to rise again after its defeat in Syria earlier this year.

US moral responsibilities

The Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, said the United States should carry out its “moral responsibilities” and close northern Syrian airspace to Turkish warplanes, but that it didn’t want the U.S. to send its soldiers “to the front lines and put their lives in danger.”

During a meeting Saturday in Cairo, the 22-member Arab League condemned what it described as “Turkey’s aggression against Syria” and warned that Ankara will be responsible for the spread of terrorism following its invasion. The league said Arab states might take some measures against Ankara. It called on the U.N. Security Council to force Turkey to stop the offensive.

The Turkish offensive was widely criticized by Syria and some Western countries, which called on Turkey to cease its military operations.

Arms exports curtailed

France’s defense and foreign ministries said Saturday that the country was halting exports of any arms to Turkey that could be used in its offensive.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also announced that Germany would curtail its arms exports to Turkey. Maas told the weekly Bild am Sonntag that “against the background of the Turkish military offensive in northeastern Syria, the government will not issue any new permissions for any weapons that can be used by Turkey in Syria.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Turkey won’t stop until the Syrian Kurdish forces withdraw at least 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the border.

During the capture of Ras al-Ayn’s residential center, an Associated Press journalist across the border heard sporadic clashes as Turkish howitzers struck the town and Turkish jets screeched overhead. Syrian Kurdish forces appeared to be holding out in some areas of the town.

The SDF released two videos said to be from inside Ras al-Ayn, showing fighters saying that it was Saturday and they were still there.

The fighting was ongoing as the Kurdish fighters sought to reverse the Turkish advance into the city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor.

Ras al-Ayn is one of the biggest towns along the border and is in the middle of the area where Turkey plans to set up its safe zone. The ethnically and religiously mixed town with a population of Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and Syriac Christians had been under the control of Kurdish fighters since 2013. IS members tried to enter Ras al-Ayn following their rise in Syria and Iraq in 2014 but failed.

Most of the town’s residents have fled in recent days for fear of the invasion.

Highway targeted

Earlier Saturday, Turkish troops moved to seize control of key highways in northeastern Syria, the Turkish military and the Syrian Observatory said. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said that Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces had taken control of the M-4 highway that connects the towns of Manbij and Qamishli. The SDF said that Turkish troops and their Syrian allies reached the highway briefly before being pushed back again.

Kurdish news agencies including Hawar and Rudaw said that Hevreen Khalaf, secretary general of the Future Syria Party, was killed Saturday as she was driving on the M-4 highway. Rudaw’s correspondent blamed Turkish forces for targeting Khalaf’s car, and Hawar blamed “Turkey’s mercenaries.”

The Observatory said six people, including Khalaf, were killed by Turkey-backed opposition fighters on the road that they briefly cut before withdrawing.

The Turkish military aims to clear Syrian border towns of Kurdish fighters’ presence, saying they are a national security threat. Since Wednesday, Turkish troops and Syrian opposition fighters backed by Ankara have been advancing under the cover of airstrikes and artillery shelling.

Thousands displaced

The U.N. estimated the number of displaced at 100,000 since Wednesday, saying that markets, schools and clinics also were closed. Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a half-million people at risk in northeastern Syria.

A civilian wounded in a mortar strike from Syria on Friday in the Turkish border town of Suruc died, Anadolu news agency reported Saturday, bringing the civilian death toll to 18 in Turkey. Turkey’s interior minister said hundreds of mortars, fired from Syria, have landed in Turkish border towns.

The Observatory said 74 Kurdish-led SDF fighters have been killed since Wednesday as well as 49 Syrian opposition fighters backed by Turkey. That’s in addition to 38 civilians on the Syrian side. It added that Turkish troops now control 23 villages in northeastern Syria.

Turkey’s defense ministry said it “neutralized” 459 Syrian Kurdish fighters. The number could not be independently verified. Four Turkish soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the offensive, including two who were killed in Syria’s northwest.

France’s leader warned Trump in a phone call that Turkey’s military action in northern Syria could lead to a resurgence of IS activity. President Emmanuel Macron “reiterated the need to make the Turkish offensive stop immediately,” his office said in a statement Saturday.

A Kurdish police force in northern Syria said a car bomb exploded early Saturday outside a prison where IS members are being held in the northeastern city of Hassakeh. It was not immediately clear if there were any serious injuries or deaths.

Kurdish fighters are holding about 10,000 IS fighters, including some 2,000 foreigners. 

…

A federal judge in New York on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from implementing a plan to deny green cards to many immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps and other government benefits. 
 
U.S. District Judge George Daniels’ ruling came just four days before the Trump administration was set to start enforcing new rules that would disqualify immigrants from getting legal U.S. residency if they were likely to become a burden on public welfare programs. 
 
In his ruling, Daniels said Trump was redefining immigration rules that had stood since the late 1800s with a new framework that had “no logic.” 
 
Allowing the policy to go into effect now, he said, would have a significant impact on “law-abiding residents who have come to this country to seek a better life.” 
 
“Overnight, the rule will expose individuals to economic insecurity, health instability, denial of their path to citizenship and potential deportation,” Daniels wrote. “It is a rule that will punish individuals for their receipt of benefits provided by our government, and discourages them from lawfully receiving available assistance intended to aid them in becoming contributing members of society.” 

Ruling in California
 
Almost simultaneously, a federal judge in California also blocked the policy from taking effect, but that order was more geographically limited to states involved in the case: California, Oregon, Maine and Pennsylvania, plus the District of Columbia. 
 
The U.S. Justice Department, which was defending the administration’s policy in court, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. 
 
The lawsuit in New York is one of several legal challenges nationwide to one of Trump’s most aggressive steps to cut legal immigration. Immigration advocates say the rule changes are discriminatory because they would deny legal residency and visas to immigrants who don’t have money. The Trump administration has said the rules would ensure that immigrants who are granted residency are self-sufficient.  

Federal law already requires immigrants seeking to become permanent U.S. residents to prove they will not be a burden on the country — a “public charge,” in legal terms —but the new rules detail a broader range of programs that could disqualify applicants. 
 
The policy is central to Trump’s longtime goal to slash legal immigration and gear it more for people with employment skills instead of toward family members. Those ideas were part of his pitch for an overhaul of immigration laws during his first year in office, but negotiations faltered in Congress. 
 
On average, 544,000 people apply for green cards every year, with about 382,000 falling into categories that would be subject to the new review, according to the government. Guidelines in use since 1999 refer to a “public charge” as someone primarily dependent on cash assistance, income maintenance or government support. 

‘More likely than not’
 
Under the new rules, the Department of Homeland Security has redefined a public charge as someone who is “more likely than not” to receive public benefits for more than 12 months within a 36-month period. If someone uses two benefits, that is counted as two months. 

And the definition has been broadened to include Medicaid, housing assistance and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. 
 
Factors like immigrants’ age, employment status and English-language ability would also be looked at to determine whether they could become public burdens in the future. 
 
Critics say the rule changes are discriminatory and would have the effect of barring immigrants with lower incomes in favor of those with wealth. The government has said the rule changes would ensure that those gaining legal residency status are self-sufficient. 

Rate of using benefits
 
Immigrants make up a small portion of those getting public benefits, because their legal status often makes them ineligible. An Associated Press analysis of census data shows that non-citizen immigrants with low incomes have a lower rate of using Medicaid, food aid, cash assistance and Supplemental Security Income than their native-born counterparts. 
 
For Medicaid, non-citizen immigrants are only 6.5% of participants, while more than 87% are native-born. For food assistance, immigrants are 8.8% of recipients, with over 85% of participants being native-born. 
 
Earlier this month, Trump issued a presidential proclamation saying immigrants would be barred from entering the country unless they were to be covered by health insurance within 30 days of entering or had enough financial resources to pay for any medical costs. The measure will be effective Nov. 3. The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the measure could prohibit the entry of about 375,000 people a year, mainly family members who account for a majority of people getting green cards from abroad. 

…

Shepard Smith, whose newscast on Fox News Channel seemed increasingly an outlier on a network dominated by supporters of President Trump, abruptly quit after working at Fox since it started in 1996.

Smith said at the end of his daily newscast on Friday that he had asked the network to let him out of his contract and it had agreed.

Even in the current polarized environment, Smith said, “it’s my hope that the facts will win the day, that the facts will always matter and journalism and journalists will thrive.”

Neil Cavuto, who anchors the broadcast following Smith’s, looked shocked after the announcement.

“Whoa,” Cavuto said. “Like you, I’m a little stunned.”

Smith’s departure also comes one day after Attorney General William Barr met privately with media mogul Rupert Murdoch, founder of Fox News. President Trump has been increasingly critical of personalities on Fox News that he views as disloyal.

On his afternoon newscast, Smith had frequently given tough reports debunking statements made by Trump and his supporters — even the Fox News opinion hosts that rule the network’s prime-time lineup.

Two weeks ago, Smith clashed with Tucker Carlson when an analyst on Smith’s program, Andrew Napolitano, said that it was a crime for President Trump to solicit aid for his campaign from a foreign government, in this case the Ukraine. Later that night, Carlson asked his own analyst, Joseph diGenova, to comment and he called Napolitano a fool.

The next day, Smith said that “attacking our colleague who is here to offer legal assessments, on our air, in our work home, is repugnant.”
 

…

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has lost his title as chairman of the troubled aircraft manufacturer, nearly a year after the first of two crashes of its 737 Max that together killed 346 people.

Boeing announced late Friday that company directors decided to separate the two jobs and elected one of their own, David L. Calhoun, to serve as non-executive chairman.
 
Earlier on Friday, a panel of international aviation regulators issued a report critical of Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration over how the Max was approved to fly. The group said Boeing failed to adequately inform the FAA about changes to a key flight-control system implicated in the accidents.

Muilenburg said in a statement that he supported splitting the CEO and chairman jobs.
 
“The board has full confidence in Dennis as CEO and believes this division of labor will enable maximum focus on running the business with the board playing an active oversight role,” Calhoun said in a statement issued by the company.

Board rejects resolution

The board in April opposed a shareholder resolution to split the jobs amid criticism over Boeing’s response to the accidents. The measure was rejected by a 2-to-1 margin.
 
The Max was Boeing’s best-selling plane until being grounded worldwide in March after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The company has set aside billions compensate airlines affected by the grounding.
 
The Justice Department and Congress are investigating the company, which also faces dozens of lawsuits by families of passengers who died in the crashes.

Muilenburg is scheduled to testify Oct. 30 before a House committee looking into the plane’s certification.

Software fixes aren’t complete

Boeing was initially optimistic that the Max could return to flight this spring, but work to fix flight software took longer than expected. In June, FAA test pilots discovered another problem in the plane’s computers, extending the grounding.

Muilenburg said recently that Boeing expected the plane to be back in service by early in the fourth quarter, but the company still hasn’t formally submitted its fixes to regulators. U.S. airlines don’t expect the plane back until at least January, and it could be longer in other countries.

Chicago-based Boeing is one of two companies that dominate the building of large airliners; Europe’s Airbus is the other. Boeing is also a major defense contractor. It has more than 150,000 employees.

…

The House Oversight and Reform Committee is planning to subpoena top U.S. immigration officials to testify over the Trump administration’s policy to deport sick migrant children and their families.

Elijah Cummings, committee chair and frequent critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, on Thursday released a memo that the subpoenas were being prepared because “the Committee has tried for more than a month to obtain this information voluntarily, but USCIS and ICE have obstructed the investigation.”

Cummings wrote that he expects to compel USCIS acting Director Ken Cuccinelli and ICE acting Director Matthew Albence to appear before the committee Thursday.

In August, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stopped allowing immigrants with special circumstances, like critical illness, to remain in the country and receive U.S. health care.

Since then, Cummings said, his committee has sought to find out “why the Administration sought to deport these children, who was responsible for this decision, and how requests for deferred action will be handled going forward.”

Cuccinelli and Albence have refused repeated requests to appear before lawmakers to answer questions and provide requested documents.
 

…

President Donald Trump meets with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at the White House Friday, amid anticipation of at least a partial trade deal between both countries.

“We had a very very good negotiation with China,” Trump said after a day of talks between Liu and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Thursday.

These were the first senior-level trade talks between the United States and China since July.

In the three months since, China and the United States continued their tit-for-tat tariffs on billions of dollars of goods that help make up the backbones of both economies. The United States has also imposed visa restriction and other penalties against China over its alleged harsh treatment of Muslim minorities.

Trump said U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports have helped slow down the Chinese economy and said Beijing is eager to make a deal.

Liu declined to make any comment to reporters Thursday. But the official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying, “The Chinese side came with great sincerity, willing to cooperate with the U.S. on the trade balance, market access and investor protection.”

The United States has long accused China of such violations as intellectual property theft, demanding U.S. companies that plan to do business there turn over trade secrets, and currency manipulation that makes Chinese goods cheaper on world markets than U.S. products.

China has said U.S. protectionist trade policies are aimed at stifling its economic growth.

While no one is expecting Trump and Liu to announce a comprehensive trade deal that addresses everyone’s concerns, spokesman Doug Barry of the U.S.-China Business Council tells VOA that even a small deal on intellectual property and farm purchases is a lot more than what most trade skeptics have been expecting.

“What was surprising is that the two sides have at least, for the moment anyway, put aside some of the more difficult issues and seem to be focusing on a short-term win. And if they’re successful, one would hope then that some confidence will be restored on both sides and there will be an opportunity to deal with some of the more vexatious issues in the future,” he said.

The issues Barry calls vexatious include China’s human rights record, U.S. support for the Hong Kong protesters, and the newest controversy — remarks by a U.S. basketball team executive that also supports the protesters.

…

Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, two foreign-born associates of U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, were charged Thursday with conspiring to influence U.S. politics with illegal campaign contributions.

Prosecutors identified two other men, Andrey Kukushkin and David Correia, as conspirators in an alleged scheme that aimed to funnel $1 million in donations to politicians and political candidates in Nevada, New York and other states to benefit a planned marijuana business funded by an unnamed Russian businessman.

John Dowd, the lawyer for Parnas and Fruman, declined to comment on the charges. Parnas and Fruman made their initial court appearance in Alexandria, Virginia, with another court date set for next Thursday.

Details emerged about their backgrounds Thursday:  

Lev Parnas

Parnas, 47, who was born in Ukraine, is a businessman who divides his time between Florida and New York City.

He has garnered attention by becoming a mega-donor to Republican Party politicians. In May 2018, Parnas posted pictures on Facebook of himself and Fruman with Trump in the White House and with the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. at a breakfast in Beverly Hills, California.

Parnas told NPR last month that he was “good friends” with Giuliani and that they played golf together.

Parnas helped introduce Giuliani into top Ukrainian political circles as part of Giuliani’s effort to push an investigation of Joe Biden, Trump’s political rival, and his son Hunter, according to widespread media accounts.

Parnas told Reuters in an interview last month any violations of U.S. Federal Election Commission rules were unwitting and a “clerical thing” because he was not an experienced political donor.

Igor Fruman 

Fruman, 53, who is originally from Belarus, is a real estate investor who also runs a U.S. import-export business.

Like Parnas, he has donated widely to pro-Trump politicians and has helped Giuliani with his efforts in Ukraine to discredit the Biden family.

Andrey Kukushkin 

Kukushkin, 46, is a Ukraine native now living in San Francisco and a veteran of the cannabis business.

He was a vice president of a Russian hedge fund, Renaissance Investment Management, before getting into the business of growing and selling marijuana in the United States, according to news reports, legal records and corporate records. One report in Forbes Russia said Kukushkin started with investments in dispensaries in California and Nevada, and quoted him as saying he now made $60 million in revenue annually.

Kukushkin made an initial court appearance in San Francisco on Thursday. His bail hearing will continue Friday.

David Correia

Correia, 44, is the only one of the four defendants born in the United States. He is a businessman and a longtime associate of Parnas. Fraud Guarantee, a Florida-based fraud protection company, lists the two men as co-founders. Correia and Parnas also worked together on a failed moviemaking venture that ended in litigation, according to U.S. media reports.   

…

A woman who worked at NBC News claimed that Matt Lauer raped her at a hotel while on assignment for the Sochi Olympics, an encounter the former “Today” show host claimed was consensual.

The claim outlined by Brooke Nevils in Ronan Farrow’s book, “Catch and Kill,” puts a name and details behind the event that led to Lauer’s firing by NBC in 2017. It also provoked the first public response from Lauer, who said in a defiant and graphic letter made public by his lawyer that “my silence was a mistake.”

Variety first reported Nevils’ charges after obtaining a copy of Farrow’s book. The Associated Press typically does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault, unless they step forward publicly as Nevils has done.

Nevils, who was working for Meredith Vieira in Sochi, met her for drinks one night and Lauer joined them. Nevils said she had six shots of vodka and wound up going to Lauer’s room.

“It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” Nevils told Farrow, according to Variety. 

In his letter, Lauer admitted to his extramarital affair with Nevils. He said on that night in Sochi that they consensually performed a variety of sexual acts.

“She was a fully enthusiastic and willing partner,” he wrote. “At no time did she behave in a way that made it appear she was incapable of consent. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do.”

Lauer’s defense of his behavior extends beyond his relationship with Nevils. He said he has “never assaulted anyone or forced anyone to have sex. Period.”

He also acknowledges other extramarital encounters, and criticized the women involved for having “abandoned shared responsibility” for the affairs to shield themselves from blame behind false allegations.

“They have avoided having to look at a boyfriend, a husband or a child in the eye and say, `I cheated,”‘ Lauer said. “And I will no longer provide them the shelter of my silence.”

Lauer said the night in Sochi was the first of several sexual encounters he had with Nevils over several months, including one in his dressing room at NBC, which “showed terrible judgment on my part.”

Nevils’ lawyer did not immediately return a message for comment on Lauer’s letter Wednesday.

Eleanor McManus, who co-founded the group Press Forward to support victims of sexual abuse in the news industry, said Lauer’s letter was “unbelievable.

“Lauer’s statement demonstrates not only his lack of remorse, but his lack of understanding of sexual harassment and the (hash)MeToo movement,” said McManus, who said she was harassed by journalist Mark Halperin (who lost jobs at NBC and elsewhere because of these and other accusations). “Nowhere in his letter does Lauer acknowledge the power he yielded as a celebrity and the star of NBC’s highest-rated show. The two people in that hotel room in Sochi did not have equal power.”

Farrow’s publisher, Little, Brown & Co., said that the book has been fact-checked and incorporates the responses of individuals and institutions that were included. When it is published, “readers will understand the full context and impact of Farrow’s work, and the bravery of the sources who entrusted him with their stories.”

NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack sent a memo to his staff on Wednesday, saying that any suggestion that NBC knew of Lauer’s conduct prior to the night before he was fired for “inappropriate sexual conduct” was wrong. There were no claims or allegations of improper conduct by Lauer prior to that, he said, although settlements were reached with two women regarding Lauer after he was fired.

“Matt Lauer’s conduct was appalling, horrific and reprehensible, as we said at the time,” NBC News said in a statement Wednesday.

“That’s why he was fired within 24 hours of us first learning of the complaint. Our hearts break again for our colleague.”

Nevils’ story was reported Wednesday on the show Lauer hosted for two decades. His former co-host, Savannah Guthrie, called it shocking and appalling.

“We’re disturbed to our core,” Guthrie said.

Lauer said in his letter that he ended the affair poorly and understands how that must have made Nevils feel.

He said that he hadn’t responded publicly before to allegations in order to spare his family pain, but that now he has their support to address them publicly.

“Anyone who knows me will tell you I am a very private person,” Lauer wrote. “I had no desire to write this, but I had no choice.”

…

The United States has taken custody of two Islamic State prisoners accused of taking part in beheading American journalists in 2014, The Washington Post reports.

The two men were taken from a Kurdish-run prison in northern Syria, where Kurdish forces can no longer guarantee they can keep detaining the prisoners after the Turkish military incursion.

The Post said the two are Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh. They were allegedly part of a quartet of British-born Islamic militants who their hostages dubbed “The Beatles.”

One U.S. official told the Post the two have been taken to Iraq, while another simply said they are in U.S. military custody but would not say where they are.

“The Beatles” were led by an IS militant named Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed “Jihadi John.”

Emwazi beheaded American journalist James Foley, Israeli American journalist Steven Sotloff and U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig before a TV camera in 2014.

“The Beatles” are also suspected of murdering other Western hostages.

Emwazi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2015. A fourth “Beatle” is in a Turkish prison.

Kurdish forces captured Kotey and Elsheikh, who have dened taking part in the executions. They told The Washington Post in a prison interview last year that their role was to carry out ransom negotiations.

If the two are brought to the United States for trial, they could be charged as conspirators in hostage-taking resulting in death — a charge that carries a possible death sentence, according to the Post.

President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday the United States has moved what he calls some of the “most dangerous” IS prisoners from Kurdish custody to “different locations where it’s secure.”

But some critics of Trump’s decision to pull U.S. forces out of northern Syria, which has led to a Turkish offensive against the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), could allow thousands of imprisoned IS fighters to flee

“This is like a victory for the ISIS fighters. I think it’s just appalling,” James Foley’s mother, Diane, said, using an acronym for the militant group. “It’s an abdication of our responsibility to ensure safety for our own citizens and allies.”

Trump said the U.S. has tried but failed to convince such European countries as Britain, France and Germany to take back their citizens who joined IS as foreign fighters and have since been captured.

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Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Wednesday announced a cabinet reshuffle, declared three days of national mourning and said those who shot protesters would be punished as he sought to quell anti-government unrest that has roiled Iraq for days.

Authorities fear that violence, which has killed more than 110 people, mostly protesters angry at government corruption, could spiral, leading war-weary Iraq towards more civil strife.

Protests erupted in Baghdad last week and soon spread to southern cities. Abdul Mahdi’s government has sought to address demonstrators’ grievances.

However, a package of reforms announced by the government — including more job opportunities, subsidies and housing — is unlikely to satisfy Iraqis; nor is a cabinet reshuffle, likely to feature many of the same faces despised by protesters as an out-of-touch political elite.

“We will ask parliament to vote tomorrow on changes to ministries,” Abdul Mahdi said at a news conference, adding that the government would be referring the names of hundreds of corrupt officials to the judiciary for investigation.

Abdul Mahdi’s government will seek to weather the storm, however, backed by powerful Iran-aligned armed groups and political factions determined to preserve the status quo.

Internet blackout

Authorities have used an internet blackout, arrests of protesters and targeting of reporters to try to stem further unrest.

At least 110 people have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded in the capital and the south, since the security forces started cracking down on demonstrators. Reuters journalists have witnessed protesters killed and wounded by shots fired by snipers from rooftops into the crowd.

Abdul Mahdi said that the government did not give orders to shoot.

“We gave clear orders not to use live fire but there were still victims of shooting,” Abdul Mahdi said, adding that it was wrong to damage the country.

Crackdown continues 

Much of the unrest has been at night, but on Wednesday morning there were no reports of serious violence overnight.

Authorities on Wednesday reopened the road leading to Baghdad’s Tayaran Square, scene of bloody protests in recent days.

However, the security forces pressed on with their crackdown, arresting protesters after nightfall on Tuesday in eastern and northwestern parts of Baghdad, police sources told Reuters.

Police carried recent photographs of protesters to identify and arrest them, the sources said.

Iraq’s semi-official High Commission for Human Rights also said about 500 people had been released from the 800 detained last week.

Intermittent access to internet returned on Wednesday morning, and protesters continued to upload video and photos from the demonstrations. The government shut down coverage almost immediately as protests began, according to an order by the prime minister seen by Reuters.

Media offices attacked

The offices of local and international media were attacked last week, and journalists have said they were warned not to cover the protests. With the internet down, there was little coverage of the protests on television.

Ministers met provincial governors, to address grievances across the country, which include crumbling infrastructure, toxic water and high unemployment. But proposed reforms, some of which have been recycled from a package of proposed reforms after protests in 2015, are unlikely to ease public anger.

The unrest shattered nearly two years of relative stability in Iraq, since the defeat of Islamic State in 2017.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the recent violence and urged Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to exercise maximum restraint and address protesters’ grievances, the U.S. State Department said.  

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The furor over a tweet by the Houston Rockets general manager in support of Hong Kong protesters is highlighting the fine line that U.S. companies must walk when doing business with China.

The NBA is trying to manage that delicate relationship after Daryl Morey posted a now-deleted tweet of an image that read “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong,” referring to the 4-month-old protests in the semiautonomous Chinese territory. That set off an immediate backlash, with China’s state broadcaster canceling plans to show a pair of preseason games in that country later this week.

With a population of 1.4 billion people, a rapidly growing middle class and easing economic restrictions, China is highly appealing to U.S. companies looking for growth overseas. But companies must balance the potential for growth with the potential for pitfalls in dealing with a country that aggressively goes after its detractors.

Companies need to use caution

Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communication at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, cautions that companies should know what they’re getting themselves into when they enter a relationship with a country that’s heading into 70 years of communist rule.

“It has a regime that doesn’t look like the United States,” Argenti said. “We can pretend it is a democracy, but it’s not.”

Western governments dislike China’s attacks on companies but are unlikely to get involved, said David Zweig, a politics specialist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. So it’s up to companies to navigate situations themselves.

Most of the time that means companies that face trouble quickly acquiesce to Beijing, apologize and try to “build bridges” instead of standing up to China, said Jonathan Sullivan, director of China programs at the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute.

In 2018, Gap pulled a shirt with a map of China that did not include Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing regards as Chinese territory, and apologized. Delta Air Lines, hotel operator Marriott and fashion brand Zara have all apologized to China for referring to Taiwan, Hong Kong or Tibet as countries on websites or promotional material. And Mercedes-Benz apologized for quoting the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in a social media post.

‘Tread on eggshells’

“Everyone — states and companies — seem to accept that they have to tread on eggshells when it comes to China for fear of offending them and being punished,” Sullivan said in an email. “And they have to contort themselves to do that.”

A rare exception of a company standing up to China is Google Inc., but even the internet giant had its limits. Google shut down its mainland Chinese search engine in 2010, no longer willing to enforce Chinese censorship by not displaying foreign websites in search results if they were blocked by government filters. Years later, however, reports surfaced that Google was working on a search engine that complies with China’s censorship laws, dubbed “Dragonfly,” leading to an outcry and a protest by hundreds of its own employees.

Peter Petri, a professor of international finance at the Brandeis International Business School, said despite the risks of dealing with China, the country is hard for U.S. businesses to avoid.

“Both countries have huge economies and are the world’s greatest innovators — they have too much to sell and license to each other to stay isolated in the long run,” he said. “Especially in high-tech products, China will soon be the largest market in the world, and America’s best companies can’t stay global leaders without a strong presence there.”

Reaction to tweet has chilling effect

China is well-aware of its power and influence. And while a tweet may seem inconsequential, the Chinese government’s subsequent outrage has a chilling effect on anyone thinking of doing the same, said Alexander Dukalskis, a professor at University College Dublin specializing in Asian politics and human rights.

“In these episodes, the Chinese government is sending a clear signal to other companies that if you or one of your executives criticize certain policies, your company risks losing large sums of money,” he said.

Over time, companies that want to do business with China learn to censor themselves — and maybe even their own employees.
Ultimately, some companies may find it’s not worth the possibility of alienating U.S. customers or risking Chinese ire by doing business in China, no matter how lucrative the deals may be. Dartmouth’s Argenti says they must consider how their business in China measures up to their own values and sense of responsibility and then decide, “Are you willing to go to the mat for that, or is it just lip service?”

“For most companies,” Argenti concedes, “it’s just lip service.”

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