Month: November 2019

In the parts of Beirut where protesters camp out, financial institutions remained shuttered this week, with cartoons of pigs with dollar-sign eyes spray-painted on the walls next to graffiti calling for revolution.

In other parts of the city, the banks cautiously reopened, after being mostly closed for more than a month since daily anti-corruption demonstrations began in October.

Lebanon is now on the brink of financial collapse, according to economists, and the only way out is to build a government and end the upheaval. But the current leadership remains unable to agree on a prime minister or hold legislative sessions.

And protesters blame the chaos on corruption among the same stagnated political class, saying demonstrations will continue until they all resign and are replaced by nonpolitical “technocrats.”

“It’s not our fault,” said Kareem, 31, an optometrist who quit work to camp with other protesters near Lebanon’s parliament building. “It’s the politicians.”

Many employees are accepting half-salaries or losing their jobs, businesses are failing, and the banks are limiting the amounts of money people can withdraw or send abroad.

“We used to be two people working in this store but now it’s only me,” said Malak, 27, at a mobile phone shop on a busy Beirut highway. “I work harder and get paid less.”

Malak was paid in U.S. dollars before the crisis began, but now Lebanon is desperately short of the currency and he is paid in Lebanese pounds, which has rapidly lost value. Overnight, Malak’s salary was reduced by 20 percent.

The mobile phone shop, he added, lost 95 percent of its income. They cannot afford to buy more phones, even if they could sell them.

And renewed upheaval could easily close the banks again, deepening the crisis, said Walid Abou Sleiman, a prominent Lebanese economist.

“If we witness more instability, they will shut down,” he said. And that means, “you are shutting down the economy.”

Crisis long coming

Many of Lebanon’s economic woes began with the Syrian civil war in 2011, Sleiman explained.

Refugees streamed over the border, tourists stayed away and government services like electricity and water declined.

Over the years, Lebanese banks, once a “pillar of the economy,” also declined, as the private sector defaulted on more and more loans. Now, Sleiman said, there is a greater rate of bad loans in Lebanon than there was in the United States in 2008. And that rate was so great it sparked an international banking crisis.

“What happened is a wake-up call,” said Sleiman. “Reform is a must.”

Demonstrations began on Oct. 17 after lawmakers tried to impose a tax on the Whatsapp messaging service amid skyrocketing unemployment and poverty rates. Since then, Prime Minister Sa’ad al-Hariri has resigned, but promises of some reforms have not appeased the anger on the streets.

Even on off-hours, when only a few people roam the protest camps, new pop music calls for “the fall of the regime,” saying “all of them means all of them.”

As he stood alongside barbed wire barriers to the roads surrounding the parliament building, Kareem said demanding change is the only way to improve the situation in the long run, even as the economy rapidly declines.

“I will stay (as long as it takes)” to change the government, he said.

Insecurity

Meanwhile, the unrest has panicked many people, fueling the financial crisis that is fueling the unrest.

Billions of dollars were withdrawn from personal accounts since demonstrations began, forcing the banks to close. Banks now sharply limit the amounts of cash withdrawals and international transfers.

At a posh cigar shop in Beirut, Ayman, a father of two, said even his store, which appeals to wealthy clients, has lost nearly 50 percent of its business.

New sanctions against Hezbollah, Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed military organization and U.S.-designated terrorist group, are further squeezing the population, he added.

“We are only buying necessities now,” he said. “And waiting to see if things get better.”

Demonstrations have been mostly peaceful so far, with the exception of sporadic clashes and the death of an activist earlier this month, but more protests are expected in the coming days.

And in this sharply divided country, experts say, rallies could easily dissolve into riots.

“I used to say the economic crisis will turn into a social crisis, and the social crisis could turn into a war,” said Sleiman, the economist. “But no one was listening.”
 

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U.S. diplomat Gordon Sondland told the impeachment panel investigating President Donald Trump Wednesday that despite the president’s denial, U.S. aid to Ukraine was conditioned on investigations benefiting Trump’s personal political interests. Sondland’s testimony could mark a pivotal turning point in the impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports from Capitol Hill on the explosive testimony that could impact Trump’s future in office.
 

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Syrian forces shelled a displaced-persons camp in rebel-held Idlib Wednesday, killing at least 15 civilians, anti-government activists said.

The missiles set a number of tents on fire; two missiles fell just outside a maternity hospital in the camp in Qah, near the border with Turkey.

The White Helmet rescue group said six children were among the dead.

Idlib province in northwestern Syria is the last major section of the country still under rebel control.

A Russian-brokered truce in August intended to de-escalate the attacks by both sides has just about totally collapsed.

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With urban populations surging around the world, cities will struggle to keep residents safe from fast-growing heat risks turbo-charged by climate change, scientists and public health experts warned this week.

Heat is already the leading cause of deaths from extreme weather in countries including the United States. The problem is particularly severe in cities, where temperature extremes are rising much faster than the global average, they said.

Even today, areas where the world’s population is concentrated, such as in Asia’s cities, are seeing warming of four times the global average temperature increase, a Lancet report on health threats from climate change noted this week.

“It’s a worldwide problem — in cities in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa,” said Joy Shumake-Guillemot, who leads a joint climate and health office in Switzerland for the World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization.

In coming decades, urban warming “is going to put populations in a position where they’re exposed to temperatures they’re not acclimated to, cities are not built for and social systems are really not prepared to deal with,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Cities are often “heat islands” — hotter than surrounding rural areas — because their vast expanses of concrete trap and hold heat, including that given off by vehicles and energy use in the city itself, and they have fewer cooling green spaces.

But a growing number of cities are now trying to tackle the problem. Tel Aviv, for instance, plans to cover many new public spaces with shade either from trees or artificial canopies, said Shumake-Guillemot, one of the authors of the Lancet report.

Other cities are working to set heat standards for everything from workplaces to schools, establishing public cooling centers and rethinking warning messages and heat advice, to more effectively reach those most at risk, she said.

Employers and unions also are taking action, in some cases by shifting construction work to cooler night-time hours and enforcing water breaks.

But the changes are rarely easy and can have unintended consequences — such as construction workers put on night shifts who then struggle with sleep deprivation and may be at greater risk of falling, Shumake-Guillemot said.

“There are complicated trade-offs to try and figure out how we are going to live successfully and in a healthy way in a much warmer world,” noted the environmental health policy expert.

For now, especially in the hottest places, “people are working in really dangerous conditions … and sometimes they don’t have other options,” she added.

The Lancet report found that in 2018 excessive heat caused the loss of 133 billion hours of work worldwide that would otherwise have been carried out, 45 billion more than in 2000.

In several southern U.S. states, as much as 15-20% of daylight working hours last year were too hot for people to do their jobs, it found.

But construction workers, military personnel and farmers, in particular, have little choice but to be outside, noted Shumake-Guillemot.

Kristie Ebi, a professor at the University of Washington Center for Health and the Global Environment, said dealing with rising heat threats was in some ways simpler than tackling other climate-related health risks, such as the spread of diseases like dengue fever or malaria.

“People should not and do not need to be dying in heatwaves,” said Ebi, one of the Lancet report’s authors. “Every heat-related death is preventable, essentially.”

But huge amounts of work are required to understand why those most at risk from extreme heat are not getting the help they need, she said.

People over 65, for instance, are among those most likely to die during heatwaves, because of pre-existing health conditions, failing to recognize dehydration or taking prescription drugs that can interfere with their ability to sweat, Ebi said.

Many cities have set up cooling centers to help older people ride out heatwaves, but have not provided transport for them to get there, she added.

Other people who face significant heat risks include children playing afternoon sports and professional athletes training in high temperatures, she said.

Organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are currently working to cut heatstroke risks for athletes running on what promises to be a blistering marathon course next summer, even after it is painted with heat-reflective material.

“Overall, the awareness (of heat risk) is not where it needs to be — but we’re very slowly making progress,” Ebi said.

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The Iranian government’s reaction to protests against a gas price hike has been turning increasingly deadly. Security forces have reportedly opened fire at protesters in various cities across the country. Here is a look at the recent developments that triggered the nationwide protests in Iran.

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn attacked each other’s policies on Brexit, health care and the economy Tuesday in a televised election debate that likely failed to answer the question troubling many voters: Why should we trust you?

The two politicians hammered away at their rival’s weaknesses and sidestepped tricky questions about their own policies in the hourlong encounter, which was the first-ever head-to-head TV debate between a British prime minister and a chief challenger.

It was a chance for Corbyn to make up ground in opinion polls that show his Labour Party trailing Johnson’s Conservatives ahead of the Dec. 12 election. For Johnson, the matchup was an opportunity to shake off a wobbly campaign start that has seen the Conservatives thrown on the defensive by candidates’ gaffes and favoritism allegations involving Johnson’s relationship with an American businesswoman while he was London’s mayor.

Both play it safe

Both men stuck to safe territory, with Corbyn touting Labour’s plans for big increases in public spending and Johnson trying to keep the focus on his promise to “get Brexit done.”

Speaking in front of a live audience at the studios of broadcaster ITV in Salford, in northwest England, the two men traded blows over Britain’s stalled departure from the European Union — the reason the election is being held. The U.K. is due to leave the bloc on Jan. 31, after failing to meet the Oct. 31 deadline to approve a divorce deal.

Johnson pushed to hold the election more than two years ahead of schedule in an effort to win a majority in the House of Commons that could pass his departure agreement with the EU. He blamed the opposition for “dither and delay, deadlock and division” and said a Conservative government would “end this national misery” and “break the deadlock.”

Corbyn said a Labour government would also settle the Brexit question by negotiating a new divorce deal before holding a new EU membership referendum within six months. A lifelong critic of the EU and lukewarm advocate of Britain’s membership in the bloc, Corbyn did not answer when asked repeatedly by Johnson whether he would support leaving or remaining in a new referendum.

New trade deal would take years

The Labour leader, meanwhile, slammed Johnson’s claim that he would negotiate a new trade deal with the EU by the end of 2020 as a fantasy, saying such deals usually take years to complete.

“You’re not going to get it done in a few months, and you know that perfectly well,” Corbyn said.

The Labour leader also repeated his allegation that Johnson planned to offer chunks of Britain’s state-funded health system to American medical firms as part of future trade negotiations with the U.S.

Johnson branded that claim “an absolute invention.”

All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs in the election. Smaller parties in the race include the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, who want to cancel Brexit; the Scottish National Party, which seeks Scotland’s independence from the U.K.; the anti-EU Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage; and the environmentalist Greens.

Two candidates are excluded

The debate featured only two candidates after the High Court in London rejected a legal challenge from the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party over ITV’s decision to exclude their leaders from the debate. The court decided it was a matter of ”editorial judgment” to limit the format to the leaders of Britain’s two largest political parties, one of whom will almost certainly be the country’s next prime minister.

Later in the campaign, the leaders of smaller parties will take part alongside Labour and the Conservatives in two seven-way debates, and Corbyn and Johnson are due to square off again in a BBC debate on Dec. 6.

The stakes are high for both Johnson and Corbyn as they try to win over a Brexit-weary electorate. Both are trying to overcome a mountain of mistrust.

Neither delivered the kind of performance to silence their critics.

Johnson — who shelved his customary bluster in favor of a more muted, serious approach — is under fire for failing to deliver on his often-repeated vow that Britain would leave the EU on Oct. 31.

He drew derisive laughter from the audience when he urged voters, “Look what I have said I’m going to do as a politician and look what I’ve delivered.”

Corbyn, a stolid socialist, is accused by critics of promoting high-tax policies and of failing to clamp down on anti-Semitism within his party. His refusal to say which side he would be on in a Brexit referendum was also met with laughter.

Pushed by moderator Julie Etchingham to pledge to tone down the angry rhetoric that has poisoned British politics since the country’s 2016 Brexit referendum, the two men awkwardly agreed and shook hands

Awkward moment

There was another awkward moment when they were asked about Prince Andrew’s friendship with American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew gave a televised interview last week in which he denied claims that he had sex with Virginia Giuffre, a woman who says she was trafficked by Epstein as a teenager.

Asked if the British monarchy was “fit for purpose,” Corbyn replied, “Needs a bit of improvement.” Johnson said “the institution of the monarchy is beyond reproach.”

Both expressed sympathy for Epstein victims — something Prince Andrew failed to do in his interview.

Televised debates are a relatively new phenomenon in British elections — the first took place in 2010 — and they have the power to transform campaigns. A confident 2010 appearance by former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg sparked a wave of “Cleggmania” that helped to propel him into the deputy prime minister post in a coalition government with the Conservatives.

‘Pretty messy’

During Britain’s last election in 2017, then-Prime Minister Theresa May refused to take part in any TV debates. The decision reinforced the view that she was a weak campaigner, and the election turned out to be a debacle for her Conservative Party, which lost its majority in Parliament.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said Tuesday’s debate was “a pretty messy score draw, although Corbyn may just have snuck a win in the dying minutes.”

“Hardly two men at the top of their game, though,” he said.

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The Senate has easily approved a bill to support human rights in Hong Kong following months of often-violent unrest in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was passed by voice vote Tuesday. It now goes to the House, which has already passed similar legislation.

The bill would mandate sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials who carry out human rights abuses and require an annual review of the favorable trade status that Washington grants Hong Kong.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said in introducing the bill that it would send a message of support to the Hong Kong people who have protested for basic freedoms in the face of Chinese government oppression.

China’s government has promised unspecified countermeasures in response.
 

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When Idina Menzel first started performing “Let It Go” live in concerts, she thought the lyrics and soaring vocals would empower all those young girls in the audience dressed up as Elsa.

Instead, Menzel said she often walked away from those performances feeling just as inspired.

“I feel an extreme sense of pride about it,” said Menzel, the Tony Award-winning performer who voices Elsa, a fiercely independent queen with the magical ability to manipulate ice and snow. The song especially resonated with her because at the time she was juggling several shows on Broadway and going through a divorce while “trying to put one foot in front of the other.”

“But you see a little girl in a blue dress in the second row,” she continued. “That’s when you realize the song and movie represents them. It’s giving them permission to take ownership of who they are, and everything that makes them unique and different. But it’s a reciprocity. It’s coming back to me exponentially because I need to hear it too.”

Menzel believes “Frozen 2,” which arrives in theaters Friday, has the capacity to empower viewers of all ages in the same way. The new film comes six years after the original broke box office records for an animated film, amassing $1.2 billion in worldwide ticket sales. It was bolstered by “Let It Go,” which won a Grammy and two Oscars.

Jennifer Lee, co-director and writer of both films, said she didn’t anticipate the success of “Frozen.” Lee said a conversation with a stranger demonstrated the film’s impact.

“I met a woman wearing a handmade ‘Let It Go,’ necklace, but she didn’t have any idea who I was,” Lee said. “She was talking, and I observed. She embraced the movie for herself. She felt the music spoke to her. It seemed to empower her. That’s our goal.”

Menzel is unsure if the sequel can generate the same astronomical numbers as the original. But she is hopeful the story and music can resonate with viewers and further the themes of the original, including showing that female characters don’t necessarily need their male counterpart to rescue them from distress.

“I think it’ll move people,” she said. “I think the film is powerful. I don’t know what the success of the music will be outside the film. But I know how I felt when I heard (the songs). I know how much I loved recording them and getting inside of them. I think people will learn from Elsa who is always overcoming her fear to take the next step and risk.”

Numerous rewrites

In “Frozen 2,” Elsa finally embraces her powers, but she finds herself haunted by an unsettling voice from afar that no one else can hear. She ends up going on a dangerous journey to seek answers with her sister Anna, played by Kristen Bell. Also joining them are Anna’s boyfriend Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer friend Sven and the bubbly snowman Olaf, voiced by Josh Gad.

Co-director Chris Buck said the sequel has moments of being “fun and humorous,” but the story also delves deep into Elsa and Anna’s emotions. He said the main characters are trying to find their meaning in life. The film expands on challenges facing Elsa’s kingdom of Arendelle, with Sterling K. Brown joining the cast as a military officer and Evan Rachel Wood voicing the sisters’ mother.

“The first film is more like Act 1 of a musical where you’re setting up the characters’ wants and who they are,” Buck said “In this one, we can do Act 2. Usually, those songs go deeper and they’re more emotional. You find out more. The struggles are harder. We had that sort of template. That helped us shape it.”

Several deadlines were “blown past” while creating the story line that had at least 50 versions of rewrites, the directors said.

Bell applauded the creative team for taking their time.

“They didn’t just try to come up with the follow up for whatever monetary or marketing sake,” the actress said. “You can see a follow up from anything and you know in your soul, in your gut whether or not you connect to it. Like ‘Oh those are the same characters I loved but didn’t connect to them.’ They waited to find something that people would connect to.”

Song that ‘changed everything’

Lee said the biggest breakthrough came when husband-and-wife songwriting team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez delivered the song “Into the Unknown.”

“That changed everything,” Lee said. “It was the most active song. It’s a song that says to Elsa ‘You’ve got to act. You’ve got to have the guts to follow what your life could be.’ You see the change in her from the beginning to the end of the song. It started the whole engine for the whole movie.”

Anderson-Lopez agrees. She said the music and film should compel women to trust their instincts in times of conflict.

“We’re continuing to say that women need to listen to their gut and follow their gut,” said Anderson-Lopez, who won two Oscars with her husband for “Let It Go” and “Remember Me” from the film “Coco.”

“You are powerful in your own unique way by speaking truth and rising up from the floor,” she continued. “When the worst thing happens to you really does happen, you learn to do the next right thing. You take one step then another step, then another and stumble blindly toward the light. One breath. One step at a time.”
 

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Scientists on Monday unveiled the first global geological map of Saturn’s moon Titan including vast plains and dunes of frozen organic material and lakes of liquid methane, illuminating an exotic world considered a strong candidate in the search for life beyond Earth.

The map was based on radar, infrared and other data collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which studied Saturn and its moons from 2004 to 2017. Titan, with a diameter of 3,200 miles (5,150 km), is the solar system’s second-biggest moon behind Jupiter’s Ganymede. It is larger than the planet Mercury.

Organic materials — carbon-based compounds critical for fostering living organisms — play a leading role on Titan.

“Organics are very important for the possibility of life on Titan, which many of us think likely would have evolved in the liquid water ocean under Titan’s icy crust,” said planetary geologist Rosaly Lopes of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

“Organic materials can, we think, penetrate down to the liquid water ocean and this can provide nutrients necessary for life, if it evolved there,” added Lopes, who led the research published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

On Earth, water rains down from clouds and fills rivers, lakes and oceans. On Titan, clouds spew hydrocarbons like methane and ethane — which are gases on Earth — in liquid form due to the moon’s frigid climate.

Rainfall occurs everywhere on Titan, but the equatorial regions are drier than the poles, said study co-author Anezina Solomonidou, a European Space Agency research fellow.

Plains (covering 65% of the surface) and dunes (covering 17% of the surface) made up of frozen bits of methane and other hydrocarbons dominate Titan’s mid-latitudes and equatorial regions, respectively.

Titan is the only solar system object other than Earth boasting stable liquids on the surface, with lakes and seas of full of methane being major features at its polar regions. Hilly and mountainous areas, thought to represent exposed portions of Titan’s crust of water ice, represent 14% of the surface.

“What is really fun to think about is if there are any ways that those more complex organics can go down and mix with water in the deep icy crust or deep subsurface ocean,” JPL scientist and study co-author Michael Malaska said.

Noting that on Earth there is a bacterium that can survive just on a hydrocarbon called acetylene and water, Malaska asked, “Could it or something like it live in Titan deep in the crust or ocean where temperatures are a little warmer?”

The map was created seven years before the U.S. space agency is set to launch its Dragonfly mission to dispatch a multi-rotor drone to study Titan’s chemistry and suitability for life.

Dragonfly is scheduled to reach Titan in 2034.

“It is not only scientifically important but also really cool — a drone flying around on Titan,” Lopes said. “It will be really exciting.”

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Paul McCartney is to headline the 50th anniversary of Glastonbury in June next year, the world’s largest greenfield festival, organizers announced on Monday.

“Hey Glasto – excited to be part of your Anniversary celebrations. See ya next year!” the 77-year-old former Beatle tweeted.

The “Hey Jude” hitmaker will be the headline act on the festival’s main Pyramid Stage on Saturday, June 27, according to the Glastonbury Twitter account. McCartney last appeared on the Pyramid Stage in 2004 alongside Oasis and Muse.

Glastonbury and McCartney’s representatives were not immediately available for further comment.

Tickets for the 2020 event went on sale in October and were sold out in just over half an hour, according to the festival’s website.

Glastonbury Festival was founded by farmer Michael Eavis, 83, and his late wife Jean in 1970, after they were inspired by the Bath Festival of Blues. Marc Bolan played the first event, which had an entry charge of 1 pound with free milk included.

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New research has found that U.S. agriculture uses child workers without proper training and care for their safety. The report published last week in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine says 33 children are injured every day while working on U.S. farms, and more child workers die in agriculture than in any other industry. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports rights groups blame loopholes in U.S. laws for failing to protect child workers in agriculture

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British photographer Terry O’Neill, whose images captured London’s Swinging ’60s and who created iconic portraits of Elton John, Brigitte Bardot and Winston Churchill, has died at age 81.

O’Neill died Saturday at his home in London following a long battle with cancer, according to Iconic Images, the agency that represented O’Neill.

“Terry was a class act, quick witted and filled with charm,” the agency said in a statement posted to its website. “Anyone who was lucky enough to know or work with him can attest to his generosity and modesty. As one of the most iconic photographers of the last 60 years, his legendary pictures will forever remain imprinted in our memories as well as in our hearts and minds.”

Born in London in 1938, O’Neill was working as a photographer for an airline at Heathrow Airport when he snapped a picture of a well-dressed man sleeping on a bench. The man turned out to be the British home secretary, and O’Neill was hired by a London newspaper.

In the early 1960s he photographed the Beatles during the recording of their first hit single, and he captured the image of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill clutching a cigar as he was carried to an ambulance after a 1962 hospital stay.

O’Neill later said that when photographing the Beatles he placed John Lennon in the foreground because he thought that “it was obvious John was the one with the personality.”

Soon O’Neill was photographing the hottest stars of the mid and late ’60s: Bardot, Raquel Welch, Michael Caine, Steve McQueen, Diana Ross and Audrey Hepburn.

He photographed many other big names over the course of a career that spanned decades, including model Kate Moss, Queen Elizabeth II, singers David Bowie and Amy Winehouse and former first lady Laura Bush.

O’Neill’s photos of Elton John remain among his most recognizable. One shows the singer, exuberant and sparkling in a sequined baseball uniform, with an audience of thousands in the background.

“He was brilliant, funny and I absolutely loved his company,” John tweeted Sunday.

Another iconic O’Neill photo, this one from 1977, depicted actress Faye Dunaway lounging poolside the morning after winning a best actress Oscar for her performance in “Network,” the statuette sitting on a table and newspapers strewn on the ground.

O’Neill was married to Dunaway for three years in the 1980s. According to British newspaper The Guardian, the couple had a son. O’Neill later married Laraine Ashton, a modelling industry executive.

In an interview with the Guardian last year, O’Neill discussed how he viewed his past photos.

“The perfectionist in me always left me thinking I could have taken a better shot. But now when I look at photos of all the icons I’ve shot – like Mandela, Sir Winston Churchill and Sinatra – the memories come flooding back and I think: ‘Yeah, I did all right.’”

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Fighting reportedly intensified between Turkish-backed Syrian fighters and U.S.-backed Kurdish forces Sunday over a major highway and a strategic town in northeastern Syria.

Local news reported that Turkish military and allied Syrian militias continued shelling positions belonging to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in a bid to control the town of Tal Tamr and the nearby M4 highway.

In an effort to prevent Turkish-backed forces from advancing into the town, the SDF has reportedly reached a cease-fire deal with Russia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday.

The deal, according to the war monitor, would allow Russian and Syrian government troops to be deployed near the Christian-majority Tal Tamr and parts of the M4 highway, locally known as the “International Road.”

“Our sources on the ground have confirmed the agreement between the SDF and Russia,” Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told VOA.

He added that some areas outside the town have been handed over to the Turkish military, while Russian and Syrian government troops have taken control of the International Road.

‘No deal yet’

But SDF officials denied these reports, saying that no cease-fire has been reached as Turkish forces and their Syrian allies continued their attacks.

“We are aware of the rumors that M4 highway and Tal Tamr will be handed over to Syrian Army as part of a deal. There is no truth to these reports. In contrast, fierce attacks by Turkish-backed armed groups continue in that area,” Mustafa Bali, an SDF spokesperson, said in a tweet Sunday.

Ekrem Salih, a local reporter covering the ongoing developments, said violent clashes took place outside Tal Tamr.

“I was in the town this afternoon. There was fierce fighting in several villages outside the town. But Tal Tamr itself witnessed no fighting and it is still under SDF control,” he told VOA.

Strategic highway

The 500-kilometer M4 highway, which stretches from the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in the west to the Iraqi border in the east, represents a strategic significance for all warring sides, experts said.

“This is a very strategic road in northern Syria,” Abdulrahman said. “If Turkey and its allies took control of this highway, the entire northern region of Syria will be cut off from the rest of northeast Syria.”

He added, “Turkey wants to make sure that Kurdish-held areas are not geographically connected.”

Turkey has been carrying out a military offensive since early October against U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara views as terrorists.

The operation came days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the withdrawel of U.S. troop from several border areas in Syria, where they were stationed as part of the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State (IS) terror group.   

The Turkish offensive has displaced more than 180,000 Syrian civilians in the border region, according to the U.N.

Turkey defends its offensive and maintains that it has sent troops to northeast Syria to clear the region from People’s Protection Units also known as YPG, the main fighting force within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey accuses the group of being an offshoot of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terror group.

Washington differs with Ankara over the classification of YPG as a terror group and views the SDF as an ally against IS.

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The House Intelligence Committee overseeing the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump released transcripts of depositions Saturday from two officials who will be questioned in public hearings next week.

Congressional investigators also met Saturday in a closed-door session with Mark Sandy, a longtime career official with the Office of Management and Budget, who could provide valuable information about the U.S. delay of about $400 million in aid to Ukraine last summer.

The transcripts released Saturday were from previous closed-door depositions with former National Security Council official Tim Morrison and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence. Morrison and Williams are scheduled to be questioned in public Tuesday by the House panel.

At the heart of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against the president is whether Trump withheld needed military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential opponent of Trump’s in the 2020 presidential election, and his son, Hunter Biden. No wrongdoing by either Biden has been substantiated.

Morrison’s deposition largely confirmed testimony offered by other officials so far in the inquiry, but he also answered questions regarding a shadow diplomacy in Ukraine being waged by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer.

‘Tried to stay away’

In the transcript, Morrison said he “tried to stay away from” discussions in which U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Giuliani and others tried to persuade Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens and Burisma Holdings, a Ukraine gas producer.

He also used the term the Burisma “bucket,” which included investigations into the Bidens, and the role of Democrats in the 2016 election. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma.

Morrison also described witnessing an exchange between Sondland and Andriy Yermak, an aide to the Ukraine president, at a summit in Warsaw.

He testified that Sondland told him Yermak?: “What could help them move the aid was if the prosecutor general would go to the mike and announce that he was opening the Burisma investigation.” The prosecutor general is Ukraine’s top legal official.

“It was the first time something like this had been injected as a condition on the release of the assistance,” Morrison? said in his deposition, adding he “did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly appointed Chief of Mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.”

The transcript also describes a Sept. 11 meeting, which Morrison said he did not attend but was briefed about, in which Vice President Pence and Ohio Senator Rob Portman “convinced the president that the aid should be disbursed immediately,” and that it was “the appropriate and prudent thing to do.”

In her testimony, Williams described her role, as a national security adviser to Pence on European and Russian issues, as keeping “the vice president aware and abreast of all foreign policy issues going on in that region,” which includes Ukraine.

Williams, who listened in on the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, was asked if she had any concerns after listening to the conversation.

“I certainly noted that the mention of those specific investigations seemed unusual as compared to other discussions with foreign leaders,” she said according to her deposition. When asked why they were unusual, she said, “I believed those references to be more political in nature and … struck me as unusual and inappropriate.”

Closed-door hearing

On Saturday, Sandy, a senior White House official, was the first agency employee to be deposed in the inquiry after three employees appointed by Trump defied congressional subpoenas to testify. He had received a subpoena to appear.

Sandy was among the career employees who questioned the holdup of the aid to Ukraine, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

His signature is on at least one document that prevented the provision of the aid to Ukraine, according to copies of documents investigators discussed during an earlier deposition. A transcript of the discussion has been publicly disclosed.

Sandy appeared before the House foreign affairs, intelligence, and oversight and reform committees.

In a statement, the three Democratic-led committees said they are investigating “the extent to which President Trump jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election and by withholding security assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression, as well as any efforts to cover up these matters.”

Sandy’s deposition comes one day after the ousted former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified at the congressional impeachment inquiry into President Trump that she was “shocked and devastated” over remarks Trump made about her during a call with Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president.

“I didn’t know what to think, but I was very concerned,” she told the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. “It felt like a threat.”

Her testimony was consistent with her closed-door testimony last month when she said she felt threatened and worried about her safety after Trump said “she’s going to go through some things.”

Phone call

Late Friday, after Yovanovitch’s testimony, House impeachment investigators met in closed session with David Holmes, a State Department official. Holmes told lawmakers he was having lunch with Sondland and overheard a phone call between Sondland and Trump, in which the president inquired about the Ukraine president’s willingness to investigate the Bidens.

The phone call occurred one day after the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy, which is the focus of the impeachment probe.

According to a transcript of his opening statement to investigators, [[ https://www.lawfareblog.com/opening-statement-david-holmes-impeachment-inquiry ]] Holmes said: “I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the president and explain that he was calling from Kyiv. I heard President Trump then clarify that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine, and went on to state that President Zelenskiy “loves” Trump.

“I then heard President Trump ask, ‘So, he’s gonna do the investigation?’ Ambassador Sondland replied that ‘he’s gonna do it,’ adding that President Zelenskiy will do ‘anything you ask him to.’ Even though I did not take notes of these statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made,” said Holmes, who is an aide to acting U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine William Taylor.

He said that after the phone call ended, he asked Sondland about Trump’s “views on Ukraine. In particular, I asked Ambassador Sondland if it was true that the President did not ‘give a s—t about Ukraine.’ Ambassador Sondland agreed that the President did not ‘give a s—t about Ukraine.’ I asked why not, and Ambassador Sondland stated that the President only cares about ‘big stuff.’

“I noted that there was ‘big stuff’ going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia, and Ambassador Sondland replied that he meant ‘big stuff’ that benefits the President, like the ‘Biden investigation’ that Mr. Giuliani was pushing,” he said, according to this statement.

Next week, the House panel will hold public hearings again. The schedule for testimony includes:

Tuesday: Williams; Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, former director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, Ambassador Kurt Volker, former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine; and Morrison.

Wednesday: Sondland; Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian Affairs; and David Hale, under secretary of state for political affairs.

Thursday: Fiona Hill, former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia.

…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says all Conservative Party candidates in the upcoming election have pledged to back his Brexit deal. 

“All 635 Conservative candidates standing at this election — every single one of them — has pledged to me that if elected they will vote in Parliament to pass my Brexit deal so we can end the uncertainty and finally leave the EU,” Johnson told London’s Telegraph newspaper in an interview published late on Saturday. 

“I am offering a pact with the people: If you vote Conservative you can be 100% sure a majority Conservative government will unblock Parliament and get Brexit done,” he said. 

The December 12 election was called to end three years of disagreement over Brexit that has sapped investors’ faith in the stability of the world’s fifth-largest economy and damaged Britain’s standing since it voted in a 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. 

Johnson, 55, hopes to win a majority to push through the last-minute Brexit deal he struck with the EU last month after the bloc granted a third delay to the divorce that was originally supposed to take place March 29. Voters in a 2016 referendum narrowly voted in favor of leaving the EU. 

Johnson’s Conservatives lead Labour by sizable margins, four polls published Saturday show. 

A YouGov poll showed support for the Conservatives at 45%, the highest level since 2017, compared with Labour at 28%, unchanged. The pro-European Union Liberal Democrats were at 15%, and the Brexit Party was at 4%, unchanged. 

A separate poll for SavantaComRes also said support for the Conservatives was the highest since 2017, at 41%. Labour’s support was at 33%. 

The Conservatives have a 16-point lead over Labour, according to an opinion poll published by Opinium Research, and a poll by the Mail on Sunday said Johnson’s party had a 15-point lead over Labour. 

…

A federal judge on Saturday ordered that a German citizen arrested on her return to the country on suspicion of being a member of Islamic State should remain in custody, prosecutors said. 
 
Authorities said the suspect, identified only as Nasim A., left Germany for Syria in 2014, married a fighter and moved with him to Iraq. There she was paid to maintain an IS-controlled house and carried a weapon. 
 
She and her husband later moved to Syria, where she also maintained a house, prosecutors said. Kurdish security forces arrested her in early 2019. 
 
The woman was arrested Friday evening in Frankfurt upon her return to Germany. 
 
The judge determined Saturday that she remain in detention because of “suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organization in a foreign country,” prosecutors said. 

…

New rules from the Trump administration Friday would require insurers and hospitals to disclose upfront the actual prices for common tests and procedures to promote competition and push down costs.

But the sweeping changes face stiff pushback from the health care industry. A coalition of major hospital groups quickly announced that hospitals will sue to block key provisions, which in any case don’t take effect immediately.

Even in an ideal world where information flows freely, patients and their families would have to deal with a learning curve to get comfortable with the byzantine world of health care billing. What sounds like the same procedure can have different billing codes depending on factors that may not be apparent to an untrained person.

Speaking at a White House event, President Donald Trump skipped over potential difficulties, at times making it sound like openness in health care is a done deal.

“After many, many years, we finally have transparency,” Trump said. “And within about 12 months I think it will be fully implemented, and we can even say probably a shorter period of time than that.”

Months, years from taking effect

A final rule issued Friday would apply to hospitals and a proposed regulation would apply to insurance plans. Disclosure requirements for hospitals would not take effect until 2021; for insurers, the timing is unclear. The requirements do not directly affect doctors.

Officials say the rules would shine a spotlight on the confusing maze of health care prices, allowing informed patients to find quality services at the lowest cost. Prices for an MRI scan for example can vary by hundreds of dollars depending on where it’s done.

“American patients have been at the mercy of a shadowy system with little access to the information they need to make decisions about their own care,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, pointing out that many hospital procedures are scheduled in advance, and that gives patients a chance to shop around.

Under the administration rules, insurers would have to provide patients with online access to individualized estimates, in advance, for what they would owe out-of-pocket for covered services. Most people now see such information after the fact, when their “explanation of benefits” form arrives in the mail.

Going too far?

Hospitals and insurers say the push for disclosure goes too far. They say the government would force them to publicly disclose rates they negotiate as part of private contracts that normally are beyond the purview of authorities.

“This rule will introduce widespread confusion, accelerate anticompetitive behavior among health insurers, and stymie innovations,” the American Hospital Association and three other major hospital groups said in a statement. “Our four organizations will soon join with member hospitals to file a legal challenge to the rule on grounds including that it exceeds the administration’s authority.”

Insurers also contend the plan could backfire, prompting providers that are accepting a bargain price to try to bid up what they charge if others are getting more. 

“Transparency should be achieved in a way that encourages — not undermines — competitive negotiations,” Matt Eyles, head of the industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement.

Azar dismissed such criticism. 

“Point me to one sector of the American economy where having price information in a competitive marketplace actually leads to higher prices,” he said.

With the hospital industry going to court, it could be a long time before the complex litigation is resolved and consumers might see changes.

For hospitals, the rule would require:

• Publication in a consumer-friendly manner of negotiated rates for the 300 most common services that can be scheduled in advance, such as a knee replacement, a Cesarean-section delivery or an MRI scan. Hospitals would have to disclose what they’d be willing to accept if the patient pays cash. The information would be updated every year.
• Publication of all their charges in a format that can be read on the internet by other computer systems. This would allow web developers and consumer groups to come up with tools that patients and their families can use.

For insurers, the rule would require:

• Creating an online tool that policyholders can use to get a real-time personalized estimate of their out-of-pocket costs for all covered health care services and items, from hospitalization, to doctor visits, lab tests and medicines.
• Disclosure on a public website of negotiated rates for their in-network providers, as well as the maximum amounts they would pay to an out-of-network doctor or hospital.

The disclosure requirements would carry out an executive order Trump signed this summer.
 

…

Texas’ top criminal appeals court on Friday halted the scheduled execution of inmate Rodney Reed, whose conviction is being questioned by new evidence that his supporters say raises serious doubt about his guilt. 

The stay of execution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals came just hours after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had recommended delaying the lethal injection. 

Reed, 51, had been set for lethal injection Wednesday evening for the 1996 killing of Stacey Stites, 19. Prosecutors say Reed raped and strangled Stites as she made her way to work at a supermarket in Bastrop, a rural community about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Austin. 

Celebrity support

Reed’s efforts to stop his execution have received support from such celebrities as Beyonce, Kim Kardashian and Oprah Winfrey. Lawmakers from both parties, including Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz, have also asked that officials take a closer look at the evidence in the case. 

In its four-page order, the appeals court said Reed’s case should be returned to the trial court in Bastrop County so it could examine his claims that he is innocent and that prosecutors suppressed evidence and presented false testimony. 

Bryce Benjet, an attorney with the Innocence Project, which is representing Reed, said defense attorneys were “extremely relieved and thankful” to the appeals court. 

“This opportunity will allow for proper consideration of the powerful and mounting new evidence of Mr. Reed’s innocence,” Benjet said in a statement. 

The Texas Attorney General’s Office declined to comment Friday on whether it would appeal the order staying Reed’s execution. 

Earlier Friday, the parole board had unanimously recommended a 120-day reprieve for Reed. The board rejected Reed’s request to commute his sentence to life in prison. 

Next step: Governor’s office

The parole board’s decision was to go next to Governor Greg Abbott, who hasn’t said whether he would accept or reject it or do nothing. 

The stay likely makes Abbott’s decision moot. Since taking office in 2015, Abbott has halted only one imminent execution, in 2018. 

Since Texas resumed executions in 1982, only three death row inmates have had their sentences commuted to life in prison by a governor within days of their scheduled executions. 

Reed has other appeals pending, including with the U.S. Supreme Court. His supporters have held rallies, including an overnight vigil on Thursday in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. It was unclear if a rally planned for Sunday in front of the Texas governor’s mansion would still take place. 

Reed has long maintained he didn’t kill Stites and that her fiance, former police officer Jimmy Fennell, was the real killer. Reed says Fennell was angry because Stites, who was white, was having an affair with Reed, who is black. 

Fennell’s attorney has said his client didn’t kill Stites. Fennell was paroled last year after serving time in prison for sexual assault. 

In their most recent motion to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Reed’s lawyers alleged prosecutors suppressed evidence or presented false evidence related to Fennell. 

Prosecutors say Reed’s semen was found in the victim, his claims of an affair with Stites were not proven at trial, Fennell was cleared as a suspect and Reed had a history of committing other sexual assaults. 

Reed’s lawyers say his conviction was based on flawed evidence. They have denied the other sexual assault accusations made by prosecutors. 

DNA testing sought

Reed’s attorneys filed a federal lawsuit in August to compel DNA testing of crime scene evidence, including the suspected murder weapon. His lawyers say the testing, which has been fought for years by prosecutors, could identify someone else as the murderer. The lawsuit is still pending. 

In recent weeks, Reed’s attorneys have presented affidavits in support of his claims of innocence, including one by a former inmate who claims Fennell bragged about killing Stites and referred to Reed by a racial slur. Reed’s lawyers say other recent affidavits corroborate the relationship between Stites and Reed and show Fennell was violent and aggressive toward her. 

…

Israel says its missile defenses have intercepted two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

The firings early Saturday raise more doubts about the fate of a fragile cease-fire that was announced Thursday.

The Egyptian-brokered lull ended two days of escalation between Israel and the Islamic Jihad.

A rare Israeli targeted killing of a senior commander from the Iranian-backed group triggered the worst bout of cross-border fighting in years.

Hamas, the larger Islamic group controlling Gaza, stayed on the sideline, fearing its participation could cause an all-out war.

The Islamic Jihad said it launched hundreds of rockets toward Israel in retaliation for the killing of the commander Bahaa Abu el-Atta.

Subsequent Israeli airstrikes killed 34 Palestinians, including eight children and three women. There were no Israeli deaths.

…

The first televised hearing of the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday attracted an estimated 13.8 million viewers across 10 broadcast and cable television networks, according to Nielsen ratings data. 

The audience for the six-hour proceeding, while larger than average weekday viewing, fell short of the TV audience for other recent political events that riveted the country. 

About 20 million U.S. TV viewers watched congressional testimony in 2018 of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on six networks, according to Nielsen. At that hearing, Stanford 
University professor Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexual 
assault. Kavanaugh denied the charges and was confirmed to the 
court. 

In July 2017, about 19.5 million Americans tuned in when former FBI Director James Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee about his dealings with Trump, according to Nielsen data from 10 networks. 

A July 2019 hearing in which former special counsel Robert Mueller testified about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election attracted roughly 13 million viewers on seven networks, Nielsen’s data showed. 

The numbers do not reflect people who streamed the hearings 
on phones and computers or followed proceedings on social media. 

…

Hong Kong is expected to confirm on Friday it plunged into recession for the first time in a decade, amid concerns the economy could be in even worse shape than feared as months of anti-government protests take a heavy toll.

Preliminary figures in October showed the Chinese-ruled city’s economy shrank by 3.2% in July-September from the preceding period, contracting for a second straight quarter and meeting the technical definition of a recession.

With no end to the increasingly violent protests in sight, analysts say the slump could be long and deep, with gross domestic product seen shrinking further this quarter and well into next year.

The financial and trade center was already under strong pressure from the prolonged tariff war between Washington and Beijing, but the increasingly violent demonstrations, which have gone on for more than five months, have delivered a decisive blow.

“We assume the violent protests will continue for the whole year in 2020 unless the Hong Kong government will do something really special (to end the conflict), which it seems to be avoiding,” said Iris Pang, Greater China economist at ING, who expects the economy to shrink by 2.2% in 2019 and 5.3% in 2020.

Frequent transport disruptions, violent clashes between police and protesters and the use of tear gas have battered the retail sector and scared off tourists, especially from mainland China, who made up around 80% of the 65.1 million visitors to the city in 2018.

August retail sales were the worst on record — down 23% from a year earlier — while September’s plunged 18.3%.

Shops, restaurants and other businesses across the Chinese-ruled city increasingly close early as protests spring up, at times daily, and often with little or no notice. Some smaller businesses have had to close for good.

Shopping malls near the heart of the financial center that house some of the world’s biggest luxury brands have shuttered early most days this week as the unrest escalated, with tear gas smoke billowing between skyscrapers, at times during lunch hour.

The protests have presented the city — one of the world’s most important financial hubs with total banking, fund and wealth management assets worth more than $6 trillion — with its biggest political crisis in decades.

Business activity in the private sector fell to its weakest in 21 years in October, according to IHS Markit, while demand from mainland China declined at the sharpest pace in the survey’s history, which started in July 1998.

The government has rolled out stimulus measures since August, but since it is forced to keep a high level of reserves by its Hong Kong dollar peg to the U.S. greenback, the packages have been relatively small.

Analysts also doubt the effectiveness of handouts, since the uncertainty prevents businesses and consumers from spending and investing, and store closures will lead to job losses.

“Given how poor sentiment is, we do not expect the stimulus to have a meaningful impact until the political unrest comes to a halt,” said Tommy Wu, senior economist at Oxford Economics, who predicts a 1.5% contraction in GDP for 2019 and “another decline” in 2020.

“But we do expect more stimulus to be rolled out in the future.”

…

Rights groups and the U.S. Embassy on Thursday called for the Cambodian government to drop the charges against two former Radio Free Asia reporters who were arrested in 2017 and released on bail a year ago.

The calls came to mark the second anniversary of the Nov. 14, 2017, arrest of former Radio Free Asia journalists Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s crackdown on the media, civil society groups and the political opposition before the 2018 elections. The two faced espionage charges, and on Oct. 3, when Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Im Vannak had been scheduled to deliver a verdict after a trial that ended in August, he instead ordered a fresh investigation into hard disk drives seized when they were arrested.

After their arrest, the former reporters were held in pretrial detention until 2018, when they were released on conditional bail, which prevented them from traveling overseas and required them to report to a local police station once a month.

Support for reporters

The U.S. Embassy, in a social media post, said Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin had been subjected to a prolonged trial that impinged on their personal freedoms and affected their personal and professional lives.

“Dropping charges against these journalists and restoring their full rights and freedoms would correct an injustice, honor Cambodia’s constitution, and signal a needed commitment to the important role an independent media plays in a democracy,” the social media post read. 

Human Rights Watch and the Cambodian Alliance for Journalism also released statements on Thursday, again calling for the charges to be dropped.

“The case against Chhin and Sothearin should have been dropped long ago, but Cambodia’s government seems intent on using baseless charges as a warning to other independent journalists,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The never-ending case is part of the government’s campaign to silence all critical reporting in the country.”

EU report on human rights

The calls for their restored freedoms came days after the European Union Commission completed its preliminary findings into Cambodia’s human rights record, which could lead to a suspension of trade preferences attached to Everything but Arms  (EBA), which permits the duty-free export of all products, except for weapons and ammunition, to the EU.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) accessed a copy of the report, which states that the commission observed a further deterioration in Cambodia’s human rights situation following the initiation of the investigation in February.

RFA is one of five U.S. civilian broadcast networks that fall under the purview of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). The others are Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL); the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) with its Radio and TV Martí; the Arabic-language stations Alhurra Television and Radio Sawa of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN); and Voice of America.

The Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin case has been at the forefront of the free-press crackdown in Cambodia, which has also seen the silencing of radio frequencies, shuttering of The Cambodia Daily and the sale of The Phnom Penh Post to a buyer linked to the Hun Sen government.

Effects of investigation

The two former reporters have consistently highlighted the effects of the lengthy investigation on their families, and the limiting effect it has had on employment opportunities. Yeang Sothearin said the charges were unreasonable and that the case has left his family in a constant state of fear.

“I still think that the charges against the two of us have made us political hostages,” he said. “Both of us should not be a tool for others. We should be provided justice and liberty.”

For Uon Chhin, the psychological and physical exhaustion of the two-year-long ordeal has left his family with a sense of uncertainty, a toll felt most by his children.  

Justice Ministry spokesperson Chin Malin said the calls by civil society to release Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin were politically motivated. He added that the court had ordered further investigation to ensure a fair end to the case.

“The judges have not been able to make a conclusion in this case,” he said. “So, to ensure fairness for the parties involved, further investigations and proceedings are required,” Chin Malin said. “Whether the charges are dropped or not depends on the outcome of the court’s investigation.”

…

The U.S. government recorded a $134 billion budget deficit in October, the first month of the new fiscal year, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.

That compared to a budget deficit of $100 billion in the same month last year, according to the Treasury’s monthly budget statement.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a $133 billion deficit for the month.

Unadjusted receipts last month totaled $246 billion, down 3% from October 2018, while unadjusted outlays were $380 billion, a rise of 8% from the same month a year earlier.

The U.S. government’s fiscal year ends in September each year. Fiscal 2019 saw a widening in the deficit to $984 billion, the largest budget deficit in seven years, a result of the Trump administration’s decision to cut taxes and increase government spending.

Those figures reflected the second full budget year under U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, and a time when the country had an expanding tax base with moderate economic growth and an unemployment rate near a 50-year low.

When adjusted for calendar effects, the deficit for October remained at $134 billion compared with an adjusted deficit of $113 billion in October 2018.
 

…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have a healthy 10-point lead ahead of an election on Dec. 12, a poll by Savanta ComRes showed on Wednesday, extending their advantage over Labour after the Brexit Party stood down candidates.

The poll, carried out for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, showed the Conservative Party with 40%, up 3 points from a poll last week, ahead of Labour on 30%, up 1 point.

The poll was conducted after Nigel Farage said his Brexit Party would not put candidates up in Conservative-held seats, a major boost to Johnson. The Brexit Party will still stand candidates in Labour-held seats.

“The Brexit Party’s decision not to stand in Conservativeseats is likely to have an obvious positive impact on the overall Conservative vote share,” said Chris Hopkins, Head of Politics at ComRes.

 “But it’s those Labour-held seats that the Conservatives need to win for a majority, and the Brexit Party could still scupper those best-laid plans.”

The poll showed the Liberal Democrats on 16% and the Brexit Party on 7%. Voting analysis website Electoral Calculus said the vote shares implied a Conservative majority of 110 seats. The online poll of 2,022 adults was carried out on Nov. 11-12.

…

Microsoft is bringing holograms to the office. The company recently started shipping its 2nd version of HoloLens, a headset that allows users to touch and interact with 3D holograms in everyday settings. Various industries have begun experimenting with the new computing device and VOA’s Tina Trinh had a chance to check it out.

…