Year: 2019

The lights are back on through most of the state of California, where 2 million people saw their power cut during the past week in a precautionary effort to prevent wildfires.  As VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports, a heightened fire risk has left power companies racing to upgrade transmission systems, which sometimes spark the blazes.  …

Democratic U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, a powerful and respected voice in Washington, passed away Thursday at the age of 68. Cummings was one of the heads of an impeachment committee investigating President Donald Trump.  The late U.S. congressman, who represented the state of Maryland, was also an inspirational figure for many, especially African Americans.  VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.   …

Election fever is mounting in Botswana as voters prepare to go to the polls Oct. 23.  Former President Ian Khama has formed a breakaway party to seek the presidency because of policy differences with his handpicked successor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi. And an opposition coalition also is campaigning to form a new government. From Gaborone, Botswana, Mqondisi Dube has more. …

Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians agreed on Thursday to establish a joint economic committee and a business council, as the Palestinian Authority faces a financing gap that could top $1.8 billion. Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s PA has been in deep financial crisis since February when Israel froze transfers of VAT and customs duties it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf. His administration had to impose austerity measures, cutting almost half the salaries of its employees. Abbas, who arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday, met with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA). It added that the leaders reached “an agreement on the establishment of a joint economic committee and on a Saudi-Palestinian business council”. The report did not elaborate further. The announcement came days after Saudi Arabia’s football team played Palestine in the occupied West Bank for the first time on Tuesday, with the Saudi side having previously refused to enter the territory as part of its boycott of Israel. Israel’s cuts have hit hard on the Palestinian territories, already suffering unemployment of around 26 percent in the second quarter of 2019, the World Bank said last month in a report. Israel collects around $190 million a month in customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through its ports, and it is supposed to transfer the money to the PA. In February, Israel decided to deduct around $10 million a month from the revenues — the sum the PA …

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says it will issue a formal note of protest to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow after Russian authorities caught three U.S. diplomats in a restricted area near a secret test site in northern Russia, state-run news agency TASS has reported. The trio, which included the U.S. military and naval attachés, was removed from a train on October 14 and briefly questioned by Russian authorities in the sensitive Arctic shipyard city of Severodvinsk, near the site of a mysterious explosion in August that killed five nuclear workers. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the diplomats had been on an official trip and that they had notified Russian authorities in advance of their travel plans. The reason for the diplomats’ travel was not disclosed. But Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the diplomats had been found in a restricted area more than 40 kilometers from Arkhangelsk, the city they had said they planned to visit. Interfax said the authorities checked the documents of the three before releasing them. TASS quoted a source as saying law enforcement authorities suspected the three of breaching rules on foreigners visiting controlled zones. Interfax quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry as confirming that the diplomats gave notice of their travels, although it said it was for a different destination and that they “probably lost their way.” Severodvinsk is considered to be in a sensitive military region, and foreigners are allowed to visit only under certain conditions — normally with advanced permission from the authorities. An explosion on August …

Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorism unit went on a busy 24-hour spree to root out suspected Islamic militants ahead of a presidential inauguration this weekend that will be attended by Asian leaders and Western envoys. At least 40 suspects have been detained by the counterterrorism squad, known as Densus 88, in eight provinces, including four who were captured on Thursday, national police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said. The sweep followed a tipoff about possible attacks against police and places of worship in several areas. Six of the arrested militants, including a woman, were presented in a news conference Thursday in orange detainee shirts and under heavy guard at the police headquarters. They were not identified by police, who also displayed explosive chemicals for bomb-making, knives, jihadi books, airsoft guns and rifles with silencers and sniper scopes they said were seized from the suspects. Another police spokesman, Muhammad Iqbal, said Wednesday among the arrested suspects were two female police officers who have been radicalized and were willing to be suicide bombers. The arrests follow an attack last week in which a militant stabbed Indonesia’s top security minister, Wiranto, who is recovering from his wounds. A husband and wife were arrested in that attack. President Joko Widodo, who will take the oath of the office on Sunday at a ceremony in the capital, Jakarta, ordered government forces to hunt down the militant networks responsible for the attack. Wiranto, a local police chief and a third man were wounded in the broad daylight attack in Banten …

France’s top diplomat held talks in Baghdad on Thursday about transferring foreign jihadists from northern Syria, where a Turkish offensive has triggered fears of mass jailbreaks, to be tried in Iraq. European governments are worried that the Turkish operation will allow the escape of some of the 12,000 suspected Islamic State (IS) group fighters — including thousands of foreigners — held by Syrian Kurds. The issue was top of the agenda for French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in his talks with his Iraqi counterpart Mohammed Ali al-Hakim, President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. Le Drian said he had discussed with Iraqi leaders “the way to implement an appropriate judicial mechanism” to try French and other fighters “in the best conditions”. The aim is for foreign jihadists to be tried in Iraqi courts while upholding certain principles of justice and respect for human rights, a French diplomatic source said. One issue will be Iraq’s use of the death penalty, which is outlawed throughout the EU. Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden sent officials on a technical mission to Baghdad this week to assess the situation. “There are talks between the Americans, the British, French and Iraqis about funding the construction of prisons,” Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi expert on IS, told AFP. Le Drian urged the international coalition against IS to confront the “new risks created by the Turkish intervention in northeast Syria and the risk of an IS resurgence.” ‘Fuel chaos’ Hundreds of foreigners …

A senior U.S. delegation faces the herculean task of pressuring Turkey to accept a cease-fire in Northern Syria, hours after President Donald Trump declared the U.S. has no stake in defending Kurdish fighters who died by the thousands as America’s partners against Islamic State extremists.   Vice President Mike Pence, heading a U.S. delegation that includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, arrived in Turkey on Thursday, a day after Trump dismissed the very crisis he sent his aides on an emergency mission to douse.   Trump suggested Wednesday that a Kurdish group was a greater terror threat than the Islamic State group, and he welcomed the efforts of Russia and the Assad government to fill the void left after he ordered the removal of nearly all U.S. troops from Syria amid a Turkish assault on the Kurds.   “Syria may have some help with Russia, and that’s fine,” Trump said. “They’ve got a lot of sand over there. So, there’s a lot of sand that they can play with.”   He added: “Let them fight their own wars.” Trump: I Did Not Green-Light Turkish Incursion Into Syria US president tells reporters he does not want to get involved in a war between Turkey and Syria   The split-screen foreign policy moment proved difficult to reconcile and came during perhaps the darkest moment for the modern U.S.-Turkey relationship and a time of trial for Trump and his Republican Party allies. Severe condemnation of …

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed a law clearing away legal hurdles that could have prevented state prosecutions of people pardoned by President Donald Trump for federal crimes. The law signed Wednesday by the Democrat revises exceptions to the state’s double jeopardy law. New York Democrats say it will ensure that the state’s ongoing investigations into associates of the Republican president can’t be derailed by a White House pardon. Republicans have decried the law as a partisan attack. The law was passed this year amid speculation that Trump might pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort or former lawyer Michael Cohen. Both have been convicted of federal crimes. Manafort is also awaiting trial on a New York state mortgage fraud charge that closely mirrors part of his federal case.   …

President Donald Trump has quietly transferred more than $200 million from Pentagon counterdrug efforts toward building his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, drawing protests from Democrats who say he is again abusing his powers. The move would shift $129 million to wall construction from anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan — the source of perhaps 90 percent of the world’s heroin — along with $90 million freed up by passage of a stopgap funding bill, top Democrats said in a letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. The Defense Department “was faced with a simple choice: either additional funds be used for their intended purpose, to accelerate our military’s efforts to combat heroin production in Afghanistan; or divert these funds to pay for cost increases of a border wall project that does not have the support of the American people,” the Democrats wrote. FILE – Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., left, accompanied by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., attend a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Jan. 16, 2018. Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chuck Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont took the lead, noting that the heroin trade is a major funding source for the Taliban and urging the Pentagon to “redouble its efforts to starve the Taliban of a vital funding source and reduce the scourge of heroin abuse in this country and abroad.” Trump has shifted more than $6 billion from Pentagon accounts to pay for border fence construction, considerably more than lawmakers have provided through …

A British couple whose son was killed in a traffic accident involving a U.S. diplomat’s wife has balked at President Donald Trump’s surprise effort to have them meet with the woman at the White House, saying they would only talk with her if she returns to Britain to face charges. Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn met with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday, seeking to have diplomatic immunity waived for the envoy’s wife, Anne Sacoolas, so she could stand trial in Britain for driving on the wrong side of a British road and colliding head-on with a motorcycle driven by their son, 19-year-old Harry Dunn. Sacoolas has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing. She was interviewed by police about the Aug. 27 accident and stayed three weeks in Britain, but then returned to the United States. The U.S. refused to waive diplomatic immunity in the case, which often shields envoys and their families from facing criminal charges while serving in foreign lands. The couple said Wednesday that while Trump was sympathetic about the death of their son, they were taken aback when he told them that Sacoolas was in the building, and  pressed them to meet with her in front of photographers. Charles told CBS News on Wednesday, “He was willing to listen, didn’t interrupt me at all.” She said that emotionally, it would not have been good for her, her husband or Sacoolas to meet on such short notice without therapists or mediators present. “None of us know …

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta officially opened on Wednesday the second phase of his flagship infrastructure project: a Chinese-funded and built railway that will eventually link the port of Mombasa to Uganda.  The latest stretch of track cost $1.5 billion and runs from Nairobi to the Rift Valley town of Naivasha. But critics say the cost of the railway is plunging Kenya into debt.  Waving the Kenyan flag, Kenyatta inaugurated the second phase of the country’s new railway. The president then joined the first ride and listened to the on-board announcements. A general view shows a train on the Standard Gauge Railway line constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation and financed by Chinese government in Kenya, Oct. 16, 2019. The new track is 120 kilometers (75 miles) long and has 12 stations. Passengers can ride the trains, but the railway is mainly for cargo. The track will eventually lead to an inland container depot, from where containers will be distributed to Uganda and Rwanda, and to South Sudan. The train stopped at every station, where a cheering crowd awaited the president. He promised them that the new railway will bring prosperity. Kenyatta said that if the railway comes here, development also comes here. The cost of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars for construction of the second phase comes up on top of the $3.2 billion spent for the first stretch from Mombasa to Nairobi. President Kenyatta says this money will be earned back by the economic development spurred on by …

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 …

“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 …

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, weeps as she explains that her four children were injured in a bombing last week — one died and Sara lost a …

Two unrelated earthquakes have rattled California in a little more than a 12-hour period. A  magnitude-4.7 earthquake hit a remote mountainous region in central California, 25 kilometers southeast of Hollister, just after noon on Tuesday. It followed a 4.5 magnitude temblor near Pleasant Hill, northeast of San Francisco, late Monday. Despite having occurred within a short time of each other, the quakes were centered too far apart to have been related, seismologist Lucy Jones said on Twitter.   Today’s M4.8 near Hollister is too far from yesterday’s M4.5 to be connected. When we look for patterns between quakes at long distances, we see triggering for ~3x length of the fault. The fault length in a M4.5 is less than 1 km. — Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) October 15, 2019 The quakes come just three days before the 30th anniversary of one of the deadliest in San Francisco Bay Area history.  In 1989, the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake killed 69 people and injured thousands.       …

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF, announced that it would be suspending its operations in northeastern Syria due to “extreme volatility in the region.” Since Oct. 9, MSF has evacuated its staffs from hospitals in the Kurdistan region of Syria after the start of Turkish military operations in the area. Robert Onus, MSF emergency manager for Syria, said  the Turkish military engagement will “increase the need for humanitarian assistance” but that the organization could not provide it with the current “insecurity.” “We cannot operate at scale until we can gain the assurances and acceptance of all parties to the conflict that we can operate safely,” said Onus. According to MSF, the Syrian government has not authorizated the organization to operate in the country. With The Syrian Democratic Forces entering an alliance with the government, MSF’s lack of authorization could continue be an issue. A Turkish forces truck transporting armored personnel carriers, crosses the border with Syria in Karkamis, Gaziantep province, southeastern Turkey, Oct. 15, 2019. Most of the towns and cities that hosted MSF facilities and doctors were cities controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Many of the locations were liberated from Islamic States of Iraq and the Levant insurgents in 2015. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), which is the Syrian government’s state run media, has reported that soldiers from the Syrian Arab Army have entered key points in the northeast to “face Turkish aggression.” With the evacuation of personnel, the organization said it …