Ride-share company Uber and on-demand meal delivery service Postmates have sued to block a broad new California law aimed at giving wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent contractors. 
 
The lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles argues that the law set to take effect Wednesday violates federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process. 
 
Uber said it would try to link the lawsuit to another legal challenge filed in mid-December by associations representing freelance writers and photographers. 
 
The California Trucking Association filed the first challenge to the law in November on behalf of independent truckers. 
 
The law creates the nation’s strictest test by which workers must be considered employees and it could set a precedent for other states. 

Worker statements

The latest challenge includes two independent workers who wrote about their concerns with the new law. 
 
“This has thrown my life and the lives of more than a hundred thousand drivers into uncertainty,” ride-share driver Lydia Olson wrote in a Facebook post cited by Uber. 
 
Postmates driver Miguel Perez called on-demand work “a blessing” in a letter distributed by Uber. He said he used to drive a truck for 14 hours at a time, often overnight. 
 
“Sometimes, when I was behind the wheel, with an endless shift stretching out ahead of me like the open road, I daydreamed about a different kind of job — a job where I could choose when, where and how much I worked and still make enough money to feed my family,” he wrote. 
 
The lawsuit contends that the law exempts some industries but includes ride-share and delivery companies without a rational basis for distinguishing between them. It alleges that the law also infringes on workers’ rights to choose how they make a living and could void their existing contracts. 
 
Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego countered that she wrote the law to extend employee rights to more than a million California workers who lack benefits, including a minimum wage, mileage reimbursements, paid sick leave, medical coverage and disability pay for on-the-job injuries. 

Previous Uber efforts
 
She noted that Uber had previously sought an exemption when lawmakers were crafting the law, then said it would defend its existing labor model from legal challenges. It joined Lyft and DoorDash in a vow to each spend $30 million to overturn the law at the ballot box in 2020 if they didn’t win concessions from lawmakers next year. 
 
“The one clear thing we know about Uber is they will do anything to try to exempt themselves from state regulations that make us all safer and their driver employees self-sufficient,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “In the meantime, Uber chief executives will continue to become billionaires while too many of their drivers are forced to sleep in their cars.” 
 
The new law was a response to a legal ruling last year by the California Supreme Court regarding workers at the delivery company Dynamex. 

Austria’s Foreign Ministry is facing a “serious cyberattack,” it said late Saturday, warning another country could be responsible. 
 
“Due to the gravity and nature of the attack, it cannot be excluded that it is a targeted attack by a state actor,” the ministry said in a statement shortly before 11 p.m. (2200 GMT), adding that the attack was ongoing. 
 
“In the past, other European countries have been the target of similar attacks,” the statement continued. 
 
Immediate measures had been taken and a “coordination committee” set up, it said without elaborating. 
 
The attack came as Austria’s Greens on Saturday gave the go-ahead to a coalition with the country’s conservatives at a party congress in Salzburg, removing the last obstacle to the unprecedented alliance. 
 
The German government’s IT network in 2018 was hit by a cyberattack. 
 
Last year, the EU adopted powers to punish those outside the bloc who launch cyberattacks that cripple hospitals and banks, sway elections, or steal company secrets or funds. 

The death toll has risen to at least 24 and 23 more people are listed as injured in the collapse of a building in Cambodia that trapped workers under rubble, officials said Sunday. 

The seven-story concrete building collapsed Friday in the coastal town of Kep, about 160 km (100 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh. It occurred a year after another construction site collapsed, 
killing 28 people in Preah Sihanouk province. 

“Twenty-four people have died so far,” Kep Governor Ken Satha told Reuters. “Three of the bodies are not yet at hospital. They have not been pulled out yet.” 

An unknown number of workers remained trapped, Satha said, 
adding that authorities had detained a Cambodian couple, the 
owners of the building, for questioning. 

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Saturday that rescuers were still struggling to reach those missing in the rubble. 

Cambodia is undergoing a construction boom to serve growing 
crowds of Chinese tourists and investors. 

American pop singer Pink says she is donating $500,000 to help fight the deadly wildfires that have devastated parts of Australia.

“I am totally devastated watching what is happening in Australia right now with the horrific bushfires,” Pink tweeted Saturday to her 32.2 million Twitter followers. “I am pledging a donation of $500,000 directly to the local fire services that are battling so hard on the frontlines. My heart goes out to our friends and family in Oz.”

The death toll in the wildfire crisis is now up to 23 people. The fires are expected to be particularly fierce throughout the weekend.

The wildfires, which have been raging since September, have already burned about 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land and destroyed more than 1,500 homes.

Demonstrators chanting “No war on Iran” rallied Saturday in Washington, New York and other U.S. cities to protest the assassination of a top Iranian military commander in a U.S. drone strike. 
 
Outside the White House, around 200 people gathered as part of a wave of rallies called by left-leaning organizations. They chanted slogans including, “No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East.” 
 
Organizers said demonstrations were convened in 70 U.S. cities to denounce the killing of General Qassem Soleimani early Friday in Baghdad on orders from President Donald Trump. The attack has prompted fears of a major conflagration in the Middle East. 
 
“We will not allow our country to be led into another reckless war,” one speaker outside the White House said. 

The protesters later headed toward the Trump International Hotel, which is just down the street from the presidential mansion. 
 
“Need a distraction? Start of a war,” read a sign held by Sam Crook, 66. 
 
Trump faces trial in the Senate following his impeachment by the House of Representatives in the Ukraine scandal. 
 
Crook described himself as concerned. 
 
“This country is in the grip of somebody who’s mentally unstable, I mean Donald Trump, that is. He’s not right in the head,” Crook told AFP. 

‘Childish reaction’
 
“He’s crazy and has a childish reaction to everything. And I’m afraid he’s going to inadvertently — he doesn’t really want to, I think — but I think he could easily start some sort of a real conflagration in the Middle East,” Crook added. 
 
Shirin, 31, an Iranian American who would not give her last name, said she was worried about the possibility of war with Iran, which has vowed revenge for the death of Soleimani. 
 
“We already spent trillions of dollars fighting unjust wars in Iraq and, you know, the longest war today in Afghanistan. And what do we have to show for it?” she said. 
 
She argued that the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq caused instability throughout the region and strengthened Iran, “which is now, you know, a major political, social and cultural force in Iraq.” 

At Times Square in New York, demonstrators marched with signs crying out against the prospect of war with Iran and calling for the withdrawal of the 5,000-odd U.S. troops in Iraq. 
 
“War is not a re-election strategy,” read one sign in that procession. 
 
Demonstrators also marched in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles. 

Indonesian rescue teams flew helicopters stuffed with food to remote flood-hit communities Saturday as the death toll from the disaster jumped to 60 and fears grew about the possibility of more torrential rain. 
 
Tens of thousands in Jakarta were still unable to return to their waterlogged homes after some of the deadliest flooding in years hit the enormous capital region, home to about 30 million. 
 
In neighboring Lebak, where half a dozen people died, police and military personnel dropped boxes of instant noodles and other supplies into remote communities inaccessible by road after bridges were destroyed. 
 
“It’s tough to get supplies in there … and there are about a dozen places hit by landslides,” Tomsi Tohir, the police chief of Banten province, where Lebak is located, told AFP. “That is why we’re using helicopters although there aren’t any landing spots.” 
 
Local health center chief Suripto, who goes by one name, said injured residents were flowing into his clinic. 
 
“Some of them were wounded after they were swept away by floods and hit with wood and rocks,” he said. 

Around Jakarta, more than 170,000 people took refuge in shelters across the massive urban conglomeration after whole neighborhoods were submerged. 
 
Torrential rains that started on New Year’s Eve unleashed flash floods and landslides. 
 
Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said Saturday that two people were also killed after flash floods and landslides hit a village in North Sulawesi on Friday. 
 
The agency said Saturday that the total death toll had climbed to 60 with two people still missing. 
 
“We’ve discovered more dead bodies,” said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo. 

‘Trauma healing’ 

Jakarta shelters filled up with refugees, including infants, resting on thin mats as food and drinking water ran low. Some had been reduced to using floodwater for cleaning. 
 
“We’re cleaning ourselves in a nearby church but the time has been limited since it uses an electric generator for power,” said Trima Kanti, 39, from one refuge in Jakarta’s western edges. 

In hard-hit Bekasi, on the eastern outskirts of Jakarta, swamped streets were littered with debris and crushed cars lying on top of each other — with waterline marks reaching as high as the second floors of buildings. 
 
On Friday, the government said it would start cloud seeding to the west of the capital — inducing rain using chemicals sprayed from planes — in the hope of preventing more rain from reaching the city region. 
 
Water has receded in many areas and power was being restored in hundreds of districts. 
 
The health ministry has said it deployed 11,000 health workers and soldiers to distribute medicine, hygiene kits and food in a bid to stave off outbreaks of hepatitis A, mosquito-borne Dengue fever and other illnesses, including infections linked to contact with dead animals. 
 
Visiting hard-hit Lebak, Muhadjir Effendy, coordinating minister for human development and cultural affairs, said the government would help rebuild destroyed schools and construct temporary bridges, while offering assistance to victims. 
 
“We’re also asking for [nongovernmental organizations] to help with trauma healing,” Muhadjir told reporters Saturday. 

Electrocution, drowning 

Around Jakarta, a family that included a 4- and a 9-year-old died of suspected gas poisoning from a portable power generator, while an 8-year-old boy was killed in a landslide. 
 
Others died from drowning or hypothermia, while one 16-year-old boy was electrocuted by a power line. 

Jakarta is regularly hit by floods during the rainy season, which started in late November. But this week marked Jakarta’s deadliest flooding since 2013 when dozens were killed after the city was inundated by monsoon rains. 
 
Urban planning experts said the disaster was partly due to record rainfall. But Jakarta’s myriad infrastructure problems, including poor drainage and rampant overdevelopment, have worsened the situation, they said. 
 
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has announced a plan to move the country’s capital to Borneo island to take pressure off Jakarta, which suffers from some of the world’s worst traffic jams and is fast sinking because of excessive groundwater extraction. 

Kenya said on Saturday it had started aerial spraying in three counties in the country’s north to try to head off a locust invasion which has already caused extensive damage to farmland in neighboring Somalia and Ethiopia.

In a statement, the government said swarms of desert locusts started crossing into Kenya around Dec. 28 and that the three counties of Wajir, Marsabit and Mandera were affected.

“Aerial spraying capacity has also been acquired and the aerial spraying will start today.” the statement said, adding that the invasion posed a threat to food security.

Locusts have already destroyed 70,000 hectares (175,000 acres) of farmland in Somalia and Ethiopia, threatening food supplies in both countries in the worst locust invasion in 70 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The statement said that the government had procured 3,000 liters of chemicals to help in the spraying and added it would also distribute handheld sprayers to some residents.

The three affected counties are largely semi-arid and are occupied mostly by pastoral communities.

Over one hundred thousand protesters, many carrying the Indian tricolor flag, took part in a peaceful march in the southern city of Hyderabad on Saturday, chanting slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new citizenship law.

The protest, dubbed the ‘Million March’, was organized by an umbrella group of Muslim and civil society organizations. More than 40 percent of Hyderabad’s estimated population of nearly 7 million are Muslims.

Demonstrators were still pouring into the protest site late on Saturday afternoon, according to a Reuters witness, despite police saying no march would be allowed and that permission had only been granted for a 1,000-person gathering.

The Indian government has faced weeks of acrimonious and, at times, violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was passed by Modi’s government in December.

The Hyderabad protesters held placards with slogans including “Withdraw CAA immediately,” and “India’s only religion in Secularism.”

The Reuters witness said the protest remained peaceful, and estimated that more than one hundred thousand people were in attendance.

The new law eases the path for non-Muslim minorities from the neighboring Muslim-majority nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to gain Indian citizenship. But, if combined with a proposed national register of citizens, critics of the CAA fear it will discriminate against minority Muslims in India and chip away at India’s secular constitution.

Modi’s government maintains the new law is necessary to help minorities facing persecution in Muslim-majority nations, and it has called the pan-India protests politically motivated.

At least 25 people have been killed in protest-related clashes with police since early December.

Elsewhere, protests against the CAA also went ahead in several other Indian cities on Saturday with hundreds turning out for protests in cities in the southern state of Karnataka.

Hundreds of men and women gathered at a rally in the tech hub of Bengaluru, with some accusing Modi’s government of trying to divide India along communal lines, to distract from a sharp domestic economic slowdown and job losses.

Businesses in Vietnam face a cash shortage that is preventing as much as $24 billion that could be invested in the nation’s $250 billion economy, according to a study by PwC Vietnam.

The financial services company analyzed the 500 businesses in Vietnam with the highest revenue that have been listed on both the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange and the Hanoi Stock Exchange for the last four years or more. PwC Vietnam analysts said that those companies’ “cash conversion cycle” has increased, meaning that they have to wait longer from the start of the business cycle, when they first make their investments, until those investments start to pay off in the form of revenue.

“We continue to see cash flows being sacrificed to attain top line targets in Vietnam, which is not sustainable for businesses in the long run,” said Mohammad Mudasser, who leads the working capital management practice at PwC Vietnam. “Managing operating working capital is a cross-functional responsibility,” he added.

Top line refers to revenue, while bottom line refers to profit.

To sacrifice cash for the sake of revenue targets usually means that companies are willing to make an initial cash investment, often to buy inventory that can be sold for revenue. However the long cash conversion cycle suggests that there are some inefficiencies along the way, such as longer wait times between billing a customer and actually collecting the payment.

While there is no perfect business cycle, the PwC Vietnam study suggests companies in Vietnam could tackle some inefficiencies to unlock further potential in the already fast growing economy.

In 2018 Vietnam had one of the highest cash conversion cycles in Asia, at 67 days, which is an increase of two days compared with 2017, according to PwC Vietnam. That compares with an average in Asia of 58 days, and in particular 64 days in neighboring Thailand and 54 in Malaysia. That means those other Southeast Asian countries are able to turn their investments into cash sooner than Vietnam does.

One reason that companies do not want to have such a long cycle is that it makes them more vulnerable to debt. When they have to wait a longer time to receive payment from customers, some companies go into debt to cover their expenses.

“The fast-growing companies had significantly higher short term debt growth, indicating risks to the sustainable growth of these companies,” PwC Vietnam, a consulting company that sells tax and accounting services, said in a press release.

If the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank increases interest rates in the coming year, as some economists are expecting, emerging markets, such as Vietnam, could follow. That would increase borrowing costs for companies, increasing their vulnerability to debt.

In turn that could limit the economy’s potential. The Asian Development Bank estimates that Vietnam’s gross domestic product grew by 6.9% in 2019 and will grow by 6.8% in 2020.

PwC Vietnam looked at the inventory, expenses, and outstanding invoices of the 500 listed companies that it analyzed. Based on that, it estimated there was $24 billion “trapped in net working capital.”

However it estimated that only a fraction of that capital could be released, $11 billion, because some of the capital has to stay in the business cycle. Analysts said inventory and outstanding invoices, known as accounts receivable, where the best bet for improving efficiency. That could mean that too much inventory is being held, or that companies are waiting too long to be paid by customers.

Africa could emerge as a venue for confrontation between the U.S. and Iran as Tehran threatens to retaliate after the U.S. airstrike that killed the Iranian Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani.

Iran has sought to increase its influence in certain countries in Africa in recent years through activities such as arms sales, training fighters for combat in the Middle East and funding Shia sects. It also has significant trade relations with several countries, including South Africa.

Phillip Smyth, a Soref Fellow at The Washington Institute who studies Shia Islamist militarism, said that he does not necessarily expect the Iranians to strike immediately. He noted that they have historically been cautious and look for what he calls “plausible deniability” to avoid detection when they attack.

When they do strike, he said, it is possible they will look for a soft target in an unexpected location.

“The Iranians are going to want to show that they have influence on a global scale and they may look for low-hanging fruit or easier targets that they can go after,” Smyth said. “And that may very well occur in Africa. And it could very well occur in North America or Europe or in many other places,” he said.

Smyth said Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, has recruited and trained Nigerians for years. A 2018 report by the Middle East Institute said Iran had instructed Hezbollah to increase its training of Nigerians and hoped to use Nigeria as a base of operations to launch attacks and “thwart Israeli and Western ambitions in the region.”

There have also been West African fighters who, after converting to Shia Islam, traveled and fought alongside Iranians in Syria. Iranians have similarly supported fighters from other parts of the world to join them in various conflicts.

“There are tens of thousands of fighters that the Iranians have mobilized and used for conflicts in Iraq, in Syria and in Yemen. They have a very strong alliance and kind of proxy relationship with Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis. So they have quite an extensive presence and they have continued to try and grow that presence,” Smyth said.

Terror cells

A June 2019 report by the British newspaper The Telegraph said that Iranians were setting up terror cells in Africa under Soleimani’s direction. The paper reported that Iranian cells may be active in Sudan, Chad, Ghana, Niger, The Gambia and the Central African Republic.

However, Ryan Cummings, director of Signal Risk, an Africa-focused political and security risk management consultancy, said there is no evidence to date that Shia groups in Africa pose a threat to the U.S. or the West.

“Groups which have a distinct Shia theology — and which would place them in the orbit of Iran — have demonstrated no intent to carry out acts of violence against U.S./Western interests on the continent despite suggestions that they have embedded in these countries for several years,” he told VOA in a written statement.

Profit motives

Much of Iran’s engagement on the continent is less ideological and more profit-driven. One favored outlet has been weapons smuggling. A 2013 Conflict Armament Research report found Iranian bullets in 14 locations across nine African countries. At the time, the group said Sudan was partnering with Iran to funnel the ammunition to African armed groups.

“There’s actually a whole issue over the past couple of years of Iranian ammunition winding up throughout Africa,” Smyth said. “I mean from east to west. And it was rather interesting how these weapons systems and also the ammunition was arriving there.”

Smyth added that, in some cases, weapons are sent to Somalia, packed in wooden ships known as dhows and then smuggled across the Red Sea to Houthi fighters in Yemen.

Iran has also sought to exert influence on the African continent through religion. One prominent example of this is the Shia sect the Islamic Movement in Nigeria and its controversial leader Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky. The group has been charged with inciting violence and El-Zakzaky has been imprisoned and formally accused by the Nigerian government of trying to form an “Islamic State in Nigeria” with the backing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Although Africa does not appear to be a focal point of the emerging conflict between Iran and the U.S., that could change. Smyth noted that al-Qaida linked groups historically sought to attack U.S. interests in Africa, viewing it as a more favorable operating environment for terror groups. This occurred in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and a 2002 attack against an Israeli-owned hotel and a failed attempt to shoot down a passenger jet taking off from Mombassa, Kenya.

“People will look at the continent and say, ‘Can we smuggle weapons in, are there populations there that we can target, do they have lower security, how is the connection that goes back to, let’s say, the Israeli, or back to the Americans,’“ Smyth said.

He added that Iran will not want to damage its own trade and diplomatic relations in Africa but it will look for ways to make a loud and, possibly violent, statement.

“They don’t want to harm their other interests in the continent. However, I believe, if push came to shove, and if they really thought it would be a good place to get their revenge, they may actually pick the continent to do it on,” he said.

Thousands of mourners gathered Saturday for a funeral procession through Baghdad for Iran’s top general and Iraqi militant leaders killed in a U.S. airstrike that has caused regional tensions to soar.

Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds force and mastermind of its regional security strategy, was killed in an airstrike early Friday near the Iraqi capital’s international airport.

Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional policy of mobilizing militias across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, including in the war against the Islamic State group. He was also blamed for attacks on U.S. troops and American allies going back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Many of the mourners were dressed in black, and they carried Iraqi flags and the flags of Iran-backed militias that are fiercely loyal to Soleimani. They were also mourning Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior Iraqi militia commander who was killed in the same strike.

Airstrike condemned

The procession began at the Imam Kadhim shrine in Baghdad, one of the most revered sites in Shiite Islam. Mourners marched in the streets alongside militia vehicles in a solemn procession.

Iraq, which is closely allied with both Washington and Tehran, condemned the airstrike that killed Soleimani and called it an attack on its national sovereignty. Parliament is to meet for an emergency session Sunday, and the government has come under mounting pressure to expel the 5,200 American troops based in the country, who are there to help prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

The U.S. has ordered all of its citizens to leave Iraq and has closed its embassy in Baghdad, where Iran-backed militiamen and their supporters staged two days of violent protests earlier this week in which they breached the compound. 

No one was hurt in the protests, which came in response to U.S. airstrikes that killed 25 Iran-backed militiamen in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. said the strikes were in response to a rocket attack that killed a U.S. contractor in northern Iraq, which Washington blamed on the militias.

Iran nuclear deal

The killing of Soleimani comes after months of rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran stemming from Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal and restore crippling sanctions. 

The administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign has led Iran to openly abandon commitments under the deal. The U.S. has also blamed Iran for a wave of increasingly provocative attacks in the region, including the sabotage of oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure in September that temporarily halved its production.

‘Revenge is on the way’

In Iran on Saturday, every major newspaper and state-controlled TV broadcast focused on Soleimani’s death, with even reformist newspapers like Aftab-e Yazd warning that “revenge is on the way.”

In the hard-line Kayhan newspaper, editor-in-chief Hossein Shariatmadari wrote Saturday that Iran shouldn’t hesitate to retaliate. He criticized an earlier statement by the country’s Supreme National Security Council saying an attack would come at the “right place and right time.”

“America and its allies are sitting in a glass room and are vulnerable on every side, so we can say for sure that all the preparations are ready for harsh revenge on terrorist America,” wrote Shariatmadari, who was appointed by Khamenei.

The “glass room” comment may refer to the United Arab Emirates, home to the skyscraper-studded city Dubai, which Kayhan previously has warned was a target for Iranian-backed forces. The UAE also hosts some 5,000 American troops at Abu Dhabi’s Al-Dhafra Air Base. Dubai’s Jebel Ali port is the U.S. Navy’s busiest port of call outside of the U.S.

Hong Kong authorities activated a newly created “serious response” level Saturday as fears spread about a mysterious infectious disease that may have been brought back by visitors to a mainland Chinese city.

Five possible cases have been reported of a viral pneumonia that has also infected at least 44 people in Wuhan, an inland city west of Shanghai and about 900 kilometers (570 miles) north of Hong Kong.

The outbreak, which emerged last month, has revived memories of the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic that started in southern China and killed more than 700 people in the mainland, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

Serious response level

The serious response level indicates a moderate impact on Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million people. It is the second highest in a three-tier system that is part of a new government plan launched Saturday to respond to infectious diseases of unknown cause.

The city’s health department added an additional thermal imaging system at Hong Kong’s airport Friday to check the body temperature of arriving passengers. More staff have been assigned for temperature checks at the West Kowloon high-speed rail station that connects Hong Kong to the mainland.

City leader Carrie Lam, on a visit to the train station Friday to review the health surveillance measures, urged any travelers who develop respiratory symptoms to wear surgical masks, seek medical attention and let doctors know where they have been. The Wuhan health commission said 11 of the 44 people diagnosed with the pneumonia were in critical condition as of Friday. All were being treated in isolation and 121 others who had been in close contact with them were under observation. 

Seafood market

Most of the cases have been traced to the South China Seafood City food market in the suburbs of sprawling Wuhan, where offerings reportedly include wild animals that can carry viruses dangerous to humans. The commission said the market has been disinfected.

The most common symptom has been fever, with shortness of breath and lung infections in a small number of cases, the commission said. There have been no clear indications of human-to-human transmission of the disease.

The latest cases in Hong Kong are two women, ages 12 and 41, who had been to Wuhan in the past 14 days but did not appear to have visited the food market, the Hospital Authority said. They were in stable condition and being treated in isolation at Princess Margaret Hospital. 

Besides SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, Hong Kong has also been hit by bird flu in 1997 and swine flu in 2009. 

U.S. efforts to deal with Iran in the coming days could divert its attention from Pyongyang, meanwhile the killing of Iran’s top military general by the U.S. could prompt North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to reassess how willing the U.S. is to use force, experts said.

“North Korea may get put on the back burner,” said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, as the Trump administration becomes occupied with possible Iranian retaliations in the Middle East.

The U.S. killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani Friday with an airstrike at the Baghdad airport. Soleimani was the commander of Iran’s Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the chief strategist of Iran’s military influence in the Middle East and the architect of major operations of Iranian forces over the past two decades. 

President Donald Trump authorized the attack amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran. Soleimani “killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans over an extended period of time, and was plotting to kill many more” Trump said via Twitter Friday.

The U.S. and Iran have been competing to exert influence in the Middle East and tension between the two has been growing over Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

On Friday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for retaliations against the United States. Soleimani’s death is expected to have an effect across the region.

US attention

Iran could take the U.S.’s attention away from North Korea as Pyongyang seeks to raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula, said David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel who served on the Combined Forces Command of the U.S and South Korea.

“Kim is not going to be happy with all the attention focused on Iran when he was trying to execute a large-scale information and influence campaign against the U.S. and the international community to get sanctions lifted,” he said.

This week, Kim vowed to “actively push forward the project for developing strategic weapons.” North Korea’s aim to develop weapons is believed to be for escalating threats on the Korean Peninsula to increase leverage over the U.S. to extract sanctions relief.

North Korea has been demanding that the U.S. lift sanctions since Kim met with Trump at their Hanoi Summit last February. The summit broke down when Trump rejected Kim’s proposal for partial denuclearization in exchange for sanctions relief.

While the talks remained stalled, North Korea has conducted 13 missile tests since May in an effort to pressure the U.S. to lift sanctions.

Change of thinking

Experts said the U.S. killing of the Iranian general could change North Korea’s thinking about the U.S. ability to use force.

“The attack tells adversaries like North Korea to reassess [its] assumptions about U.S. actions moving up the escalatory ladder,” said Ken Gause, director of the adversary analytics program at CNA.

“Trump, more so than previous presidents,” he added, “is not averse to doing decapitation strikes and focused assassinations.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper Thursday said the U.S. could use a military option on North Korea if necessary.

“We think the best path forward, with regard to North Korea, is a political agreement that denuclearizes the peninsula,” Esper said in an interview with Fox News. “But that said, we remain, from a military perspective, ready to fight tonight, as need be.”

The Pentagon recently released a photo of U.S. and South Korean special forces conducting drills simulating raids on North Korean facilities aimed at taking out its top officials. 

“It will be interesting to speculate if [Kim] thinks something like this [the U.S. killing of the Iranian general] could happen to him or if his paranoia would lead him to think that Trump is somehow sending him a message,” Maxwell said.

“We should look for [North Korea’s] responses in the coming days,” he added.

This story was originated on VOA’s Korean Service.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently indicated the road to denuclearization has come to an end, but experts say he left a door open for diplomacy with the U.S. in his statements Wednesday.

“Kim Jong Un’s speech suggests that the DPRK [North Korea] is no longer interested in holding out the possibility of even an illusory commitment to denuclearization,” said Evans Revere, a former State Department official during the George W. Bush administration, which also negotiated with North Korea.

Kim said, “If the U.S. persists in its hostile policy toward the DPRK, there will never be the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and the DPRK will steadily develop necessary and prerequisite strategic weapons for the security of the state.”

Revere said Kim’s stance on denuclearization was “the latest manifestation” of what North Korea has been saying for years.

Earlier in December, North Korea’s U.N. ambassador, Kim Song, said denuclearization was off the table. 

Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said, “Kim is setting the stage for a strategic choice to be a full-fledged nuclear state, which is Pyongyang’s longtime goal, 40 years in the works, and then blame the U.S. for its hostile policy.”

Manning said North Korea might continue “the facade of diplomacy” while perfecting its missiles and nuclear arsenal and that denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang were unlikely to make progress.

“At this point, after 25 years of diplomatic efforts, it is delusional to keep saying there is one last chance,’” Manning said.  “I see no evidence Kim has any intention of dismantling his nuclear weapons program.”

North Korea promised it would denuclearize in hopes of obtaining sanctions relief at the start of talks with the U.S. in 2018.  At the failed Hanoi summit held in February 2019, Kim proposed partial denuclearization in exchange for eliminating sanctions.

President Donald Trump rejected the offer in Hanoi, and Pyongyang has responded with multiple missile launches since May in what many observers see as an effort to pressure the U.S. to soften its stance.

Now, Kim is signaling he no longer hopes to obtain sanctions relief from the U.S.

Even so, Bruce Klingner, former CIA deputy division chief of Korea and current senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said Kim was clinging to hopes that sanctions would disappear.

Klingner said Kim “left the door to negotiations open the tiniest of cracks” by stating that North Korea’s denuclearization and weapons development were “contingent on a dramatically altered U.S. policy.”

North Korea views internationally imposed sanctions as hostile acts. It also views joint military drills the U.S. holds annually with South Korea as a threat. Kim voiced opposition to both sanctions and joint exercises in his statements.

“Under such conditions” of continued joint drills and sanctions, Kim said, North Korea will drop a self-imposed moratorium placed on its nuclear and long-range missiles.

“There is no ground for us to get unilaterally bound to the commitment any longer,” Kim said.

Klingner expects North Korea will continue to take provocative actions in hopes of extracting concessions from the U.S.

“Pyongyang will go up the escalation ladder, either incrementally or immediately, but in a manner to maximize impact and diplomatic leverage,” he said.  “The Trump administration should ratchet up pressure on North Korea and foreign enablers of its prohibited nuclear and missile programs.”

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE — Australian firefighters were set for a dangerous day Saturday as fires in the states of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria were expected to burn out of control in temperatures above 40C (104F) and shifting, strong winds that will fan and spread the flames.

Authorities have said conditions could be worse than New Year’s Eve, when out-of-control fires forced thousands of residents and summer holidaymakers to seek refuge on beaches as the flames burned massive tracts of bushland.

“It’s going to be a long and difficult day for everybody,” NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters.

More than 100 fires were burning in NSW Saturday and more than half were not contained, Fitzsimmons said, adding that winds that will shift throughout the day will spread the blazes.

Fire Spread Prediction for Sat 4 Jan 2020
Dangerous fires in Shoalhaven, South Coast, Snowy Mountains & areas surrounding Greater Sydney. You should not be in potential spread areas or potential ember attack areas on Saturday. #nswrfs#nswfirespic.twitter.com/Ry14FXgPR2

— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) January 3, 2020

“We know the fires we’ve got already … but what we need to be vigilant about today as well is the prospect of any new fires that might start under these hot, dry, windy conditions,” he said.

In Victoria, where a state of disaster has been declared, there were evacuation recommendations for six fires, emergency warnings for six others and dozens still burning.

“We still have those dynamic and dangerous conditions, the low humidity, the strong winds, and what underpins that, the state is tinder dry. It is really, really dry at the moment,” Andrew Crisp, Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner, told reporters.

Authorities had urged people in areas covered by the state of disaster to evacuate, and said Saturday that tens of thousands of an estimated 100,000 people had left.

“But there are still significant populations in those areas,” said Graham Ashton, chief commissioner of Victoria Police. Those who stayed needed to monitor emergency announcements and fire tracking apps, he said.

Loss of life

There have been 10 deaths from the fires in NSW and Victoria so far this week, about half the total toll for the current fire season. Twenty-one people remain unaccounted for in Victoria, down from 28 reported Friday.

The focus Saturday is preventing more loss of life, authorities said.

To that end, national parks were closed and people were strongly urged earlier this week to evacuate large parts of NSW’s south coast and Victoria’s north eastern regions, magnets for holidaymakers at the peak of Australia’s summer school holidays.

State of emergency

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has declared a weeklong state of emergency.

“All of the major road networks in NSW are still open, but we can’t guarantee that beyond the next few hours. So, there are still windows for people to get out if they wish to do so,” she said.

The Australian Navy ship HMAS Sycamore delivered the first load of evacuees from the isolated town of Mallacoota on Victoria’s east coast to near Melbourne, with a second vessel carrying around 900 people to dock late Saturday.

The town was cut off on New Year’s Eve by fires, and about 4,000 people were stranded on the beach. Road access is still blocked and heavy smoke has limited air access, leaving sea transport as the only reliable route out.

The year 2020 in Afghanistan begins with the Trump administration vowing to push ahead with plans to withdraw U.S. troops and an upward trend in the number of U.S. combat casualties in the country.  In December, the White House said U.S. troop reduction in Afghanistan was “not necessarily” tied to reaching a peace agreement with the Taliban.  Mohammed Ahmadi of VOA’s Afghan service, has more.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday celebrated the death of the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, saying the airstrike that killed the shadowy Qassem Soleimani was long overdue. 
 
Speaking publicly for the first time since defense officials confirmed Soleimani was the target of a U.S. strike near Baghdad International Airport on Friday, Trump also warned Iran that it risked more strikes if it continued to target Americans. 
 
“We took action last night to stop a war,” Trump told reporters at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. “However, the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors, must end and it must end now.” 

Trump blamed Soleimani for the deaths of thousands of Americans, Iraqis and Iranians, saying the longtime regime general “made the death of innocent people his sick passion” while helping to run a terror network that reached across the Middle East to Europe and the Americas. 
 
“We take comfort in knowing his reign of terror is over,” the president said, adding the U.S. had already identified additional Iranian targets. 
 
“If Americans anywhere are threatened … I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary,” he said. 

Troops in Kuwait
 
Trump’s comments came as fresh U.S. troops were setting up in Kuwait, part of Washington’s plan to protect bases and personnel across the Middle East in anticipation of Iranian-directed violence. 
 
About 750 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division’s Immediate Response Force touched down at Salem Air Base on Friday, with U.S. defense officials confirming the force’s remaining 3,000 troops were on their way. 
 
A Defense Department spokesperson called the order for the additional soldiers “an appropriate and precautionary action,” citing “increased threat levels against U.S. personnel and facilities.” 

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the 3,000 soldiers had been put on notice earlier in the week, telling reporters Thursday that the Pentagon would deploy more forces “as needed.” 
 
The deployment came as Iranian officials and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq amplified their calls for revenge after the U.S. airstrike that killed Soleimani. 
 
Iraqi officials said the U.S. strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. 

Harsh response pledged
 
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Friday for three days of national mourning and promised a harsh response. 
 
“All enemies should know that the jihad of resistance will continue with a doubled motivation, and a definite victory awaits the fighters in the holy war,” he said in a statement carried on Iranian television. 
 
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif labeled the U.S. strike an “act of terrorism”: 

The US’ act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General Soleimani—THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al—is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation.

The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 3, 2020

Meanwhile, Kataeb Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that sparked the recent escalation with a rocket attack on a military base in Kirkuk, Iraq, that killed an American contractor, warned the U.S. “will pay a heavy price.” 
 
“Grave consequences will be borne by America, the Zionist entity, and the kingdoms of evil,” the militia said in a statement translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. “Are they unaware that we will become a thousand Soleimanis and a thousand Abu Mahdis?” 
 
How or when Iran might respond to the strike was unknown. U.S. defense and intelligence officials have long warned about Iran’s penchant for using asymmetric techniques, like terrorism and cyberattacks, to target the U.S. and Western nations. 

‘Asymmetric strikes’
 
“What we are very likely looking at is a series of tit-for-tat escalations and asymmetric strikes that probably won’t be limited to Iraq or to the Middle East,” Kirsten Fontenrose, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told VOA via Skype. 
 
“Iran isn’t opposed to kind of hitting us in the belly,” Fontenrose added. “And I think it will mean a little bit of vulnerability at our embassies and for our diplomats who live on the economies and countries where they are posted.” 
 
The United States has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and another 55,000 across the Middle East, all of whom could be targeted by Iran. 
 
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad told Americans Friday to “depart Iraq immediately” because of the heightened tensions. 

Earlier Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CNN that Iran and Soleimani had given Washington little choice. 
 
“He was actively plotting in the region to take actions — a big action, as he described it — that would have put dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk,” Pompeo said of the Quds Force commander. “We know it was imminent.” 
  
Pompeo on Friday phoned British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to discuss the “defensive action to eliminate” Soleimani, and he thanked them for their “recent statements” recognizing the continuing aggressive threat from Iran and its Quds Force. The secretary of state also spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Pakistani Chief of Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday. 

Cities on alert
 
Some U.S. cities have also heightened their alert status, concerned that Iran could use its ties with terror groups like the Lebanese-based Hezbollah in an attempt to strike the U.S. homeland. 
 
“We have never confronted in recent decades the reality of a war with a government of a large country with an international terror network at its behest,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday. “New Yorkers deserve to know that we have entered into a different reality.” 
 
But Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement Friday, “there are currently no specific, credible threats.” 

I commend the President’s decisive action to protect American lives both abroad and at home. Full statement: pic.twitter.com/xy0oSIzCzs

— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) January 3, 2020

 Although Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Quds Force are part of the Iranian military, the U.S. State Department designated them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations this past April because of their ties with Middle Eastern terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. 
 
The U.S. also blames the IRGC and Quds Force for the deaths of more than 600 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. 

“With this designation, we are sending a clear signal, a clear message to Iran’s leaders, including Qassem Soleimani & his band of thugs, that the United States is bringing all pressure to bear to stop the regime’s outlaw behavior” @SecPompeo said at the time (April 2019)

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) January 3, 2020

Jesusemen Oni contributed to this report.

The Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee saw much less risk of recession at its meeting last month, when it kept interest rates steady after three straight cuts and signaled that it expected to keep low rates unchanged through this year.

Minutes of the December meeting, released Friday, showed that Fed officials favored keeping rates in a low range of 1.5% to 1.75% to cushion the U.S. economy from slow global growth and the Trump administration’s trade conflicts. Officials were also concerned that inflation still hadn’t reached the Fed’s target level of 2%.

Still, many Fed policymakers at the Dec. 10-11 meeting expressed the view that the risks of a U.S.-China trade war had diminished along with the probability of a disruptive Brexit. The meeting occurred two days before the Trump administration and Beijing reached a preliminary trade deal, though press reports had already suggested that an initial agreement was near.

At their meeting last month, Fed officials noted that the U.S. economy was “showing resilience” despite the trade fights and a weak global economy, the minutes said. A rise in long-term rates also “suggested that the likelihood of a recession occurring over the medium term had fallen noticeably in recent months.”

Since last month’s meeting, though, tensions have escalated in the Middle East as the Trump administration has confronted Iranian-backed forces in Iraq. On Friday, stocks sank on Wall Street and oil prices jumped after U.S. forces in Iraq killed a top Iranian general.

Yet many analysts say higher oil prices could potentially benefit the U.S. economy because of the sharp increase in the past decade in U.S. oil production. Higher oil prices encourage energy companies to invest in drilling wells, which boosts demand for steel pipe and other equipment from U.S. factories and creates jobs. Those trends increasingly offset the drag on consumer spending exerted by higher gas prices.

Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the tax advisory firm RSM, suggested that the risks to the U.S. economy “are, for now, contained.”

“As a result, we do not expect any action by the Federal Reserve,” Brusuelas said. “There would need to be a much greater disruption to oil supply from the Persian Gulf to warrant a rate cut by the Fed in the near term.”

But should Iran respond to the attack and military action escalates, the danger to the U.S. economy could increase, economists said.

“The wild card is whether turmoil in the Middle East triggers a sustained sell-off in equities, depressing business and consumer confidence to the point where labor market and inflation concerns become secondary,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Though the Fed’s policymaking committee voted unanimously last month in favor of keeping rates unchanged, several members voiced concerns about the long-term consequences of very low rates.

Keeping rates ultra-low could fuel excessive risk-taking on Wall Street, a few participants warned, which could lead to dangerous asset bubbles. If those bubbles were to burst, it “could make the next recession more severe than otherwise.”

But a greater number of Fed officials felt that the job market could still strengthen and draw more people off the sidelines into jobs, without sending inflation up too much. That sentiment would favor keeping rates low to further reduce unemployment and stimulate economic growth.

Chairman Jerome Powell echoed that view in the post-meeting news conference, signaling that the Fed was comfortable with keeping rates low for the foreseeable future.

“We have learned that unemployment can remain at quite low levels for an extended period of time without unwanted upward pressure on inflation,” Powell said at the news conference.

Fed officials also expressed concern that Americans’ expectation for future inflation “was too low.”

Inflation expectations, some argue, can become self-fulfilling: If workers expect low inflation, they’re less likely to demand higher pay, which, in turn, allows companies to keep a lid on prices.

Low inflation expectations are another reason for the Fed to keep rates down, in hopes that they will eventually boost inflation.

In comments since the December meeting, Fed officials have remained upbeat about the economy’s prospects.

 In remarks titled “Is a Recession Around the Corner,” Thomas Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said he was concerned about the weakness in business investment, which he attributed to uncertainty caused by factors ranging from rising Middle East tensions to the outcome of trade talks with China. But he said there were reasons to be optimistic, including the benefits of the Fed’s three rate cuts last year.

“While there is always the risk of a shock, the Fed has done a lot to support the economy’s continued expansion and to provide buffers against the downside,” Barkin said in comments to a bankers’ association meeting in Baltimore.

Sales of new electric cars in Norway hit a record high last year, sector experts said Friday, reaching 42.4 percent of all nearly-registered cars in 2019, mostly thanks to strong demand for Tesla’s Model 3.

Norway, a major oil producer that has pioneered electric mobility, offers a very advantageous tax regime for clean vehicles, making them highly competitive in cost terms against petrol and diesel vehicles.

New e-car models arriving on the market should help push their share higher still this year, said OFV, a body which monitors Norway’s car market.

In 2019, 60,316 all-electric new cars were sold in Norway out of a total of 142,381, a rise of 30.8 percent from the previous year when the market share of e-cars was 31.2 percent.

The Norwegian car importer association said it expects e-cars to take a market share for new cars of 55 to 60 percent in 2020.

New models including the Volkswagen ID.3, the Ford Mustang Mach-e, the Polestar 2 and the Peugeot e-208 are expected to boost e-car sales.

“Today, in 2020 and in the years to come, a much larger range of cars is coming, with increased autonomy, greater size and in affordable price segments,” said OFV boss Oyvind Solberg Thorsen.

U.S. firm Tesla was the biggest single seller of e-cars in Norway last year, with its latest Model 3 alone selling 15,700 units.

Bigger goals

Norway’s Electric Vehicle Association called the numbers “very positive” but told AFP it had hoped for e-cars to account for 50 percent of new car sales last year.

The association’s secretary-general, Christina Bu, called on the government to maintain tax breaks for electric cars, which have become the topic of much debate in the Scandinavian country.

Norway, where electricity is almost exclusively generated by hydropower, has a 2025 target for all new cars to be zero-emission models.

Hybrid cars, which run on both thermal and electric energy, accounted for 25.9 percent of the new car market in Norway last year, while petrol and diesel cars accounted for around 16 percent each.
 

Ethiopian lawmakers have replaced anti-terrorism legislation that had drawn criticism from rights activists, although Amnesty International said the new version still had the potential to be used against government critics.

The new law, adopted Thursday, removes text invoked to arrest scores of journalists and politicians over the years.

A vaguely-worded provision to punish acts “encouraging terrorism” has been axed in favor of more specific language targeting “incitement.”

The new version also guarantees workers’ right to strike even if they “obstruct public services,” an offense the law otherwise classifies as terrorism.

But the law also criminalizes the vague act of “intimidation to commit a terrorist act.”

And it empowers lawmakers to identify and ban terrorist organizations, a move used in the past to outlaw opposition parties.

“I can see that there are some pro-human rights developments in the new law,” Amnesty International researcher Fisseha Tekle told AFP Friday.

He added, however, that there was also “potential for abuse.”

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has received accolades for political reforms including lifting bans on political parties, but the original anti-terrorism law passed in 2009 has remained in use.

After five high-ranking political and military leaders were assassinated in June 2019, hundreds of people were held under the anti-terrorism law, Fisseha said.

The new law notes that the old version had “loopholes which produced a negative effect on the rights and freedoms of citizens” and needed to be revised.

Concerns remain

Opposition politician Merera Gudina told AFP on Friday that it was too early to tell what the effects of the new law would be.

“We fear ruling party functionaries used to old habits could use the new law to target opponents,” he said.

Under the new law, lethal acts of terrorism can be punished with the death penalty or prison sentences of 15 years to life, terms that are broadly consistent with the old law.

Terrorism acts that cause “serious bodily injury” or property damage can fetch prison terms of 10 to 18 years.