Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation this week increasing fines and penalties against so-called “foreign agents” working in mass media — part of a broader spate of Russian laws that have targeted foreign media, NGOs, and other perceived enemies at home.  

The latest measure strengthens a controversial law signed earlier this month that expanded the foreign agent label beyond media outlets to individuals — making journalists, bloggers and online news consumers potential new targets. 

The laws have been criticized by human rights groups as a government weapon to restrict free speech, but are lauded by Kremlin loyalists as essential to protecting Russian sovereignty in the face of what they argue is routine foreign interference. 

The foreign agent media law now requires those who work for suspect media outlets to label any published materials as “made by a foreign agent,” and personally submit to regular audits and inspections of their work and finances.

Less clear, until now, were the penalties for violations.

Under the new terms approved by Putin, a series of graduated fines takes hold against media companies and their employees. 

Initial violations would now mean up to $800 in fines for individuals; $1,600 for management and officials; and up to $16,000 in fines for media companies. 

Repeat offenders over the course of a year face even stiffer penalties, including $1,600 in fines or up to 15 days in prison for individuals; $3,200 for management; and $80,000 docked from media companies pending compliance.  

With Putin’s signature, the law goes into effect Feb. 1, 2020. 

The new restrictions appear aimed primarily at journalists and individuals working for media organizations officially designated as foreign agents by Russia’s Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry.    

In practice, the law appears to target employees of a small handful of U.S. government-funded media, including Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and jointly produced projects such as Current Time TV, which was added to the foreign agents registry in 2017.

At the time, Russian officials said the move was merely a response to the inclusion of the Kremlin’s RT America Network on a U.S. foreign agent registry earlier that same year.   

Yet critics of the new laws say their concerns go beyond targeting of U.S. media.   

Observers note that the law’s vague wording puts average Russian citizens who share suspect content online and receive any income from foreign sources at risk of being snared.  

The law will “become a strong tool to silence opposition voices,” wrote Human Rights Watch in an article expressing concern over the measure in advance of its passage.  “Bloggers have an important role in informing public opinion in Russia, and this is an attempt to control this inconvenient source of information.”

In recent months, the Russian government has levied a spate of spiraling fines against NGOs and opposition activists under the foreign agent designation. 

While some organizations have collapsed from the financial pressure, others have successfully turned to crowdsourcing to pay off fines and continue work.  
 

Rights activists on Tuesday condemned the arrest of the editor of a Bangladesh opposition newspaper under harsh new digital security laws that critics say are used to muzzle dissent.

Abul Asad, editor of the Daily Sangram, was taken into custody on Friday after a publishing an article describing an executed opposition leader as a “martyr.”

The 80-year-old was charged with defaming Bangladesh’s liberation war history for mentioning Abdul Quader Mollah, who was convicted of war crimes committed during the 1971 independence war, local police chief Biplob Kumar Talukder told AFP.

Asad, who is due in court on Wednesday for an initial hearing, faces a maximum sentence of life behind bars if he is found guilty.

Bangladesh media laws—already used to arrest scores of opposition activists and dissidents—were tightened further in August despite protests by journalists and rights groups.

The office of the Daily Sangram, which is closely linked to an opposition alliance whose top leaders were executed for war crimes, was also attacked by a mob Friday and vandalized.

A staff member told AFP that Daily Sangram employees feared for their safety.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called for Asad’s release and for authorities to “protect news outlets so they can report freely.”

Independent Swedish-Bangladeshi journalist Tasneem Khalil said the Daily Sangram was one of the last remaining opposition newspapers in the country and the arrest was “indicative of the state of press freedom in Bangladesh.”

The South Asian nation ranks 150th among 180 countries in the world on Reporters Without Borders’ 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says journalism remains a “dangerous profession,” with 49 journalists killed this year, 389 currently imprisoned, and 57 others being held hostage.

According to the Paris-based media freedom watchdog’s annual worldwide roundup of deadly violence and abusive treatment against journalists, released on December 17, the number of journalists killed in 2019 is “at its lowest in 16 years.”

The “historically low” figure, compared with an annual average of 80 journalists killed during the past two decades, is mainly the result of a fall in the number of journalists and other media professionals killed in war zones, RSF said.

A total of 17 journalists were killed while covering conflicts in Syria (10), Afghanistan (5), and Yemen (2) — compared with 34 last year.

However, the number of those killed in countries “at peace” remained as high as in previous years, with 10 killed in Mexico alone.

“More and more journalists are being deliberately murdered in connection with their work in democratic countries, which poses a real challenge for the democracies where these journalists live and work,” RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire warned.

While fewer journalists were killed, more ended up behind bars.

A total of 389 journalists were held in connection with the provision of news and information at the start of December – 12 percent more than the number held on the same date last year.

Nearly half were imprisoned in three countries — China (120), Egypt (34), and Saudi Arabia (32).

More than 40 percent of them are citizen journalists seeking to disseminate independent information via social networks.

“Having intensified its crackdown on the Uighur minority, China alone holds a third of the worldwide total of arbitrarily detained journalists,” the report said.

By December 1, 57 media professionals are being held hostage across the globe, mainly in Syria (30), Yemen (15), Iraq (11), and Ukraine (1).

“Islamic State and the various other radical armed groups mainly use their hostages as bargaining chips or for propaganda purposes,” RSF said.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine “also treat their hostages as prisoners guilty of crimes for which they must be severely punished.”

Indian student protests that turned into violent clashes with police galvanized nationwide opposition on Tuesday to a new law that provides a path to citizenship for non-Muslim migrants who entered the country illegally from several neighboring countries.

Police fired tear gas in the Seelampur area of New Delhi to push back protesters who burned a police booth and two motorbikes after throwing stones and swarming barricades.

Roads leading to the Muslim-majority neighborhood were strewn with stones, tear gas canisters and shards of broken glass.

“We are protesting against the new citizenship law. They are saying if you don’t have any proof (of citizenship) they will send us out of India,” said 15-year-old Mohammad Shehzad.

Protests against the law were also reported in the states of West Bengal, Kerala, Karnataka and elsewhere. On Sunday, a march by students at New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University descended into chaos when demonstrators set three buses on fire. Police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. Videos showed officers running after unarmed protesters and beating them with wooden sticks.

Hanjala Mojibi, an English major at the predominantly Muslim school, said that when he and others saw police enter the campus, they walked toward them with their hands up to indicate their protest was nonviolent.

“The police made all 15 of us kneel and started beating us. They used lots of abusive words. One of them removed my prescription glasses, threw (them) on the ground, broke them and told me to look down,” Mojibi said at a news conference in tears.

Simultaneously on Sunday, police stormed Aligarh Muslim University in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh firing tear gas and injuring five people who were participating in a student-led demonstration, university spokesman Rahat Abrar said.

Shahid Hussain, a 25-year-old history major, said police broke the windows of his dormitory and lobbed a tear gas canister inside. He said after fleeing the building to escape the fumes, police pushed him against a tree and beat him with sticks.

Police spokesman Sunil Bainsla denied the account, calling the allegations of police brutality “lies.”

The police response to Sunday’s protests has drawn widespread condemnation. It also has sparked a broader movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act, with demonstrations erupting across the country.

The new law applies to Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities who are in India illegally but can demonstrate religious persecution in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It does not apply to Muslims.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has described the law as a humanitarian gesture.

While it was being debated in Parliament last week, Home Minister Amit Shah said it was “not even .001% against minorities. It is against infiltrators.” Modi told an election rally in eastern Jharkhand state on Tuesday that no Indian citizen would be affected by the law. Speaking about Sunday’s protests, he accused the opposition Congress party of using students for political purposes.

“The decisions made by the government should be discussed and any voice should be raised in a democratic manner. This government understands your concerns but some people use your shoulder for firing a gun,” he said. “I dare Congress, its friends, to publicly declare they are prepared to accord Indian citizenship to all Pakistanis.”

Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi met President Ram Nath Kovind as the head of an opposition delegation and asked that the citizenship law be withdrawn.

Talking to reporters, Gandhi said she fears “the situation may spread further.”

“I think you all have seen that the Modi government seems to have no compassion when it comes to shutting down people’s voices and implementing legislation,” she said. Critics of the government say the law is intended to help the ruling party transform a multicultural and secular India into a Hindu “rastra,” or distinctly Hindu state and further marginalize India’s 200 million Muslims.

India is 80% Hindu and 14% Muslim, which means it has one of the largest Muslim populations of any country in the world.

Police spokesman M.S. Randhawa said 10 people were arrested during Sunday’s protest at Jamia Millia Islamia University from Jamia Nagar, a Muslim neighborhood near the university.

“We found out that the arrested men had instigated the crowds and were also responsible for vandalizing public property,” Randhawa said.

Students said police lobbed tear gas shells inside the campus, broke down the doors of the library and yanked students out to assault them. Dozens of students were taken to hospitals for treatment.

Police have denied the allegations and said they acted with restraint.

The citizenship law follows a contentious citizenship registry process in northeastern India’s Assam state intended to weed out people who immigrated to the country illegally.

Nearly 2 million people in Assam were excluded from the list, about half Hindu and half Muslim, and have been asked to prove their citizenship or else be considered foreign. India is constructing a detention center for some of the tens of thousands of people the courts are expected to ultimately determine came to the country illegally.

Home Minister Shah has pledged to roll it out the program nationwide, promising to rid India of “infiltrators.”

The Citizenship Amendment Act could provide protection and a fast track to naturalization for many of the Hindus left off Assam’s citizenship list, while explicitly leaving out Muslims.

The backlash to the law came as an unprecedented crackdown continued in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority area, which was stripped of special constitutional protections and its statehood in August. Since then, movement and communications have been restricted.

“Our country is not just for Hindus,” said Chanda Yadav, 20, a Hindi literature student who was participating in a sit-in Monday at Jamia Millia Islamia University. “I feel it is my moral right to protest against something which divides us as a community.”

The House Rules Committee is set to meet Tuesday to put forth the process the full House will follow when it considers articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

The procedural step will set the stage for what is widely expected to be a vote nearly down party lines Wednesday with the majority Democrats approving Trump’s impeachment over the objections of lawmakers in his Republican Party.

As the process moved closer to the House vote, Trump sparred Monday with House Democrats who accused him of “multiple federal crimes” in the abuse of the presidency.

“The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics!” Trump contended on Twitter. “The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!”

READ THE TRANSCRIPTS! The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics! The Fake News Media, and their partner, the Democrat Party, are working overtime to make life for the United Republican Party, and all it stands for, as difficult as possible!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

A special court  in Pakistan has found former military President Pervez Musharraf guilty of high treason and sentenced him to death.  

The high-profile treason case dates back to 2007 when Musharraf, president and military chief of Pakistan at the time, imposed a brief emergency rule and suspended the constitution in a bid to cling to power in the face of growing public demands for him to step down. 

The former Pakistani leader, who also faces several other legal challenges stemming from his days in power, rejects the charges as politically motivated. He has been living in Dubai since 2016, when he traveled to the country for medical reasons.

Musharraf took power in a bloodless military coup in 1999 by ousting the government of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif whom he later exiled to Saudi Arabia along with his family members.

A roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan killed at least 10 civilians on Tuesday morning, including women and children, while explosives attached to a bicycle detonated near a police vehicle in a northern province, wounding at least 18 people, officials said.

According to the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Nasrat Rahimi, the roadside bombing took place in eastern Khost province, in the district of Ali Sher. He said three children, two women and five men were killed. The blast happened when the vehicle they were riding in detonated the bomb, said Rahimi.

The blast in northern Balkh province that wounded 18 took place at one of the busiest intersections of the provincial capital, Mazar-i Sharif, said Adil Shah Adil, the spokesman for the provincial police chief. There were six traffic policemen among the 18 wounded, the rest were civilians, he said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the two attacks but officials blamed the Taliban who regularly target Afghan security forces and government officials by planting roadside bombs across the country. Scores of civilians are killed in such attacks.

The Taliban today control or hold sway over half the country and, along with the Islamic State group, stage near-daily attacks.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Monday North Korea would
likely carry out unspecified tests if they “don’t feel satisfied” amid fears the two countries could return to the collision course they had been on before launching diplomacy.

Tension has been rising in recent weeks as Pyongyang has conducted a series of weapons tests and waged a war of words with U.S. President Donald Trump.

“We have seen talk of tests. I think that they will be likely if they don’t feel satisfied,” Esper told reporters traveling with him from Europe back to Washington.

He did not provide details on what type of tests may be likely but added he was hopeful about diplomatic efforts.

Experts say North Korea could restart intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) testing suspended since 2017, a move that would be seen as highly provocative in Washington.

“I’ve been watching the Korean Peninsula for maybe a quarter of a century now. So I’m familiar with their tactics, with their bluster and I think we need to get serious and sit down and have discussions about a political agreement that denuclearizes the Peninsula,” Esper said.

The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, urged Pyongyang on Monday to return offers of talks, dismissing leader Kim Jong Un’s year-end deadline while highlighting Washington’s willingness to discuss “all issues of interest.”

“I would like to remain an optimist that we can keep moving
forward with regard to negotiations because the alternate is not
a positive (one),” Esper added.

On Sunday, state media said North Korea had successfully conducted another test at a satellite launch site aimed at “restraining and overpowering the U.S. nuclear threat,” a second such test in a week. North Korea has put forward a year-end deadline for the United States to drop its insistence on unilateral decentralization by Pyongyang.

In a bid to help diplomatic efforts with North Korea, the United States and South Korea have postponed or scaled down a number of joint military drills.

Asked whether military readiness could be maintained while relying heavily on computer-simulated exercises, Esper said he was confident that readiness was high.

There were a number of things the United States could do with regard to training that fit between large-scale exercises and computer-simulated ones, he added.

House leaders on Monday unveiled a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package that’s carrying an unusually large load of unrelated provisions catching a ride on the last train out of Congress this year.

A House vote is slated for Tuesday on the sprawling package, some 2,313 pages long, as lawmakers wrap up reams of unfinished work — and vote on impeaching President Donald Trump.

The mammoth measure takes a split-the-differences approach that’s a product of divided power in Washington, offering lawmakers of all stripes plenty to vote for — and against. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was a driving force, along with administration pragmatists such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who negotiated the summertime budget deal that it implements.

Trump hasn’t said for sure that he’ll sign the measure. He invariably has second thoughts, but he’s not interested in another government shutdown and has always bowed to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., when they’ve teamed up on compromise spending packages.

Retired coal miners and labor union opponents of Obama-era taxes on high-cost health plans came away with big wins in weekend negotiations by top congressional leaders and the Trump White House. The bill would also increase the age nationwide for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21, and offers business-friendly provisions on export financing, flood insurance and immigrant workers.

The legislation would forestall a government shutdown this weekend and give Trump steady funding for his U.S.-Mexico border fence. The year-end package is anchored by a $1.4 trillion spending measure that caps a difficult, months-long battle over spending priorities.

The roster of add-ons grew over the weekend to include permanent repeal of a tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance benefits and finance health care and pension benefits for about 100,000 retired union coal miners threatened by the insolvency of their pension fund. A tax on medical devices and health insurance plans would also be repealed permanently.

The deficit tab for the package grew as well — almost $400 billion over 10 years to repeal the three so-called “Obamacare” taxes alone — with a companion package to extend several business-friendly tax breaks still under negotiation. The Obama-era taxes have previously been suspended on a piecemeal basis.

The legislation is laced with provisions reflecting divided power in Washington. Republicans maintained the status quo on several abortion-related battles and on funding for Trump’s border wall. Democrats controlling the House succeeded in winning a 3.1 percent raise for federal civilian employees and the first installment of funding on gun violence research after more than two decades of gun lobby opposition.

The sweeping legislation, introduced as two packages for political and tactical purposes, is part of a major final burst of legislation that’s passing Congress this week despite bitter partisan divisions and Wednesday’s likely impeachment of Trump.

Thursday promises a vote on a major rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement, while the Senate is about to send Trump the annual defense policy bill for the 59th year in a row.

The core of the spending bill is formed by the 12 annual agency appropriations bills passed by Congress each year. It fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the coming two years instead of automatic spending cuts that would have sharply slashed the Pentagon and domestic agencies.

The increase in the tobacco purchasing age to 21 also applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices and gained momentum after McConnell signed on.

Other add-ons include a variety of provisions sought by business and labor interests and their lobbyists in Washington.

For business, there’s a seven-year extension of the charter of the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance transactions benefiting U.S. exporters, as well as a renewal of the government’s terrorism risk insurance program. The financially troubled government flood insurance program would be extended through September, as would several visa programs for both skilled and seasonal workers.

Labor won repeal of the so-called Cadillac tax, a 40% tax on high-cost employer health plans, which was originally intended to curb rapidly growing health care spending. But it disproportionately affected high-end plans won under union contracts, and Democratic labor allies had previously succeeded in temporary repeals.

Democrats controlling the House won increased funding for early childhood education and a variety of other domestic programs. They also won higher Medicaid funding for the cash-poor government of Puerto Rico, which is struggling to recover from hurricane devastation and a resulting economic downturn.

While Republicans touted defense hikes and Democrats reeled off numerous increases for domestic programs, most of the provisions of the spending bill enjoy bipartisan support, including increases for medical research, combating the opioid epidemic, and Head Start and childcare grants to states.

Democrats also secured $425 million for states to upgrade their election systems, and they boosted the U.S. Census budget $1.4 billion above Trump’s request. They won smaller increases for the Environmental Protection Agency, renewable energy programs and affordable housing.

“We are scaling up funding for priorities that will make our country safer and stronger and help hardworking families get ahead,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

The outcome in the latest chapter in the longstanding battle over Trump’s border wall awards Trump with $1.4 billion for new barriers — equal to last year’s appropriation — while preserving Trump’s ability to use his budget powers to tap other accounts for several times that amount. That’s a blow for liberal opponents of the wall but an acceptable trade-off for pragmatic-minded Democrats who wanted to gain $27 billion in increases for domestic programs and avert the threat of simply funding the government on autopilot.

Because dozens of Democrats might vote against the border wall, Pelosi is pairing money for the Department of Homeland Security with the almost $700 billion Pentagon budget, which is guaranteed to win GOP votes to offset Democratic defections.

The coal miners’ pension provision, opposed by House GOP conservatives like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had the backing of Trump and powerful Senate GOP Leader McConnell and Trump. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was a dogged force behind the scenes and said the other leaders rolled the House GOP leader, who also lost a behind-the-scenes battle with Pelosi on parochial California issues.

“Something had to be done and we finally got Mitch McConnell to sign onto the bill,” Manchin said. “But we could not move McCarthy. Then finally we just had to move forward and they did it.”
 

Thousands of university students flooded the streets of India’s capital, while a southern state government led a march and demonstrators held a silent protest in the northeast on Monday against a new law giving citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India illegally to flee religious persecution in neighboring countries.

The protests in New Delhi followed a night of violent clashes between police and demonstrators at Jamia Millia Islamia University. People who student organizers said were not students set three buses on fire and police stormed the university library, firing tear gas at students crouched under desks.

Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party said opposition parties were using the students as pawns.

Modi’s government says the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which was approved by Parliament last week, will make India a safe haven for Hindus and other religious minorities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But critics say the legislation, which for the first time conditions Indian citizenship on religion, violates the secular constitution of the world’s largest democracy.

At Jamia Millia Islamia University on Monday, thousands stood outside the locked-down campus. Inside, hundreds of students took part in a peaceful sit-in, holding placards denouncing the injuries of dozens of students the night before.

Mujeeb Ahmad, a 21-year-old Arabic major, returned to campus Monday to join the sit-in and retrieve the book bag he lost fleeing the library, where he had been studying for exams.

“We thought we were safe in the library,” he said, adding that he and others had locked the library doors from the inside. Policemen broke them down, and at least one officer fired tear gas, he said, holding up an empty canister he said he picked up from the library floor.

About 2,000 people, including students and families with young children, gathered at New Delhi’s iconic India Gate memorial to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act and reports of students demonstrating against the law who were beaten by police at several university campuses. Priyanka Gandhi, a leader of the opposition Congress party, participated at a sit-in at India Gate for two hours. Police stood on the sidelines of the demonstration.

Arrests, deaths in Assam

The law’s passage has triggered protests across India, but Assam, the center of a decades-old movement against illegal immigrants, has seen the highest toll.

Assam police officials say officers have fatally shot five protesters in the state capital of Gauhati while attempting to restore order to a city that has been engulfed in demonstrations since last week. About 1,500 people have been arrested for violence including arson and vandalism, police spokesman G.P. Singh said, adding that authorities were reviewing surveillance videos and anticipated making more arrests.

Schools remain closed through Dec. 22, the government has blocked internet service statewide and a curfew has been imposed from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Foreign journalists are not permitted to travel to India’s northeastern region, including Assam, without a permit.

Municipal workers were clearing the city of burned tires and other debris on Monday and some businesses had reopened as the All Assam Students Union, which has spearheaded Assam’s anti-immigration movement for decades, led a silent protest. The group and its followers fear an influx of migrants will dilute native Assamese culture and political sway.

The citizenship law follows a contentious citizenship registry process in Assam intended to weed out people who immigrated illegally. Home Minister Amit Shah has pledged to roll it out nationwide, promising to rid India of “infiltrators.”

Nearly 2 million people in Assam were excluded from the list, about half Hindu and half Muslim, and have been asked to prove their citizenship or else be considered foreign. India is constructing a detention center for some of the tens of thousands of people the courts are expected to ultimately determine came to the country illegally.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill could provide protection and a fast track to naturalization for many of the Hindus left off Assam’s citizenship list.

Arrests in Bangladesh 

Bangladesh has repeatedly said that it would not accept anyone India determines to be a foreigner, but on Sunday, Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen said it has asked the Modi government for details on Bangladeshis living illegally in India so that they could be repatriated.
Momen made the comment amid concern that people were being pushed into Bangladesh from the Indian state of West Bengal.

Authorities in Bangladesh say at least 329 people were arrested on charges of trespassing from India last month and failing to prove they are Bangladeshis.

Momen said if they are determined to be non-Bangladeshi they will be sent back to India.
 

People will get more time to sign up for “Obamacare” health insurance, the Trump administration announced Monday, following a spate of computer glitches over the weekend.

The new HealthCare.gov deadline is 3 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a statement. Coverage takes effect Jan. 1.

It was the second round of problems with online sign-ups for the agency in weeks. Senior lawmakers of both major parties are urging the administration to publicize the availability of a redo for seniors who got inaccurate or confusing results using the Medicare Plan Finder. A redesign of the Medicare site produced search results that didn’t automatically rank the prescription drug plan with the lowest total cost first.

The problems with HealthCare.gov happened Sunday, which was the original sign-up deadline. The last day of open enrollment is always the busiest, with hundreds of thousands of people going online or trying to reach the call center.

A group founded by former Obama administration officials said people using the website and the call center ran into delays and other problems. Get America Covered, as the group is known, urged the Trump administration to extend the sign-up period by 48 hours.

The CMS agency, which oversees Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, said more than half a million customers were still able to enroll Sunday despite technical problems. Officials said the extension is being granted out of “an abundance of caution.”

People who already left their names and contact information with the call center on Sunday don’t need to come back and reapply because a representative will follow up with them later in the week, the agency said.

About 20 million people total are covered under the Obama health law, and roughly half of them get subsidized private coverage through HealthCare.gov and state-run insurance markets. Despite President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to repeal “Obamacare,” enrollment has held fairly steady during his term.
 

A small Singapore opposition party has corrected online posts critical of the government following an order by the labor ministry under a new “fake news” law that rights groups say is being used to chill dissent.

Seeking to stir support ahead of a parliamentary election expected within months, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), which has no seats in parliament, posted articles in recent months on its website and Facebook arguing that an increasing number of white-collar workers were losing their jobs.

SDP to appeal correction notice

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) ordered the SDP to place a correction notice on these posts because it said jobs for professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) had been steadily rising since 2015.

“CORRECTION NOTICE: This post contains a false statement of fact” was subsequently placed above the posts with a link to a government webpage where “the correct facts” could be found.

The SDP said it had complied but would appeal the order, the most severe since the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) came into effect in October.

The MOM said it would consider the grounds of SDP’s application when submitted.

In the latest use of the law, the Ministry of Education on Monday directed opposition politician Lim Tean to correct a Facebook post about foreign students receiving more government funding than local students.

Reuters could not immediately reach Lim Tean.

The Asia Internet Coalition, an association of internet and technology companies, has called the law the “most far-reaching legislation of its kind to date.”

Facebook has said it was concerned the law grants broad powers to the government.

Law concerns Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a press freedom non-profit rights group, called the law “totalitarian” and said it was aimed at eliminating public debate.

The government says the city-state is vulnerable to misleading and inaccurate news because of social sensitivities arising from its mixed ethnic and religious population, and widespread internet access.

Singapore, which has been ruled by the People’s Action Party (PAP) since independence in 1965, is widely expected to win comfortably the elections, which must be held by early 2021.

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa said Monday she would not be silenced as she launched her defense against a libel charge that press advocates call an attempt to curb her news site’s critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Her site Rappler has written extensively and often critically on Duterte’s policies, including his deadly drugs war that rights groups say may amount to crimes against humanity.

“I can go to jail for 12 years for this (case), that is the maximum sentence,” she told reporters outside court after the hearing, noting government investigators had initially dismissed the case.

“From track record you can see the political goals to shut Rappler up … but we haven’t shut up yet,” said Ressa, who is free on bail.

Besides the libel case, Ressa and Rappler have been hit with a string of criminal charges in the span of roughly a year, prompting allegations that authorities are targeting her and her team for their work.

Ressa, named a Time Person of the Year in 2018 for her journalism, did not testify in court.

The case centers on a Rappler report from 2012 about a businessperson’s alleged ties to a then-judge of the nation’s top court.

Government investigators initially dismissed the businessman’s 2017 complaint about the article, but state prosecutors later decided to file charges.

The legal underpinning of the charge is a controversial “cybercrime law” aimed at online offenses ranging from hacking and internet fraud to child pornography.

In court on Monday, Ressa’s defense team highlighted investigators’ initial decision not to pursue the case, and her insulation from Rappler’s daily news decisions.

“As an executive editor, she does not really edit,” Chay Hofilena, a Rappler investigative journalist, told the court.

Criticism by Duterte

The government has repeatedly said the case has nothing to do with politics, adding that no one is above the law.

However, Duterte has in speeches lashed out at Rappler and other critical media outfits, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper and broadcaster ABS-CBN.

He threatened to go after their owners over alleged unpaid taxes or block the network’s franchise renewal application.

Rights monitor Reporters Without Borders ranked the Philippines at 134 out of 178 countries on its annual World Press Freedom index this year, when at least three journalists were killed “most likely by agents working for local politicians.”
 

Cameroon’s military has arrested several dozen men and destroyed hundreds of locally made guns and weapons the men allegedly circulated on the central African state’s northern border with Chad and Nigeria.

A military compactor crushes more than 2,500 locally made guns, ammunition and other weapons the military says it seized over the past three weeks from smugglers, hostage takers, poachers and suspected Boko Haram fighters.

Among those watching the destruction is Regine Esseneme, head of Cameroon’s department of justice in the northern town of Garoua.

She said by assisting in the destruction of the weapons she wants to pass the message that there will be no pardon for highway robbers, hostage takers and fighters who are making life unbearable for people living on the borders between Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad. She said everyone should know that the three countries are now working together to stop kidnappers and poachers illegally using weapons.

Jean Abate Edii, governor of Cameroon’s North region, says the weapons were seized after several raids on neighborhoods and villages suspected to be the hideouts of criminals operating in Cameroon and surrounding countries.

The six-nation regional bloc CEMAC has frequently blamed the proliferation of small arms and light weapons for the armed conflicts, criminal and terrorist activities taking place in west-central Africa.

Cameroon has experienced increasing instability since 2013 when the Boko Haram insurgency first began to spill over from Nigeria. Since November 2016, the country has also been facing a secessionist movement that has killed more than 3,000.

Alamine Abdouramann, a Garoua-based activist with the Trauma Center for Victims of Armed Conflicts, said the initiative to seize and destroy the weapons is good, but also pointed out that he has been receiving reports that some suspects are tortured.

Abdouramann said the government should make sure it is strictly respecting the human rights of all arrested suspects and that they are not tortured or killed. He said if the government uses force on those it arrests with weapons, it may anger their peers to want to retaliate which will have a spill-over effect on civilians who are already in desperate need of peace.

Cameroon’s military has rejected the allegations of human rights abuses, saying the military has remained professional and that suspects will be brought before the courts.

The number of arms in Cameroon was classified as moderate in a 2017 survey on gun policy by Sydney University, ranking the central African state 99 out of 178 nations. Still, more than 500,000 arms are said to be owned legally or illegally by civilians, and most owners are found along the border with Nigeria, which is porous and poorly policed.

The Hallmark Channel, reversing what it called a “wrong decision,” said Sunday it will reinstate commercials featuring same-sex couples that it had pulled following a complaint from a conservative group.

The earlier decision by Crown Media, Hallmark’s parent company, to pull several ads for the wedding planning site Zola featuring two brides kissing at the altar had launched a storm of protest. Celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and William Shatner criticized the move and the hashtag (hash)BoycottHallmarkChannel was trending on Twitter at one point.

“The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we’ve seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused,” said a statement issued Sunday evening by Hallmark Cards CEO Mike Perry. “Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision. … We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused.”

Zola, the wedding planning site that made the ads, said it was relieved that the decision to pull them had been reversed. In an email to The Associated Press, the company said it would be in touch with Hallmark “regarding a potential return to advertising.”

“We are humbled by everyone who showed support not only for Zola, but for all LGBTQ couples and  families who express their love on their wedding day, and every day,” said a statement Sunday evening from the company’s chief marketing officer, Mike Chi.

The LGBT advocacy group GLAAD also expressed relief at the reversal. Its president and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, said Hallmark’s “decision to correct its mistake sends an important message to LGBTQ people and represents a major loss for fringe organizations like One Million Moms, whose sole purpose is to hurt families like mine.”

It was a complaint by One Million Moms, part of the American Family Association, that had led to the initial decision to pull the the Zola ads.  A post on the group’s website Saturday said that Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott had spoken by telephone with the group and “reported the advertisement aired in error.” It also said: “The call to our office gave us the opportunity to confirm the Hallmark Channel will continue to be a safe and family-friendly network.” The group had not commented on the reversal as of late Sunday night.

Zola had submitted six ads, with four including a lesbian couple. After Hallmark pulled those ads, but not two featuring only opposite-sex couples, Zola withdrew its remaining ads.

Molly Biwer, senior vice president for public affairs at Hallmark, said in an interview Sunday night that from the time the initial decision had been made, “Crown Media had been in agony over the hurt that this had caused. Hallmark has an unwavering commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

She added that the reversal, and not the original decision, “truly reflects who we are as a company. We celebrate all families.”

Hallmark’s statement said the network will be “working with GLAAD to better represent the LGBTQ community” and would be reaching out to Zola to reestablish its partnership.

“Across our brand, we will continue to look for ways to be more inclusive and celebrate our differences,” Perry said.

 In one of the pulled ads, two brides stand at the altar and wonder aloud whether their wedding would be going more smoothly if they had used a planning site like Zola. The lighthearted ad ends with the just-married couple sharing a quick kiss.

DeGeneres had quickly assailed the original decision, asking on Twitter: “Isn’t it almost 2020?” Actress Sandra Bernhard, who played one of the first openly bisexual characters on network TV in “Roseanne,” had also criticized the move.

“All the groovy gay ladies i know won’t be watching your Christmas schlock,” she wrote on Twitter.

The Hallmark decision was also mocked on “Saturday Night Live,” and Netflix US tweeted stills from a TV show and movie that it labeled “Titles Featuring Lesbians Joyfully Existing And Also It’s Christmas Can We Just Let People Love Who They Love.”

Turkey has dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the breakaway north of ethnically divided island nation of Cyprus amid tensions over offshore oil and gas exploration, Turkey’s state-run media said Monday.

The Anadolu news agency said the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone took off from an airbase in Dalaman, Turkey, and touched down Monday at the airport in Gecitkale — known as Lefkoniko in Greek, on Cyprus.

Kudret Ozersay, foreign minister of the self-declared Turkish Cypriot state, told reporters Sunday that the Turkish deployment would be limited to unarmed drones as there was “no need” for armed ones.

Earlier, Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Ersin Tatar said there was an “urgent need” to address the security concerns of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots in the eastern Mediterranean.

It’s unclear what the drones will be specifically tasked to do.

Cyprus Defense Minister Savvas Angelides called the move an “additional factor contributing to instability” in the region, hurting efforts aimed at reunifying the country.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week that Ankara could use its military forces to halt gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own.

Cavusoglu said Turkey “has the right to prevent” any unauthorized drilling in waters that it says fall within its own continental shelf.

Turkey doesn’t recognize Cyprus as a state and asserts that 44% of the island nation’s exclusive economic zone are its own.

Part of the area that Turkey claims it has rights to are waters where Cyprus has exclusive economic rights and where companies including ExxonMobil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni are licensed by the Cypriot government to jointly carry out drilling.

Cyprus’ government spokesman Kyriakos Koushios told state broadcaster CyBC on Sunday that Turkish warships told an Israeli research vessel to leave “disputed” waters off Cyprus last month.

Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the north, where it keeps more than 35,000 troops.

Earlier this year, Turkey dispatched warship-escorted drill ships to conduct exploratory gas drilling inside Cyprus’ economic zone, including in an area where Eni and Total are licensed to drill. Ankara said it’s acting to protect its interests and those of Turkish Cypriots to the area’s energy reserves.

Last year, Turkish warships physically blocked a drill ship that was scheduled to carry out exploratory drilling on behalf of Eni in waters southeast of Cyprus.

The European Union has leveled sanctions against Turkey over its drilling activities off EU member Cyprus.

Last week, EU leaders rejected a deal that Turkey signed with Libya’s U.N.-recognized government that delineates the two countries’ maritime borders. Ankara says the deal gives it exclusive rights to a large swath of the eastern Mediterranean.

The spirit of Christmas is featured again at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, DC.  This year’s annual holiday event showcases displays highlighting the beauty of America’s public gardens.  They include recreations of garden conservatories, fountains and other sculptures made from plant-based materials.  VOA’s Deborah Block takes us on a tour to see the diverse gardens that include chugging toy trains.

The U.S. military told VOA Monday it has not received orders to reduce troop levels in Afghanistan and remains fully committed to Afghan partners to achieve security objectives.

However, officials in Afghanistan have confirmed to VOA that the United States plans to withdraw thousands of troops from the country, insisting the move stemmed from a mutual understanding between the two allied nations.

On Saturday, U.S. media reported that President Donald Trump’s administration intends to announce as early as later this week plans to reduce the number of American forces in Afghanistan by around 4,000.

“The matter regarding the withdrawal of 4,000 troops has nothing to do with the peace talks with the Taliban.  It had already been agreed upon in principle between the governments of Afghanistan and the United States,” the deputy Afghan presidential spokesman Dawa Khan Meenapal told VOA on Sunday. He, however, emphasized it would be a “gradual withdrawal” and shared no further details.

Sources in Kabul told VOA the drawdown process is expected to start in three months “depending on the ground realities”, though no official confirmation from the Afghan government was available immediately about the timeline.

A U.S. military spokesman clarified in written comments to VOA that there is no timeline as they haven’t received orders yet to begin a drawdown.

“We remain fully committed to the Resolute Support mission and our Afghan partners, and focused on our key objective: ensuring Afghanistan is never again used as a safe haven for terrorists who threaten the United States, our allies or our interests,” added the spokesman.

Currently around 13,000 U.S. troops are deployed to Afghanistan and are conducting counterterrorism missions in addition to advising and training Afghan security forces battling the Taliban under the NATO’s Resolute Support mission.

Trump had told an American broadcaster (Fox News Radio) in a recent interview he might reduce the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to around 8,600.

The withdrawal of foreign forces has been at the center of a peace deal the U.S. has been trying to negotiate with the Taliban for over a year to end America’s longest war.

Trump had suspended the dialogue process in September citing the killing of an American soldier in a series of Taliban attacks in Kabul.

The two adversaries returned to the negotiating table in Qatar a week ago but Washington paused the talks again on Thursday in retaliation to a Taliban raid on the largest U.S.-run military base in Afghanistan –  Bagram, north of Kabul. The attack killed two Afghan civilians and injured scores of others.

U.S. and Taliban negotiators after months of meetings had concluded a draft agreement that outlined Taliban’s counterterrorism guarantees in exchange for a phased withdrawal of American and allied forces.

The proposed document would also require the insurgent group to reduce violence and enter into intra-Afghan negotiations to seek a permanent end to decades of hostilities in Afghanistan.

Critics have cautioned against an abrupt withdrawal of foreign forces, fearing it will embolden the insurgents.

“The conditions for withdrawal should be achieved so that Afghan security and defense forces are able to fill the vacuum, otherwise it can have a negative impact on the (battlefield) situation,” said Nadir Khan Katawazai, a member of the Afghan parliament.

But former Afghan military general, Atiqullah Amarkhel, insisted as long as Afghan forces continued to receive financial assistance to sustain their operational costs, the reduction in foreign troops will not have any impact because neither U.S. nor NATO troops are taking part in battlefield activities.

Reports of the U.S. withdrawal come just days after the Washington Post released hundreds of documents showing U.S. officials and military commanders had been lying about the progress of the war. The revelation has encouraged the Taliban to intensify its propaganda against the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan and justify the violence.

With the U.S. House of Representatives expected to impeach President Donald Trump this week, the top Democrat in the Senate is calling for the chamber that will conduct the impeachment trial to hear from four key Trump administration witnesses.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday that the Senate should subpoena acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and top Mulvaney aide Robert Blair, as well as former National Security Adviser John Bolton and budget official Michael Duffey.

Schumer noted House committees conducting the impeachment investigation asked all four officials to appear for questioning, but none did.

McConnell has raised the prospect of a short trial with no witnesses called, and said he would be coordinating with the White House as he plans the trial.

A McConnell spokesman said he would be meeting with Schumer to work out how to conduct the proceedings.

Schumer also proposed in the letter the amount of time House members and White House lawyers would have for opening arguments, how much time Senators would have to question them, and the amount of time allotted for witness testimony, closing arguments and deliberations before Senators deliver their verdict.

“We believe this proposal…will allow for a trial in which all of the facts can be considered fully and fairly, and in which final votes can be taken within a reasonable period of time, without any unnecessary delay,” Schumer wrote.

The House is expected to vote Wednesday to approve the two articles of impeachment the House Judiciary Committee passed last week.  The trial in the Republican-majority Senate would take place in January with a conviction and Trump’s removal from office unlikely.

The House Judiciary Committee, over unified Republican opposition, accused Trump of abusing the power of the presidency by soliciting Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and then obstructing congressional review of his actions by refusing to turn over thousands of pages of documents to impeachment investigators and blocking key Trump aides from testifying.

The rancor from the imminent impeachment of Trump played out on Sunday’s news talk shows in the U.S., with no political agreement on the merits of the case against him.

“We will have done our duty in the House,” Congressman Jerrold Nadler told ABC’s “This Week” show, two days after the House Judiciary Committee he chairs approved two articles of impeachment against Trump.

The president has ridiculed the impeachment effort, again Sunday describing his request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the politically tinged investigation as “a PERFECT phone call.”

On Twitter, he recalled his conversation: “‘Can you do us (not me. Us is referring to our Country) a favor.’ Then go on to talk about ‘Country’ and ‘U.S. Attorney General.’ The Impeachment Hoax is just a continuation of the Witch Hunt which has been going on for 3 years. We will win!”

A PERFECT phone call. “Can you do us (not me. Us is referring to our Country) a favor.” Then go on to talk about “Country” and “U.S. Attorney General.” The Impeachment Hoax is just a continuation of the Witch Hunt which has been going on for 3 years. We will win! #MAGAKAG #2020

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2019

Nadler contended, “This president conspired, sought foreign interference in the 2016 election. He is openly seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election. We cannot permit that to continue.”

“This is a crime in progress against the Constitution and against the American democracy,” Nadler said.

On the same show, Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that held weeks of hearings on Trump’s alleged wrong-doing, asked, “Why won’t Republicans do their duty” to hold Trump accountable? He said if Trump’s immediate predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, had made the same overtures to  Zelenskiy for an investigation of a political opponent, “I would vote to impeach him.”

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a staunch Trump supporter who would be be one of 100 jurors to hear the case against Trump at a Senate trial, contended on the same ABC show that Nadler and Schiff were engaged in “partisan attacks” against Trump and said there is “zero evidence” of a crime committed by Trump.

Cruz argued that “the House Democrats hate the president.” He said it was “perfectly within the duties of the president” to ask that Zelenskiy investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, and a debunked theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s campaign. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump win.

On CNN, another Trump supporter, Sen. Rand Paul, called the president’s impending impeachment a “very partisan thing,” saying Democrats have “decided to criminalize politics.”

Trump made his request  for the Biden investigations to Zelenskiy at a time when he was temporarily blocking $391 million in military aid that Ukraine wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. He released the money in September without Zelenskiy opening any investigations of the Bidens.

Cruz said Trump’s request to Zelenskiy for the Biden investigations was justified because the elder Biden, when he was vice president, was “publicly bragging” that he withheld aid that Ukraine wanted at the time until a prosecutor who had once investigated Burisma was fired.

Democrats say the difference between the two cases is that Biden’s request for the ouster of the Ukrainian prosecutor, deemed weak on corruption by the West, was part of U.S. policy supported by the European Union, while Trump’s bid for the Biden probe was linked to U.S. elections, in particular related to a 2020 rival when Trump is seeking a second term in the White House.

Leaders of the G5 Sahel nations held summit talks in Niamey Sunday, after the death last week of 71 Niger soldiers in a jihadist attack, calling for closer cooperation and international support in the battle against the Islamist threat.

Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the regional G5 group, called for a minute’s silence for the victims of Tuesday’s attack at a military camp in Inates, near the Mali border.

“These endless attacks carried out by terrorist groups in our region remind us not only of the gravity of the situation, but also the urgency for us to work more closely together,” said Kabore.

“The terrorist threat against the Sahel countries is getting worse,” said Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou, the host of the summit.

The attacks were aimed not just at military targets but increasingly “civilian populations, notably traditional local leaders”.

Earlier four of the five Sahel leaders paid homage at the graves of 71 Niger military personnel killed. Kabore and Issoufou attended along with Mali’s Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, Chad’s Idriss Deby Itno for the short ceremony at an air base in Niamey.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the assault, in which hundreds of jihadists attacked a camp near the border with Mali with shells and mortars.

The attack in Inates in the western Tillaberi region was the deadliest on Niger’s military since Islamist militant violence began to spill over from neighboring Mali in 2015, and dealt a blow to efforts to roll back jihadism in the Sahel.

At Sunday’s ceremony, a large panel painted in the red, white and green of the Niger flag bore the inscription; “rest in peace, worthy and valiant sons of the nation. The Fatherland will be eternally grateful”.

The G5 leaders announced on Saturday they would hold the extraordinary summit in Niger to show solidarity and to “consult” after the large-scale attack. The meeting had originally been due to take place in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou.

Niger has been observing three days of national mourning from Friday to Sunday.

Militant violence has spread across the vast Sahel region, especially in Burkina Faso and Niger, having started when armed Islamists revolted in northern Mali in 2012.

In the last four months, the insurgency has claimed the lives of more than 230 soldiers in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Last month, 13 French troops were killed in a helicopter collision while hunting jihadists in northern Mali.

Thousands of civilians have also died and more than a million have been forced to flee their homes since the jihadist revolt began.

Analysts note an escalation in the jihadists’ operational tactics, which seem to have become bolder and more complex in recent months.

From hit-and-run raids by a small group of Kalashnikov-armed guerrillas, the jihadists are now carrying out operations that involve hundreds of fighters, armed with mortars and using vehicles for suicide attacks.

Ranged against them are the impoverished armies of Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, plus a 4,500-man French force in the Sahel and the 13,000-man UN force in Mali, MINUSMA.

Tuesday’s attack prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to postpone a meeting scheduled for next week in the southwestern French town of Pau, where he and five presidents from the Sahel were due to discuss security in the region.

The talks will now take place early next year.

The Sahel region of Africa lies to the south of the Sahara Desert and stretches across the breadth of the African continent.