Lawyers for Huawei’s chief financial officer have won a court battle after a judge asked Canada’s attorney general to hand over more evidence and documents relating to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, according to a court ruling released Tuesday.

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes in the Supreme Court of British Columbia agreed with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s legal team that there is an “air of reality” to their assertion.

But she cautioned that her ruling is limited and does not address the merit of Huawei’s allegations that Canadian authorities improperly handled identifying information about Meng’s electronic devices.

Meng, 47, was arrested at the Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 1, 2018, at the request of the United States, where she is charged with bank fraud and accused of misleading the bank HSBC about Huawei Technologies’ business in Iran. She has said she is innocent and is fighting extradition.

She was questioned by Canadian immigration authorities prior to her arrest, and her lawyers have asked the government to hand over more documents about her arrest.

Meng’s legal team has contested her extradition in the Canadian courts on the grounds that the United States is using her extradition for economic and political gain, and that she was unlawfully detained, searched and interrogated by Canadian authorities acting on behalf of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Judge’s ruling

In her ruling, Holmes wrote that she found the evidence tendered by the attorney general to have “notable gaps,” citing the example of why the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) “made what is described as the simple error of turning over to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), contrary to law, the passcodes CBSA officers had required Ms. Meng to produce.”

Holmes also said the attorney general did not provide adequate evidence to “rebut inferences from other evidence that the RCMP improperly sent serial numbers and other identifiers of Ms. Meng’s devices to the FBI.”

Holmes said these gaps in evidence raise questions “beyond the frivolous or speculative about the chain of events,” and led her to conclude that Meng’s application “crosses the air of reality threshold.”

The order does not require the disclosure of documents — the attorney general may assert a privilege, which Meng could contest in court.

Neither the Canadian federal justice ministry nor Huawei immediately responded to requests for comment.

No timeline was outlined in Holmes’ ruling.

Meng’s extradition hearing will begin Jan. 20, 2020, in a federal court in Vancouver.
 

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that House Democrats have reached agreement with the Trump administration on a new and revised North American trade deal now known as United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA. The agreement on the pact’s final terms came after more than two years of talks, that also included Canada and Mexico, to revise the original free trade accord, known as NAFTA. Pelosi’s announcement came on the same day that democratic lawmakers announced articles of impeachment against President Trump. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.

A police officer and multiple other people were killed in a furious gunbattle Tuesday that filled the streets of Jersey City with the sound of heavy gunfire for about an hour, authorities said.

Authorities said they believe the shootout was not an act of terrorism, but the bloodshed was still under investigation.

Officials gave no immediate details on what set off the shooting and how it unfolded, and there was no word on how many suspects were involved or whether anyone had been taken into custody.

One officer was pronounced dead at a hospital, and multiple other people were found dead at a kosher supermarket, Mayor Steven Fulop said without specifying how many were killed. A second officer was struck in the shoulder by gunfire, and two others were hit by shrapnel, Fulop said.

The shooting spread fear through the neighborhood, and the nearby Sacred Heart School was put on lockdown as a precaution.

The bullets started flying early in the afternoon in the city of about 270,000 people, situated across the Hudson River from the Statue of Liberty. 

SWAT teams, state police and federal agents converged on the scene, and police blocked off the area, which in addition to the school and supermarket included a hair salon and other shops. Dozens of bystanders pressed against the police barrier to capture the action on their cellphones, some whooping when bursts of gunfire could be heard.

Video shot by residents recorded loud volleys of gunfire reverberating along one of the city’s main streets and showed a long line of law enforcement officers pointing guns as they advanced, yelling to bystanders, “Clear the street! Get out of the way!”

“It’s like firecrackers going off,” said Andy Patel, who works at a liquor store about three blocks away. “They were shooting like crazy. … The cops were clearing everyone off the streets.”
 

A Pennsylvania appeals court rejected Bill Cosby’s bid to overturn his sexual assault conviction Tuesday over issues including the trial judge’s decision to let five other accusers testify.

The Superior Court ruling was being closely watched because Cosby was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the (hash)MeToo era. The same issue was hard-fought in pretrial hearings before movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault trial.

Cosby’s lawyers in his appeal said the suburban Philadelphia judge had improperly allowed the five women to testify at last year’s retrial although he’d let just one woman testify at the first trial in 2017.

But the Superior Court said Pennsylvania law allows the testimony if it shows Cosby had a “signature” pattern of drugging and molesting women.

“Here, the [prior bad act] evidence established appellant’s unique sexual assault playbook,” the court said, noting that “no two events will ever be identical.”

The court went on to say that the similarities were no accident.

“Not only did the [prior bad act] evidence tend to establish a predictable pattern of criminal sexual behavior unique to appellant, it simultaneously tended to undermine any claim that appellant was unaware of or mistaken about victim’s failure to consent to the sexual contact that formed the basis of the aggravated indecent assault charges,” the panel said in its ruling.

Lawyers for Cosby had argued eight issues on appeal, including the judge’s decision to let prosecutors use portions of a deposition he gave in the accuser’s related civil suit. His lawyers also argued that he had a binding promise from a former prosecutor that he would never be charged in the case and could testify freely at a deposition in accuser Andrea Constand’s related lawsuit.

The appeals court rejected those arguments and upheld the judge’s classification of Cosby as a sexually violent predator.

Cosby, 82, can now ask the state Supreme Court to consider his appeal.

He has been serving a three- to 10-year prison term for the 2004 encounter at his suburban Philadelphia home, which he deemed consensual.

He was arrested a decade later, after a federal judge unsealed portions of the deposition at the request of The Associated Press and new prosecutors reopened the criminal case.

The Superior Court panel, in arguments in Harrisburg in August, asked why Cosby’s lawyers didn’t get a written immunity agreement and have it approved by a judge, instead of relying on an oral promise.

“This is not a low-budget operation we were operating here. They had an unlimited budget,” said Superior Court Judge John T. Bender, who questioned whether any court would have approved the deal.

Judge Steven O’Neill’s decision to let the other accusers testify came after more than 60 women accused Cosby of sexual misconduct. Prosecutors asked to call 19 of them. Superior Court Judge John Bender appeared to agree with O’Neill’s logic in letting some take the stand.

“The reality of it is, he gives them drugs and then he sexually assaults them. And in four out of the five, those were in mentor situations,” Bender said.

Kristen L. Weisenberger, representing Cosby, said one of the women wasn’t even sure she was sexually assaulted. However, prosecutors said, that’s how Cosby planned it.

O’Neill had allowed just one other accuser at Cosby’s first trial in 2017, when the jury deadlocked. Cosby’s lawyers called his later decision to let more women testify arbitrary and prejudicial.

The long-married Cosby, once beloved as “America’s Dad” for his TV role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the hugely popular sitcom “The Cosby Show,” has acknowledged having sexual contact with a string of younger women, many of whom came to him for career advice and took alcohol or pills he offered them.

He and his lawyers and agents have suggested that many of the accusers were gold diggers seeking money or fame. He told a news outlet in November that he expects to serve the maximum 10-year sentence if he loses the appeal, because he would never express remorse to the parole board.

Cosby agreed to pay Constand, a former Temple University basketball team manager, about $3.4 million to settle her lawsuit. His insurance company, following his conviction, settled at least nine other defamation lawsuits filed by accusers for undisclosed sums.

The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.
   

Roughly 300 Saudi Arabian military aviation students have been grounded as part of a “safety stand-down” after a Saudi Air Force lieutenant shot and killed three people last week at a U.S. Navy base in Florida, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

The FBI has said U.S. investigators believe Saudi Air Force Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, 21, acted alone when he attacked a U.S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday, before he was fatally shot by a deputy sheriff.

The shootings have again raised questions about the U.S. military relationship with Saudi Arabia, which has come under heightened scrutiny in Congress over the war in Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year.

Still, U.S. military leaders have sought to portray this as a localized issue which would not affect the overall U.S.-Saudi relationship.

“A safety stand-down and operational pause commenced Monday for Saudi Arabian aviation students,” said Lieutenant Andriana Genualdi, a Navy spokeswoman.

Another U.S. official said the grounding was to help Saudi students prepare to eventually restart their training and similar procedures would have been taken if such an incident took place in a U.S. military squadron.

Genualdi said the grounding included three different military facilities: Naval Air Station Pensacola, Naval Air Station Whiting Field and Naval Air Station Mayport, all in Florida.

She added that while it was unclear when the Saudi students would be allowed to fly again, their classroom training was expected to resume soon. She added that aviation training had resumed for students from other countries.

There are currently about 850 Saudi students in the United States for military training.

Alshamrani was on the base as part of a U.S. Navy training program designed to foster links with foreign allies. He had started training in the United States in 2017 and had been in the Pensacola area for the past 18 months, authorities said.

A group that tracks online extremism has said Alshamrani appeared to have posted criticism of U.S. wars in predominantly Muslim countries and quoted slain al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden on Twitter hours before the shooting spree.

U.S.-Saudi relations

The attack comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has maintained warm ties with Riyadh amid high tensions with Middle East rival Iran.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has dismissed suggestions that the shootings might make him more reluctant about new U.S. deployments to Saudi Arabia, which were announced in October and first reported by Reuters.

“Saudi Arabia is a longstanding partner of ours in the region. We share mutual security interests,” Esper said over the weekend.

Esper said he had instructed the armed forces to review both security at military bases and screening for foreign soldiers who come to the United States for training after the shooting.

In the wake of the shootings, the U.S. Northern Command immediately ordered all military installations to review force protection measures and to increase “random security measures.”

A Northern Command spokesman said local commanders in the United States also had the authority to “add further countermeasures as needed,” without elaborating as to which, if any, bases did so.
 

Greece has sent two letters to the United Nations explaining its objections to a maritime boundary deal between Turkey and Libya and asking for the matter to be taken up by the U.N. Security Council, the government spokesman said Tuesday.

The country’s foreign minister also convened a meeting in Athens to brief political party leaders on developments. The deal, endorsed by Turkey’s parliament last week, has fueled regional tension, particularly over drilling rights for gas and oil exploration.

The agreement would give Turkey and Libya access to an economic zone across the Mediterranean despite the objections of Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, which lie between the two geographically. All three countries have blasted the deal as being contrary to international law, and Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador last week over the issue.

Government spokesman Stelios Petsas said Greece sent one letter to the U.N. Secretary General and one to the head of the U.N. Security Council Monday night detailing Greece’s position. He said the letters noted the agreement “was done in bad faith and violates the law of the sea, as the sea zones of Turkey and Libya are not neighboring, nor is there a joint maritime border between the two countries.”

The letters also note the deal “does not take into account the Greek islands” and their right to a continental shelf and exclusive economic zone. The agreement has also not been ratified by Libya’s parliament, Petsas said, rendering it “void and unable to affect Greek sovereign rights.”

Neighbors Greece and Turkey, although NATO allies, have tense relations and are divided by a series of decades-old disputes, including territorial issues in the Aegean Sea, and have come to the brink of war three times since the 1970s, including once over drilling rights in the Aegean.

 

A summit of Arab Gulf nations opened on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia without Qatar’s ruler in attendance, despite signs of a thaw in a diplomatic crisis that has gripped the regions U.S. allies.

Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani instead sent Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani to head Qatar’s delegation to the Gulf Cooperation Council meeting.

The GCC bloc, composed of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, has been fractured since mid-2017. That’s when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar and blockaded the tiny peninsula-nation.

The four accuse Qatar of supporting Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which these countries view as a terror threat to regional security. They also accuse Qatar of having close ties with Iran. Qatar, which shares a massive underwater gas field with Iran, says its commitments have always been “to uphold international law and protect human rights and not to a specific party or group.”

There had been some speculation among analysts that Sheikh Tamim might attend the summit following recent signs hinting at reconciliation. Others said he would never be seen visiting any of the quartet nations so long as their blockade on Qatar persists.

Qatar Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani acknowledged last week, however, there have been talks with Saudi Arabia.

“We hope that these talks will lead to a progress where we can send an end for the crisis,” he said at the Mediterranean Dialogue Forum in Rome.

In another sign of a possible thaw, teams from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain flew this month to Qatar and participated in the Arabian Gulf Cup soccer tournament, which they had previously refused to do.

Still, there’s little indication that deeply-strained ties with the UAE might also be repaired, despite Kuwaiti mediation efforts to end the dispute. This year’s GCC summit was originally planned to be held in the UAE, but was moved to Saudi Arabia.

Gerald Feierstein, senior vice president at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the venue change is indicative if the Emirati-Qatar rift.

“Unhappiness with Doha’s sympathetic view of the political Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and its close relationship with Turkey remain friction points,” he said.

For all their diverging views and interests, the GCC states share a common interest of stability in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping corridor vital that’s to their energy exports in the Persian Gulf.

Attacks blamed on Iran this summer, including a stunning attack on a major Saudi crude processing facility, have rattled the region. Tensions between Tehran and Washington have also escalated.

“All these countries’ economies and oil exports are at risk if the Gulf is not secure,” Omani analyst Abdullah Baabood said.

Sigurd Neubauer, a Mideast analyst based in Washington, said the recent attacks in the Persian Gulf have accelerated the need for GCC reconciliation.

“The external threat to the GCC is significant now from Iran as opposed to just a year ago,” he said.

Qatar’s powerful ex-prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, said reconciliation talks must address the harm inflicted on Qatar from the blockade so that “such policies are not repeated.”

“I am with a reconciliation that comes without conditions, and which protects the dignity and sovereignty of nations,” he wrote on Twitter, before adding that it will take years to rebuild trust among nations of the GCC.

Centuries-old ties that bind families and tribes underpin the Arabian Peninsula, but that kinship has been strained under the crisis. After the row erupted in June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain warned that anyone who sympathizes with Qatar or criticizes the measures taken against it would be imprisoned and fined.

Qatari citizens were expelled from the three countries after years of visa-free travel throughout the Gulf. Transport links with Qatar were cut and Saudi Arabia sealed shut Qatar’s only land border, impacting food imports.

Qatar turned to Turkey and Iran to restock its food shelves and supplies, and deepened its military alliance with Turkey.

Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said resolution to the crisis ultimately lies with Qatar.

“It’s in the hands of Qatar to make sure that all our worries that led to us to boycott them are dealt with from their part,” he said in remarks at the Manama Dialogue last month.

 

Taiwan’s top diplomat said Tuesday that his government stands with Hong Kong citizens pushing for “freedom and democracy,” and would help those displaced from the semi-autonomous Chinese city if Beijing intervenes with greater force to quell the protests.

Speaking to The Associated Press in the capital, Taipei, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu was careful to say his government has no desire to intervene in Hong Kong’s internal affairs, and that existing legislation is sufficient to deal with a relatively small number of Hong Kong students or others seeking to reside in Taiwan.

But he added that Hong Kong police have already responded with “disproportionate force” to the protests. He said that any intervention by mainland Chinese forces would be “a new level of violence” that would prompt Taiwan to take a different stance in helping those seeking to leave Hong Kong.

“When that happens, Taiwan is going to work with the international community to provide necessary assistance to those who are displaced by the violence there,” he said.

Chinese paramilitary forces have deployed to the Chinese city of Shenzhen, just outside Hong Kong, since the protests began in June. Neither they nor the thousands of Chinese military troops garrisoned in Hong Kong itself have been deployed to confront the protesters so far.

“The people here understand that how the Chinese government treats Hong Kong is going to be the future way of them treating Taiwan. And what turned out in Hong Kong is not very appealing to the Taiwanese people,” Wu said.

China’s Communist Party insists that Taiwan is part of China and must be reunited with it, even if by force. Modern Taiwan was founded when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who once ruled on the mainland, were forced to retreat to the island in 1949 after the Communists took power in the Chinese Civil War.

Beijing has suggested that Taiwan could be reunited under the “one country, two systems” model that applied to Hong Kong after the former British colony was returned to China in 1997. That agreement allowed Hong Kong to keep its civil liberties, independent courts and capitalist system, though many in Hong Kong accuse Beijing of undermining those freedoms under President Xi Jinping.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has said that the “one country, two systems” model has failed in Hong Kong and brought the city to “the brink of disorder.”

Government surveys earlier this year showed that about 80% of Taiwanese citizens oppose reunification with China.

Wu spoke a month before Taiwanese voters go to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 11. Opinion surveys suggest that Tsai, a U.S. and British-educated law scholar who rejects Beijing’s claims to Taiwan, is on track to secure a second term over her more China-friendly rival, Han Kuo-yu of the Nationalist Party.

China severed links with Taiwan’s government after Tsai took office in 2016 because of her refusal to accept Beijing’s claims on the island. It has since been increasing diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan.

That includes sending aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait — the most recent transit was last month — and peeling away Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies. Two more, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati, switched their diplomatic recognition to Beijing in September.

A second term for Tsai would see a continuation of Taiwan’s tough stance against its much larger neighbor.

 “If President Tsai is reelected, we’ll continue to … maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. We’ll continue to send out goodwill gestures to China,” Wu said. “We want to make sure that the Chinese have no excuse in launching a war against Taiwan.”

Taiwan, known officially as the Republic of China, lacks a seat at the United Nations. It counts on its 15 official diplomatic allies, which are mostly small and poor, to help bolster its claims to international legitimacy.

Safeguarding diplomatic relations with those remaining countries is a top priority for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wu said.

“I think our relations with these 15 countries are quite strong at this moment and we don’t worry that much,” he said.

Taiwan also has unofficial relationships with several other countries, including the United States, which does not support its independence but is bound by law to ensure its defense.

The Trump administration has increased support for Taiwan even as it is embroiled in a trade war with China. The U.S. this year agreed to sell 66 F-16 fighter jets worth $8 billion to Taiwan, prompting complaints by China.

Wu said Taiwan’s relationship with the U.S. is the best it has been in 40 years — a reference to the four decades since Washington formally shifted its diplomatic relations with China from the government in Taipei to the one in Beijing.

The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China is creating both opportunities and challenges for Taiwan, Wu acknowledged. Taiwanese companies are big investors in China, and some are moving their businesses off the mainland as the trade war drags on, he said, citing $23 billion of investments pledged by companies relocating operations back to Taiwan.

But he said Taiwan enjoys “strong bipartisan support” in Washington and is not concerned that its status with the U.S. could be used as a bargaining chip in the trade negotiations.

 “We are being assured … by very senior Trump administration officials that their relations with Taiwan is independent of relations with any other country and to the United States, Taiwan is a very important partner,” he said.

 

 

The Pentagon has denied intentionally misleading the public about the 18-year war in Afghanistan, after The Washington Post published a trove of government documents revealing that officials made overly optimistic pronouncements they knew to be false and hid evidence that the conflict had become un-winnable. 

“There has been no intent by DoD to mislead Congress or the public,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell wrote to VOA on Monday. 

“The information contained in the interviews was provided to SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) for the express purpose of inclusion in SIGAR’s public reports,” he added.

The Post said the documents contain more than 400 interviews with senior military and government insiders who offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of war.

According to the Post, U.S. officials, most of whom spoke on the assumption that their remarks would not be made public, acknowledged that the strategies for fighting the war were flawed and that the U.S. wasted hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make Afghanistan into a stable, democratic nation. 

“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, said in 2015, according to the documents. “We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

The Post said the interviews also highlight botched U.S. attempts to reduce corruption, build a competent Afghan army and reduce the country’s opium trade.

U.S. presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all vowed to avoid becoming mired in “nation-building” in Afghanistan. However, the report shows how even from the early days of the war, senior officials in charge of directing U.S. policy in the country expressed confusion about Washington’s basic objectives and strategy for achieving them.

The Post said the interviews “contradict a long chorus of public statements” that assured the U.S. was “making progress in Afghanistan.”

Outgoing Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell, who serves as the senior enlisted adviser to the top U.S. military officer, told reporters on Monday that he “firmly thought the strategy we had in place was working.”  

“I feel that we’ve never been lied to, and we are continuing to move forward (in Afghanistan),” Troxell added.

The Afghan war is estimated to have killed more than 150,000 people, including civilians, insurgents, local and foreign troops, since the U.S. and its allies invaded 18 years ago to oust the Taliban from power for sheltering al-Qaida leaders accused of plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes on the U.S.

The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. service members and cost Washington nearly $1 trillion.

The Post waged a legal battle for three years to force the government to disclose the information because of its importance to the public.

The U.S. and the Afghan Taliban restarted peace negotiations on Saturday, three months after Trump abruptly stopped the yearlong process aimed at finding a political settlement with the insurgent group and ending the war in Afghanistan.

Afghan-born U.S. special reconciliation representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, led his team at a meeting Saturday in Doha, Qatar, where insurgent negotiators are based.

The draft agreement the U.S.-Taliban negotiations had produced before Trump called off the process on Sept. 7 would have set the stage for a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

The Taliban, in return, had given counterterrorism guarantees and promised to engage in intra-Afghan peace negotiations to permanently end decades of hostilities in the country.

Chile’s military has launched a search and rescue mission for an air force plane carrying 38 people that disappeared Monday during a flight to a base in Antarctica.

The C-130 Hercules aircraft took off from the southern city of Punta Arenas, located more than 3,000 kilometers south of the capital Santiago. The 17 crewmen and 21 passengers were heading to the Antarctic outpost to check on a floating fuel supply line and other equipment.  

The air force says it lost contact with the plane nearly an hour-and-a-half later.

New Zealand police say they are launching an investigation in connection with the volcanic eruption on New Zealand’s White Island that killed five tourists Monday.  

Deputy Commissioner John Tims told reporters earlier Tuesday that the probe was criminal in nature, but police later issued a statement revising Tims’s announcement.  The police investigation is being conducted by alongside a probe by New Zealand’s safety regulator.

The country’s seismic monitoring agency GeoNet raised the volcano’s alert level last month to level two on the five-level scale that monitors its chances of eruption. Still pictures captured by a GeoNet camera showed a group of tourists walking on the crater floor moments before the eruption.

Along with the five confirmed deaths, eight others are missing and presumed dead and at least 31 have been injured.  New Zealand chief medical officer

Pete Watson said at least 27 survivors are being treated for burns to more than 71 percent of their bodies.

Authorities say about 47 people were touring the island at the time of the eruption, including 24 Australians, with the rest from the United States, Britain, Germany, China, Malaysia and New Zealand.  Some of the victims were passengers from a cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean.  

Conditions on White Island have made it impossible for rescue crews to return to the island to search for any survivors.  GeoNet says there is still a 50 percent chance of another eruption within the next day.

“To those who have lost or are missing family and friends, we share in your grief and sorrow, and we are devastated” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Tuesday in Parliament.  Prime Minister Ardern also praised the pilots  who risked their lives to fly to White Island to rescue survivors.  

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said three Australians are feared to be among the five confirmed deaths, while at least 13 were hospitalized.  

White Island, also known by its Maori name Whakaari, sits about 50 kilometers northeast of the town of Tauranga on North Island, attracts about 10,000 visitors every year.  It is New Zealand’s most active cone volcano, with about 70% of the island under the sea.

The U.N. General Assembly unanimously approved a resolution Monday urging all nations to observe a truce during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan, saying sports can play a role in promoting peace and tolerance and preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism.

Diplomats burst into applause as the assembly president announced the adoption of the resolution by the 193-member world body.

The resolution recalls the ancient Greek tradition of “ekecheiria,” which called for a cessation of hostilities to encourage a peaceful environment, ensure safe passage and participation of athletes in the ancient Olympics.

The General Assembly revived the tradition in 1993 and has adopted resolutions before all Olympics since then calling for a cessation of hostilities for seven days before and after the games. But member states involved in conflicts have often ignored the call for a truce.

Yoshiro Mori, head of the Tokyo organizing committee for the 2020 games, introduced the resolution calling on U.N. members states to observe the truce around next year’s Summer Olympics, being held July 24-Aug. 9, and the Paralympics, following on Aug. 25-Sept. 6.

The resolution also urges nations to help “use sport as a tool to promote peace, dialogue and reconciliation in areas of conflict during and beyond” the games.

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, told the General Assembly that as the United Nations approaches its 75th anniversary next year, an Olympic year, there is no better time to celebrate the shared values of both organizations to promote peace among all countries and people of the world.

But he warned that “in sport, we can see an increasing erosion of the respect for the global rule of law.”

Bach said the IOC’s political neutrality “is undermined whenever organizations or individuals attempt to use the Olympic Games as a stage for their own agendas – as legitimate as they might be. The Olympics “are a sports celebration of our shared humanity … and must never be a platform to advance political or any other potentially divisive ends,” he said.

Looking ahead, Bach announced that “we will achieve gender balance at the Olympic Games for the first time in Tokyo, with the highest-ever number of female athletes in history at about 49%.”

He said Tokyo 2020 also aims “for carbon-neutral games,” saying medals will be made from recycled electronics and renewable energy and zero-emission vehicles will be used.

The resolution notes that the Tokyo event will be the second of three Olympics in Asia, following the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and ahead of the 2022 winter games in Beijing.

It also notes that the Summer Olympics will give Japan the opportunity to express gratitude to countries and people around the world for their “solidarity and support” after the 2011 earthquake and “to deliver a powerful message to the world on how it has been recovering.”

New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg launched his campaign less than three weeks ago, but he is already making his first foreign trip as a presidential candidate.

The Democrat will appear Tuesday at a United Nations global climate conference in Madrid, where he’ll share the results of his private push to organize thousands of U.S. cities and businesses to abide by the terms of a global climate treaty that the Trump administration is working to abandon. The appearance comes as Bloomberg, a former Republican whose dedication to the environment earned him the designation of special U.N. envoy for climate action, tries to find his footing in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election.

It’s rare for a presidential candidate to step onto the international stage before securing the nomination, and virtually unheard of for a candidate to do so in the first month of his or her candidacy.

Earlier this year, Bernie Sanders appeared in Canada to highlight his fight to lower prescription drug costs, while former candidate Beto O’Rourke met with asylum seekers in Mexico. Both men represented states that bordered those countries, however, and there were no formal talks with foreign leaders involved.

Bloomberg shared his plan to appear at the global climate conference on social media on Monday.

“I’m going to the climate summit in Madrid because President Trump won’t,” he said, adding that he plans to “meet with environmental leaders from around the world about next steps on tackling the climate crisis.”

Bloomberg also vowed in a statement to rejoin the Paris climate agreement in his first official act as president.

Campaign aide Brynne Craig said climate would be “a central issue” for Bloomberg this week and throughout his presidential run.

She said the issue “is near and dear to his heart” and “a front-of-mind issue for Democratic voters.”

The 77-year-old billionaire has used his wealth to make an impact in the global fight against climate change and in his 2020 presidential campaign. He is largest donor in the history of the Sierra Club, and he has spent more than $60 million in the first two weeks of his campaign on television ads now running in all 50 states.

Many progressives remain resistant to his candidacy.

“How many self-declared climate champion billionaires does the race need? The answer is none,” said Mitch Jones, climate and energy program director for the group Food & Water Watch, which has been critical of Bloomberg’s pragmatic approach to fighting climate change. “This is just Bloomberg trying to insert himself into international climate negotiations to bolster his campaign.”

Bloomberg’s presidential campaign released a new online video ad contrasting his message on climate change with that of Trump, who served formal notice last month that the U.S. intends to become the first country to withdraw from the Paris accord.

“It’s getting hotter. But while fire and smoke choke our air, Donald Trump is making it worse,” Bloomberg’s new ad says, describing Trump as a “climate change denier” and Bloomberg as a “climate change champion.”

AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of the American electorate, found that 92% of people who voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms said they were at least somewhat concerned about climate change. Seventy percent said they were very concerned.

 

A conservation group trying to protect the world’s most endangered marine mammal said Monday that hundreds of fishermen massed in dozens of boats to fish illegally in Mexico’s Gulf of California.

Activists with the Sea Shepherd group said they witnessed about 80 small fishing boats pulling nets full of endangered totoaba fish from the water near the port of San Felipe on Sunday.

Those same nets catch vaquita porpoises. Perhaps as few as 10 of the small, elusive porpoises remain in the Gulf of California, which is the only place they live.

While totoaba are more numerous, they are also protected. But their swim bladders are considered a delicacy in China and command high prices.

The Mexican government prohibits net fishing in the gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, but budget cuts have meant authorities have stopped compensation payments for fishermen for not fishing.

Sea Shepherd operates in the area to remove the gillnets that trap vaquitas, but the group said the mass fishing seen Sunday was a new tactic, in which a number of boats would surround and enclose totoabas to ensure they couldn’t escape the nets.

The mass turnout overwhelmed the relatively few Mexican navy personnel present, the group said. In the past, fishermen have attacked Sea Shepherd boats as well as naval vessels.
 

During his recent visit to Washington, Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said one goal looms above all others as he leads the country’s transitional government: bringing peace to the war-ravaged nation.
 
“Our number one top priority is to stop the war and build the foundation of sustainable peace,” he said. “Essentially to stop the sufferings of our people in the IDP camps and the refugee camps. We think the opportune time of stopping this war is now.”
 
Hamdok did not specify which war he meant; Sudan’s government has been fighting rebels in the Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions for years. The capital, Khartoum, saw deadly conflicts between protesters and the military earlier this year.
 
He did say he was heartened by the resiliency on display when he visited the Zam Zam camp for internally displaced people in Darfur, where a war that began in 2003 has never entirely stopped.
 
“It was a very moving moment but the climax of it was… a woman who took the floor and delivered the first speech. She articulated so well their interest, their expectations about the transitional government, how they see the peace process. After that, she was followed by six speakers… They all said our sister articulated our issues and were very satisfied with what she said.
 
“All the sufferings and the miseries they went through, it taught them, educated them and made them strong enough to be able to say from now onwards we know what is good for ourselves and nobody can dictate on us anything. This is very liberating,” Hamdok said.
 
Unlike the administration of his predecessor, Omar al-Bashir, Hamdok’s government has pledged to allow unfettered access for aid organizations to reach those in need.

Hamdok spoke at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank in Washington. He visited the American capital in an effort to repair Sudan’s relationship with the U.S., which was strained to nonexistent during the entire 30-year reign of former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who the military ousted in April after months of mass protests.
 
One of Hamdok’s goal’s is for the U.S. to remove Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  Sudan was put on the list in 1993, at a time when al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden was living in Khartoum.

 Although Sudan is still on the list, the two countries agreed to resume diplomatic relations and exchange ambassadors.
 
U.S. officials have said the process of removing Sudan from the terrorism list will be a long one. Hamdok stressed that his country is prepared to meet the requirements which may include paying restitution to victims of terrorist attacks.
 
“We Sudanese as a people have never supported terrorism before. It was a former regime that supported this,” he said. “We are also as a nation, victims of terrorism that was inflicted on us by the regime. But we accepted this as a corporate responsibility. And we are negotiating.”
 
Hamdok, an economist and diplomat who has worked for the U.N., was named the country’s transitional prime minister in August. In deference to the leading role women played in the revolution, Hamdok made history by

News reports say House Democrats and the White House are close to agreeing on changes to a trade deal that the United States, Canada and Mexico signed last year but have not ratified.

The United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, known as the USMCA, would replace the existing North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which President Donald Trump has derided as the “worst trade deal” ever signed by the U.S. He made renegotiating NAFTA a campaign promise during the 2016 presidential race.

NAFTA took effect in the 1990s during U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration.

The Mexican Senate accepted changes to the USMCA after intense negotiations with the United States. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to move forward on the deal.

“It’s time, it’s the moment,” Lopez Obrador said at a press conference.

Reports say Pelosi is studying the terms of the agreement. The changes to the deal are aimed at winning the support of House Democrats. Those close to the discussions say a ratification vote could take place in the House of Representatives on Dec. 18.

Both the House and the Senate must sign off on the deal.

Some congressional Republicans have criticized Pelosi, saying she is holding up the deal, which they say is having an impact on Trump’s negotiations with China.

“We would get a better agreement with China if we had USMCA done,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in his weekly press conference last Thursday. China and the U.S. have placed billions of dollars worth of tariffs on each other’s goods in the trade war.

NAFTA’s critics say it encouraged factories and jobs to relocate to Mexico. NAFTA eliminated most tariffs among the three nations, making it one of the largest free trade agreements in the world.

Ratification needed

The revised agreement must be ratified by legislators in the three countries for it to go into force. House Democrats called on Mexico to adhere to higher labor standards.

Mexican senators have approved the USMCA. If it cannot be ratified by all three countries, they will remain in NAFTA unless they break away from it.

Lopez Obrador expressed concern for implementing the trade deal sooner rather than later. He said time was running short to avoid the matter becoming an issue in the U.S. presidential race.
 
 The Trump administration also made lowering the trade deficit with Mexico part of a renegotiation strategy.
 
Separately, the United States had a last-minute request to the agreement over the weekend, relating to how steel is identified. The U.S. has proposed that 70% of steel for automobile production come from the North American region. Cars produced in Mexico also use components made in Brazil, Japan and Germany.

If Congress is not able to pass Trump’s renegotiated trade deal, he said that he would take the United States out of NAFTA.
 

Turkey Defense Minister Hulusi Akar warned Washington on Monday that Turkey will seek alternatives if Washington doesn’t end its embargo on the sale of the F-35 jet.

The impasse over the fighter jet, deemed key to Turkey’s future defense, is rekindling memories of a similar century-old dispute.

Hoping that a “reasonable and sensible” way could be found to resolve Washington’s freeze on the F-35 sales, Akar warned, “If this is not possible, everyone should know that we will naturally seek other quests.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has confirmed that Russia’s Su-35 fighter is being considered as an alternative to America’s latest stealth fighter jet if the embargo is not lifted.

President Donald Trump froze the jet sale after Ankara procured the Russian S-400 missile system. Washington claims the S-400’s sophisticated radar compromises NATO defense systems — in particular, the stealth technology of its F-35 jet.

Ankara claims Washington is manufacturing the dispute.

“The U.S. criticized us. However, NATO did not say anything. On the contrary, NATO Secretary General (Jens Stoltenberg) repeatedly stated all countries have the right to buy the weapon and defense system they want,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Saturday.

1914 dispute

The increasingly acrimonious dispute is resurrecting memories of a century-old Turkish arms deal that also went sour. In 1914 on the eve of World War I, Britain seized two state-of-the-art dreadnought warships built by British builders for the then-Ottoman Empire.

The incident still resonates in Turkey.

“It continues to haunt not only the public and political mind, but the institutional mind, especially,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University and author of “The Ottoman Quest for Dreadnoughts.” “The navy has never forgotten this experience, and today, there are many similarities in several respects with the F-35 embargo.

“The two warships … were fully paid for. But (Winston) Churchill (head of the British navy in 1914) was obsessed, convinced that the Ottomans were going to join the Germans. So, there was no point in releasing the two ships which may end up on the wrong side of the conflict,” Guvenc said.

“Over a century ago, it was the fear of the Ottoman’s joining the Germans,” Guvenc added. “Today, the case with the F-35, Russia is the modern-day equivalent with Germany.”

In 1914, after Britain’s seizure of the Ottoman warships, Germany offered two ships of its own as replacements, a move that brought the Turks to Germany’s side against Britain, France and Russia in World War I.

Former Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen acknowledges the 1914 incident still resonates in Turkish military thinking.

“Among commanders of today’s Turkish navy, it is still a vivid memory and still today shapes the thinking of these naval planners.”

Since 1914, Ankara has never procured a British naval vessel. Selcen says the latest arms disputes with Washington differs from the past.

“It’s a public diplomacy stand (by Ankara). It’s public propaganda to compare with the warships,” Selcen said, “because it was kind of an own goal by Turkish foreign policy to get kicked out of the project. It was made clear by Washington: either the S-400 or F-35, not both.”

Higher stakes

Analysts point out that the loss of the F-35 jets could be more far-reaching than the loss of two warships in 1914. Ankara has invested over a billion dollars into the jet project and ultimately was to take delivery of around 100 jets to replace the Turkish air force’s aging fleet of F-16 aircraft.

Washington has also expelled Turkey from the international consortium building and servicing the advanced jet.

“When Turkey became a full-fledged partner in the F-35 program, the political implications would be that Turkey remains committed to the NATO alliance and staunch ally to the United States,” Guvenc said. “In Washington, the idea is that Turkey is now moving irreversibly away from the western alliance and seeking new friends in Eurasia, basically Russia and China.”

Moscow is lobbying Ankara hard to deepen and broaden Russian military purchases. Turkey is reportedly close to buying a second battery of S-400 missiles, a move analysts say is likely to anger Washington further.

Just as in 1914, Ankara could be facing a pivotal moment, Guvenc said.

“The similarities are very striking, because when the two German warships arrived in Istanbul in place of the two commandeered dreadnoughts, the British naval mission had to leave and was replaced by the German naval mission. And the German military naval influence in Turkey continued after World War I,” he explained.

“So, we may see a rupture in the Turkish military strategy and its realignment around Russia-China — a hybrid military strategy but definitely moving away from the western alliance,” Guvenc said.
 

A United Nations expert on the freedom of expression said he has urged Ethiopian officials to stop shutting down the internet.

David Kaye, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, told reporters in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, that he is concerned with the frequent internet shutdowns carried out by the government.

“I’ve also experienced an internet shut down here in Ethiopia in the past week,” he said, referring to a brief shutdown on Dec. 5 that Ethiopian officials said was to stop a cyber-attack targeting the country’s financial institutions.

Ethiopia has shut down the internet nine times in 2019, mostly during national exams and public protests, he said.

“Internet shutdowns are almost always in violation of the right to freedom of opinion and expression,” said Kaye. “I want to strongly urge the government to not use internet shutdown as a tool. I’ve asked several times `Where do you have the authority in law to shut down the internet?’ Nobody could give me an answer.”

Ethiopia is one of several African countries that have blocked the internet or specific social media sites during elections or periods of crisis.

Kaye stressed that social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube have a relatively small presence in Ethiopia right now but they have an “extraordinary responsibility” to moderate contents to make sure postings are accurate.

Kaye praised the reforms implemented by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for achieving peace with neighboring Eritrea.

“This is a remarkable moment in Ethiopia with all sorts of reforms happening in the country,” he said, adding that it is the first time since 2006 that a U.N. special rapporteur of his kind was invited into the country.

He said, however, that more reforms are needed.

“I’ve expressed my concern regarding the draft hate speech and disinformation law as it may inadvertently criminalize public debate,” he said.
 

As world governments continue climate talks in Madrid, experts say they must sharply increase renewable energy production to meet emissions cutting goals under the Paris agreement. Green energies like wind and solar power are growing rapidly, but not fast enough. From the Spanish village of Maranchon, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA on what’s at stake for the wind industry.

“Marriage Story,” Netflix’s heart-wrenching divorce saga, topped the Golden Globe nominations Monday with six nods including best drama, kicking off the race for the Oscars.

“The Irishman,” Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour gangster epic, and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Quentin Tarantino’s nostalgic love letter to 1960s Tinseltown, were hot on its heels with five each.

The nominations traditionally see the stars and movies destined for awards success start to break away from the competition — the Globes are seen as a key bellwether for February’s Academy Awards.

“Marriage Story” earned nominations for its stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, and for its screenplay, but director Noah Baumbach missed out.

Scorsese was nominated for best director for “Irishman” but there was no best actor nod for his leading man Robert De Niro. Instead, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci were both selected for supporting roles.

Netflix’s Vatican drama “The Two Popes” also performed well, while dark comic book tale “Joker” received recognition in best drama, best actor and best director.

Monday’s nominations were announced at an early-morning Beverly Hills ceremony by actor Tim Allen (“Toy Story”) and actresses Dakota Fanning (“I Am Sam”) and Susan Kelechi Watson (“This Is Us”).

The 77th Golden Globes will take place in Los Angeles on January 5, two days before voting for Oscars nominees ends.

The gala will be hosted by British comedian Ricky Gervais.