President Trump’s Thursday visit to a manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas, where Apple makes a line of computers, highlighted the iPhone maker’s delicate dance with the Trump administration over China, tariffs and U.S. manufacturing. Michelle Quinn takes a look  at the relationship.

An emerging and lucrative business has farmers buzzing to cash-in on a newly legal cash crop.  Experts say the global market may grow at least fivefold by 2025.  But as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, the potential highs for a formerly banned agribusiness have so far come with trying lows.
 

Students at Syracuse University, in northern New York state, have been given permission to leave campus early for next week’s Thanksgiving break, because of a spate of racist threats on campus that have left students, staff and faculty spooked about possible violent attacks.

Meanwhile, a group of protesting students known as #NotAgainSU has staked out the student wellness center, calling for a stronger university response to the attacks. They say the school has a history of minimizing racial attacks. A group of 19 faculty members said the same, in a letter to the editor published in the university newspaper The Daily Orange.

The attacks were varied. Racist graffiti attacking African Americans and Asians had been scrawled on two separate floors of a freshman dormitory. A Nazi swastika was found carved into the snow on campus. In all, a dozen instances of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti have been found on or adjacent to the campus serving about 22,500 students.

Saturday night, a group of fraternity members on campus yelled racial epithets at an African American student. The campus newspaper reports at least one other incident in which an Asian student was verbally assaulted with a racist slur.

There were also reports that a white supremacist manifesto was deposited on student devices via AirDrop at Syracuse’s Bird Library earlier this week, although police say they have yet to find a single student who actually received the manifesto.

On Tuesday, Genevieve Garcia de Mueller, a faculty member who is both Jewish and Mexican, reported receiving an email containing an anti-Semitic message. She reported the email to campus security and canceled her classes for the day.

“I consistently see this narrative on campus that’s trying to diminish what’s happening,” she told The New York Times this week. “I don’t see a plan … for any sort of systemic change.”

University responds

Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud spoke to the University Senate — the student decision-making body — Wednesday about the incidents. He said local police believe the graffiti is the work of between one and five people whose identities are still not clear.

The four Syracuse students who were yelling racial slurs have been suspended and all fraternities’ social events have been canceled for the rest of the semester. The manifesto story, Syverud said, seems to have been a rumor that got out of hand.

“It was apparent that this rumor was probably a hoax, but that reality was not communicated clearly and rapidly enough to get ahead of escalating anxiety,” he said. “These incidents have caused students rightly to be afraid.”

The chancellor said he has asked university officials to relax school rules and schedules to allow students to cope with their emotions and still complete the semester’s work. He also said the university has formed response teams that will, in the future, be available around the clock for such incidents as they occur.

He also announced the school will allocate at least $1 million for a new curriculum on diversity issues.

Students want more

For many students, however, that is not enough.

Jewel Jackson, a junior and columnist for The Daily Orange, wrote recently: “These ‘solutions’ are attempts by the university to save face and only convey to the students of color that SU officials don’t care about us.”

She said the university has failed to react strongly enough to similar incidents in the past.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo agreed. On Tuesday, he said the university’s response was not enough and called on its board of trustees to hire an independent monitor.

Alum Lindsey Decker tweeted on Tuesday:  “I witnessed racist incidents at Syracuse as a grad student. As an alum who is no longer in the precarious position of being an adjunct or student at the university, I feel I can finally publicly use my voice.” She was apologizing for the number of tweets and retweets she had posted about the situation at Syracuse.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who attended law school at Syracuse, tweeted Wednesday that he was “deeply disturbed” by the news from his alma mater. He added: “We are truly in a battle for the soul of this nation, and it requires all of us to stand up together as a country against racism and bigotry.”

I am deeply disturbed by the news coming out of my law school alma mater, Syracuse University. We are truly in a battle for the soul of this nation, and it requires all of us to stand up together as a country against racism and bigotry. We must give hate no safe harbor. https://t.co/m6BNczblXY

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 20, 2019

Students have said they are afraid to walk alone on campus. The school’s department of public safety has increased its patrols and added shuttle services and safety escorts to protect students traversing the campus. Some professors have canceled classes or held them online.

New: #NotAgainSU protesters plan to donate their stockpiled food to local food pantries tonight and tommorow. The students still say they haven’t come to a final decision on the future of their sit-in at Syracuse University’s Barnes Center. @CitrusTVNewspic.twitter.com/0DonszzR4L

— Ricky ”Reports” Sayer (@RickyReports) November 21, 2019

Reports from campus say it is unusually quiet, as many students have gone home early for the Thanksgiving holiday. The crowd of students occupying the wellness center is reported to have thinned out. Student journalist Ricky “Reports” Sayer tweeted late Thursday that the protesters plan to donate their stockpiled food to local food pantries. 

But he noted that doesn’t necessarily mean their protest is over.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has led the country for 13 years, was indicted Thursday by the country’s top prosecutor on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in an investigation the leader has called an “attempted coup.” 
 
The indictment centers on allegations that the prime minister and his wife accepted more than $260,000 worth of jewelry, cigars, champagne and other gifts in exchange for political favors. The prime minister is also accused of interfering with regulatory bodies and lawmakers on behalf of two media companies in exchange for positive news coverage. 

The decision marked the first time in the nation’s history that a sitting prime minister had faced criminal charges. 
 
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit charged Netanyahu with fraud and breach of trust in three cases, and bribery in one case. 
 
Accusations 
 
The most damaging charge in the indictments is the accusation that the prime minister took bribes to promote regulations worth approximately $500 million to Israeli telecommunications company Bezeq. 
 
The indictment said Netanyahu and telecom magnate Shaul Elovitch, whose company holds Bezeq, had a relationship “based on a mutual understanding that each of them had significant interests that the other side had the ability to advance.” 
 
The charges do not mean that Netanyahu, 70, will resign. 
 
“According to the basic law of the government, a prime minister only has to resign after the final verdict has been given,” Israeli legal expert Oren Gazal-Ayal said. “We are talking now only about an indictment, so according to the terms of the law, he can continue to serve legally while being charged and while being tried in court.” 

“A day in which the attorney general decides to serve an indictment against a seated prime minister for serious crimes of corrupt governance is a heavy and sad day, for the Israeli public and for me personally,” Mandelblit said at a press conference Thursday. 
 
Soon after the attorney general’s press conference, Netanyahu appeared on national TV to rail against the indictment. Netanyahu said the indictment was filled with “false accusations” and called it a “tainted investigation.” He also described it as an “attempted coup” against him. 
 
“Police and investigators are not above the law,” the prime minister said. “The time has come to investigate the investigators.” 
 
Mandelblit was appointed by Netanyahu five years ago and has previously been seen as an ally of the prime minister. 
 
“This is not a matter of politics,” the attorney general said. “This is an obligation placed on us, the people of law enforcement, and upon me personally as the one at its head.” 
 
Concerned by comments 
 
Dr. Guy Ziv, an assistant professor of international relations at American University’s School of International Service, told VOA he was concerned by Netanyahu’s lashing out at police and investigators. 
 
“It has a negative effect on Israeli democracy, because he’s essentially suggesting that the institutions are not to be trusted,” Ziv said. “I would even go further and say that he’s inciting the public against the attorney general. He is inciting them against the courts and against the media, just as he’s been inciting against the Arab minority against the Israeli left.” 
 
The indictment might cripple Netanyahu’s chances in the looming elections. 
 
According to an October opinion poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, about 65% of all Israelis said Netanyahu should resign as chair of the Likud Party if indicted. However, only 31% of Likud voters felt that way, according to the poll. 
 
The right-wing Likud party will face an empowered Blue and White party if a third election is held. 
 
The two parties were tied after the April parliamentary elections, with each party holding 35 seats. 
 
Despite Netanyahu’s initially having the support of potential coalition partners after the election, he has not been able to form a coalition government, causing the country to hold elections in September as well. Both the Blue and White and Likud parties lost seats. 

Netanyahu found himself unable to form a coalition government in Israeli’s Knesset again after the September elections. His chief rival, ex-military chief Benny Gantz, was then offered the opportunity to form a coalition. On Wednesday, Gantz announced he was also unable to form a coalition government. 
 
Netanyahu also may face resistance from within his own party. 
 
Knesset lawmakers have less than a month to organize a coalition and select a lawmaker to lead a majority government, and it is unlikely they will succeed. If no lawmaker can garner 61 seats in the 120-seat legislature, then the country will need to hold elections for the third time this year. 
 
The trial of Netanyahu could take months or even years to resolve, according to experts. 

Following a ruling by India’s Supreme Court over a land dispute between the country’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims, a Kashmir-based militant group, with alleged ties to al-Qaida, has vowed retaliation and urged Muslims in the country to stand up against the decision.

“We will surely take vengeance for the martyrdom of the Babri Masjid, and for the decision to surrender its land to the infidels and for the oppression carried out by the polytheist groups on the believers,” the group Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) warned via their official media platform, al-Hurr.

On Nov. 9, the Indian Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the Ram Mandir, allowing the construction of a temple on the site of Babri Masjid, a centuries-old mosque that was destroyed in 1992 by an angry Hindu mob following tensions between Hindus and Muslims over the ownership of the land.

The question of the land’s ownership had lingered for decades before the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month in favor of the Hindu temple.

Hindus believe the site of the mosque is the birthplace of their deity, Ram.

The court has also ordered the government to allocate a separate piece of land to the Sunni Waqf Board, the main litigating body in the case, for the construction of a new mosque.

Not a religious battle

The Indian Supreme Court maintains that Ayodhya verdict was handled as a property dispute, and not a religious battle between Hindus and Muslims, despite the history of the case.

Some Indian rights activists, however, charge that underneath the land dispute lies a deeper issue of religious divide.

“While on the surface it has been a land dispute, in reality it has always reflected a manifest desire among the Hindu right wing to humiliate Muslims in the name of historical wrongs,” said Ajit Sahi, an Indian civil liberties activist.

“The Hindu right wing for nearly a century has pedaled the narrative that Muslims are less patriotic than Hindus,” he added.

Others like Abhijit Iyer Mitra, an analyst at the Indian Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, charge that while it may come across as a religious matter, it essentially is a legal issue.

“It’s very much a Hindu-Muslim dispute, but the technicality of it is that it is a land dispute,” Mitra said.

“The decision really swung the Hindu way after the 1992 demolition of the Babri Mosque, because, as you know, possession is nine-tenths of the law, especially in India, where title deed not withstanding possession trumps ownership,” he added.

BJP’s reaction

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) welcomed the decision and downplayed the Hindu victory, urging the nation to move forward in unity.

“The Supreme Court has given its decision. It is time for nation building. Time to work towards the future,” Modi said following the decision.

While the Sunni Waqf Board has accepted the court’s verdict, some Muslim organizations in India, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), an advocacy group working for the rights of Muslims in India, have filed for petition.

Threats

Threats issued by AGH regarding the recent verdict have received some public attention in India and have led to concerns among analysts, who warn that international terror groups, including al-Qaida, might use the ruling to exploit an already growing rift between the minority Muslims and majority Hindus in the country.

“It is likely that these pan-Islamic terror groups will try to exploit the Ayodhya verdict,” Khalid Shah, an analyst at the Observer Research Foundation, an India-based think tank, told VOA.

Shah, however, expressed doubts on the origin of the AGH message, considering Indian-controlled Kashmir has been on lockdown since early August when India decided to end its semi-autonomous status.

“Other militant groups in Kashmir have not been able to make any statements since Aug. 5 because all communication is intercepted. The statement was perhaps issued outside of Kashmir by their handler [al-Qaida],” Shah said.

Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH)

AGH is a small organization confined to Jammu and Kashmir with limited manpower, but a large ideological following, according to experts.

The organization was formed in 2017 when its founder, Zakir Musa, severed ties with Hizbul Mujahideen, a pro-Pakistan militant group based in the Indian-controlled Kashmir, over ideological differences.

Although not listed on the U.S. State Department’s official Foreign Terrorist Organization list, analysts on South Asia warn that AGH is an affiliate of al-Qaida in the Indian subcontinent.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida, in his last video message on the situation in Kashmir, urged militant groups there to wage jihad for what he called “liberation.”

The picture of AGH’s slain leader, Musa, could be seen in the background of al-Zawahiri’s video.

Musa, the group’s leader was killed by Indian security forces in May of this year as was his successor, Hamid Lelhari, who was killed last month.

Analyst Shah said Indian security agencies, despite brushing off the AGH as an insignificant group, have been cracking down on its members.

“There is an active pursuit of the members of this group by Indian Security Forces,” Shah said. “They [India] recognize that their [AGH] ideology is very potent and very dangerous.”

Shah, who has been monitoring terror organizations in Kashmir, said what differentiates AGH from other militant groups is that it has set itself apart from “pro-Pakistani” groups.

“AGH has openly spoken against Pakistan and ISI [Pakistan’s intelligence agency]. They consider Pakistan as part of the problem rather than the solution to Kashmir,” he said.

Pakistan’s reaction

Pakistan’s Foreign Office claimed the verdict has been influenced by “Hindu supremacy.”

“The rising tide of extremist ideology in India, based on the belief of Hindu supremacy and exclusion, is a threat to regional peace and stability,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

India has not reacted to the statement from Pakistan but has dismissed allegations that the country’s religious minorities, mainly Muslims, are being marginalized.

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Washington-based Wilson Center, said Pakistan’s reaction to this might be somehow unprecedented in its nature but is nothing new.

“These are critiques we’ve heard quite frequently from Islamabad as New Delhi has intensified its Hindu nationalist agenda, but this is the first time we’ve heard them in response to an Indian court decision as opposed to an Indian government policy,” Kugelman said.

He added that the recent ruling would naturally strain the already tense communal divide, but he said it is too early to suggest that AGH’s threat would further fuel the divide.

It’s estimated that Americans throw away 25 percent more trash during the months between Thanksgiving and New Year than at any other time. But New York is trying to change all that by taking dedicating themselves to reducing, reusing and recycling in the hopes of getting to a point where literally nothing is wasted. Nina Vishneva has the story narrated by Anna Rice.

The first Honduran asylum-seeker arrived in Guatemala on Thursday from El Paso, Texas, under a controversial U.S. agreement that establishes Guatemala as a safe third country to process people fleeing persecution in their homelands. 

Guatemalan Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart said the 
Honduran man arrived on a flight from the United States earlier 
in the morning. 

The Honduran was among Guatemalan deportees flown into the 
Central American country on one of four U.S. deportation flights scheduled on Thursday, Degenhart said. 

The new effort began after the administration of Republican 
President Donald Trump brokered an agreement with the Guatemalan government in July. The deal allows U.S. immigration officials to force migrants requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to apply for asylum in Guatemala first. 

Campaign issue

Trump has made cracking down on immigration a central issue 
of his 2020 re-election campaign. His administration has worked 
to restrict asylum access in the United States to curb the number of mostly Central American families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

U.S. officials earlier this week said the program initially would be applied at a U.S. Border Patrol station in El Paso. 

A first phase will target adults from Honduras and El Salvador, and the aim will be to process them within 72 hours, according to the officials and notes taken by one of the officials during a training session of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officers. 

Democrats and pro-migrant groups have opposed the move and 
contend asylum-seekers will face danger in Guatemala, where the 
murder rate is five times that of the United States, according to 2017 data compiled by the World Bank. 

Guatemalan President-elect Alejandro Giammattei, who takes office in January, has said he will review the agreement. 

In 2015, Canadian photographer Joey Lawrence travelled to the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria while fierce fighting was underway against Islamic State.  Lawrence’s hope was to capture the Kurdish fighters’ lives during war and tell their stories through photos. He is now displaying his work in different cities around the world. VOA’s Rebaz Majeed visited Lawrence’s exhibition in Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq’s Kurdish region, and filed this report. 

China is working to resolve conflicts with Washington over trade, a Commerce Ministry official said Thursday, dismissing speculation the talks might be in trouble as inaccurate “rumors.”

Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said he had no new information to release. But he said China was committed to working toward an agreement.

“China is willing to address core concerns together with the U.S. on a basis of equality and mutual respect, and to work to conclude our discussions on the first phase” of a trade deal, Gao told reporters at a weekly briefing.

“This will benefit China, the U.S. and the world,” Gao said.

Financial markets have swung between elation and gloom in recent days as conflicting reports over the talks swirled. Some have cited officials saying they believe a deal is likely by the year’s end, while others have expressed skepticism.

Gao described such reports as “outside rumors that are not at all reliable.”

President Donald Trump began imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese exports nearly 18 months ago, citing trade and technology policies that he says violate Beijing’s market-opening commitments and are unfair.

Since then, tariffs have been raised by both sides on billions of dollars’ worth of each other’s exports, squeezing farmers and manufacturers. A fresh set of tariffs is due to take effect Dec. 15 on about $160 billion of Chinese exports to the U.S., including smartphones, laptops and other consumer goods.

President Donald Trump had said he hoped to sign a preliminary agreement with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at a regional economic summit in Chile in mid-November that was canceled due to protests. Prospects for the two leaders to meet and sign a deal soon appear uncertain.

Earlier this week Trump indicated he was prepared to go ahead with more tariff hikes if he does not get a deal with China that he likes.

The approval this week of a U.S. congressional resolution expressing support for human rights in Hong Kong after months of increasingly violent political protests drew an angry response from China’s foreign ministry.

It also rattled financial markets: markets fell Thursday for a second straight day in most regional markets after losses overnight on Wall Street.

China took control of the former British colony in 1997, allowing it a semi-autonomous status and separate legal and economic systems. It bristles at foreign comments on matters that it considers its internal affairs.

China has urged Trump not to sign the legislation, which passed both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate almost unanimously.

“If the U.S. goes its own way, we will take countermeasures,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

But Geng adopted a less fiery tone when asked about the trade talks, reiterating the stance that reaching an agreement is in the best interests of everyone.

“We hope both could meet each other halfway,” Geng said.

Chilean police and soldiers backed by their commanders have carried out “generalized” attacks on people protesting over inequality with the intention of “punishing and harming” them, Amnesty International said in a report published on Thursday.

Erika Guevara Rosas, the rights group’s Americas Director, told Reuters that its investigative team sent to the country to weigh allegations of excessive force and rights violations by security forces had found evidence of abuses not normally seen outside troubled Latin American nations like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Honduras.

She said they had been “shocked” to find evidence of them in Chile, until recently widely seen as one of the region’s most democratic and stable nations.

Amnesty said it had confirmed five deaths at the hands of security forces, as well as credible evidence of protesters being shot at with live ammunition, sexually abused, tortured, beaten, and run over. There was a repeated pattern of abuse that suggested intention, it said.

Rosas said police and army personnel had broken international law in the use of live ammunition in crowd control and its own protocols in the liberal use of rubber bullets and tear gas.

The police and army did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Rosas said Chilean President Sebastian Pinera held responsibility by failing to acknowledge the abuses or condemning them swiftly. She said his claim last month that “we are at war” fed “the violent repression we have seen on the streets.”

“There was an intention to punish people and this came not just from the police and military on the streets but also those under whose command they were,” she said.

“If this was punishment of the people who were protesting against government policies then the highest levels of government including Pinera have a responsibility for the human rights violations.”

Pinera’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Sunday, the president acknowledged there had been “some” excessive use of force, abuse and crime and vowed “no impunity” for police and soldiers found responsible.

Chile has seen a month of both peaceful protests and violent riots that started over anger at a hike in public transport fares and broadened to include grievances over low pensions and salaries, the high cost of living, and security force abuses.

The unrest has left at least 23 dead, 7,000 detained, over 2,000 demonstrators hospitalized and more than 1,700 police officers injured, according to authorities and rights groups.

Over 200 people have been hit in the eyes with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, doctors have said.

Prosecutors are examining more than 2,000 allegations of abuses by security forces, the head of the public prosecutor’s rights division told Reuters last week.

Australia’s second-biggest bank, Westpac, has been accused of 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws.

Westpac is likely to be hit with huge fines. The Australian banking giant is facing legal action from regulators who claim it flouted anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws.

Investigators allege that Westpac allowed institutions from countries including Iraq, Lebanon, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo access into Australia’s financial sector without proper checks.

This, according to the watchdog, potentially allowed criminals and terrorists to transfer money into or out of Australia.

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center, or AUSTRAC, the country’s financial crime agency, has also alleged that Westpac failed to properly monitor thousands of transactions that could be linked to child exploitation in the Philippines. It also claimed the bank ignored warnings and for years enabled suspicious payments from convicted child sex offenders.

“Westpac failed to carry out appropriate customer due diligence on high-high-rise transactions to the Philippines and Southeast Asia concerning known financial indicators relating to potential child exploitation risks,” said Nicole Rose, AUSTRAC’s chief executive.

The U.S.-born boss of Westpac said the bank “should have done better” and promised to fix the problems.

Brian Hartzer says he was “disgusted” by the revelations but rejects the claim the bank has not treated the breaches seriously.

“We have absolutely not been indifferent on this topic,” he said. “So I just want to be really, really clear that as far as I am concerned at a senior executive level, for the board, for me personally, in no way have we been indifferent on this.”

In theory, Westpac could face multimillion dollar fines for each of the breaches, which could add up to a staggering penalty of $328 trillion U.S. Analysts, though, expect a “meaningful, painful but not catastrophic civil penalty” to be handed down by Australia’s Federal Court.

Last year, the Commonwealth Bank agreed to pay the biggest fine in Australian corporate history of $476 million U.S. for breaches of anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws that resulted in vast amounts of cash going to drug traffickers.

Earlier this year, a public inquiry exposed widespread wrongdoing in Australia’s finance industry.

Firefighters battled hundreds of bushfires across Australia Thursday as scores of blazes sprang up in new locations, triggering warnings that it was too late for some residents to evacuate.

As thick smoke blanketed the most populous city of Sydney for a third day, residents were urged to keep children indoors, stepping up pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to tackle climate change.

By early afternoon, dozens of fires were burning across the southeastern state of Victoria and temperatures of 40.9 Celsius (105.6 F) in Melbourne, its capital, matched the hottest day on record in 1894, Australia’s weather bureau said.

Authorities warned residents of towns about 50 km (31 miles) north of Ballarat, the state’s third largest city, that it was too late for them to evacuate safely.

“You are in danger, act now to protect yourself,” fire authorities said in an alert. “It is too late to leave. The safest option is to take shelter indoors immediately.”

Blazes across several states have endangered thousands of people, killing at least four people this month, burning about 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) of farmland and bush and destroying more than 400 homes.

Fire season early, bad

The early arrival and severity of the fires in the southern hemisphere spring follows three years of drought that experts have linked to climate change and which have left bushland tinder-dry.

With 10 days remaining to the official start of summer, extreme temperatures and high winds have sparked wildfires in new areas, even as firefighters tracked the crisis across the mainland, the Northern Territory and the island of Tasmania.

In Victoria, power to more than 100,000 homes was knocked out amid lightning strikes and strong, gusty winds of more than 110 kph (68 mph) that knocked tree branches into power lines, ahead of a cool change expected to bring relief in the evening.

The extensive damage was likely to leave some customers without power through the night as utilities worked to restore networks and fix downed powerlines, a spokeswoman for power provider Ausnet said.

State authorities issued its first Code Red alert in a decade, signifying the worst possible bushfire conditions, warning that should a fire start it would be fast moving, unpredictable and probably uncontrollable.

In the state of New South Wales, strong winds blew smoke from 60 fires still burning over much of Sydney, shrouding the harbor city and its famous landmarks in thick smog.

The state imposed tough new water curbs in Sydney from Dec. 10, when a key dam is expected to be down to 45% capacity.

Residents face fines if they use hoses to water their gardens and wash their cars.

Climate politics

The unrelenting conditions have sharpened attention on the climate change policies of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who rejected any link.

“Climate change is a global phenomenon, and we’re doing our bit as part of the response to climate change,” Morrison told ABC radio. “To suggest that, with just 1.3% of global emissions, that Australia doing something differently — more or less — would have changed the fire outcome this season, I don’t think that stands up to any credible scientific evidence at all.”

Morrison’s conservative government has committed to the Paris Agreement for a cut in emissions from 26% to 28% by 2030, versus 2005 levels. Critics say current projections suggest it will miss that target and have urged remedial steps.

The Pentagon on Thursday denied a South Korean news report saying that the United States was considering a significant cut to its troop numbers in South Korea if Seoul does not contribute more to the costs of the deployment.

“There is absolutely no truth to the Chosun Ilbo report that the U.S. Department of Defense is currently considering removing any troops from the Korean Peninsula,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement, referring to Secretary Mark Esper, who earlier Thursday had said he was unaware of any such planning.

“Secretary Esper was in South Korea this past week where he repeatedly reiterated our ironclad commitment to (South Korea) and its people. News stories such as this expose the dangerous and irresponsible flaws of single anonymous source reporting. We are demanding the Chosun Ilbo immediately retract their story.” 

In the story, Chosun Ilbo quotes a diplomatic source as saying the U.S. is preparing to withdraw one brigade.

A typical U.S. military brigade numbers about 3,000 to 4,000 troops. There are about 28,500 U.S. troops currently stationed in South Korea, which remains technically in a state of war with nuclear-armed neighbor North Korea following their 1950-1953 conflict.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he was not aware of any plans to withdraw 4,000 U.S. troops from South Korea if cost-sharing talks failed.

“We’re not threatening allies over this. This is a negotiation,” he told reporters during a trip to Vietnam.

South Korea’s defense ministry said the Chosun report was “not the official position of the U.S. government.”

Under U.S. law, the United States’ troop presence in South Korea must not fall below 22,000 unless the Secretary of Defense justifies a further reduction to Congress.

The Associated Press contributed to this report,
 

Wednesday was the most explosive day yet in the House impeachment hearings and perhaps a crucial moment for the Trump White House when U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland testified that there was a quid pro quo between President Donald Trump and Ukraine.

Trump has been denying allegations that he held up nearly $400 million in badly needed military aid to Ukraine until Kyiv promised to investigate Joe Biden, a possible rival of Trump’s in the 2020 presidential election, for alleged corruption.

In his opening statement, Sondland said impeachment investigators “have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously … the answer is yes.”

According to the ambassador, “it was no secret” and a number of senior Trump administration officials were “in the loop,” including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and former national security adviser John Bolton.

Sondland talked about long and complicated behind-the-scenes machinations that started in April, with the election of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and September, when the aid to Ukraine was finally released after a 55-day delay.

Sondland said he joined Energy Secretary Rick Perry and special envoy Kurt Volker in following Trump’s “orders” to work with the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden and alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election to help Democrats.

“We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani,” Sondland said. “Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine.”

Sondland said Giuliani was acting at Trump’s behest when the lawyer told Ukrainian officials that the president wanted Zelenskiy to publicly commit to investigating the Bidens and the Democrats.

Sondland said efforts to push for the investigations were a quid pro quo in arranging a White House meeting for Zelenskiy.

Sondland said that while Trump never told him directly that military aid to Ukraine was conditioned on the investigations, he later concluded that had to be the reason because Sondland said there was no other credible reason Ukraine was not getting the money it had been promised.

WATCH AMBASSADOR SONDLAND HEARING ON-DEMAND

Aid released after whistleblower complaint

Republicans on the impeachment inquiry have argued there could not have possibly been a quid pro quo with Ukraine because the military aid was eventually released and there were no investigations of Biden and the Democrats. They also say Ukraine was unaware that the money was being held up.

But in later testimony Wednesday, Pentagon official Laura Cooper said Ukrainian officials began asking questions about the aid in July. 

“It’s the recollections of my staff that they likely knew,” she said.

Trump released the aid to Ukraine on September 11 after reports emerged that an intelligence community whistleblower told the inspector general he was concerned about a July phone call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Biden. That whistleblower complaint is what led to the impeachment probe.

White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said that Sondland’s testimony “made clear” that in his calls with Trump, the president “clearly stated that he ‘wanted nothing’ from Ukraine, and repeated ‘no quid pro quo’ over and over again. The U.S. aid to Ukraine flowed, no investigation was launched, and President Trump has met and spoken with President Zelenskiy. Democrats keep chasing ghosts.”

Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Ukraine got the money and there were no investigations only because Trump got caught.

No evidence of Biden wrongdoing

Trump has alleged that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to withhold loan guarantees to Ukraine unless it fired a prosecutor looking into corruption in Burisma, a gas company where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board.

No evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens has ever surfaced. Allegations that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to help Democrats are based on a debunked conspiracy theory that likely originated in Russia.

Two more witnesses are set to testify in the impeachment inquiry Thursday, including David Holmes, an aide to the U.S. ambassador, who says he overheard Trump talk about investigations in a telephone call the president had with Sondland.

July call central to inquiry

Trump’s July 25 White House call with Zelenskiy, in which the U.S. leader asked Zelenskiy to “do us a favor,” to undertake the politically tinged investigations, is at the center of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against Trump.

It is against U.S. campaign finance law to solicit foreign government help in a U.S. election, but it will be up to lawmakers to decide whether Trump’s actions amount to “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the standard in the U.S. Constitution sets for impeachment and removal of a president from office. Trump could be impeached by the full Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in the coming weeks, which would be similar to an indictment in a criminal trial. He then would face a trial in the Republican-majority Senate, where his conviction remains unlikely.

Sondland confirmed the essence of a cellphone conversation he had with Trump on July 26, the day after Trump’s conversation with Zelenskiy, as he sat at a Kyiv restaurant with other State Department officials.

Late last week, David Holmes, an aide to William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Kyiv, told impeachment investigations in private testimony that he overheard the Trump-Sondland call because Trump’s voice was loud and Sondland held the phone away from his ear.

Holmes said Sondland in the call assured Trump that Zelenskiy “loves your ass,” which Sondland said “sounds like something I would say.”

“So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” Holmes quoted Trump as asking. Sondland, according to Holmes, replied, “He’s gonna do it,” while adding that Zelenskiy will do “anything you ask him to.”

Holmes said he later asked Sondland if Trump cared about Ukraine, with the envoy replying that Trump did not “give a s**t about Ukraine.” Sondland said he did not recall this remark but did not rebut Holmes’ account.

“I asked why not,” Holmes recalled, “and Ambassador Sondland stated that the president only cares about big stuff. I noted that there was ‘big stuff’ going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia, and Ambassador Sondland replied that he meant ‘big stuff’ that benefits the president, like the Biden investigation.”‘

Disdain from Trump

Before Sondland revised his testimony last month to say there had been a quid pro quo — the military aid for the Biden investigation — Trump had called Sondland a “great American.” But after Sondland changed his testimony, Trump said, “I hardly know the gentleman.”

Trump has repeatedly described the July 25 call with Zelenskiy as “perfect” and denied any wrongdoing. Trump has often assailed the impeachment inquiry but did not immediately comment on Twitter about Sondland’s testimony.

Layleen Cubilette-Polanco had experienced some rough patches in her 27 years but had tried to change course, seeking to switch out of previous jobs as a go-go dancer and sex worker for employment in places like McDonald’s and Walgreens, her sister said.

She never completed that journey. Cubilette-Polanco died in June of complications from epilepsy in New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail where she spent her final two months, unable to make $500 bail.

On Wednesday, transgender advocates across the United States commemorated people like Cubilette-Polanco for the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Vigils such as one in New York that culminated in front of the Stonewall Inn LGBTQ landmark drew attention to at least 22 transgender people, almost all of them black women, who have been killed so far in 2019. A similar number have been killed in each of the past seven years, as tracked by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States.

Globally, at least 311 were killed in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, the second-highest total on record, according to the Trans Murder Monitoring project of the Berlin-based group Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide.

Of those 130 were killed in Brazil and 63 in Mexico, the project said.

The U.S. campaign made special note of Cubilette-Polanco.

Though she was not a homicide victim, her story illustrates the insecurity of trans women of color, who are more likely to be unemployed and lack access to healthcare.

After a youth spent helping others, whether rescuing stray animals or bringing home runaway kids needing a place to stay, she decided to start helping herself, sister Melania Brown said.

“The last couple of months of her life, she wanted the change. She wanted to get a real job. She wanted to fulfill herself in society, and society let her down,” said Brown, who believed that discrimination never gave the Dominican-born U.S. citizen a fair chance in the job market.

Cubilette-Polanco was arrested in April on charges of misdemeanor assault and theft over an altercation with a taxi driver. Bail was set at $500 because of a 2017 prostitution arrest, local media reported, citing arrest records.

She lived with epilepsy and schizophrenia, according to a lawsuit her family filed against New York City’s Department of Correction.

The Human Rights Campaign has recorded at least 157 homicides of transgender people since 2013, nearly all of them women of color.

More than 100 demonstrators gathered in New York on Wednesday night to remember those slain, meeting at the Christopher Street pier, where transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson died in 1992, and marching to the Stonewall, site of the 1969 uprising considering the birth of the modern queer rights movement.

“We need to invest more in our trans community. Don’t just send me roses when I’m gone,” said Kiara St. James, executive director of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group.

The names of victims were read, and people dressed in white, their faces veiled, held up portraits of the dead.

Another speaker, who goes only by the name Synthia, said she had been the victim of a hateful act of aggression in which a man pulled a gun on her.

“I survived that day knowing my name could have been on the list I just read,” she said. “So for me, Transgender Day Remembrance is about living survivors that walk these streets daily just trying to survive.”

Ex-Military Chief Benny Gantz informed Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday that he has failed to form a coalition government, almost guaranteeing Israelis will head to the polls for the third time this year after political deadlock has paralyzed the government.

“I have turned every stone in an attempt to form a government that leads the State of Israel to a different leadership, unfortunately it was not enough” said Gantz on Twitter.

All lawmakers have 21 days for coalition talks before new elections are announced. Any member of Israel’s Knesset, with the backing of 61 lawmakers, could be nominated to receive the president’s mandate. This is the first time in the nation’s history that candidates selected by the president have failed to form a government.

The political stalemate began after elections in April and September. Current Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party both won approximately the same number of seats to become the largest parties in the legislature.

Neither party had an apparent path, however, to form the 61-seat majority required in Israel’s Knesset.

President Rivlin gave Netanyahu the first chance to form a coalition government with smaller parties. After Netanyahu announced he failed, Gantz was given 28 days to organize a government in September.

The kingmaker for both parties was Israeli lawmaker Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. Lieberman was unwilling to govern with either candidate. Lieberman instead sought the creation of a unity government of Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud and the Blue and White party.

The third largest political group, a joint list of Arab parties, also could attempt to form a government. That would be improbable, though, as 73 percent of Israelis oppose even the inclusion of Arab parties and ministers in the government, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute.

It is unlikely any lawmaker will have the 61 votes needed for the nomination. If none can form a government in 21 days, then Israelis would head to the polls again for the third time this year.

Uber will allow passengers and drivers in Brazil and Mexico to record audio of their rides as it attempts to improve its safety record and image.

The ride-hailing company plans to pilot the feature in cities in both countries in December. It eventually hopes to launch it in other markets, including the United States, although it has no timeline for possible expansion.

The feature will allow customers to opt into recording all or select trips. Recordings will be stored on the rider or driver’s phone and encrypted to protect privacy, and users will not be able to listen to them. They can later share a recording with Uber, which will have an encryption key, if they want to report a problem.

Whether the recording feature will deter violent behavior to help riders and drivers is unknown. But Uber stands to benefit because the recordings could help the company mitigate losses and reign in liability for incidents that flare up between drivers and passengers.

For example, if a shouting match erupts between a driver and passenger, and both accuse the other of being verbally abusive, the recording could help Uber determine where fault lies after the incident, mitigating any kind of loss or claim that could be made against the driver, said Thom Rickert, vice president and emerging risk specialist at Trident Public Risk Solutions.

“It probably is not going to prevent something from happening,” Rickert said. “It will probably just help you analyze what can we do to change outcomes the next time.”

Uber says the new feature will promote accountability and help its safety team take decisive action when needed.

The recording feature also raises privacy concerns that drivers or passengers could have their conversations recorded without their knowledge or consent.

“It’s a digital recording. It’s going to exist on a server somewhere,” Rickert said. “Yes, it can be encrypted. Yes, it can be hacked…so that is a privacy concern for the individual that has lost control over that recording.”

Uber has struggled with safety issues and faced accusations that some of its drivers have assaulted and raped passengers. It also has been hit with litigation alleging that its hiring process and background checks are inadequate. Uber does not conduct fingerprint-based background checks, which traditional taxi companies generally perform before hiring drivers.

The San Francisco-based company’s drivers also have been victims of attacks. In both Brazil and Mexico, Uber allows riders to pay with cash, which increases the risk of incidents. In Brazil, drivers have been robbed and have suffered violent, fatal attacks while using the Uber platform, the company said in a federal filing.

Uber plans to release a safety report this year, which provides data on reports of sexual assaults and other safety incidents that occurred in the United States.

The company has been adding safety features to its app over the past year, including one that helps riders ensure they’re getting into the right vehicle and another that enables users to call 9-1-1 from within the app and automatically share the vehicle’s location with first responders.

A divided U.S. House committee approved a proposal Wednesday to decriminalize and tax marijuana at the federal level, a vote that was alternately described as a momentous change in national cannabis policy and a hollow political gesture. 

The House Judiciary Committee approved the proposal 24-10 after more than two hours of debate. It would reverse a long-standing federal prohibition by removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, while allowing states to set their own rules on pot. 

The vote “marks a turning point for federal cannabis policy and is truly a sign that prohibition’s days are numbered,” Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said in a statement. 

Cannabis Trade Federation CEO Neal Levine called the vote “a historic step forward for cannabis policy reform.” 

State measures

The vote came at a time when most Americans live in states where marijuana is legal in some form, and committee members from both parties agreed that national cannabis policy lagged behind changes at the state level. That divide has created a host of problems. Loans and other banking services, for example, are hard to get for many marijuana companies because pot remains illegal at the federal level. 

The House bill’s future is uncertain. It wasn’t immediately clear if the proposal would be reviewed by other committees, nor was it clear when or whether a vote would take place in the full House. The proposal has better chances of passing in the Democratic-controlled chamber than in the Republican-held Senate. 

The House passed a bill earlier this year to grant legal marijuana businesses access to banking, but it hasn’t advanced in the Senate. 

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee complained that the proposal to decriminalize cannabis had never had a hearing and lacked the bipartisan support needed to become law. 

“It’s going nowhere,” said Representative Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican. 

Sales tax

Among its provisions, the legislation would authorize a 5% sales tax on marijuana products to fund programs aimed at assisting people and communities harmed in the battle against drugs, such as job training and legal aid. It also would require federal courts to expunge prior marijuana convictions. 

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said the nation has for too long “treated marijuana as a criminal justice problem, instead of a matter of personal choice and public health.” 

“Arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating users at the federal level is unwise and unjust,” he said. “The racial disparity in enforcement of marijuana laws has only compounded this mistake with serious consequences, particularly for minority communities.”