Chile’s president is struggling to bring calm as demonstrators took to the streets again Monday, a month into a potent protest movement that has dramatically altered the political landscape of the South American nation.

More protests erupted after President Sebastian Pinera acknowledged late Sunday that excessive force had been used to clamp down on demonstrators with legitimate social demands. He said abuses had been committed and promised “no impunity” for anyone who commits acts of violence.

Twenty-six people have died in protests that began last month over an increase in subway fares in Santiago, but mushroomed into wide-ranging complaints about much deeper issues of inequality. Thousands have been injured in clashes with police who fire pellet guns directly at faces, with at least 230 people losing sight in an eye.

On Monday, one group of protesters donned eyepatches and rallied outside Chile’s supreme court.

Thousands of others gathered in a central plaza in Santiago carrying flags and signs demanding “justice,” better pensions and the resignation of Pinera, whose term ends in March 2022. The protest was peaceful until about 300 masked demonstrators began throwing rocks at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons.

Paolo Abrao, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, added his voice to other human rights defenders who have raised the alarm about the level of force being used against protesters in Chile. He cited concerns about disproportionate use of force, care for victims and the pattern of injuries that has emerged.

Chileans are also calling for changes to the education system, health care and an overhaul of the constitution, which was written during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. On Friday, officials announced an agreement charting a course to potentially rewrite the legal principles on which the country is based. A plebiscite to be held in April will ask Chileans if they want to change the constitution and who should draft it.

The agreement was supported by most political parties, although Pinera was absent during the signing Friday.

“We have all changed — because the social pact cracked, and made its wounds visible,” Pinera said in his television address Sunday night.

Pinera, who was elected in 2017 in part due to his proposals for economic growth, has been forced to switch gears and focus on a package of modest social improvements aimed at calming the social unrest. Treasury minister Ignacio Briones recently announced weaker economic growth predictions and forecast that 300,000 jobs will be lost in the coming months.

California said on Monday it will halt all purchases of new vehicles for state government fleets from GM, Toyota and Fiat Chrysler and other automakers backing President Donald Trump in a battle to strip the state of authority to regulate tailpipe emissions.

Between 2016 and 2018, California purchased $58.6 million in vehicles from General Motors Corp, $55.8 million from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, $10.6 million from Toyota Motor Corp and $9 million from Nissan.

Last month, GM, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler and members of the Global Automakers trade association backed the Trump administration’s effort to bar California from setting tailpipe standards, which are more rigid than Washington’s proposed national standards.

The automakers declined or did not immediately comment on California’s announced ban on purchases of their vehicles.

Starting in January, the state will only buy from automakers that recognize California’s legal authority to set emissions standards. Those automakers include Ford, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen, which struck a deal with California in July to follow revised state vehicle emissions standards.

“Car makers that have chosen to be on the wrong side of history will be on the losing end of California’s buying power,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

California purchased $69.2 million in vehicles from Ford over the three-year period, $565,000 from Honda and none from the German automakers.

The state also disclosed it will immediately no longer allow state agencies to buy sedans powered by an internal combustion engine, with exemptions for certain public safety vehicles.

California’s vehicle rules have been adopted by 13 other states.

Lawsuits

On Friday, California and 22 other U.S. states challenged the Trump administration’s decision to revoke California’s legal authority to set vehicle tailpipe emissions rules and require a rising number of zero emission vehicles (ZEV).

The move follows a separate lawsuit filed in September by the states against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration seeking to undo a parallel determination.

In August 2018, the Trump administration proposed freezing fuel efficiency requirements at 2020 levels through 2026, reversing planned 5% annual increases.

The Trump administration’s final requirements are expected in the coming months and are set to modestly boost fuel efficiency versus the initial proposal, with several automakers anticipating annual increases of about 1.5%. That would be much less stringent than the Obama rules.

CalMatters, a non-profit California journalism website, reported California’s decision to stop buying some vehicles earlier.
 

Authorities in Iran have blocked internet service for a third day as part of a crackdown on nationwide anti-government protests in which at least eight people have been killed since the unrest began Friday.

In a Monday interview with VOA Persian, the director of the London-based internet observatory NetBlocks said web access in the Islamic Republic remained severely disrupted after Iran blocked it late Saturday local time.

“This is essentially a near-total blackout,” Alp Toker said. “There are a few (internet) routes out (of the country), but these are very technical right now, so it’s not practical to circumvent these measures for most people.” Toker said some technically savvy Iranians might be able to get web access using a fixed line or broadband connection rather than a mobile device.

The internet outage has made it difficult for Iranians to share protest images and information with each other and the outside world. The demonstrations erupted in response to the government abruptly raising the subsidized price of gas by 50% early Friday.

The government said revenue from the higher prices would be used to provide cash handouts to poor families.

While Iran’s new gas price of 13 cents a liter remains among the cheapest in the world, many Iranians see it as putting a further burden on their wallets at a time of worsening economic conditions.

Iran’s currency has slumped, with unemployment and inflation surging since the United States began tightening sanctions against it last year in a bid to force Tehran to stop perceived malign behaviors.

Toker said any short-term advantage that Iran’s government might gain from blocking the internet would be outweighed by the costs.

“The internet is an outlet for people to democratically express their views, and if they can’t do this, there’s actually a risk that these protests could become more violent,” Toker said.

“We also see economic harms, with tens of millions of dollars of losses to Iran’s developed information and communications technology (ICT) industry. People are going to start losing their businesses because they rely on connectivity.”

Images verified by VOA Persian and sent from Iran showed the bodies of at least seven protesters killed by security forces who opened fire on demonstrations in seven cities on Saturday. The bodies were seen in footage from the cities of Behbahan, Karaj, Marivan, Shahriar, Shiraz, Sirjan and Tehran’s Baharestan district.

VOA Persian was not able to confirm the names of the protesters who were killed.

Iranian state media said at least one member of the security forces also was killed in protests since Friday. They said hundreds of people were arrested, some armed, for engaging in violent acts such as attacking banks and looting stores.

Many of the anti-government protests that VOA Persian has confirmed in more than 50 towns and cities across the country have been peaceful.

WATCH: Iranian anti-government protesters block a road in the central city of Shiraz on Nov. 17, 2019.

One video clip verified by VOA Persian showed demonstrators blocking a street in the central city of Shiraz on Sunday and chanting “death to the dictator,” a reference to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It has been a common chant of protesters since Iranians angered with government corruption and mismanagement last took to the streets around the country in December 2017.

WATCH: Iranian protesters chant anti-government slogans at Tehran University on Nov. 17, 2019.

Another video clip from Sunday showed chanting protesters at Tehran University, where they said Iran had “lost” its oil wealth by squandering it on Islamist militias engaged in regional conflicts.

In remarks to the international media on Monday, government spokesman Ali Rabiei said the situation in the country was “80% calmer” than Sunday. “Only some minor problems remain, and by tomorrow and the day after, there will remain no riots,” he predicted.

Iran’s ongoing internet outage made it difficult for VOA Persian to verify whether any protests had occurred on Monday.

In a threatening message published by state media, Iran’s most powerful military branch, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said it will take “decisive” action against any continued efforts to disturb peace and security.

IRGC forces and their affiliated Basij militia violently suppressed the nationwide anti-government protests that began in late December 2017 and stretched into January 2018. At least 22 people were killed.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service. Farhad Pouladi contributed to this report.

The African continent accounts for a whopping 90-percent of the world’s malaria cases.  Scientists in Burkina Faso recently deployed a new weapon in the war on malaria.  As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, their battle faces bioethical blowback.

During his run for the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump found a surefire method for changing the mood at his political rallies. Whenever he sensed that he was losing the crowd, he told the editorial board of the New York Times, “I just say, We will build the wall!’ and they go nuts.”

This week, with impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives dominating the headlines, the border wall may reappear as a distraction for Trump’s staunchest supporters.  Lawmakers have agreed in principle to adopt a stop-gap spending bill to avert a partial shutdown of the federal government on Thursday, with the hope that negotiators from Congress and the administration can use the 30-day reprieve it grants to finalize spending authorizations for the remainder of the fiscal year.

A possible sticking point? Funding for the president’s wall.

Last year, when Democrats refused to provide $5 billion in wall funding in a budget deal, the result was a 35-day shutdown.

So, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared on the political talk show Face the Nation on Sunday, and said that she was optimistic that a deal would be reached to avoid a shutdown, the natural follow-up question was whether that meant that Democrats would be providing wall funding.

Pelosi replied with a definitive “No.” She went on to suggest that she doesn’t believe that the president is truly committed to the effort.

“The President hasn’t built any new wall in a whole term of office,” she said. “I think that his comments about the wall are really an applause line at a rally, but they’re not anything that he’s serious about.”

Pelosi’s comments pointed to a central issue with regard to the border wall: widespread confusion about its current status.

President Trump asserts that wall construction is moving ahead. In both his Twitter feed and his public remarks, Trump regularly touts the “great progress” being made on constructing the barrier. In September, a Department of Defense spokesperson made a statement to reporters that implied new sections of wall were being built at the rate of a mile per day.

However, the reality is somewhat different.

On Friday, acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan told reporters that 78 miles (125 kilometers) of new border wall had already been built. However, under questioning, he acknowledged  it was actually 78 miles of replacement wall for “an existing form of barrier.”

However, he added, workers have begun breaking ground in places in the Rio Grande Valley where no barrier currently exists.

It may actually be a number of years before the government is able to begin construction on many sections of the proposed wall, according to analysts, because it does not own the land. Hundreds of private individuals hold title to land along the United States’ border with Mexico, and in order to build the wall on their land, the Trump administration would either have to convince them to sell it to the government or use its Eminent Domain authority to take the land without the owners’ consent.

Many landowners have expressed unwillingness to sell, either because of opposition to the wall or for other reasons. The Trump administration has indicated that as soon as this week it could begin filing the court documents necessary to take possession of the land from owners who don’t want to give it up.

According to reporting by NBC News, the government is considering the use of an expedited process that could avoid lengthy court battles over the land seizures. Success would hinge on convincing the courts that a state of emergency exists that justifies depriving owners the right to contest the seizures in court.

“It’s a challenge to go through that process,” Morgan told reporters. However, he added, “I still think we’re on track to get the land we need for 450 miles” (724 kilometers) of new wall construction.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is exploring a novel way of calling public attention to the wall construction. Jared Kushner, a White House adviser and the president’s son-in-law, has reportedly proposed the installation of cameras that would allow the administration to live-stream video from construction sites.

The Army Corps of Engineers and the CBP have both objected to the proposal, which is being driven, according to the Washington Post, directly by the president himself. The idea is that a 24-hour-per-day video stream showing construction in progress would silence critics — like Pelosi — who regularly dismiss the wall as more of a publicity stunt than a serious piece of border control policy.

The web-cam proposal drew immediate fire from Democrats, who derided it as an election-year stunt for the president’s political benefit. Corey Booker, the New Jersey senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination, co-sponsored a bill to block the use of federal funds for a wall camera.

“The only thing more senseless and wasteful than an ineffective border wall is installing a camera to livestream its construction,” he said in a statement.

Democratic arguments that the wall is ineffective received further support earlier this month, when multiple news reports confirmed that drug smugglers have been able to breach border walls with the help of a portable reciprocating saw — a power tool available in hardware stores for under $100.

Riot police in Tbilisi have begun using water cannons and launching volleys of tear gas at protesters who were blocking the entrance to parliament until early elections are called.

Hundreds of demonstrators were gathered for a fourth day on Monday to protest parliament’s rejection of constitutional amendments on the transition to a proportional electoral system when riot police moved in.

Live broadcasts from the scene showed demonstrators huddled in large groups as they were sprayed with water.

The move appeared to have little immediate effect, and soon after clouds of tear gas could be seen wafting through the area and large groups of riot police slowly moved forward on the crowd, forcing many protesters to retreat.

The rally “has gone beyond the law,” the Interior Ministry said earlier in the day in a statement.

Concern that the protest could spill over into violence has risen among Western diplomats.

On November 17, the United States and the European Union called on the Georgian government, political parties, and civil society to engage in a “calm and respectful dialogue” over the snap elections.

Changing the system from a mixed system to a proportional one from 2020 was one of the demands of thousands of demonstrators who rallied for weeks in Tbilisi in June and July.

The legislature currently has proportional representation for about half of the body’s seats.

Opposition parties say the current electoral system unfairly favors the ruling Georgian Dream party.

The Georgian Dream party, including its billionaire founder and leader Bidzina Ivanishvili, backed the accelerated reforms, but the measure still failed to pass.

That prompted some lawmakers, including Deputy Speaker Tamar Khangoshvili, to resign from the party.

Nonetheless, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, who is also the Georgian Dream general secretary, said voters should wait to voice their opinions at the ballot box.

“It’s less than a year before an election. Accordingly, we are no longer going to consider any new initiative in connection with the election system. Elections will be held in constitutional terms, with the highest democratic standard and with a high inclusion of society,” he said.

“Therefore, we urge opponents to prepare for the elections and not to blame the lack of popular support for the electoral system,” the former international football star added.

The EU delegation to Georgia and the U.S. Embassy said in a joint statement on November 17 that they “recognize the deep disappointment of a wide segment of Georgian society at the failure of Parliament to pass the constitutional amendments.”

The halting of the transition to proportional elections “has increased mistrust and heightened tensions between the ruling party and other political parties and civil society,” the statement said.

The vote has also prompted criticism from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). 

Iran’s government spokesman is saying that violent protesters angry over higher gasoline prices took police and security personnel hostage during the unrest.
                   
Ali Rabiei did not elaborate during remarks to journalists Monday, though the acknowledgment shows the level of unrest gripping Iran since Friday.
                   
Rabiei says the government should soon unblock internet access across the country, and estimates attendance in demonstrations has dropped by 80% compared to the day before.
                   
Security forces have deployed heavily in many cities and towns to try to put down the unrest.
                   
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani separately warned that those who abandon their cars in the street could face legal action. That was one way people protested gas prices rising by 50% and the imposition of tighter fuel rationing.

Hundreds of Hong Kong student protesters remain locked in a tense standoff with police at a university where protesters have barricaded themselves since last week. 

The students and police have engaged in intense but sporadic clashes for the past 24 hours. Police have intermittently tried to break through protester barricades but have been driven back by molotov cocktails and other makeshift weapons. 

Early Monday, dozens of students attempted to flee the besieged campus on foot, but were met by police tear gas. Some managed to escape, according to local media reports, while others were driven back inside. 

Smaller groups of people appeared to attempt to leave the campus later Monday, but were also met by police teargas. 

Early Monday, VOA saw police arrest dozens of students, who were detained with plastic wire ties around their wrists. Some were marched in front of reporters as they were taken away toward waiting police vans. 

Thousands of riot and other police have surrounded the urban campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for the past day, warning the students to drop their weapons. But a hardcore group shows no signs of surrender. A student protester who was in contact with friends inside the campus told VOA that as many as several hundred may be present. 

Earlier police said they were arresting students on riot related charges. 

It’s not clear how many have been arrested. The number of casualties also isn’t clear. Police on Sunday warned they would use lethal force if they continued to be attacked. Local media reports said live rounds were used in several cases. 

The clashes are some of the worst violence since anti-government protests began in Hong Kong five months ago.

Overnight, police advanced in waves, firing tear gas and water cannons, as protesters lobbed petrol bombs and other weapons. At one point, an armored police vehicle appeared to be completely on fire.

Police have also engaged in clashes with protesters on streets outside the campus, some of whom appeared to be trying to come to the rescue of the besieged students. Calls on social messaging sites issued calls for Hong Kongers to stream in from all directions to help free the students.

Since June, Hong Kong has seen massive, regular demonstrations, which started in opposition to a proposed bill that would have allowed Hong Kong citizens to be extradited to the mainland. The protests quickly morphed into wider calls for democracy and opposition to growing Chinese influence.

A smaller group of hardcore protesters, many of whom are college students, have also increasingly engaged in more aggressive tactics — clashing with police, destroying public infrastructure, and vandalizing symbols of state power. The students have defended the tactics as a necessary response to police violence and the government’s refusal to accept their demands.

Hong Kong Polytechnic University is one of at least five campuses where students this week barricaded themselves in, blocking roads and collecting makeshift weapons in case of an attack by authorities. Most of the protesters had left the other campuses by Saturday, though a group of hardcore protesters remained at Polytechnic.

The protests escalated in the past week, following the first death of a protester who fell from a building during clashes between protesters and police.

On Saturday, dozens of Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers helped clear protester barricades from a street, emerging from their barracks for the first time since the latest round of protests began.

Pro-democracy lawmakers immediately condemned the move as a violation of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini constitution, which forbids interference by mainland Chinese soldiers unless formally requested by the Hong Kong government.

More international students come to the U.S. from around the world for higher education than any other country, but those metrics show stagnation — and steep declines from some countries — for the second year after decades of growth.

The annual Open Doors report, compiled by the Institute for International Education with the U.S. State Department and released Monday, for the 2018-2019 school year showed enrollment of 1,095,299 international students among 19,828,000 total students in institutions of higher education in the U.S.

That makes international students 5.5% of all college and university students in the U.S.

The numbers showed a slight increase in total international enrollment, 0.05% from the previous year, but a decrease in new international student enrollment, -0.9%.

Decreases were seen in undergraduate (-2.4%), graduate (-1.3%) and non-degree (-5.0%) trends, as well.

China sent the most students — 369,548 — comprising 33.7 percent of all foreign students, a 1.7 percent increase from the previous year.

India sent the second-largest number — 202,014 — or 18.4% of all college and university students, a 2.9% increase from the previous year.

But several other countries, in descending order of number of students sent to the U.S., showed declines: South Korea (-4.2%), Saudi Arabia (-16.5%), Canada (0.8%), Vietnam (0.3%), Taiwan (4.1%), Japan (-3.5%), Brazil (9.8%), Mexico (-1.5%), Nigeria (5.8%), Nepal (-0.3%), Iran (-5.0%), the United Kingdom (-2.7%), Turkey (-3.4%), Kuwait (-9.8%), Germany (-8.5%), France (-1.0%), Indonesia (-3.4%), Bangladesh (10%), Colombia (1.1%), Pakistan (5.6%), Venezuela (-7.3%), Malaysia (-6.8%) and Spain (-3.0%).  

What is turning off international students from coming to study in the U.S.?

Institutions polled indicated the slowdown includes the high cost of tuition at U.S. colleges and universities, difficulty in getting visas or the insecurity of maintaining a student visa throughout a student’s education, students feeling a lack of welcome in the U.S., negative political rhetoric and news of crime in the U.S.

“We are happy to see the continued growth in the number of international students in the United States and U.S. students studying abroad,” said Marie Royce, assistant secretary of state for Educational and Cultural Affairs.

“Promoting international student mobility remains a top priority for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and we want even more students in the future to see the United States as the best destination to earn their degrees,” Royce said. “International exchange makes our colleges and universities more dynamic for all students, and an education at a U.S. institution can have a transformative effect for international students, just like study abroad experiences can for U.S. students.”

The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program showed a 9.6% increase of involvement, indicating that students who were in the international student pipeline of study in the U.S. were taking advantage of OPT, which allows them to stay in the U.S. after graduation for one to three years, depending on their field of study. Science, technology, engineering and math graduates are granted longer OPT visas than some other courses of study.

The most popular fields of study for international students are in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. But declines in enrollments were seen there, as well: engineering (-0.8%), business and management (-7.1%), intensive English (-14.8%) and education (-4.7%).

International students who came to the U.S. to study agriculture increased by 10.3%.

International students contributed $41 billion to the U.S. economy in the 2018-2019 academic year, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Commerce said international students contributed $42 billion to the U.S. economy.

British photographer Terry O’Neill, whose images captured London’s Swinging ’60s and who created iconic portraits of Elton John, Brigitte Bardot and Winston Churchill, has died at age 81.

O’Neill died Saturday at his home in London following a long battle with cancer, according to Iconic Images, the agency that represented O’Neill.

“Terry was a class act, quick witted and filled with charm,” the agency said in a statement posted to its website. “Anyone who was lucky enough to know or work with him can attest to his generosity and modesty. As one of the most iconic photographers of the last 60 years, his legendary pictures will forever remain imprinted in our memories as well as in our hearts and minds.”

Born in London in 1938, O’Neill was working as a photographer for an airline at Heathrow Airport when he snapped a picture of a well-dressed man sleeping on a bench. The man turned out to be the British home secretary, and O’Neill was hired by a London newspaper.

In the early 1960s he photographed the Beatles during the recording of their first hit single, and he captured the image of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill clutching a cigar as he was carried to an ambulance after a 1962 hospital stay.

O’Neill later said that when photographing the Beatles he placed John Lennon in the foreground because he thought that “it was obvious John was the one with the personality.”

Soon O’Neill was photographing the hottest stars of the mid and late ’60s: Bardot, Raquel Welch, Michael Caine, Steve McQueen, Diana Ross and Audrey Hepburn.

He photographed many other big names over the course of a career that spanned decades, including model Kate Moss, Queen Elizabeth II, singers David Bowie and Amy Winehouse and former first lady Laura Bush.

O’Neill’s photos of Elton John remain among his most recognizable. One shows the singer, exuberant and sparkling in a sequined baseball uniform, with an audience of thousands in the background.

“He was brilliant, funny and I absolutely loved his company,” John tweeted Sunday.

Another iconic O’Neill photo, this one from 1977, depicted actress Faye Dunaway lounging poolside the morning after winning a best actress Oscar for her performance in “Network,” the statuette sitting on a table and newspapers strewn on the ground.

O’Neill was married to Dunaway for three years in the 1980s. According to British newspaper The Guardian, the couple had a son. O’Neill later married Laraine Ashton, a modelling industry executive.

In an interview with the Guardian last year, O’Neill discussed how he viewed his past photos.

“The perfectionist in me always left me thinking I could have taken a better shot. But now when I look at photos of all the icons I’ve shot – like Mandela, Sir Winston Churchill and Sinatra – the memories come flooding back and I think: ‘Yeah, I did all right.’”

Fighting reportedly intensified between Turkish-backed Syrian fighters and U.S.-backed Kurdish forces Sunday over a major highway and a strategic town in northeastern Syria.

Local news reported that Turkish military and allied Syrian militias continued shelling positions belonging to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in a bid to control the town of Tal Tamr and the nearby M4 highway.

In an effort to prevent Turkish-backed forces from advancing into the town, the SDF has reportedly reached a cease-fire deal with Russia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday.

The deal, according to the war monitor, would allow Russian and Syrian government troops to be deployed near the Christian-majority Tal Tamr and parts of the M4 highway, locally known as the “International Road.”

“Our sources on the ground have confirmed the agreement between the SDF and Russia,” Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told VOA.

He added that some areas outside the town have been handed over to the Turkish military, while Russian and Syrian government troops have taken control of the International Road.

‘No deal yet’

But SDF officials denied these reports, saying that no cease-fire has been reached as Turkish forces and their Syrian allies continued their attacks.

“We are aware of the rumors that M4 highway and Tal Tamr will be handed over to Syrian Army as part of a deal. There is no truth to these reports. In contrast, fierce attacks by Turkish-backed armed groups continue in that area,” Mustafa Bali, an SDF spokesperson, said in a tweet Sunday.

Ekrem Salih, a local reporter covering the ongoing developments, said violent clashes took place outside Tal Tamr.

“I was in the town this afternoon. There was fierce fighting in several villages outside the town. But Tal Tamr itself witnessed no fighting and it is still under SDF control,” he told VOA.

Strategic highway

The 500-kilometer M4 highway, which stretches from the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in the west to the Iraqi border in the east, represents a strategic significance for all warring sides, experts said.

“This is a very strategic road in northern Syria,” Abdulrahman said. “If Turkey and its allies took control of this highway, the entire northern region of Syria will be cut off from the rest of northeast Syria.”

He added, “Turkey wants to make sure that Kurdish-held areas are not geographically connected.”

Turkey has been carrying out a military offensive since early October against U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara views as terrorists.

The operation came days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the withdrawel of U.S. troop from several border areas in Syria, where they were stationed as part of the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State (IS) terror group.   

The Turkish offensive has displaced more than 180,000 Syrian civilians in the border region, according to the U.N.

Turkey defends its offensive and maintains that it has sent troops to northeast Syria to clear the region from People’s Protection Units also known as YPG, the main fighting force within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey accuses the group of being an offshoot of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terror group.

Washington differs with Ankara over the classification of YPG as a terror group and views the SDF as an ally against IS.

One Iraqi protester was killed and more than 30 others were wounded Sunday amid renewed clashes on a key bridge in Baghdad.

The protesters now have control of three bridges crossing the Tigris River toward the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government.

The protests that began in October over lack of jobs and public services have grown to include widespread corruption and income inequality. Demonstrators are now demanding the complete overhaul of the government.

The protests have spread out of Baghdad into other cities in southern and central Iraq. Demonstrators across the country are blocking roads and disrupting business.

Security forces have used live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades against mostly unarmed demonstrators, killing more than 320 people and wounding thousands.

 Iraqi security forces have come under heavy criticism for their use of deadly force.

“While the events of the last six weeks are an absolute tragedy, NATO continues to urge restraint to the government of Iraq,” Canadian Major General Dany Fortin, the outgoing chief of NATO’s Iraq mission, told AFP Sunday.

The U.S. and South Korea said Sunday they are postponing joint military drills.  

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the move is an “act of goodwill” toward North Korea.

 “I see this as a good-faith effort by the United States and the Republic of Korea to enable peace, to shape … to facilitate a political agreement — a deal, if you will — that leads to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Esper said.

The joint announcement was made in Bangkok at an Asia defense ministers conference.

Shortly after the announcement, Japan’s defense minister made a blistering counterstatement.

“No one could be optimistic about North Korea,” Taro Kono said. “North Korea has repeatedly launched more than 20 missiles this year, including new types of ballistic missiles, as well as a submarine-launched ballistic missile.”  

Kwon Jong Gun, a roving ambassador for North Korea’s foreign ministry, said earlier this month the joint drills are a “provocative and dangerous act.”

He added that the U.S., in its “reckless frenzy,” is “throwing a wet blanket over the spark of the DPRK-U.S. dialogue on the verge of extinction.” The DPRK is the acronym for North Korea’s official name in English, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  

Since U.S. President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their historic Singapore summit in June 2018, the U.S. has either suspended or scaled down the joint military exercises in order to enhance the atmosphere for denuclearization talks to continue.

The U.S. and South Korea have been conducting annual military exercises since 1955, months after the end of the Korean War, in order to maintain their combat abilities to defend against North Korea. There are about 28,500 American troops currently stationed in South Korea.

Protesters in Lebanon came out en masse on Sunday, marking a full month of demonstrations against government corruption, and a host of other grievances.  But after all this time in the streets, are demonstrators any closer to achieving their goals?  VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from Beirut and Tripoli

The Women’s Self-Defense Forces recently opened its first academy in northeastern Syria with the aim of providing military and ideological training to female fighters who voluntarily join the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. VOA’s Zana Omar filed this report narrated by Sirwan Kajjo.

Pope Francis has agendas both pastoral and personal for his trip to Asia, where he’ll appeal for global nuclear disarmament at the sites of the atomic bomb and minister to two tiny Catholic communities that have suffered gruesome periods of persecution.

Emphasizing the dignity of life is also on Francis’ to-do list for his trip to Thailand and Japan that begins Wednesday, given the scourge of human trafficking in Thailand and Japan’s use of capital punishment and high suicide rate.

As a young Jesuit, Francis dreamed of being a missionary in Japan, inspired by the courage of Japan’s Hidden Christians, who braved two centuries of persecution to keep their faith alive.

“In some way, this is the fulfilment of his dream,” said the Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, editor of AsiaNews, a Vatican-affiliated news service.

In Thailand, Francis will also be reunited with his second cousin, Sister Ana Rose Sivori, an Argentine nun who has lived in Thailand since 1966 and will serve as Francis’ official translator there.

Here are some highlights of Francis’ pilgrimage, his fourth to Asia and one that could also touch on the Vatican’s delicate relations with China:

Asian martyrs and missionaries

One of the highlights of the trip will be Francis’ prayer at the memorial of the 26 Nagasaki Martyrs, who were crucified in 1597 at the start of a two-century wave of anti-Christian persecution by Japanese rulers.

Francis’ own Jesuit order had introduced Christianity to Japan with the arrival of St. Francis Xavier on the archipelago in 1549. After converting more than a quarter-million Japanese, missionaries were banned at the start of the 17th century. Japanese Christians were forced to renounce their faith, suffer tortuous deaths or go underground.

Francis will greet some descendants of these Hidden Christians, whose story was recounted in the 2016 Martin Scorsese film “Silence.”

Francis will also honor Thailand’s World War II-era martyrs, who were victims of anti-Christian persecution by Thais who viewed Christianity as foreign and associated with French colonial powers. Francis will pray at the sanctuary for Thailand’s first martyred priest, Nicolas Bunkerd Kitbamrung, who was beatified in 2000.

The pope says no nukes

Francis has gone further than any other pope by saying that not only the use, but the mere possession of nuclear weapons is “to be firmly condemned.” Japanese bishops are hoping he goes even further and calls for a ban on nuclear power.

Francis will likely repeat his appeal for a total ban on the bomb when he visits Nagasaki and Hiroshima, meets with survivors of the 1945 bombings there as well as victims of the March 11, 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in northern Japan.

An offshore magnitude-9 earthquake triggered a tsunami that knocked out power for the cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant, displacing more than 100,000 people and coating the area with radioactive waste. In response, Japanese bishops in 2016 called for the abolition of nuclear power to protect “our common home.”

“We can only hope” Francis will speak about nuclear power, given his frequent exhortation to care for the environment, said Nagoya Bishop Michael Goro Matsuura.

Minority Catholics and interfaith dialogue

Catholics make up just .59 percent of Thailand’s population of 65 million, most of whom are Buddhist. The percentage is even lower in Japan – estimated at .42 percent of the mostly Shinto and Buddhist population of 126 million.

As a result, Francis will be stressing interfaith ties and the positive role Catholics can play in mostly Buddhist societies, “especially in the service of the poor, the needy and for peace,” he said in a video message to Thais.

The pope on life and death

Francis has made the fight against human trafficking a cornerstone of his papacy, a message that is likely to resonate in Thailand, which the U.N. considers a key trafficking destination as well as a source of forced labor and sex slaves.

In Japan, hopes are high among Catholics that Francis will send a message opposing the death penalty, and perhaps meet with a former boxer and human rights activist held for nearly five decades on death row.

The Vatican confirmed that Iwao Hakamada, who converted to Catholicism while in prison, has been invited to the pope’s Mass in Tokyo, but it’s not clear if he will make it. Hakamada is awaiting a Supreme Court decision after being freed when his verdict was overturned in a lower court.

Tomoki Yanagawa, who works at the Jesuit Social Center in Tokyo, said a papal statement about the death penalty would help raise awareness in Japan.

“I hope he will speak about the preciousness of life and clearly denounce what trivializes life,” said Yanagawa.

Francis changed Catholic teaching last year by declaring the death penalty “inadmissible” in all cases. He has also denounced today’s “throwaway culture” where euthanasia, abortion and suicide are often considered acceptable – a message that could resonate in Japan, which has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world.

Vatican-China relations

When Francis travels from Bangkok to Tokyo next Saturday, he’ll fly through Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong airspace – and will send telegrams to their leaders as part of typical papal protocol.

That could offer Francis a rare opportunity to address not only the current democracy protests in Hong Kong, but the Vatican’s delicate relations with Beijing. It would be the first such opportunity following last year’s agreement with China over Catholic bishop nominations. The pact aimed to unite China’s Catholics, who are divided between an underground church and an official one.

The agreement has been hailed as a milestone by the Vatican, but critics point to continued persecution of underground prelates, including a report last week by AsiaNews that the underground bishop of Mindong was being hounded by Chinese security agents. Monsignor Vincenzo Guo Xijn had stepped aside to allow an official bishop be named as part of the 2018 Vatican deal with China.

Iran’s supreme leader backed Sunday a government decision to increase fuel prices which sparked deadly protests over the weekend.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed “thugs” for damaging property  in protests that left at least two people dead. His comments come as the government shut off internet across Iran in an attempt to quell protests over the raising of government-set gasoline prices by 50%.

In a televised address to the nation, Khamenei said “some lost their lives” without elaborating.

The protests put renewed pressure on Iran’s government as it struggles to overcome the U.S. sanctions strangling the country after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

Though largely peaceful, demonstrations devolved into violence in several instances, with online videos purporting to show police officers firing tear gas at protesters and mobs setting fires. 

The demonstrations took place in over a dozen cities in the hours following President Hassan Rouhani’s decision early Friday to cut gasoline subsidies to fund handouts for Iran’s poor. 

Gasoline in the country still remains among the cheapest in the world, with the new prices jumping up to a minimum of 15,000 rials per liter of gas — 50% up from the day before. That is 13 cents a liter, about five times lower than the cost of gasoline in the United States by comparison.

A trove of leaked Chinese government documents reveals details of its clampdown on Uighurs and other Muslims in the country’s western Xinjiang region under President Xi Jinping, the New York Times reported Saturday.

United Nations experts and activists say at least 1 million Uighurs and members of other largely Muslim minority groups have been detained in camps in Xinjiang in a crackdown that has drawn condemnation from the United States and other countries.

The documents, which the newspaper said were leaked by “a member of the Chinese political establishment,” show how Xi gave a series of internal speeches to officials during and after a 2014 visit to Xinjiang following a stabbing attack by Uighur militants at a train station that killed 31 people.

The report said Xi called for an “all-out ‘struggle against terrorism, infiltration, and separatism’ using the ‘organs of dictatorship,’ and showing ‘absolutely no mercy.’”

The documents show that the Chinese leadership’s fears were heightened by terrorist attacks in other countries and the U.S. drawdown of troops from Afghanistan.

It is unclear how the documents totaling 403 pages were gathered and selected, the newspaper said.

Beijing denies any mistreatment of the Uighurs or others in Xinjiang, saying it is providing vocational training to help stamp out Islamic extremism and separatism and teach new skills.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment from Reuters on Sunday.

The documents show how officials were given talking points to explain to returning university students that their family members had been taken away for training, and how the program faced pushback from some local officials, the report said.

They also show that the internment camps expanded quickly after Chen Quanguo was appointed in August 2016 as the party boss of the region, the report said. Chen had taken a tough line to quell restiveness against Communist Party rule during his previous posting in Tibet.