President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at Democrats in the House for their vote this week formalizing the impeachment inquiry into his conduct, calling it “an attack on democracy itself.”

Democrats are “disgracing themselves and bringing shame upon the House of Representatives,” Trump charged during a rally in Tupelo, Mississippi, in support of the state’s Republican candidate for governor. “They’ve been plotting to overthrow the election since the moment I won,” he told the packed crowd.

The rally came a day after Democrats voted to formalize the investigation into whether Trump abused his office and compromised national security when he asked the president of Ukraine to investigate one of his political rivals. Aggrieved and feeding off the energy of the crowd, Trump repeatedly defended himself against what he called the “deranged impeachment witch hunt” and accused Democrats of doing anything to take him down and invalidate the results of the 2016 campaign.  

Insults for Biden, O’Rourke

At one point, Trump mockingly impersonated former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Biden and his family led to the impeachment inquiry.

Still, Trump insisted — despite polling to the contrary — that the investigation is helping him politically and will hurt Democrats come 2020, telling his crowd that “we’ve never had greater support than we have right now.

“While we’re creating jobs and killing terrorists,” he said, “the Democrat Party has gone completely insane.”

Trump also celebrated the news that Beto O’Rourke, one of the Democratic candidates running to replace him, has dropped out of the race. Trump unleashed a slew of insults, calling O’Rourke “pathetic,” “nasty” and a “poor bastard.”

“He made a total fool of himself,” Trump said, mocking an interview in which O’Rourke said he was born for the job.

“He said that he was born for it, like he was born from heaven, he came down,” Trump told his crowd. “Anybody who says they were born for this, they’re in trouble.”

Tight Mississippi race

Trump was in Mississippi trying to shore up support for Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, who is locked in a tight race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Phil Bryant in next week’s off-year election. The race between Reeves and Democrat Jim Hood for the open seat is considered the state’s toughest governor’s race in nearly a generation.

Trump expressed surprise that the race is a close one but promised, “We’re going to send a signal by sending a terrific new Republican governor to Jackson.”

Even though the state’s Democratic nominee for governor lost by 34 percentage points four years ago, Democrats in this conservative Deep South state think they have a shot this time with Attorney General Hood as their nominee. Hood, 57, who is serving his fourth term, has been elected by wide margins in his previous races and is currently the only Democrat to hold statewide office.

Trump tried to tie Hood with national Democrats, saying he’s “not the kind of guy” Mississippi needs. 

Trump also celebrated the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former leader of the Islamic State Group, calling him “a savage and soulless monster.” But he also complained that he hadn’t gotten enough credit for the killing.

“Conan the dog got more publicity than me,” he said, referring to the dog that played a key role in the Syria raid.

Rallies for GOP governor hopefuls

The rally is one of a handful of events Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will be holding in the coming days to try to bolster Republican candidates running in gubernatorial elections.

Trump is scheduled to travel to Kentucky Monday to campaign for incumbent GOP Gov. Matt Bevin. He is heading to Louisiana on Wednesday to campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone, who is trying to unseat incumbent Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Pence was in Kentucky Friday campaigning for Bevin and will travel to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Monday to campaign for Reeves, among other stops.

“It’s always good for the president to help out Republicans up and down the ticket,” said Rick Gorka, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign and the Republican national party. “He needs reliable partnerships and strong leaders in the states in order to continue to enact his policies, so this is a way to lend his support to Tate Reeves to close out this election strong.”

Mississippi race

Reeves has sought to tie Hood as closely as possible to national Democrats, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who are deeply unpopular in a state that voted heavily for Trump in the last presidential election.

Hood says Reeves and other Republicans have underfunded schools and ignored the financial plight of rural hospitals while giving tax breaks to big businesses.

Hood has not invited national Democratic figures to Mississippi. He’s running campaign commercials that show him with his family, his pickup truck and his hunting dog, Buck. In one, Hood unpacks a rifle and says that “Tate Reeves and his out-of-state corporate masters” are spending money on a “bunch of lies.”

Reeves has faced some enthusiasm problems in the Republican party. He was forced into a runoff with Bill Waller Jr., former chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court.

But Gorka said the party was confident heading into Tuesday’s Election Day.

“We’re looking at a strong possibility of winning in Mississippi, but also flipping seats in Louisiana and keeping the one in Kentucky,” he said. “So the way we always approach any election is we invest to win, both with data and infrastructure, but also with the most precious resource, the president’s time, to make sure that we’re getting the most bang for our buck.”

Democrat Beto O’Rourke said Friday that he is dropping out of the crowded 2020 U.S. presidential race, saying it had become clear his campaign did not have the resources to continue to seek the party’s nomination.

“My service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee. Acknowledging this now is in the best interests of those in the campaign; it is in the best interests of this party as we seek to unify around a nominee; and it is in the best interests of the country,” O’Rourke wrote in a post that he shared on Twitter.
 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that negotiations with North Korea were going too slowly after Pyongyang fired two more short-range projectiles.

Pompeo downplayed Thursday’s launches themselves, saying they were consistent with previous moves, but called for more effort in nuclear negotiations.

“The progress has been far too slow,” Pompeo told radio station KQAM in his home state of Kansas.

“I’m hopeful that we can continue to work on this project and get a good outcome in the months ahead,” he said.

The South Korean military said the projectiles flew 230 miles (370 kilometers) to the east in North Korea’s first known test since Oct. 2, when it carried out a provocative test of a submarine-launched missile.

President Donald Trump has met three times with Kim in hopes of sealing a potentially historic deal on ending North Korea’s nuclear program.

But there has been little concrete commitment and North Korea walked out of working-level talks last month in Sweden.

A U.S. federal judge on Friday ordered the State Department to make public certain “readouts or summaries” of the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart at the center of a congressional impeachment investigation. 

The order by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington gave the State Department until Nov. 22 to hand the documents over to American Oversight, a watchdog group that sued for access to them based on a public records law. 

Last month, Cooper ordered the State Department to confer with American Oversight and negotiate the release of other categories of Ukraine-related documents, including senior officials’ correspondence with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. 

American Oversight’s lawsuit has assisted congressional investigators, who have also sought documents and testimony from the State Department but have been rebuffed. 

In an Oct. 30 court filing, the State Department objected to producing readouts and summaries of the July 25 phone call that are currently in the possession of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a close aide, saying “such records have a high likelihood of being classified and/or privileged.” 

The State Department said those summaries and readouts “are likely to contain additional information beyond a transcription of the call itself.” 

Cooper said in Friday’s order that American Oversight’s request was lawful and did not place a heavy burden on the department, however. 

Seeking to bolster its image as a forward-looking metropolis, Dubai hosted the largest-ever international robotics contest this week, challenging young people from 190 countries to find solutions to global ocean pollution.
 
Event organizers say their selection of Dubai as host reflects a vote of confidence that this oil-rich Emirati sheikhdom can be a global hub for innovation. They also expressed hope that bringing together tomorrow’s scientists and engineers will help develop technologies to solve the world’s most pressing issues, particularly those related to the environment.

Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST Global Challenge, said the Middle East represents a part of the world where “the adults have not learned how to play nice with each other” and it was up to young people to fix humanity’s self-inflicted wounds.

“We are in an accelerating race toward catastrophe, whether it’s global warning, melting of the (polar ice) caps, bird flu, terrorism – you name it, we’re worried about it. The solution to most of the world’s grand challenges depends on better technologies than we have today,” he said.
 
“This globe of ours is on life support, so the thought is we get every kid in every country to focus on learning how to use technology, but focus on using it as a tool and not a weapon,” he explained.

The unofficial “Robotics Olympics” seeks to encourage young people to pursue subjects known as STEM _ science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Teams of four to five students, aged 14-18, each received a kit of rods, wheels, wires and other raw materials with which to assemble their roving robots. Their task: Collect orange balls of various sizes from a playing field, which represented human-created pollutants in the ocean. Some devised robots for scooping, while others snatched up and fired the balls through the air into the receptacles.
 
The teams then formed “alliances,” each with up of four nations, to battle their way to the final round. Overall, 1,500 students took part.

A team captained by Belarus, and including Syrian refugees, eventually won the gold medal, edging out a team captained by Israel in a dramatic final match. But organizers stressed a message of unity, not conflict.

“The kids get it. To them this isn’t a competition; this is a `coop-etition.’ This is a celebration of technology,” said Kamen.

Previous events tackled challenges related to clean water access and sustainable energy.

Robotics is a natural fit for Dubai, a city that’s already testing driverless cars and taxis. It’s become a magnet for international entrepreneurs, with an entire zone called “Internet City” that’s packed with high-tech startups. Next October, Dubai will host the Expo 2020, welcoming technological breakthroughs from around the world.
 
“If we are to become the city of the future, we need to have the right talent from around the world,” said Omar Al-Olama, the 29-year-old Emirati Minister of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first such minister. “Artificial intelligence is based on data. Data is what drives all these new technologies. We have the holy grail of data. We have 200 nationalities represented in this country.”

FedEx recently announced Dubai would become the first city outside the U.S. to test Roxo, an autonomous delivery device that can travel on sidewalks and even unpaved surfaces.
 
Roxo made its debut international appearance at this week’s robotics contest, drawing the interest of the tech-savvy teens hailing from places as diverse as Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. They mingled in Dubai’s Festival City, exchanging experiences and forming friendships while talking shop about their gadgets.
 
“We didn’t do so well in the matches because we had a lot of trouble with the control hub, but it doesn’t matter, we had a lot of fun,” said Stefan Sijbesma, 17, from the Netherlands. “For me, robotics is really important because it really helped me choose what I want to study and what I want to do with my life”

The three-day tournament had a festival-like atmosphere to it, with announcers and commentators analyzing the action in sports-broadcast style and fans waving flags and banners supporting their teams. The pavilion floor was filled with facts about the millions of tons of pollutants threatening the world’s oceans, and featured slogans such as “united by land, connected by oceans” and “together we turn the tide on pollution.”

As the nail-biting results were being announced, the Israelis huddled with their Ugandan teammates before embracing the winning team in a feel-good ending.
 
“I can’t believe it, it’s a miracle,” said Yamen Najjar, manager of Team Hope, which represents the Syrian refugees and was part of the winning alliance. “It was a very difficult competition for us, we faced a lot of problems, but we didn’t lose hope.”

Outgoing U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who’d made the original announcement that Dubai would host the event earlier this year in a surprise visit to the World Government Summit, was on hand. Perry said he’s followed the robotics tournaments since 2002 when, as governor of Texas, he attended one of the regional competitions in Houston and was “blown away” by the passions and abilities of the young contestants.

But he said he found their camaraderie even more impressive.

“It is stunning what these young people are doing,” Perry said. “Where the adults may have failed in the standpoint of international diplomacy, these young people may accomplish, and if that’s the case maybe that is the most important thing that comes out of this.”

 

The United States should return to a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Friday, saying the new U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran showed failure of Washington’s policy.

“Rather than dig itself deeper, US should abandon failed policies & return to #JCPOA (the 2015 nuclear deal),” Zarif
tweeted.

Subjecting construction workers to #EconomicTerrorism only manifests maximum failure of “maximum pressure”.

US can sanction every man, woman & child but Iranians will never submit to bullying.

Rather than dig itself deeper, US should abandon failed policies & return to #JCPOA.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 1, 2019

The United States, who exited the pact last year and reimposed sanctions on Iran, on Thursday imposed sanctions on the Iranian construction sector and trade in four materials used in its military or nuclear programs.

“Subjecting construction workers to #EconomicTerrorism only manifests maximum failure of “maximum pressure”. US can sanction
every man, woman & child but Iranians will never submit to bullying” Zarif tweeted.

 

For those who were there, the memories are still fresh, 40 years after one of the defining events of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, when protesters seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and set off a 444-day hostage crisis.

The consequences of that crisis reverberate to this day.

Veteran Iranian photographer Kaveh Kazemi recalled snapping away with his camera as he stood behind the gate where the Iranian militant students would usher blindfolded American hostages to those gathered outside waving anti-American banners and calling for the extradition of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

“Sometimes they would bring a U.S. flag and burn it, put it in flames and then throw it among the crowd,” said Kazemi, now 67, pointing to the spot. “They would come and chant ‘death to America,’ ‘death to the shah’ … it changed the world as I knew it.”

Anger toward America had already been growing throughout 1979 as Iran’s revolutionary government took hold, but it boiled over in October when the United States took in the ailing shah for medical treatment.

After several protests, the Islamist students raided the embassy on Nov. 4 and took 98 hostages. 
 
What initially began as a sit-in devolved into 444 days of captivity for 52 Americans seized in the embassy. It prompted President Jimmy Carter to expel Iranian diplomats and launch a failed rescue mission before the Americans were eventually released on the last day of his presidency, setting off decades of hostility amid an Islamic takeover that turned the country from a former U.S. ally into perhaps its greatest adversary.

Anger at U.S.

Many of those sentiments remain today amid the escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington, following the disintegration of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal and the subsequent U.S. sanctions that have sent the Iranian economy into free fall.

Outside the former embassy’s shaded red brick walls, which were in the process of being painted with anti-U.S. murals for the upcoming anniversary, former protester Hossein Kouhi said he turned out in 1979 to denounce what he called U.S. intervention in Iran’s internal affairs, something he says continues today.

“I had a good feeling then, but we have had a bad fate,” said Kouhi, now 76, as he blamed the U.S for shortages of medicines in Iran because of the sanctions. “Even today, if we allow, it (the U.S.) will come here to plunder Iran, just like it’s doing to other countries in the region. No foreigner is a friend of Iran. They all lie.”

Zahra Tashakori, a 41-year-old schoolteacher, agreed, saying she was glad the American presence was long gone.

“Look at their movies. They promote violence and other bad things in the societies,” she said. “They ruined wherever they intervened in the region. Just look at Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, like his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, repeatedly hails the militants who took over the embassy as being “ahead of their time.”

Others on the street, though, had a more nuanced view in hindsight.

“I believed the U.S. Embassy should have been closed down officially, but not through takeover,” said Ghasem Rabiei, 49. “The U.S. was opposing the Islamic Republic in many ways, so they should have been deported from our country, but peacefully and legally.”

Reza Ghorbani, a 19-year-old engineering student at Tehran’s Azad University, asked: “What is the result of this super long hostility? I do not say the U.S. government is good, but these lengthy bitter relations have damaged Iran, too.”

Current tensions

The U.S. blames Iran for a series of mysterious oil tanker attacks this year and alleges it carried out last month’s attack on the world’s largest oil processor in Saudi Arabia, which caused oil prices to spike by the biggest percentage since the 1991 Gulf War.

Iran denies the accusations and has warned that any retaliatory attack targeting it will result in an “all-out war,” as it has begun enriching uranium beyond the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. Iran also shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone and seized oil tankers, as the Trump administration insists upon continuing its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.

As it does every anniversary, Iran plans to pack the streets outside the former embassy — rebranded as the “Den of Espionage” — for another massive demonstration looking to fuel more anti-American sentiment for at least another year. 
 
For those who witnessed how it all began, it mostly serves as a reminder of all that it’s cost them.

“People should not suffer because of the hostilities among the two countries,” said Kazemi, the photographer. “If countries want to kill each other, kill each other. But ordinary people should not suffer. The inflation, the sanctions, everything is affecting all the people every day.”
 

Turkey and Russia launched joint patrols Friday in northeastern Syria, under a deal that halted a Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters who were forced to withdraw from the border area following Ankara’s incursion.

The patrols will cover two sections, in the west and east of Turkey’s operation zone in Syria, with a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). Turkish troops and allied Syrian opposition fighters now control the border towns of Tal Abyad, Ras al-Ayn and nearby villages. The deal on the patrols excludes the city of Qamishli, according to the ministry’s statement Tuesday.

Turkey’s defense ministry tweeted Friday that the patrols started in al-Darbasiyah region, with Turkish and Russian troops, armored vehicles and drones.

Pushing out the Kurds

Turkey last month invaded northeastern Syria to push out Syrian Kurdish fighters whom it considers terrorists for their links to a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey. 

But the U.S. had partnered with the Syrian Kurdish fighters, their top allies in the war against the Islamic State group. The relationship has strained ties between Washington and Ankara who are NATO allies.

After an abrupt and widely criticized decision by President Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from this part of Syria, the Kurdish forces approached the Syrian government and Russia for protection. Syrian government troops and Russian military police subsequently moved into areas along the border.

Two ceasefire agreements, brokered by the U.S. and Russia, paused Turkey’s operation to allow the Syrian Kurdish fighters to withdraw 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) from the border.

Russia told Turkey, at the end of the 150-hour cease-fire Tuesday, that the Syrian Kurdish fighters were out of the strip of territory, as well as out of the towns of Manbij and Tal Rifaat, west of the Euphrates River.

Turkish casualty

Also Friday, Turkey’s defense ministry announced that a Turkish soldier was killed after an improvised explosive device detonated Thursday, bringing the Turkish military’s death toll to 13 since the start Ankara’s invasion in northeastern Syria on Oct. 9. Mortars fired from Syria during the early phases of the operation killed 21 civilians in Turkey.
 
Though the truce has mostly held, it has been marred by accusations of violations from both sides and occasional clashes. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to resume the offensive if deemed necessary.

Vietnam’s prime minister has ordered an investigation into whether 39 people found dead in a truck in the United Kingdom last month were trafficked out of his country illegally.

While the order may mollify outraged Vietnamese citizens, experts fear it masks the government’s longer-term powerlessness to stop people from being smuggled into wealthier countries for money.

The discovery by police in southeastern England quickly cast attention on human trafficking from Vietnam to Europe where incomes are higher. Several arrests have been made in the United Kingdom, and one man was charged with conspiracy to traffic people.

But an elaborate international chain of command to move people out of Vietnam for high-paid work offshore has grown so mature, dating back to when Vietnam was poorer than it is today, that government officials will find it hard if not impossible to stop, experts say.

“This is a never-ending fight,” said Carl Thayer, Southeast Asia-specialized emeritus professor of politics at The University of New South Wales in Australia. “The rewards to the smugglers are too great and the nirvana lifestyle they offer to the people (who) are desperate.”

Efforts to stop human trafficking

After the 39 deaths were discovered, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told his Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to start an investigation into human smuggling and create “citizen protection measures” if needed, state-run Viet Nam News reported Thursday.

Last year, the news service said, British and Vietnamese governments had signed a memorandum of understanding “to tackle modern slavery.”

When a Vietnamese foreign minister telephoned a British official Tuesday to discuss the recent case, the two agreed they would “call on the international community to strengthen co-operation to combat the crime.”

Barriers to a crackdown

Public security officials could publicize the issues further and root out more smuggling organizers, Thayer said. They catch people only occasionally now, he added.

But victims of discovered smuggling attempts lack the means to identify the heads of trafficking rings, he said, while Vietnam’s special economic zones with neighboring countries make it easy for citizens to leave.

“The borders are porous and people can cross over,” Thayer said.

Trafficking networks have thrived in Vietnam since at least the 19th century, often taking women and children to Hong Kong or mainland China for sale into marriage or prostitution, according to the 2015 book Human Trafficking in Colonial Vietnam.

To stop women from entering abusive marriages with citizens of richer Asian countries, government officials in Vietnam now do rigorous background checks on marriage applications, said Frederick Burke, partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City.

“For sure they will be looking at what kind of controls (they can take)” after the case in England, he said. “They have huge issues with sale of wives. These are not new issues.”

Common Vietnamese still see the UK deaths last month mainly as just a case of people being cheated by their group leader, Burke said. Looking at emigration for work overall, he said, a lot of Vietnamese still hold a “grass is greener on the other side of the fence mentality.”

Economic incentives miss the extreme poor

At home, Vietnamese officials effectively improve people’s livelihoods by encouraging foreign investment in export manufacturing, which creates jobs. The Southeast Asian country’s $300 billion economy will grow by up to 6.8% this year, SSI Research in Hanoi says. It expanded 7.1% in 2018, the highest rate in 11 years.

Blue-collar wages of less than $200 per month, however, hardly compare to wages in the countries where trafficked people often end up today. Vietnamese still jump at chances to work in factories in Russia, do construction work in Libya and get hired on British farms.

About 10% of Vietnam’s 95 million people live in poverty, sometimes in “pockets of extreme poverty” far from industrial job centers, IHS Markit Asia-Pacific chief economist Rajiv Biswas said.

The government should address these pockets, some in the remote mountains, but will find it hard, he said.

“Now the issue I think for Vietnam is addressing these pockets of poverty in mountain areas, which is quite difficult to do because (of) their ability to work in industrial jobs — they don’t have access to that kind of work,” Biswas said.

With home sales crashing, real estate agent Zhang Yonggang is tightening his belt, part of a plunge in Chinese consumer demand that is a bigger threat to economic growth than Beijing’s tariff war with Washington.

Zhang, who works in the central city of Taiyuan, said his office sold no apartments last month after Beijing tightened lending controls in July to rein in housing costs and debt. Zhang, 42 and married with a teenage son, said his income has fallen by half from a year ago.

“I have no money to buy a home and no plans to change cars,” Zhang said. “It is definitely the toughest time I’ve ever seen.”

Communist leaders are counting on consumers to power China’s economy, replacing trade and investment. But shoppers, spooked by the tariff war and possible job losses, are cutting spending on cars, real estate and other big-ticket purchases.

Economic warning signs

Economic growth sank to a three-decade low of 6% over a year earlier in the quarter ending in September. That is stronger than most major countries but a strain for Chinese companies that need to repay debt.

Factory activity shrank more than expected in October, according to an official trade group, the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing. Analysts said that suggested an uptick a month earlier didn’t mark the start of a recovery.

Communist leaders express confidence China can survive President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes on its exports.

On Thursday, the ruling party’s Central Committee affirmed support for private business within an economy dominated by state industry and gave no sign of plans to change economic strategy.

But leaders openly fret over slumping consumer spending and other domestic activity.

Premier Li Keqiang, the top economic official, told local leaders last week to fight “downward pressure” on the economy and “make sure targets for this year are achieved.”

“Many real economic entities are struggling amid weak domestic demand,” the premier said at a meeting with provincial governors, according to a Cabinet statement.

Beijing has tried to stick to plans to nurture self-sustaining, consumer-driven growth instead of resorting to stimulus, which usually means splurging on construction paid for with bank loans. That might re-ignite a surge in debt that forecasters estimate has risen as high as the equivalent of 300% of China’s annual economic output.

“China is willing to accept slower growth, but only up to a point,” Rory Green of TS Lombard said in a report.

If job losses spike, “of course Beijing will have to step in with a major stimulus,” Green said.

Trade war’s uneven effects

Trump’s punitive duties on billions of dollars of Chinese goods in a fight over Beijing’s trade surplus and technology ambitions have battered exporters. But their impact on the rest of the economy has been smaller than some forecasters expected.

And trade overall is stronger than expected. Shipments to the United States fell nearly 11% in the first nine months of 2019, but exports to the whole world were off only 0.1%.

Retail sales rose 8.2% over a year earlier in the nine months ending in September. But some industries suffered painful contractions: Auto sales fell 11.7%.

The pressures are reflected in Anna Li’s dilemma. The 28-year-old employee of an information technology company in Beijing plans to buy an apartment, but first she wants a new job. She has looked since last year and found nothing because companies have cut hiring.

“I used to have a plan to buy an apartment next year, but now it depends on the success of my job hunting,” Li said.

Growth forecasts

The International Monetary Fund is forecasting annual growth of 6.1% this year, down from last year’s 6.6% and just above the official minimum target of 6%. Next year, the IMF expects a further decline to 5.8%.

Some analysts question whether China really is achieving even that growth and say the real rate may be closer to 3%. They blame flaws in data collection and political pressure to make results look better.

Economic activity might be up to 21% smaller than official data show, according to Yingyao Hu and Jiaxiong Yao at Johns Hopkins University.

Government data assume all investment pays off, but much spending in 2012-17 went into unproductive projects, say Hu and Yao. They cite evidence including satellite photos that show nighttime cities darker than they should be with more activity.

That could mean Chinese debt is higher relative to the size of the economy than thought. That might further depress consumer demand because more national income must be diverted to repay debt.

Xi rolls out welcome mat

Leaders are trying to reassure U.S. and other foreign companies that have postponed or moved planned investments out of China to avoid tariff hikes.

Li, the premier, has told a string of American, European and other visiting business leaders they are welcome despite Beijing’s 15-month-old war with Trump.

Beijing has announced market-opening measures over the past two years including abolishing limits on foreign ownership in securities trading, auto manufacturing and some other industries.

The tariff war has made Beijing determined to adapt to slower growth and less reliance on debt in what it views as a period of strategic competition, said Green of TS Lombard.

Chinese leaders don’t want to use credit-fueled stimulus and “leave themselves vulnerable to future economic and financial sanctions,” he said.

Plus, Green said, Trump is “the perfect scapegoat” to blame for slower growth.

The Nationals’ World Series victory Wednesday night has brought together fans in a city deeply divided by the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Washington Nationals defeated the Houston Astros 6-2 on Wednesday in the seventh game of Major League Baseball’s World Series, earning the team’s first championship win in franchise history.

Politics have previously divided fans at D.C.’s Nationals Park, where the team plays its home games. Last Sunday, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and other prominent Republicans attended the fifth game of the series. The president’s group was loudly booed by members of the audience, many jeering “lock him up.”  

But sporting events also provide an opportunity to bring people together, as famously happened during the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, when a public encounter between two pingpong players from China and the U.S. was seen as signaling the thawing of U.S.-Chinese relations during the Cold War.

For D.C. residents, the Nationals’ World Series victory became a moment of unity for the city.

“The impeachment is definitely divisive,” said resident Ore Fashola. “The Nationals’ win in the World Series … is a very big cohesive moment.”

Despite the win, D.C. residents said the good news was only temporary.

“On Saturday, everybody will be together for the parade and for one day only, and then it will go back to business as normal,” said resident Daniel Dowhan. While Wednesday’s win was big, it was too small for people to overcome their differences and be “friends,” he added.

Fashola said she thought the win would be a “short-term” unifier. “I think that [impeachment is] more a long-term focus.”

Some Washingtonians, however, had trouble taking even a short break from the impeachment inquiry on the day of the World Series win.

“I’m following and looking forward to seeing a better change,” said one resident, Penelope, when asked about the inquiry.

The House voted Thursday to authorize a public impeachment inquiry targeting Trump for allegedly pushing Ukraine to investigate his political opponents.

The United States says it is still looking for ways to block a proposed natural gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany, after the Danish government this week cleared away one of the last legal obstacles to the project, known as Nord Stream 2.

“The Department of Energy strongly believes that the Nord Stream 2 threatens the energy security and national security of U.S. allies in Europe [and] strengthens Russia’s control over the region’s energy supply,” said a DOE spokesperson, speaking on background.

“The United States will continue to look into all tools at its disposal regarding this project,” said the spokesperson. “All options are on the table.”

The Danish Energy Agency announced Wednesday that it would permit the proposed pipeline to pass through its exclusive economic zone, saying it was “obliged to allow the construction of transit pipelines” under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Edward C. Chow, senior associate in the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that the Danes had no choice but to issue the permits. The decision was “a routine administrative procedure under Danish law and international obligations,” he said, noting a similar announcement last week on a gas pipeline from Norway to Poland.

“These decisions are based on environment and safety criteria,” he added.

But Margarita Assenova, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, said the completion of Nord Stream 2 still is not certain, even after the Danish decision.

She said Denmark held up the project for as long as it could after Nord Stream AG, the Switzerland-headquartered construction consortium that operates the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline, filed the first permit request to build the new pipeline through Danish territorial waters in 2017. She pointed out that the permit does not take effect for one month, allowing time for appeals that could slow down the process.

Assenova said the European Commission could introduce new obstacles under the terms of the European Union’s Gas Directive governing the internal gas market, which was amended in April to affect pipelines to and from third countries.

U.S. sanctions

The U.S. Congress is also considering new sanctions to target vessels laying pipes for the project. Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, urged the Senate this week to quickly pass the legislation in order to “halt this pipeline, and deprive [Russian President Vladimir] Putin the resources to fuel his expansionism and military aggression.”

The House of Representatives is working on additional sanctions as well.

Ilya Zaslavskiy, head of research of the Free Russia Foundation, believes the United States has the ability to stop the pipeline project. Zaslavskiy, who previously worked as an energy consultant in Moscow and New York, said the U.S. might apply tactics similar to those it used regarding another Russian pipeline, South Stream.

“They’re using it as a last resort as was the case with South Stream,” Zaslavskiy told VOA’s Ukrainian service. “They’re waiting for Europeans themselves to sort this out, and they were waiting for the decision from Denmark on the permits for Nord Stream 2. They want to see the European Commission act.”

However, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan has said it is unlikely that Washington will be able to halt the construction, which is already 80% complete. Sullivan made the comment this week during Senate confirmation hearings on his nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to Russia.

Buying time

Even if the sanctions are unable to stop the construction, they “will allow time for the European Commission to implement the amended Gas Directive,” Assenova argued. Passage of the bills currently before Congress “would stop the physical construction of the pipeline before it could be fully deployed.”

The U.S. sanctions will give important support to the position of Ukraine and the EU, the analyst said. “The sanctions are significant in stopping the pipeline construction in the short term also because they will strengthen the European Union’s and Ukraine’s hand in negotiating a new gas transit agreement with Russia post-2019.”

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian service.

Some Islamic State supporters are starting to rally around the terror group’s new leader, using social media to pledge their allegiance to a man whose true identity may not be known for some time.

IS announced the selection of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as its new leader Thursday in an audio message issued by its Amaq news agency and read by the group’s new spokesman.

“He is a flag of the flags of jihad, and a scholar of its scholars, and an emir of the emirs of war,” the voice said, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence, which monitors jihadist communications.

Qurashi “has attacked the protector of the Cross America, and made it taste bad,” the voice added.

The announcement, which also confirmed the deaths of IS’s self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, caused what some analysts described as a ripple of excitement on social media and online messaging boards frequented by IS supporters.

Here it begins

Iraqi Kurdish officials say at least 12,000 people have crossed the border from Syria, seeking safety in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The influx of refugees started three weeks ago after Turkey and its allied Syrian militia fighters began a military offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters. VOA’s Kawa Omar reports from Bardarash, Iraq.

Somalia’s federal government and U.N. aid agencies are calling for humanitarian assistance to help hundreds of thousands of Somalis affected by some of the heaviest floods in years.

A government emergency committee said heavy rains caused the overflow of the Juba and Shabelle rivers, as well as streams and creeks in the Bay and Bakool regions.

The town most affected is Belet Weyne in the Hiran region, about 340 kilometers north of Mogadishu, where floods swamped residential and business buildings, and drove thousands of people from their homes. Authorities in the town said at least 10 people have died.

“The level of the Shabelle River, which runs through the city, burst its banks and led to overbank spillage into the entire town, and consequently floodwaters, about six meters above the ground, expanded fast across the town,” Ali Mohamed Arale, the regional governor, told VOA.

“I have never seen such floodwaters in the town in my life. It is one of its worst in history,” he said.

A statement from the office of Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire said 85 percent of the town is under water and most of the town’s economic infrastructure has been destroyed.

Khaire warned that hundreds of thousands of people need urgent support. “If we do not change our words to action, things will get worse,” he said.

On Thursday, aid group Save the Children put the number of displaced people around Belet Weyne at more than 200,000, half of them children.

Health fears

Thousands of locals who have formed makeshift camps on high ground are in desperate need of food and water, government officials said.

Local doctors are warning that mosquito-borne diseases like malaria could become a problem after flooding.

“Those who fled from the floods are at risk of getting sick with waterborne diseases, if they do not get an emergent medical attention,” said Osman Mohamud Dufle, a doctor and member of the country’s upper house.

Earlier this month, a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said that climate change is hampering efforts to bring peace to Somalia, as droughts and floods strengthen the hand of militants and weaken the power of the government.

For much of the last decade, Somalia has struggled with chronic drought. The 2011 drought was especially severe, killing an estimated 260,000 people.

The Deyr (October-December) rains, which started early in many parts of Somalia, continued as October came to an end.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating is holding steady as the House presses forward with an impeachment probe

President Donald Trump’s approval rating is holding steady as the House presses forward with an impeachment probe that could imperil his presidency, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But there are warning signs in the survey for Trump.

Though Trump remains overwhelmingly popular within his own party, some Republicans have a critical view of the president’s honesty, his discipline and his respect for America’s democratic norms. Overall, 61% of Americans say Trump has little or no respect for the country’s democratic institutions and traditions, an issue that strikes at the heart of the impeachment inquiry focused in part on whether he sought a foreign government’s help for personal political gain.

Trump has fought back against the House probe with the same strategy that has buoyed him throughout the other investigations and controversies that have consumed his first three years in office: casting the investigations as politically motivated and repeatedly disparaging his opponents, often in bitingly personal terms. Republicans are so far sticking with him, with 85% saying they approve of Trump.

“The Democrats will not let the president do his job,” said Robert Little, a 73-year-old Republican from Kannapolis, North Carolina. “Ever since he’s been in office, he’s done a lot of good things for the United States, but the Democrats’ only agenda is to get rid of Trump.”

Overall, 42% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the job, in line with where he has been throughout his tenure. Just 7% of Democrats have a positive view of Trump as president.

Divisive nature

Trump’s job approval rating and other markers in the survey underscore the deeply divisive nature of his presidency, with Republicans largely favoring his actions and Democrats overwhelmingly disapproving. As Trump eyes his reelection campaign, it suggests his path to victory will hinge on rallying higher turnout among his core supporters as opposed to persuading new voters to back his bid for a second term.

The biggest bright spot for Trump remains the economy, which has continued to grow despite warning signs of a downturn. Fifty-four percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, including a quarter of Democrats.

Trump inherited a growing economy from his predecessor, Barack Obama, and the trajectory has remained positive, with the unemployment rate hovering below 4%. But economists have warned that Trump’s push to levy tariffs on China puts economic gains at risk, and a majority of Americans, 55%, disapprove of Trump’s handling of trade negotiations with other countries.

Critical of foreign policy

Americans are more critical of Trump’s handling of foreign policy, with 59% disapproving of how he’s handling that issue. The public is also skeptical that Trump’s actions as president have been good for America’s standing in the world; 46% said his policies have done more harm than good, while 39% said they have had a more positive impact.

The poll was conducted almost entirely before Trump announced on Sunday that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed in a U.S. raid in Syria.

Trump was elected in 2016 with low marks from voters on an array of personal attributes, including honesty, and those assessments haven’t changed. Trump frequently repeats false statements and spreads conspiracy theories that have been debunked, including by members of his own administration.

More than half of Americans, 56%, said the word “honest” does not describe the president. Among Republicans, views are also mixed on Trump’s honesty: Just about half say “honest” describes Trump very or extremely well.

Republicans concerned

Even fewer Republicans have a positive view on Trump’s level of self-control, with just 39% saying “disciplined” is a very good way to describe the president, who often lashes out at critics and airs a myriad of grievances. Another 29% say it describes him moderately well, but about as many say it doesn’t describe him well.

The result is an electorate with raw emotions about the president. Nearly half say Trump makes them feel angry. And four in 10 Americans, including about 2 in 10 Republicans, say the president makes them feel overwhelmed.

“It wears you down, it wears you out,” said Bill Cathey, a 57-year-old independent from Charlotte, North Carolina. “And kind of dampens your spirit throughout the day.”

 

Strong winds fanned new fires in Southern California on Thursday, burning homes and forcing residents to flee in a repeat of a frightening scenario already faced by tens of thousands across the state.

The latest blazes erupted in the heavily populated inland region east of Los Angeles as strong, seasonal Santa Ana winds continued to blow with gusts of up to 60 mph (96 kph) predicted to last until the evening before they fade away.

A fast-moving fire spread into the northern neighborhoods of the city of San Bernardino, forcing the evacuation of 490 homes _ approximately 1,300 people, the San Bernardino County Fire Department said. Aerial video from a news helicopter showed at least four home burning as the fire grew to 200 acres (80 hectares).

In neighboring Riverside County, evacuation orders were issued for homes around a 75-acre (30-hectare) fire in the city of Jurupa Valley. Three residences and two outbuildings were confirmed destroyed, the county’s fire department said.

That fire came after another fire Wednesday in Jurupa Valley forced the evacuation of two mobile home parks and a psychiatric nursing care facility, where elderly people wearing face masks and wrapped in blankets were taken out in wheelchairs and gurneys as smoke swirled overhead. The blaze grew to 200 acres (80 hectares) in size before its spread was stopped.

“There was one moment when I could see nothing but dark smoke and I was like, `We’re going to die,”’ said Qiana McCracken, assistant director of nursing for the Riverside Heights Healthcare Center.

The Santa Anas winds that help create California’s most destructive wildfires prompted a brushfire to quickly explode in size after it broke out before dawn Wednesday near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library between the cities of Simi Valley and Moorpark northwest of Los Angeles.

Officials ordered about 30,000 people to evacuate, although some were being allowed back home Wednesday night as fire crews began to get a handle on the blaze.

Crews remained at the scene through the night to make sure embers would not rekindle more fires after an army of firefighters helped protect the hilltop Reagan museum, which sat like an island in a soot-black sea. There was no damage, library spokeswoman Melissa Giller said.

Nearby residents had little time to heed evacuation orders as the flames approached.

Elena Mishkanian was able to gather only some basics. Her son, Troy, 13, netted six pet fish from a tank and put them in pots.

“Fish have feelings!” he said when his sister Megan teased him about it.

Frightened horses screamed in a nearby barn as Beth Rivera used a garden hose to water down the edges of her home to keep embers from igniting dry grass and trees. Friends helped evacuate 11 horses.

Southern California Edison said its safety power cuts still affected about 215,000 people by late Wednesday night and warned that outages were under consideration for about 800,000 people.

The days of windstorms are not unusual for the fall season, which has seen vicious gusts propel a series of deadly and destructive California wildfires in recent years.

But at least in the short term, there was good news from forecasters.

“This is the last event in our near future. We are not expecting any Santa Anas next week,” weather service meteorologist Kristen Stewart said.

But she noted the forecast only extends out seven days.

“Once we get past that, all bets are off,” she said.

 

Europe’s economy is losing strength. Top officials at the European Central Bank are at odds over policy. And it’s even unclear whether they can do much to help anyway.

It adds up to a full in-tray for Christine Lagarde as she takes over as ECB president on Friday.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund succeeds Mario Draghi, who as head of the central bank for the 19 countries that use the euro helped keep the currency union together through a financial crisis.

While the crisis has abated, the pressures of the job have not diminished, with the ECB president acting as the final backstop for Europe’s economy and global uncertainties on the rise.

Here’s a look at the main challenges Lagarde faces.

A weakening economy

Growth has dropped significantly even since Draghi announced a big stimulus package on Sept. 12. Analysts think Lagarde may not have to change policy for a while as that stimulus runs, but big risks still loom over the global and European economies. Trade disputes between the U.S. and major economies like China and Europe have hurt manufacturing. Brexit has yet to be resolved, keeping businesses uncertain about how to invest.

The ECB’s next move may be to provide even more stimulus, rather than raising interest rates back to where they were before the global financial crisis.

Central Bank power

And yet providing more stimulus could be complicated, in part because so much has already been spent.

The ECB’s benchmark interest rate on deposits left overnight from banks is already at an unprecedented minus 0.5%. Bank officials have said it could be cut further, but at some point the ECB would reach a point where adverse side effects such as the impact on bank profits may outweigh the benefits.

Draghi’s plan to have the ECB buy 20 billion euros ($22 billion) a month in corporate and government bonds will continue to help hold down market borrowing costs for companies and governments. Eventually, however, there won’t be enough government bonds to buy up. The ECB has a self-imposed limit of buying no more than a third of any government’s debt.

And it’s not clear how much good more rate cuts and bond purchases would do.

Rates are already negative, and the ECB already pumped 2.6 billion euros ($2.9 billion) into the economy through bond purchases from 2015 to the end of 2018. Despite that, inflation has remained below the ECB’s goal of under 2%. Growth has not led to increases in wages and inflation as seen in earlier eras, and not just in Europe; economists say aging populations, digitalization and globalization that can shift jobs to lower wage locations may all play a role.

“The workings of the economy are changing,” said Maria Demertzis, deputy director of the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. “This is a big challenge for the ECB: what can they do to stimulate the economy, both because they have almost exhausted the instruments that they have, but also because the digital transformation implies that the economy simply works differently.”

Diplomacy

Precisely that question led to unusually strong criticism from several members on the ECB governing board, including the central bank heads from Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.

Lagarde can use her political and negotiating skills honed as French finance minister and head of the IMF to manage the rift.

Yet it’s more than a matter of winning people over with diplomacy. The dispute reflects uncertainty about how the economy works and how it will respond, or not, to stimulus.

Lagarde, an engaging public speaker, will also need all her communications skills to rebut criticism from German economists and news media that the bank’s low-rate policies are depriving savers of returns and benefitting shaky southern European governments. Draghi has often noted that 11 million jobs were created since the peak of post-crisis unemployment in 2013.

Fixing Europe

Lagarde repeated as recently as Wednesday Draghi’s plea for governments that are in good financial shape to spend more on projects such as infrastructure that can help economic growth, and to not let the central bank carry the whole burden. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, has insisted on running budget surpluses.
 
“After the crisis in 2008 everyone worked together and countries … did their job. But since then … countries that have budgetary space have not made the necessary efforts” in investment to support growth, Lagarde said on RTL radio. “Notably countries like Netherlands, Germany and some others in the world.”

“Those that have a margin of maneuver – why not use this budget surplus and invest in infrastructure, which really needs it? Why not invest in education, why not invest in innovation?”

The broader question, said Demertzis, is that the eurozone lacks a central budget to stabilize its economic ups and downs but instead relies on budget decisions in 19 member countries. French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for a central budget, but German skepticism has limited its size and purpose.
 
“It really needs to be a fiscal capacity at the eurozone level,” said Demertzis.
“Politically, that is a very, very difficult thing to do. If Lagarde has the political acumen, which I think she does, she may be able to move that conversation in that direction, which would be extremely welcome.”

 

As Pete Buttigieg works to prove the leader of a city of roughly 100,000 people is ready to assume the American presidency, he’s relying on help from politicians who would know best: his fellow mayors.

The South Bend, Indiana, mayor has amassed a network of roughly 60 “Mayors for Pete,” a collection of local leaders pushing for his underdog bid. The group includes mayors from former industrial cities, thriving metros and tiny towns of just a few thousand people. It includes the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, a Rust Belt city like the one Buttigieg leads, and the mayor of West Sacramento, California, a rising progressive leader.

About a third are from swing states Democrats need to win to take the White House. But just three are from the early voting states Buttigieg needs to win to become Democrats’ presidential nominee.

The campaign believes the mayors bring credibility to the 37-year-old Buttigieg’s chief pitch, a promise to usher in the next generation of Democratic politics and a more pragmatic, no-excuses style of governing.

“He’s a mayor, which means that unlike a lot of people who are running for that office, he’s in a place where he actually has to get things done,” said Steve Adler, the mayor of Austin, Texas, who endorsed Buttigieg in April, passing over Beto O’Rourke, a home state candidate.

But Buttigieg’s list also highlights one of his chief weaknesses in the Democratic primary. Adler aside, the group is short on mayors who represent America’s largest cities, and on city leaders who aren’t white. It’s an omission that reflects Buttigieg’s trouble winning over black voters, a critical group of the Democratic primary electorate, amid criticism of his handling of the fatal shooting of a black man by a white police officer in South Bend.

Meanwhile, some of his competitors have picked up big names: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan are backing Joe Biden. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney just endorsed Elizabeth Warren.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who flirted with a presidential run himself, has not yet offered an endorsement, nor has Lori Lightfoot, Chicago’s first black and LGBT mayor and a rising Democratic star. Many mayors of majority black cities in the South still haven’t endorsed anyone.

Senior Buttigieg campaign adviser Jess O’Connell said that winning support from mayors is just a piece of the campaign’s overall strategy for capturing the nomination and that she hopes the list of mayors will grow as the Democratic field winnows to fewer candidates.

“For now, what we most want are people that know Mayor Pete and understand his style,” she said. “But we know we have more to do to earn everybody’s endorsement.”

Adrian Perkins of Shreveport, Louisiana, is one of the mayors who hasn’t yet committed. Perkins went to Harvard Law School and served in the military like Buttigieg; the two connected through a friend when Perkins, 33, was still in school and Buttigieg took time to offer him advice.

But Perkins said his endorsement must be the best choice for his city, a majority black community experiencing major floods that he attributes to climate change. Perkins, who is black, acknowledged that Buttigieg has a perception problem with some black voters, but he said that could change if people get to know him.

“It would go a long way for Pete, on coming here and me putting him in front of some of the African Americans in my community, so they can see who I see in him,” he said.

Buttigieg has already won over Sly James, the former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, and former head of the African American Mayors Association, and Michelle De La Isla, the first Latina mayor of Topeka, Kansas. Christropher Cabaldon, of West Sacramento, is Filipino, part of the West’s growing Asian-Pacific Islander community.

While smaller-city mayors may not seem like coveted presidential endorsements, they are more closely connected to voters than most politicians and are responsible for functions of government that often have a more direct impact on voters’ lives.

“I think that right now you see a complete breakdown of state and federal politics, and the only place you see governing happening and stuff getting done is at the local level,” said Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio.

Whaley, Adler and Cabaldon met Buttigieg through the U.S Conference of Mayors and developed friendships. Cabaldon, who came out as gay in 2006 while serving as mayor, sought Buttigieg out at the conference in 2015, after Buttigieg came out, to offer support. Three years later, he was a guest at Buttigieg’s wedding to husband Chasten.

All three spoke at Buttigieg’s campaign launch in April, where the effort to win support from other mayors began.

As impeachment battles consume Washington, Cabaldon said, Buttigieg can provide an alternative focused on actual governance, not partisan bickering.

“We don’t fight to the death in local government,” he said.

The mayors have a call every other week with a campaign staffer dedicated to working with mayors, where they toss around policy ideas, discuss Buttigieg’s upcoming schedule and connect the campaign with interested people, Whaley said.

O’Connell, the senior campaign adviser, said the campaign has drawn from various cities to build out its policy proposals.

Whaley said she’s helped at least three Ohio mayors who aren’t backing Buttigieg connect local donors or activists with the campaign. Adler has set up fundraisers and facilitated community meetings, including with Austin’s black and Hispanic communities.

“Mayors know the leadership of every one of their communities,” Whaley said.

Buttigieg won the endorsement of Victory Fund, a group that helps LGBT candidates raise money that is headed by Annise Parker, the former Houston mayor who is backing his bid. Buttigieg didn’t automatically win the group’s endorsement, instead having to prove he was competitive first, Parker said.

With so many other current and former mayors running for president – Cory Booker (Newark), Julian Castro (San Antonio) and, previously, Bill de Blasio (New York) – Parker said Buttigieg’s ability to win over his colleagues stands out.

 One telling indicator is that mayors across the country stood up and said, “We like this one,” Parker said.

Thirty years ago the Berlin Wall fell, ending the divide between the communist East and the democratic West.  The fall of the wall symbolized the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe that was imposed by the then- Soviet Union after World War II. It also paved the way for the eventual re-unification of Germany so that today, what was once East Germany, is now part of Western Europe. But right wing parties are gaining strength in former East Germany, threatening the country’s stability, as Michael Scaturro reports from Berlin.