California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a statewide state of emergency because of wildfires and power cuts to millions to stop more fires from breaking out.

“We are deploying every resource available…it is critical that people in evacuation zones heed the warnings from officials and first responders,” Newsom said in his declaration.

Two-hundred thousand people have been forces to flee their homes in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. The country sheriff’s office calls it the largest such evacuation anyone can remember.

The Kincade fire, named for a local road where the flames are believed to have started, has already burned more than 12,000 hectares and destroyed a number of buildings, including historic structures in the area, whose vineyards make it popular with tourists.  

Officials said as of Sunday, only 10% of the Kincade fire was contained. Hot dry desert winds blowing at record-breaking speed are making it almost impossible for firefighters to bring the flames under control.

In Southern California, a wildfire in Santa Clarita near Los Angeles is said to be about 65% contained, but not before it destroyed more than a dozen buildings.

The California utility company Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to nearly 1 million homes and businesses across Northern California, some with little notice.

Businesses are angry that the power cuts have cost them tens of thousands of dollars and residents bitterly complain about the inconvenience of going all weekend without lights.

But PG&E says it doesn’t want electricity surging through power lines that are blown down or knocked over by fallen trees sparking even more fires.

California authorities blame PG&E lines for setting last year’s wildfires that killed 85 people and destroyed entire towns. The utility, facing billions of dollars in lawsuits, was forced to declare bankruptcy earlier this year.

Governor Newsom says the state will spend $75 million to help residents and businesses deal with the power cuts.

 

Pakistan’s ailing former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was jailed on money-laundering and corruption charges, has remained in a government hospital where he was taken last week after suffering a heart attack.

Maryam Aurangzeb, a spokesman for the ex-premier’s Muslim League party, says Sunday that Sharif’s health condition won’t allow for him to be moved to another hospital.

Mahmood Ayaz, the hospital’s top official, said its medical board hasn’t approved moving Sharif and he himself hasn’t requested it.

Islamabad’s High Court Saturday granted temporary freedom to Sharif until another two-judge panel decides Tuesday whether Sharif’s seven-year sentence on a corruption conviction should be suspended due to his illness.

Sharif served three times as prime minister. Supreme Court removed him from office in 2017 on corruption allegations.

 

Thousands of supporters of an ultra-religious party are gathering in Karachi to start a large anti-government march on Pakistan’s capital farther north.

Mufti Abrar Ahmed, spokesman for the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, says its leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman will lead the protesters’ caravan setting off later on Sunday.

The beginning of the JUI protest also marks the anniversary of the start of the conflict over Kashmir, a province both India and Pakistan claim. Separate, anti-India protests are planned across Pakistan.

Ahmed said supporters from Karachi and surrounding areas will travel in buses and vans toward the capital. He said the caravan plans to reach Islamabad on Oct. 31st, to protest Prime Minister Imran Khan’s “illegitimate” government which the Islamist party says came to power through the army’s support.

 

 

Last night, the United States brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead.  He was the founder and leader of ISIS, the most ruthless and violent terror organization in the World.  The United States has been searching for Baghdadi for many years.  Capturing or killing Baghdadi has been the top national security priority of my Administration.  U.S. Special Operations forces executed a dangerous and daring nighttime raid into Northwestern Syria to accomplish this mission. 

No U.S. personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of Baghdadi’s fighters and companions were killed with him.  He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming.  The compound had been cleared by this time, with people either surrendering or being shot and killed.  Eleven young children were moved out of the house un-injured.  The only ones remaining were Baghdadi in the tunnel, who had dragged three children with him to certain death.  He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest, killing himself and the three children.  His body was mutilated by the blast, but test results gave certain and positive identification.

The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, panic and dread – terrified of the American Forces bearing down.

We were in the compound for approximately 2 hours, and after the mission was accomplished we took highly sensitive material and information from the raid.
Baghdadi’s demise demonstrates America’s relentless pursuit of terrorist leaders, and our commitment to the enduring and total defeat of ISIS!

The reach of America is long.  As you know, last month we announced that we recently killed Hamza Bin Laden, the very violent son of Osama Bin Laden, who was saying very bad things.

He was the heir apparent to Al Qaida. Terrorists who oppress and murder innocent people should never sleep soundly, knowing that we will completely destroy them. These savage monsters will not escape their fate – and they will not escape the final judgement of God.

Baghdadi has been on the run for many years, long before I took office. At my direction, as Commander-in-Chief, the United States obliterated his ‘caliphate’ in March of this year.  Today’s events are another reminder that we will continue to pursue the remaining ISIS terrorists to their brutal end.

Baghdadi and the losers who worked with him – in some cases people who had no idea what they were getting into and how dangerous and unglamorous it was – killed many people.  Their murder of innocent Americans Jim Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla Mueller were especially heinous.  The shocking publicized murder of a Jordanian pilot who was burned alive in a cage for all to see, and the execution of Christians in Libya and Egypt, as well as the genocidal mass murder of Yazidis, rank ISIS among the most depraved organizations in history.

The forced religious conversions, the orange suits prior to many beheadings, all of which were openly displayed for the world – this was all Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s work.  He was vicious and violent, and he died in a vicious and violent way, as a coward, running and crying.  This raid was impeccable, and could only have taken place with the acknowledgement and help of certain other nations and people. 

I want to thank the nations of Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and I also want to thank the Syrian Kurds for certain support they were able to give us. Thank you as well to the great intelligence professionals who helped make this very successful journey possible.

I want to thank the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines involved in last night’s operation.  You are the very best there is anywhere in the world.  I want to thank General Mark Milley and our Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I also want to thank our professionals who work in other agencies of the United States government and were critical to the mission’s success. 

Last night was a great night for the United States and for the World. A brutal killer, one who has caused so much hardship and death, was violently eliminated – he will never again harm another innocent man, woman or child.  He died like a dog.  He died like a coward.  The world is now a much safer place.

God bless the United States of America!

Hundreds of Iraqi protesters remained in Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square on Sunday, defying a bloody crackdown that killed scores over the weekend and an overnight raid by security forces seeking to disperse them.

Young men had erected barricades on a bridge leading to the capital’s fortified Green Zone between them and security forces who continued to lob tear gas canisters towards them.

At least 67 Iraqis were killed and hundreds wounded Friday and Saturday, as demonstrators clashed with security forces and militia groups in a second wave of protests against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government this month, bringing the total death toll in October to 224.

Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service said Sunday it had deployed in the streets of Baghdad to protect important state buildings “from undisciplined elements.”

Two security sources had told Reuters Saturday that the elite counterterrorism forces had been deployed in Baghdad and had been told to “use all necessary measures” to end the protests against Abdul Mahdi’s government.

Counterterrorism forces beat and arrested dozens of protesters in the southern city of Nassiriya Saturday night.

They broke up the demonstrations in Tahrir Square with tear gas and stun grenades but some protesters have regrouped.

The unrest has broken nearly two years of relative stability in Iraq, which from 2003 to 2017 endured a foreign occupation, civil war and an Islamic State insurgency.

It poses the biggest challenge to Abdul Mahdi since he took office just a year ago. Despite promising reforms and ordering a broad cabinet reshuffle, he has so far struggled to address the protesters’ discontent.

Political alliances backing his fragile coalition government began to fracture, making his continued leadership increasingly precarious.

Hong Kong police fired tear gas Sunday to disperse a rally called over concerns about police conduct in monthslong pro-democracy demonstrations, with protesters cursing the officers and calling them “gangster cops.” 

Organizers called the demonstration at a waterfront park but police said the rally was unauthorized and engaged in a standoff with the protesters after ordering them to leave.

The protesters taunted the officers, calling them names, and the situation appeared tense. Police fired rounds of tear gas and moved forward to chase away the crowds.

Police have faced criticism for heavy-headed tactics including tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and a water cannon to subdue protesters who have hurled bricks and firebombs.

March to show unity

Protesters said they will also march in support of the former British colony’s ethnic and religious minorities, in a show of unity after police used a water cannon to spray a mosque and bystanders the previous weekend. 

Protesters have taken to the streets for more than four months. The movement was initially sparked by an unpopular extradition bill that many residents worried would put them at risk of being sent into China’s Communist Party-controlled judicial system. 

The government formally withdrew the bill last week, but the movement has snowballed to include demands for political reform and police accountability.

Medical workers protest

At a rally Saturday night organized by medical workers to oppose what they called “violent repression” by police in response to protesters, some protesters jeered and cursed several officers observing from a footbridge.

Earlier Saturday, the Hong Kong government won a temporary court order banning anyone from posting personal details or photos of police officers online. The order prohibits unlawfully “publishing, communicating or disclosing” officers’ details including their Facebook and Instagram account IDs or photos of officers or their family members.

This month, an 18-year-old was charged with intentional wounding in a slashing attack on a riot officer.

Despite repeated government appeals for people not to side with mobs involved in vandalism, throwing gasoline bombs and other violence, the protest movement is still rousing determined support from more moderate demonstrators. They’re broadly worried about the future and freedoms of the city that reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, with promises from Beijing that it would largely be its own boss, its way of life unchanged.

More than 40 people died in 2018 after being shocked by Tasers in the United States. As an alternative, some police departments are trying BolaWrap  said to be a new, non-lethal device. Genia Dulot has the story.
 

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to make a “major statement” at the White House at 9 a.m. EST (1300 GMT) Sunday, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said late Saturday.

Gidley gave no further details, and it was unclear what the topic of Trump’s statement might be.

There was speculation, however, that Trump might have news about Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive militant who has been the subject of an international manhunt for years.

The president gave an indication that something was afoot earlier Saturday night when he tweeted without explanation:

Something very big has just happened!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2019

Trump has been frustrated by the U.S. news media’s heavy focus on the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry, which he calls an illegitimate witch hunt.

He has also faced withering criticism from both Republicans and Democrats alike for his U.S. troop withdrawal from northeastern Syria, which permitted Turkey to attack America’s Kurdish allies.

“The President of the United States will be making a major statement tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock from the White House,” according to @WhiteHouse statement. https://t.co/8fTw3WySN2

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 27, 2019

Trump was expected to make the statement in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, which he has used to make a number of major announcements.

Just last week he used the same room to announce that a ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurds had taken hold.

For centuries, Cambodians have looked to the Tonle Sap for a protein-rich river fish dinner. But supply has been a challenge. Malis Tum reports from a riverbank fish market in Phnom Phen.
 

Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera asked all his Cabinet members to offer their resignations Saturday as he prepared to shake up his government in response to a wave of protests, including one that drew more than a million people the day before. 
 
Chile’s conservative president also said he might lift the state of emergency that has covered much of the country for the past nine days — a decree that had failed to bring peace after rioting broke out in response to a 4-cent rise in subway fares.  

The protests rapidly expanded to cover a far wider sense of frustration among many Chileans who felt they have been struggling to make do as the well off grew richer. 
  
“The march we all saw yesterday was a massive and peaceful march,” Pinera said. “We have all heard the message. We have all changed.”  

He promised “a new Cabinet to confront these new demands and take charge of the new times.” 
 
Friday’s demonstration in central Santiago that drew 1.2 million people was the largest in the country at least 35 years. 
 
“All of them [Cabinet ministers] should go because they have been laughing at the people,” said Sonia Novoa, a 78-year-old retiree. 

Pay, pensions, housing and more
 
Protesters have been calling for better pay, pensions, schools, housing and medical care, among many other demands. While most of the protests have been peaceful, some, especially at the start, have devolved into riots and looting, and the government says at least 20 people have died. 
 
Pinera has responded by raising pensions and the minimum wage, as well as by revoking the subway fare hike. He said he is also considering cutting water fees and highway tolls. 
 
For Pablo Rodriguez, a 30-year-old actor, the steps “are a good start, but aren’t sufficient.”  

Some of those who protested on Friday returned to the downtown Italy Plaza to clean up the garbage and debris left behind. 
 
“But I am going to take advantage of that and say to protest again,” said student Andres Villarroel as he headed downtown. 
 
Politicians from both the ruling party and opposition had been asking for the ministerial change to re-establish the government’s credibility in the face of the unrest. Among the most controversial ministers is Andres Chadwick, who as interior minister is in charge of police who have violently broken up protests. 

It’s a start
  
Supermarket employee Yolanda Jerez said she favored the moves. 
  
“The president’s announcements are great because we are expecting changes and they have to start with something,” she said. 
  
Despite Pinera’s announcements and concessions, thousands gathered again Saturday in plazas across Chile. Police with tear gas dispersed protesters in a plaza in central Santiago. As night fell, pot-banging protests could be heard in many cities. 
  
The independent National Human Rights Institute said that since the state of emergency went into effect, 3,162 people have been detained and 997 injured. 
 
As of Saturday, most of the country was under a state of emergency and curfew.

Catholic bishops from across the Amazon called Saturday for the ordination of married men as priests to address the clergy shortage in the region, an historic proposal that would upend centuries of Roman Catholic tradition. 
 
The majority of 180 bishops from nine Amazonian countries also called for the Vatican to reopen a debate on ordaining women as deacons, saying “it is urgent for the church in the Amazon to promote and confer ministries for men and women in an equitable manner.” 
 
The proposals were contained in a final document approved Saturday at the end of a three-week synod on the Amazon, which Pope Francis called in 2017 to focus attention on saving the rainforest and better ministering to its indigenous people. 
 
The Catholic Church, which contains nearly two dozen different rites, already allows married priests in Eastern Rite churches and in cases where married Anglican priests have converted. But if Francis accepts the proposal, it would mark a first for the Latin Rite church in a millennium. 

Tradition since 11th century
 
The celibate priesthood has been a tradition of the Latin Rite Catholic Church since the 11th century, imposed in part for financial reasons to ensure that priests’ assets pass to the church, not to heirs. 
 
Francis told the bishops at the end of the voting that he would indeed reopen the work of a 2016 commission that studied the issue of women deacons. And he said he planned to take the bishops’ overall recommendations and prepare a document of his own before the end of the year. 
 
Some conservatives and traditionalists have warned that any papal opening to married priests or women deacons would lead the church to ruin. They accused the synod organizers and even the pope himself of heresy for even considering flexibility on mandatory priestly celibacy. 
 
They vented their outrage most visibly this week when thieves stole three indigenous statues featuring a naked pregnant woman from a Vatican-area church and tossed them to into the Tiber River. 
 
The statues, which conservatives said were pagan idols, were recovered unscathed by Italy’s Carabinieri police. They were on display Saturday as the synod bishops voted on the final document, which was approved with each paragraph receiving the required two-thirds majority. 
 
The most controversial proposals at the synod concerned whether to allow married men to be ordained priests, to address a priest shortage that has meant some of the most isolated Amazonian communities go months without a proper Mass. The paragraph containing the proposal was the most contested in the voting, but received the required majority 128-41. 

‘Suitable and esteemed men’
 
The proposal calls for the establishment of criteria “to ordain priests suitable and esteemed men of the community, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive an adequate formation for the priesthood, having a legitimately constituted and stable family, to sustain the life of the Christian community through the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments in the most remote areas of the Amazon region.” 
 
The paragraph ended by noting that some participants wanted a more “universal approach” to the proposal — suggesting support for married priests elsewhere in the world. 
 
Francis has long said he appreciates the discipline and the gift of celibacy, but that it can change, given that it is discipline and tradition, not doctrine. 
 
History’s first Latin American pope has been particularly attentive to the argument in favor of ordaining “viri probati” — or married men of proven virtue — in the Amazon, where Protestant and evangelical churches are wooing away Catholic souls in the absence of vibrant Catholic communities where the Eucharist can be regularly celebrated. 

The Democratic-led impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump resumed with testimony from a senior State Department official on Saturday, a day after a judge buoyed the probe by dismissing a central Republican objection. 
 
Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, was due to meet with the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees behind closed doors at the U.S. Capitol. 
 
Lawmakers and staff were holding the first weekend deposition of the investigation, after Reeker’s testimony was postponed because of memorial events this week for Representative Elijah Cummings, who had been Oversight Committee chairman and played a leading role in the impeachment inquiry. 

Inquiry ruled valid
 
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell rejected the claim that the impeachment process was illegitimate, as he ordered the Republican Trump administration to give the House Judiciary Committee secret material from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s reporting on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. 
 
Howell said the House did not have to approve a resolution formally initiating the effort for the impeachment inquiry to be valid, something Republicans have been insisting is the case. 

Reeker, 54, is a career diplomat whose current portfolio includes Ukraine, the country central to the investigation of Trump. Reeker has held his position on an acting basis since March 18. 
 
The impeachment inquiry has underscored what current and former U.S. officials describe as a campaign by Trump against career diplomats. Several have already met with congressional investigators. 
 
Investigators were expected to ask Reeker about issues including Trump’s abrupt dismissal of Marie Yovanovitch in May as ambassador to Ukraine. According to emails given to congressional committees this month, Reeker was among diplomats who sought to intervene when Trump supporters accused Yovanovitch of being disloyal to the president.  

Another career diplomat involved in those communications, George Kent, testified last week that he was told to “lie low” on Ukraine and instead defer to three of Trump’s political appointees. Yovanovitch has also testified, accusing the Trump administration of recalling her based on false claims and of eviscerating the State Department. 
 
Focus on Ukraine 
 
At the heart of the impeachment inquiry is a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic contender to face Trump in the 2020 election, and his son Hunter, who had been a director of a Ukrainian energy company. 
 
The Trump administration was withholding $391 million in security assistance for Ukraine when the call took place, and investigators are looking into whether Trump improperly tied the release of the aid to getting Ukraine’s help in probing the Bidens. 
 
Trump denies wrongdoing and, backed by his fellow Republicans in Congress, insists he is being treated unfairly. The administration has refused to hand over documents requested by the congressional committees and has sought to prevent current and former officials from giving interviews. 
 
The committees have scheduled several depositions next week, following Reeker’s appearance on Saturday, all behind closed doors. 
 
For Monday, they have called Charles Kupperman, a former deputy national security adviser, and on Tuesday, lawmakers expect Alexander Vindman, the White House National Security Council’s (NSC) top expert on Ukraine. 

Court guidance
 
Kupperman on Friday filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to determine whether he could testify. His lawyer Charles Cooper said the judicial branch needed to weigh in on whether the president could block Kupperman and other White House officials from complying with congressional subpoenas. 
 
Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security, is scheduled to appear on Wednesday, and Tim Morrison, a top NSC Russia and Europe adviser, is scheduled for Thursday. 
 
Democratic members of the three committees said they felt they had gathered a great deal of evidence and did not expect this phase of the investigation to last many more weeks, before public hearings. 
 
“We’ve heard a lot of compelling testimony. We feel like we know a lot of what’s happened,” New Jersey Representative Tom Malinowski, told reporters at the House this week. 

Ahmad Al-Rashid knows what the suffering was like for the 39 people who were found dead in the back of a truck in southeastern England this week.  

The 29-year-old Syrian refugee found himself gasping for breath inside a refrigerated shipping container with a group of migrants and a load of frozen chicken when a planned trip across the English Channel turned into hours of terror in 2015. The truck hadn’t even left the French port of Calais when someone heard the cries of the desperate migrants and opened the doors. 
 
“I was in their shoes. I knew the desperation of their last moments,” he said of the people who died this week. “In my case, someone came to help me. [For them], all their screams were in vain.” 
 
Authorities are calling Wednesday’s truck container discovery in a town near London one of Britain’s worst human smuggling cases. Rashid said it brought his journey to the U.K., and its terrors, back in stark relief. 

‘One hell to another’
 
Rashid fled Aleppo in 2013, thinking he would return to his wife and two children in a few weeks. He first went to northern Iraq, where he taught English to other refugees. But the shooting and bombs followed him “from one hell to another,” so he finally decided to pay smugglers to help him get to Europe. 
 
The journey took Rashid from Iraq to Turkey and Greece, where Rashid said the smugglers opened a suitcase full of passports and gave him one from Bulgaria. From Greece, he traveled to Marseille in southern France, then on to “The Jungle,” a notorious camp outside Calais where migrants gathered in hopes of hitching rides to the U.K. until it was closed in 2016. 
 
Even after he almost suffocated in the back of the shipping container, Rashid recalled trying to get across the channel until he finally succeeded, hiding in the back of a truck — but just a regular one that wasn’t airtight. 
 
He was eventually granted asylum, allowing him to start a new life and bring his wife and children to Britain. 
  
In contrast to his own arrival, Rashid met his family at Heathrow Airport and drove them back to his apartment in the central English city of Derby. 
 
“They could fly, you know, safely, with dignity,” Rashid said. “And this was the whole point for me making this journey, because it was for the sake of my family.” 

Now Rashid works with other refugees and migrants, helping them get on their feet in a new land. And he has a message for anyone thinking of traveling to Europe: Don’t trust the people smugglers. 
 
“They don’t see you as a human being. They see you as a commodity, as money, as an object,” he said. “Never, ever, trust them. I mean, I had to put my faith inthem and I regretted it.” 
 
Rashid told his story to The Associated Press to try to make people understand that migrants and refugees gamble their lives in sealed trucks and leaky rafts because safer routes have been closed to them. They take risks because they feel like they have no other choice, he said. 
 
“No one puts their life in danger for no reason,” Rashid said. “People do this out of desperation.” 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey would “clear terrorists” on its border in northern Syria if Syrian Kurdish militia did not withdraw by the end of a deadline agreed with Russia.

“If the terrorists are not cleared at the end of the 150 hours, we will take control and clean it ourselves,” Erdogan said during a speech in Istanbul, referring to the YPG militia which Turkey views as a “terrorist” offshoot of Kurdish PKK insurgents.

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed a deal in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday in which Moscow will “facilitate the removal” of the fighters and their weapons from within 30 kilometers (18 miles) of the border.

The deadline ends at 6pm local time (1500 GMT) on Tuesday October 29.

Despite his threat, Erdogan said Turkey had “to a large extent” reached its goal in terms of setting up a “safe zone” to protect against attacks from the so-called Islamic State (IS) extremist group and the Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkey has repeatedly criticized American support to the YPG, who spearheaded the fight against IS under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) banner.

For Ankara, the YPG is as dangerous as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.

Erdogan also urged the international community to support establishing a “safe zone” for some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.

“If there is no support for the projects we are developing for between one and two million in the first stage for their return, we will have no option but to open our doors, and let them go to Europe,” he warned.

After similar threats were accused of being blackmail, Erdogan insisted he was “not blackmailing anyone” but “putting forward a solution”.

Earlier this month, Turkey and the U.S. reached an agreement on the YPG’s withdrawal from a 120-kilometer zone between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain following Ankara’s operation supporting Syrian proxies against the Kurdish fighters, which began on October 9.

The U.S. said this had been completed and in return, Ankara agreed to halt its offensive.

‘Not realistic’ German plan

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier Saturday said a German suggestion for an international force to establish a “safe zone” in northern Syria was not realistic.

Speaking at a press conference in Ankara alongside his German counterpart Heiko Maas, Cavusoglu said: “At this point, we don’t find it really realistic.”

Earlier this week, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer suggested a “security zone” could allow international forces, including European troops, to resume the fight against IS as well as to “stabilize the region”.

Maas also appeared to pour cold water on Kramp-Karrenbauer’s idea, saying that he and Cavusoglu “had no time for issues of a theoretical nature because the people in Syria don’t have time for theoretical debates”.

“We are told by everyone that this is not a realistic proposal,” Maas added.

Maas represents Merkel’s junior, center-left coalition partners the SPD, while Kramp-Karrenbauer is leader of the chancellor’s conservative CDU party.

The German government has been sharply divided over Kramp-Karrenbauer’s plan.

The commander of Kurdish forces in Syria has welcomed the plan, as has the U.S., but so far it has gained little further traction and few details are available.

 

The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPP, the United States signed with 11 other countries in 2016 would have given American farmers more places to market their crops and reduced tariffs on U.S. goods.

The United States failed to ratify the pact in the waning months of the Obama administration, and Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency pledging to withdraw from the accord, arguing it would cost U.S. manufacturing jobs. Trump kept his promise soon after taking office.

Kirkwood, Illinois, farmer Wendell Shauman, who has extensively traveled to China and other parts of the world where U.S. crops are marketed, supported Trump in 2016 — despite wanting the TPP agreement.

“Any time you back out on a trade deal, that’s not a precedent I like to see set,” Shauman told VOA in an interview in January 2017.

Trade policies

Under President Trump, the United States not only withdrew from the TPP, it also dismantled the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA.

A replacement — the United States, Mexico Canada Trade Agreement, or USMCA — is under review in the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to wage a trade war with one of its biggest crop buyers, China, which imposed tariffs on U.S. corn and soybeans in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.

Today, as Shauman heads to his cornfields to harvest much later than usual thanks to extremely wet weather during the planting season, he contemplates how current trade policy might drain his profits. But he still supports President Trump.

“From what I hear on the other side, I’d be happy to support what he’s doing versus what they are proposing,” Shauman told VOA during a break in harvesting his corn. Much of his ire is directed at the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Harry Truman talked about the do-nothing Congress. Well, we’ve got another do-nothing Congress. Anything Trump wants to do, they are against,” Shauman said.

Success on the international trade front is a top issue for U.S. farmers, and many want Congress to pass the USMCA soon.

This segment of the American landscape largely supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, but continues to face difficult economic conditions amid increased costs to operate farms and decreasing profits for their crops.

Fearing a Democratic president

While an uncertain trade environment lingers ahead of casting ballots in 2020, Shauman also worries a Democratic president may impose restrictive environmental regulations to the detriment of his farm operations.

He’s not alone.

“I was excited to see a Republican take back the White House,” Elkhart, Illinois, pork farmer Thomas Titus told VOA. “I love the stance that we are taking.”

So does Jim Raben, who farms corn and soybeans in Ridgeway, a town in southern Illinois. “I think he’s doing what is right,” he told VOA at the 2019 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois.

“I think the majority of our people are by far supportive of the president,” says Illinois Farm Bureau’s Mark Gebhards, who points out that Trump has been able to blunt the impact of tariffs through payments to farmers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Market Facilitation Program.” This year it cost taxpayers about $16 billion, on top of roughly $15 billion in 2018.

“We’ve said all along we want trade, not aid,” he told VOA. “We don’t want to have to live on hoping that we get another round of market facilitation payments. We really need to find a final way forward — not only the tariffs with China, the UMSCA, Japan, the EU, all these other issues that are out there.”

Little understanding of agriculture

Yet the lack of substantial trade progress during Trump’s first term causes concern among some of his supporters.

“I really feel like he doesn’t understand what happens out here in these flyover states [in the middle of the country],” says Colona, Illinois, farmer Megan Dwyer. “He’s walking a very thin line in what is happening in the ag[riculture] sector.”

Dwyer says the Trump administration’s waivers for oil refineries to use corn-based ethanol, the president’s tweeting, and his mixed results on trade could affect her vote.

“Some of his comments recently around ag are frustrating to me,” she said.

Amid an ongoing impeachment inquiry in the U.S. Congress, a straw poll conducted by Farm Journal Pulse in September showed 76% of 1,138 farmers polled support Trump in 2020, down from 79% in July.

“I think there’s a lot of people who are disappointed,” Shauman said. “But it comes down to the choice they give us, and right now most farmers … I don’t think he’s going to lose many.”

 

Protesters trickled back on to the streets across Lebanon on Saturday, despite army efforts to unblock roads, with no end in sight to a crisis that has crippled the country for 10 days.

A military statement said army and security commanders met to plan ways to re-open main arteries to get traffic flowing again while “safeguarding the safety of protesters”. People have closed routes with barriers and sit-ins as part of a wave of unprecedented protests demanding the government resigns.

Lebanon has been swept by 10 days of protests against a political class accused of corruption, mismanagement of state finances and pushing the country towards an economic collapse unseen since the 1975-90 civil war.

Banks, schools, and many businesses have shut their doors.

“We won’t leave the streets because this is the only card that people can pressure with,” Yehya al-Tannir, an actor protesting at a makeshift barricade on a main bridge in the capital Beirut. “We won’t leave until our demands are met.”

Troops and riot police deployed to main roads across Lebanon on Saturday.

The forces re-opened some roads for a few hours on Saturday morning before people gathered again. On the bridge in Beirut, riot police scuffled with protesters who were sitting on the ground to keep it closed.

Protesters have resisted efforts earlier this week to open some roads, including along a main highway.

Banks will stay closed until life returns to normal and will pay month-end salaries through ATMs, the Association of Banks in Lebanon has said.

It has held crisis meetings in recent days in search of a way to reopen banks amid growing fears that a rush on them could deplete dwindling foreign currency deposits.

Emergency reforms

The protests have continued to grip Lebanon despite the government announcing an emergency reform package this week that failed to defuse anger. It has also yet to reassure foreign donors to unlock the billions in badly needed aid they have pledged.

Lebanon has one of the world’s highest levels of government debt as a share of economic output.

The size and geographic reach of the protests have been extraordinary in a country where political movements have long been divided along sectarian lines and struggle to draw nationwide appeal.

On Saturday, the first day of Lebanon’s weekend, people milled around to patriotic music, waving Lebanese flags and banners in central Beirut.

In the southern coastal city of Saida, some shops opened their doors after days of closure.

“Shopkeepers are opening up to see if they can get things moving. The end of the month is near, people have rents to pay,” said protester Hoda Hafez. “But in the end, they will all take part and come down to the (protest) square.”

The leader of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, backed by Iran, warned on Friday against a power vacuum and urged followers to stay away from the protests after they confronted demonstrators in central Beirut.

 

A U.S. proposal to boost global humanitarian trade with Iran in accordance with U.S. sanctions has sparked a positive British response and a debate about whether the plan’s goal is achievable.

In a Friday statement, the U.S. departments of Treasury and State announced the launch of what they called a “new humanitarian mechanism to ensure unprecedented transparency into humanitarian trade with Iran.” The statement said the mechanism “will help the international community perform enhanced due diligence on humanitarian trade to ensure that funds … are not diverted by the Iranian regime to develop ballistic missiles, support terrorism, or finance other malign activities.”

In an email sent to VOA Persian, the British Embassy in Washington said: “We have noted the announcement of this new humanitarian channel and look forward to hearing details of how it will work. It is vital that humanitarian goods are able to get to Iran.”

Preserve Iran nuclear deal

Britain is one of three European Union nations, along with France and Germany, that launched their own mechanism for humanitarian and other trade with Iran, known as the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges, or INSTEX, in January. INSTEX was intended to facilitate what the three nations called “legitimate” trade to help preserve the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in which world powers promised Tehran sanctions relief in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.

The Trump administration has put the nuclear deal’s survival in doubt by withdrawing from it last year, saying it was not tough enough on Iran and unilaterally tightening U.S. sanctions. It also has warned EU nations not to use INSTEX to circumvent the U.S. sanctions and said European businesses have refrained from participating in it for fear of being further penalized by Washington.

“This new humanitarian mechanism will help international companies that seek to engage in permissible humanitarian trade with Iran to ensure that they do not run afoul of sanctions,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in Friday’s statement.

Iran a ‘money laundering concern’

In a concurrent action, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a final ruling that Iran is a “jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern.” The ruling prohibits international banks from helping an Iranian financial institution open or maintain a correspondent account in the U.S.

“FinCEN’s action further exposes the characteristics of Iran’s deceptive financial conduct to the international community as part of our maximum pressure campaign to shut off the Iranian regime’s illicit sources of revenue,” Mnuchin said.

Brian O’Toole, a former senior U.S. sanctions adviser who served at Treasury from 2009 to 2017 and currently serves as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told VOA Persian the FinCEN ruling sends a problematic message about conducting humanitarian trade with Iran.

Onerous paperwork

“People have known about the U.S. concern with money laundering in Iran for quite some time, so as a practical matter, finalizing an interim ruling on the issue doesn’t do anything,” O’Toole said. However, what he described as Treasury’s “aggressive” messaging against Iran is going to “further chill the market” for food and medicine exports to the Iranian people, as he put it.

O’Toole said another problem is the “enhanced due diligence” that international businesses must perform on their Iranian partners to secure U.S. approval for selling humanitarian goods to Iran under the new trade mechanism.

“The amount of detail that you would have to provide (to Treasury) about your Iranian partners and the kind of comfort that you would have to develop with those partners is such that foreign companies, with maybe very limited exceptions, are not going to want to formally approach the U.S. government to turn over all of this information,” he said.

“Requiring disclosures of sensitive financial information may be unacceptable to Iranian banks and companies wary of U.S. intentions,” wrote Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of London-based Bourse & Bazaar, an Iran-focused business media company.

“The Trump administration’s latest gesture to ease humanitarian trade may end up doing just the opposite.”

In another VOA Persian interview, Peter Harrell, who served as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for counter threat finance and sanctions from 2012 to 2014, said it is “certainly plausible” that large international pharmaceutical companies will be willing to share the required information with Treasury in order to export products to Iran.

“It’s premature to say this would be a failure, and I hope it succeeds because I’d like to see humanitarian trade with Iran enabled,” said Harrell, now an economics analyst at the bipartisan Center for a New American Security.

Annie Fixler, a sanctions and illicit finance analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA Persian that she sees a silver lining for international companies that accept the “onerous” paperwork involved in the U.S. humanitarian mechanism.

“The kind of due diligence necessary to ensure that no sanctioned persons are benefiting from the trade is the kind of due diligence that companies have to be doing anyway,” Fixler said.

“If banks are hesitant to do business with Iran because they are concerned they might become exposed to secondary U.S. sanctions, this provides them a mechanism to ensure that they can conduct permitted trade and not worry about getting hit for sanctions violations. So it may actually ease some of the risk and allow more trade to happen,” she said.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

More Vietnamese families came forward Saturday with information their relatives may be among the 39 people found dead in the back of a container truck in southeastern England.

British police initially said they believed the victims were Chinese but acknowledged this was a “developing picture.”

A representative for VietHome, a U.K.-based organization of the Vietnamese community, said it sent the pictures of nearly 20 people reported missing to the police.

Police on Friday arrested three people on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. The 25-year-old driver of the truck remains in custody on suspicion of murder.

Families fear the worst

In Vietnam, the father of 20-year-old Nguyen Dinh Luong feared his son was among the dead.

He told The Associated Press he had not been able to reach him since last week, when he told his father he would join a group in Paris that was trying to reach England.

“He often called home but I haven’t been able to reach him since the last time we talked last week,” Nguyen Dinh Gia said. “I told him that he could go to anywhere he wants as long as it’s safe. He shouldn’t be worry about money, I’ll take care of it.”

He said his son left home in central Ha Tinh province to work in Russia in 2017, then on to Ukraine. In April 2018, he arrived in Germany then traveled to France. He told his family that he wanted to go to the U.K.

The Vietnamese Embassy in London said Friday that it contacted police about a missing woman feared to be one of the dead. An embassy spokesman said it was contacted by a family in Vietnam who says their daughter had been missing since the truck was found.

‘I can’t breathe’

The BBC reported it had been in contact with six Vietnamese families who feared their relatives are among the victims. Relatives of 26-year-old Pham Tra My told the broadcaster they had been unable to contact her since receiving a text Tuesday night saying she was suffocating.

“I’m so sorry mom and dad. … My journey abroad doesn’t succeed,” she wrote. “Mom, I love you and dad very much. I’m dying because I can’t breathe. … Mom, I’m so sorry.”

China said it could not yet confirm the victims’ nationalities or identities. There was speculation circulating online in Vietnam that the victims may have been traveling on false Chinese passports.

“The police said that they were urgently carrying out the verification work and the identities of the victims cannot be confirmed at present,” said Tong Xuejun, a Chinese consular official in London.

“We hope the British side can verify the victims’ identities as soon as possible,” he said. “What I want to stress is that no matter what their nationalities are, this incident is a huge tragedy which arouses attention of the international community to issues of illegal immigration.”

Tracing the truck and container

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Chinese authorities were also seeking information from police in Belgium, since the shipping container in which the bodies were found was sent to England from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

British police believe the truck and container took separate journeys before ending up at the industrial park. They say the container traveled by ferry from Zeebrugge to Purfleet, England, where it arrived early Wednesday and was picked up by the truck driver and driven the few miles to Grays.

The truck cab, which is registered in Bulgaria to a company owned by an Irish woman, is believed to have traveled from Northern Ireland to Dublin, where it caught a ferry to Wales, then drove across Britain to pick up the container.

Groups of migrants have repeatedly landed on English shores using small boats to make the risky Channel crossing, and migrants are sometimes found in the back of cars and trucks that disembark from the massive ferries that link France and England.

Human trafficking

But Wednesday’s macabre find in an industrial park was a reminder that criminal gangs are still profiting from large-scale trafficking.

The tragedy recalls the deaths of 58 Chinese migrants who suffocated in a truck in Dover, England, in 2000 after a perilous, months-long journey from China’s southern Fujian province. They were found stowed with a cargo of tomatoes after a ferry ride from Zeebrugge, the same Belgian port featured in the latest tragedy.

In February 2004, 21 Chinese migrants, also from Fujian, who were working as cockle-pickers in Britain drowned when they were caught by treacherous tides in Morecambe Bay in northwest England.

Hyperinflation and the continuing economic and political crisis in Venezuela is driving more Venezuelans to travel to the Colombian border to buy food and other supplies. Even though the government has raised the minimum wage, it is still not nearly enough and most Venezuelans continue to struggle. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit reports.
 

Twenty-seven of 31 suspected cartel members arrested this week in a Mexico City raid were freed by a judge, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday, marking his  government’s second high-profile failure to keep suspected criminals locked up in as many weeks.

The suspects were nabbed by security forces in a central district of the capital Tuesday after authorities seized two laboratories used to produce synthetic drugs, 50 kg (110 pounds) of chemical precursors, more than two tons of marijuana and 20 kg of cocaine, as well as an unspecified amount of money, rocket launchers and grenades.

Lopez Obrador, speaking at his regular morning press conference, said the unexpected release of the criminal suspects would be investigated but cautioned against a rush to judgment.

“Here the important thing is to see what the arguments were that were used to release these people,” said the leftist leader, who took office in December. “Let’s not rush. If someone acted improperly, illegally, if there was corruption, we will condemn it,” he said.

Homicide record

With homicides on track to hit an all-time high this year and following the bungled arrest last week of a notorious drug lord’s son, Lopez Obrador’s approach to security has come under increasing scrutiny.

Sinaloa Cartel gunmen on Oct. 17 overwhelmed security forces who had detained one of the sons of jailed drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the northwestern city of Culiacan, forcing the release of the son and prompting a public outcry.

In his comments Friday, Lopez Obrador said police were under-trained and had been ineffective in putting together case files, and gathering all the evidence needed to keep suspected criminals behind bars.

“The case files are wrongly put together and this lets judges say ‘This is wrong, there isn’t enough evidence, there are contradictions’ and then they go free,” he said.

He did not elaborate, and the circumstances surrounding the release of the suspects believed to belong to the Tepito Union cartel, including the identity of the judge who handled their case and when they were allowed to walk free, were not immediately known.

Judicial reform

A judicial reform, approved by Congress in 2008 and implemented in 2016 under the administration of Lopez Obrador’s predecessor, requires police to present more evidence for arrests.

The reform sought to modernize the judicial system by ending closed-doors trials and implementing public proceedings where prosecutors and defenders present evidence.

Lopez Obrador said security officials need to be “better trained” and that judges must be “honest, incorruptible.”