Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam took to the airwaves Saturday to back the use of force by police ahead of a major anti-government march planned this weekend in the Chinese-ruled city, which has been battered by months of violent protests.

Following a week of relative calm, Sunday’s march will test the strength of the pro-democracy movement. Campaigners vowed it would go ahead despite police ruling the rally illegal.

In the past, thousands of people have defied police and staged mass rallies without permission, often peaceful at the start but becoming violent at night.

Suspect wants to surrender in Taiwan

The trigger for unrest in Hong Kong had been a now-withdrawn proposal to allow extradition to mainland China, as well as Taiwan and Macau. The case of a Hong Kong man accused of murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan before fleeing back to the city was held up as an example of why it was needed.

Late Friday the man, Chan Tong-kai, who is jailed in Hong Kong for money laundering, wrote to Lam saying he would “surrender himself to Taiwan” over his alleged involvement in the case upon his release, which could be as soon as next week.

Lam said in an interview Saturday with broadcaster RTHK that it was a relief as it could bring an end to the case.

She also said that police had used appropriate force in handling the protests, and were responding to protesters’ violence, amid criticism of heavy-handed tactics.

More than 2,600 people have been arrested since the protests escalated in June.

No permission for Sunday march

Protesters’ demands have, since then, swelled far beyond opposing the extradition bill, to take in broader concerns that Beijing is eroding freedoms granted when Britain handed the city back to China in 1997.

Police have refused permission for Sunday’s march citing risks of violence and vandalism, which has increased in recent weeks as protesters dressed in black ninja-like outfits have torched metro stations and Chinese banks and shops.

Rights group Human Rights Watch said the police move appeared to be aimed at dissuading people from attending.

Demonstrations on Friday were calm, with protesters forming a human chain along the city’s metro network and many donning cartoon character masks in defiance of a ban on covering faces at public rallies.

Lam this week outright rejected two of the protesters’ five core demands: universal suffrage and amnesty for those charged during the demonstrations, saying the latter would be illegal and the former was beyond her power.

Instead she has sought to quell the crisis with plans to improve housing supply and ease cost-of-living pressures.

Activist badly beaten

The atmosphere in the city remains tense.

Prominent rights activist Jimmy Sham was brutally beaten by four men wielding hammers and knives during the week, a move pro-democracy lawmakers said was meant to intimidate protesters and incite violence ahead of Sunday’s planned march.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city’s de-facto central bank, said Saturday that some cash machines will be out of service temporarily, owing to vandalism or to safety considerations.
 

Around 20 South Korean protesters broke into the residential compound of the U.S. ambassador to South Korea Friday, prompting U.S. officials to call for tighter security measures around diplomatic missions here.

Video of the break-in posted online shows a group of young, chanting protesters using ladders to scale the stone wall surrounding Ambassador Harry Harris’ house, which is in a central area of Seoul.

After scaling the compound walls, the intruders attempted to forcibly enter the ambassador’s residence but were detained by Seoul police, according to a statement by the U.S. Embassy issued Saturday.

Some of the protesters carried signs calling for Harris to leave Korea and characterized U.S. troops as an occupying force.

Pockets of anti-US sentiment

Although polls show South Koreans overwhelmingly support the alliance with Washington, pockets of anti-U.S. sentiment remain.

In 2015, a knife-wielding South Korean man with a history of militant Korean nationalism ambushed then-U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert outside a building in downtown Seoul. Lippert sustained cuts to his arm and face.

More sporadic, minor disturbances have occurred since then.

“We note with strong concern that this is the second instance of illegal entry into the ambassador’s residential compound in 14 months,” a U.S. embassy official in Seoul said Saturday. “We urge the Republic of Korea to strengthen its efforts to protect all diplomatic missions to the ROK.”

The group that broke into the compound Friday says it is a coalition of progressive college students. Reuters reports the group recently held a forum to present “research findings” on the achievements of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and said it would welcome a visit by Kim to Seoul.

The students also attempted to break into the U.S. Embassy in Seoul last January before being stopped by police, Reuters reported.

Seoul’s foreign ministry said attacks on diplomatic facilities will not be tolerated, adding it will take “all appropriate measures” to prevent further incidents. Seoul police said they will increase security around the U.S. Embassy, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Cost-sharing talks

The break-in comes at a particularly tense moment for U.S.-South Korea relations. The two countries next week will begin a second round of contentious negotiations over how to split the cost of the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

President Donald Trump has long complained that U.S. allies, and South Korea in particular, are not paying their “fair share” for the cost of U.S. troops.

In an apparent hardball negotiating tactic, Trump in August said South Korea agreed to pay “substantially more” for protection from North Korea. Seoul shot back, saying cost-sharing talks haven’t even begun.

South Korean reports say U.S. negotiators are demanding a fivefold increase in how much South Korea pays for U.S. troops. Harris appeared to indirectly confirm that figure in an interview last week.

He told the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper that from the U.S. perspective, South Korea could be seen as having funded only one-fifth of the total defense cost, and that as the world’s 12th-largest economy South Korea should take on a larger share.

South Korean officials have reportedly rejected the demand, saying they are prepared to engage in “reasonable” negotiations before the current cost-sharing agreement expires at the end of the year.

Anti-US displays rare

Over the past decade, overt displays of anti-U.S. sentiment have become less common in Seoul than in previous decades.

According to a 2018 Pew Research poll, 80% of South Koreans have a favorable view of the United States. That same poll, however, suggested just 44% of South Koreans have confidence in Trump.

Historically, conservatives have been the most reliably pro-U.S. contingent in South Korea. Recently, though, there has been a small backlash against Trump among conservatives, many of whom are already skeptical of Trump’s outreach to North Korea.

The situation has been exacerbated by Trump’s comments on cost-sharing negotiations. Trump reportedly recently used an Asian accent to mock South Korea’s president over the issue. Earlier this year, Trump said a certain country, widely seen as South Korea, was “rich as hell and probably doesn’t like us too much.”

The Pentagon says roughly 28,000 troops are in South Korea to help deter North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

South Korea rejects Trump’s notion that it doesn’t contribute enough toward the cost of the U.S. troops, insisting it pays almost half of the total cost of $2 billion. That doesn’t include the expense of rent-free land for U.S. military bases, Seoul says.

Lizbeth Garcia tended to her 3-year-old son outside a tent pitched on a sidewalk, their temporary home while they wait for their number to be called to claim asylum in the United States.

The 33-year-old fled Mexico’s western state of Michoacan a few weeks ago with her husband and five children — ages 3 to 12 — when her husband, a truck driver, couldn’t pay fees that criminal gangs demanded for each trailer load. The family decided it was time to go when gangs came to their house to collect.

“I’d like to say it’s unusual, but it’s very common,” Garcia said Thursday in Juarez, where asylum seekers gather to wait their turn to seek protection at a U.S. border crossing in El Paso, Texas.

Mexicans are increasingly the face of asylum in the United States, replacing Central Americans who dominated last year’s caravan and a surge of families that brought border arrests to a 13-year-high in May. Arrests have plummeted since May as new U.S. policies targeting asylum have taken hold, but Mexicans are exempt from the crackdown by virtue of geography.

A legal principle that prevents countries from sending refugees back to countries where they are likely to be persecuted has spared Mexicans from a policy that took effect in January to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their claims wind through U.S. immigration courts. They are also exempt from a policy, introduced last month, to deny asylum to anyone who travels through another country to reach the U.S. border without applying there first.

Mexico resumed its position in August as the top-sending county of people who cross the border illegally or are stopped at official crossings, surpassing Honduras, followed by Guatemala and El Salvador. Mexicans accounted for nearly all illegal crossings until the last decade as more people from Central America’s “Northern Triangle” countries decided to escape violence and poverty.

Fewer Mexicans are crossing from the peaks reached in May, but the drop in Central Americans is much sharper, making Mexicans the biggest part of the mix, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures. Mexicans arrested or stopped at the border fell 8% from May to August, but border crossers were down 80% from Guatemala, 63% from Honduras and 62% from El Salvador during the same period.

It is unclear precisely what is driving the change, perhaps some mix of U.S. policies and violence in Mexico. The Mexican government’s retreat from an attempted capture of a son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman on Thursday followed a ferocious shootout with cartel henchman that left at least eight people dead.

“Given the deterioration in the security situation in many parts of Mexico, with homicide levels that are exceeding even the record high numbers from 2018, it seems likely that more Mexicans are fleeing their hometowns out of fear and the growing sense that the Mexican government, at all levels, is either unable or unwilling to protect them,” said Maureen Meyer, director for Mexico and migrant rights at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights research group.  

People traveling as families accounted for 23% of all Mexicans arrested or stopped at the border in August, a major shift from earlier immigration waves when nearly all Mexicans came as single men, according to CBP figures. Another big change: 36% of Mexicans presented themselves at official crossings — the U.S. government’s prescribed way to claim asylum — instead of earlier times when nearly all tried to cross illegally.   

The U.S. government has limited detention space for families and, under a court settlement, must release families within 20 days. Asylum-seeking families have generally been released in the United States with an ankle monitor on the head of the household and a notice to appear in backlogged immigration courts, where cases can take years to resolve. That changed for everyone except Mexicans with the new U.S. limits on asylum and its policy to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico, known officially as “Migrant Protection Protocols” and colloquially as “Remain in Mexico.”

“It’s a pretty drastic change from what we have been observing in the past couple of years,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. “Now the word has been spread out, and the Mexicans are the only ones that can apply for asylum right now.”

In Phoenix, only about 40 to 50 people are being released in the U.S. each day, roughly half from the height of arrivals. One of the places families get released to is The Welcome Center, an abandoned elementary school-turned-shelter run by the International Rescue Committee that can host about 70 people now but is increasing its capacity by nearly quadruple.

Since opening July 27, the Welcome Center has seen 567 people come through, IRC spokesman Stanford Prescott said. Nearly 64% were Mexican, and nearly 7 percent were Guatemalans. In March and June, before the Welcome Center opened but when IRC and others were already assisting migrant families, Guatemalans were about 76% of families served.  

At a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, roughly 30% of families that the Dilley Pro Bono Project is serving are Mexican, compared with only 1% prior to this month.

Mexicans, like all nationalities, still must wait in Mexico, usually for months, to make initial claims under ticketing systems that were created last year because the U.S. processes a limited number of claims each day.

In Juarez, about 100 families make up the camp of tents that lines both sides of a side street leading to the city’s main promenade and Paso Del Norte border crossing, where asylum claims are processed. Some at the camp said they were coming because of a lack of jobs in southern Mexico.

A man who did not give his name said he left Michoacan because a gang said it would force his 18-year-old son to join. He and others living in a tent camp said there were two shootings near the camp, one Wednesday and one on Tuesday. The first shooting prompted him to get a hotel room for his family, though he left his tent in place on the sidewalk.

A senior pilot at Boeing said he might have unintentionally misled regulators, according to a series of internal company messages that were released Friday.

The revelation of the messages came as Boeing continues to struggle with the fallout from two fatal crashes that have grounded its 737 Max airplanes.

The transcript of the messages shows that in 2016 the 737 Max’s then-chief technical pilot, Mark Forkner, told a co-worker that the aircraft’s flight system, called MCAS, was “egregious” and “running rampant” while he tested it in a flight simulator.

The MCAS system has been tied to the crashes of the 737 Max airplanes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Forkner said in one text message, “I basically lied to the regulators [unknowingly].”

Boeing revealed messages

Boeing provided the internal messages to lawmakers, who are holding hearings this month on the 737 Max airplanes.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called the newly released document “concerning” and demanded an explanation about why the company delayed before revealing the messages.

“I expect your explanation immediately regarding the content of this document and Boeing’s delay in disclosing the document to its safety regulator,” FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson wrote in a letter Friday to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

Muilenburg, who was stripped of his chairman title by Boeing’s board last week, is scheduled to testify before Congress this month.

Forkner left Boeing last year and joined Southwest Airlines — the largest operator of the Boeing 737.

Forkner’s lawyer, David Gerger, said in a statement, “If you read the whole chat, it is obvious that there was no ‘lie.’ ” He said Forkner’s messages showed that the pilot thought the flight simulator was not working and “absolutely thought this plane was safe.”

Two fatal crashes

An Ethiopia Airlines 737 Max crashed just after takeoff in March, killing all 157 people on board. Five months earlier, the same type of plane flown by the Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 189 people.

Investigators have focused on the MCAS system in the planes, a new automated flight system that was not included in previous versions of the 737. Investigators believe a faulty sensor in the MCAS system pushed the nose of each plane down and made it impossible for the pilots to regain control.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Friday that Turkish forces would intensify their operation into Syria if Kurdish militias failed to comply with an agreement struck with the United States. The warning was made as sporadic fighting continued and disputes emerged over the cease-fire terms.

On Thursday, Erdogan and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence agreed that Turkey would end its operation against the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia if it withdrew 32 kilometers from the Turkish border.

Under the agreement, a 120-hour suspension of hostilities would be observed by Turkish forces to allow the militia to withdraw. Last week, Turkish forces allied with Syrian rebels launched an offensive against the YPG, which Ankara considers terrorists. The militia was a key ally in the Washington-led war against Islamic State.

But reports of heavy fighting continued between Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkish armed forces and Syrian rebels, despite the temporary cease-fire.

“Turkish army forces and their affiliated jihadist groups indiscriminately continue airstrikes and artillery attacks on Serêkanîyê [Ras al-Ayn],” said SDF spokesperson Mustafa Bali in an interview with VOA’s Kurdish service. The YPG is the main component of the SDF, which is a coalition of forces made up of Arabs and Kurds.

“Despite the cease-fire, clashes have not stopped in Serêkanîyê,” he added. “Our forces are responding to these attacks within the framework of legitimate self-defense.”

But Ankara downplayed the reports. “There are no clashes. These [reports of clashes] are disinformation,” Erdogan said to local reporters Friday.

‘Diplomatic win’

Analysts say Ankara has a vested interest in the deal with Washington succeeding, given its being heralded as a diplomatic triumph.

“We got everything we wanted. … It was as easy negotiation as we’ve ever had,” reported Turkish media, quoting an unnamed presidential official.

“The wording, the text of the statement is clearly a diplomatic win for President Erdogan — both on the home front and abroad as well,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served in the region and Washington.

The U.S.-Turkey deal not only secures the withdrawal of the Kurdish militia but creates what Erodgan calls a “safe zone” in Syria under Turkish army control.

Safe zone

Turkey’s military operation into Syria aims to create a buffer zone, around 450 kilometers long and 30 kilometers deep. However, the published U.S.-Turkey agreement does not identify the size of the safe zone.

“For the U.S., the safe zone is 120 km by 30 km,” said Selcen, “whereas for Turkey, it is still the 450 km-by-30 km area from Jerablus to the Iraqi border.”

General Mazloum Kobani, head of the Syrian Democratic Forces, claims a much more limited withdrawal had been agreed to with Washington. With SDF forces withdrawing from Ras al-Ayn and Tel Abyad and the 100 km territory between the towns, Kobani is tying further withdrawals to more talks.

Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad witnessed the most severe fighting since the start of Turkey’s operation. The distance between the towns is about 100 km.

However, Erdogan issued a warning Friday: “If promises [given by the U.S.] are not fulfilled, our operation will continue the minute the 120th hour ends, and it will be intensified,” he said in comments to reporters.

Syrian Kurdish leaders are voicing concern about the lack of detail in the U.S.-Turkey agreement over the safety and security of people living in the proposed safe zone, especially, analysts say, as Pence ruled out any deployment of U.S. soldiers to administer the safe zone.

Syrian rebels 

Turkey’s heavy reliance on Syrian rebels as part of its operation is heightening SDF concerns.

“It is a fact that the militia has committed crimes, and the way it has been used against Turkey claiming Turkey is committing genocide in the area,” said Selcen. “It’s very hard to discipline and to make use of these jihadi groups on the ground.”

Ankara rejects claims of radical elements among the rebel forces. The government also insists any allegations of misconduct are investigated. Turkish officials repeatedly stress that the protection and safety of civilians is a priority.

Erdogan on Friday outlined plans to secure the proposed safe zone in a meeting with foreign reporters. The president said the Turkish army would protect the region, which would get 12 new observation posts.

Refugee resettlement

Erdogan said securing of the area would eventually allow up to 2 million refugees to return, with the building of new villages and towns.

But with Syrian regime forces moving into the area of Turkey’s proposed safe zone, after a military agreement with the SDF, analysts warn Erdogan’s refugee resettlement plan remains in doubt.

“There are many questions for security questions over resettling refugees,” said Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University,

“And of course the other issue with [Syrian leader] Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” he added. “The regime has to accept that Syrians will be deployed there in this area, as Turkey has foreseen.”

Erdogan on Friday sought to play down any tensions with Damascus, saying there would not be a problem posed by the presence of regime forces in the safe zone. But the Turkish president also warned Turkey would respond if Damascus “made a mistake.”

Analysts say Erodgan is walking a diplomatic tightrope given Damascus’ main backer is Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a crucial ally of Erdogan in the region in efforts to end the Syrian civil war.

Putin and Erdogan are due to meet Tuesday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. The meeting is predicted to be crucial to determining the success of Erodgan’s Syrian plans.

“All eyes are now on the Erdogan-Putin meeting in Sochi next Tuesday,” Selcen said.

Talks among the Sudanese government, the rebel SPLM-North faction and two smaller Sudanese rebel groups began Friday in Juba.  

After a three-hour meeting, mediators, Khartoum officials and the SPLM-North faction announced an agenda for the talks. Sudan government spokesman Mohammed Hassan Alteishi said the parties agreed to discuss several issues.

“The parties have agreed on categorizing and sequencing the negotiation issues as follows: one, political issues; two, humanitarian issues; three, security arrangements. Second, the parties have agreed on the necessity to agree on declaration of principles,” Alteishi told reporters at Juba’s Pyramid Hotel.

SPLM-North spokesperson Ajak Mahmoud called the agenda for the talks “a great achievement.”  

“The two parties embarked in direct engagement this morning since 9 o’clock and recently we made a very important breakthrough,” Mahmoud said.

The SPLM-North has been fighting Sudanese government forces in the Nuba Mountains for several years.

Tutkew Gatluak, the security adviser to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, is leading the talks.  He said the agenda gives the parties a clear direction to follow during the negotiations.

“We thank God. We had a meeting with our brothers in SPLM-North and we have reached an agreement, and the first agreement we agreed on is on the humanitarian issue, security and political issue and all the issues that will make us reach a final peace deal,” Gatluak said.

The optimism was a marked turnaround from Tuesday, when the SPLM-North faction said it was suspending the talks, accusing government forces of bombing villages in the Nuba Mountains and killing one person.

The government delegation denied playing a role in any attacks in the area and said the incident involved traders and cattle herders.

Separate talks, different rebels

On Thursday night, the government delegation held separate talks with Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) negotiators. Alteishi said the SRF and the government were expected to agree on an agenda soon.

“We walked through those issues.  We haven’t agreed yet for a whole agenda but we are nearly to reach that agreement,” Alteishi told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.

The South Sudan-sponsored talks in Juba are expected to last two months. Similar talks mediated by the African Union over the past 10 years failed to resolve the conflict between the rebels and the previous Sudanese government led by former President Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted by military leaders this year after months of protests.

Carol Van Dam contributed to this report.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday defended freeing the son of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, whom police let go during a shootout with drug gangs. 

Lopez Obrador said police “did well” to free Ovidio Guzman, contending that “capturing a criminal can’t be worth more than people’s lives.” 

Police briefly captured Guzman late Thursday but released him when cartel gunmen in the northwestern Mexican city of Culiacan surrounded authorities and opened fire across the city, sparking widespread gunbattles. 

Mexican Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval told a news conference in Culiacan on Friday that the operation had not been planned properly. 

“It was done hastily, the consequences were not considered, the riskiest part wasn’t taken into account,” he said. 

‘Failure’

Security Minister Alfonso Durazo, who also addressed the news conference, called the operation a “failure.” 

Mexican security forces have been criticized for releasing Guzman, giving the impression that the city is under the control of the drug cartel. 

Lopez Obrador insisted Friday that his security strategy for the country was working, saying, “We’re doing really well in our strategy.” He took office in December promising a less confrontational approach to fighting gangs that focuses more on tackling social ills instead of the use of force. 

Video footage posted on social media from Thursday’s violence showed panicked residents feeling gunshots. The violence also led to a large group of inmates at the city prison rioting and escaping from the building. 

The elder Guzman is serving a life sentence in the United States after being convicted in February of drug trafficking. He had previously escaped from prison in Mexico twice, in 2001 and 2015. 

After a thousand days of President Donald Trump in the White House, official Washington found itself consumed by the twin crises of impeachment and Syria this week.

Even as the president is trying to fend off congressional Democrats moving toward impeachment, he also faces a fierce backlash from Democrats and many Republicans over his decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria.

Trump is used to weathering political storms, but this one is particularly intense and comes at a time when he is looking ahead to a re-election campaign next year.

Syria flap  

From the start, Trump has been on the defensive over his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.

“We were supposed to be there for 30 days. We stayed for 10 years, and it is time for us to come home. We are not a policing agent, and it is time for us to come home,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the U.S. and Turkey had agreed to a cease-fire against Kurdish forces in northern Syria.  Trump welcomed the development during a trip to Texas, calling it “an amazing outcome.”

Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw from Syria drew fire from both opposition Democrats and several Republicans, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, often one of the presidents most loyal supporters.

“So this is the president exercising his judgment in a way that I think is out of line with the advice he has been given, dangerous, and I hope he will reconsider,” Graham told reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday.

The Syria controversy erupted as Trump was already busy fending off a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry in Congress spurred by his request to Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden.

Trump has blasted the impeachment investigation as a partisan witch-hunt and vented to supporters last Saturday in a speech to the Value Voters Summit.

“Impeachment! I never thought I would see or hear that word with regard to me. Impeachment. I said the other day, it is an ugly word. To me it is an ugly word.”

Separatist groups in parts of Cameroon have opened what they call community schools, to replace government-run schools that have been shut down for the past three years. However, the government is urging parents and students to stay away from the separatist-run facilities. 

Most schools in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions have been closed since November 2016, soon after professionals went on strike to protest what they called the marginalization of Anglophones by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.

Armed separatist groups began fighting the government the following year.

This week, the separatists said they have opened nine community schools, which occupy empty public spaces while the separatists negotiate to take over abandoned school buildings owned by Christian denominations.

Farmer Paul Jua, 37, is happy his kids will able to attend school, though he says the community schools are not enough.

“I want to beg on them [separatists], the community schools cannot cover [are not enough for] the children who are back home. So, therefore, they should also try to encourage private institutions to open their doors,” Jua said.

The government, which opposes the separatist-run schools, insists the public schools that are open are protected and safe.

Wilfred Wambeng, Cameroon’s basic education chief for the English-speaking Northwest region, says the government has asked families to send their children only to public, private and religious schools recognized by the government, as only those schools have qualified teachers.

“We have had meetings, especially with our lay private education agencies. … We advise them to embark on an aggressive campaign [against separatist schools],” Wambeng sad.

The United Nations reports that at least 2,000 people have been killed and 500,000 internally displaced during Cameroon’s separatist war.
 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed U.S.-Israel ties and joint efforts to counter Iran, in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, amid concerns in Israel that Tehran could exploit a U.S. military pullback in Syria.

“We talked about all the efforts we’ve made to push back against the threat not only to Israel but to the region and the world from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we shared our ideas about how we can ensure Middle East stability together, and how we would further our efforts to jointly combat all the challenges that the world confronts here in the Middle East,” said Pompeo after his meeting with Netanyahu.

The meeting comes a day after a U.S. delegation, led by Vice President Mike Pence, reached an agreement with Turkey for Ankara to pause its military offensive against Kurdish forces in northeast Syria for five days.

“We hope things will turn out for the best,” Netanyahu said Friday, without elaborating, when asked about the cease-fire deal brokered by the United States, and if the cessation of hostilities will hold between Turkey and Syria’s Kurds.

Turkey’s incursion into northeast Syria came after a partial U.S. withdrawal of troops. Turkey views Kurdish fighters as terrorists, alleging their links to an insurgency group inside Turkey. But Kurdish fighters have fought alongside U.S. forces in the battle against the Islamic State terror group in Syria.

Israel has strongly condemned the offensive. Netanyahu has warned of an “ethnic cleansing” against the Kurds.  

Pompeo heads to Brussels for meetings with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg after the stop in Israel.

Official Washington finds itself consumed by the twin crises of impeachment and Syria this week.  President Donald Trump is trying to fend off congressional Democrats moving toward impeachment, even as he faces a fierce backlash from some Republicans over his decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria. Trump is used to weathering political storms, but this one is particularly intense, as we hear from VOA National correspondent Jim Malone.
 

The United States has sent some asylum-seeking immigrants off the mainland to Hawaii.

John Egan, the head of the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Hawaii Law School, told Hawaii Public Radio that there are not enough lawyers in Hawaii who can handle the cases on a pro bono basis.

“We have been seeing people arriving here in Hawaii quite often with no English skills whatsoever … they’re given a plane ticket and a notice to show in court,” Egan said.

Hawaii Public Radio reports that about 150 Central American migrants have been sent to Hawaii “to await their day in immigration court.”

According to the radio report, a 2018 Syracuse University study found 90% of asylum-seekers without a lawyer were denied asylum in 2017.

Egan and some of his students have taken on about a dozen of the immigration pro bono cases “because no one else can,” he said.

The University of Hawaii’s law school clinic has started a new program to recruit and train volunteer lawyers who are not immigration attorneys, but are willing to help the immigrants.
 

Every October, for the past 48 years, hot air balloons have been filling the skies over Albuquerque, New Mexico, giving spectators both on and off the ground a visual feast of rare beauty. VOA’s Julie Taboh visited the southwestern state’s largest city to see how a modest launch of 13 balloons almost five decades ago has evolved into the largest ballooning event in the world.
 

An intense gunfight with heavy weapons and burning vehicles blocking roads raged in the capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state Thursday after security forces located one of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s sons who is wanted in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges.

Mexican security secretary Alfonso Durazo said 30 members of the National Guard and army were patrolling in Culiacan when they were fired on from a house. They repelled the attack and inside the house apprehended Ovidio Guzman Lopez.

The house was then surrounded by heavily armed gunmen who had “a greater force” and authorities decided to suspend the operation, Durazo said. Security forces released Ovidio Guzman to protect lives, Durazo said, Reuters reported.

Indicted in Washington

Ovidio was not one of the jailed Mexican drug lord’s best-known sons — Ivan Archivaldo Guzman and Jesus Alfredo Guzman are known as “los Chapitos,” or “the little Chapos,” and are believed to run their father’s Sinaloa Cartel together with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

But Ovidio Guzman was indicted in 2018 by a grand jury in Washington, along with a fourth brother, for the alleged trafficking of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.

Following Thursday’s discovery of Ovidio, local media reported that armed civilians in trucks roared through Culiacan’s center shooting what appeared to be .50-caliber sniper rifles and machine guns. There was a heavy deployment of Mexican security forces.

Civilians panic, flee

Videos published on social media showed a scene resembling a war zone, with gunmen, some wearing black ski masks over their faces, riding in the back of trucks firing mounted machine guns as vehicles burned. People could be seen running for cover as machine gun fire rattled around them. Drivers drove in reverse frantically to move away from the clashes. Some drivers rolled under their stationary cars for cover.

Sinaloa public safety director Cristobal Castaneda told Milenio television the army launched the operation Thursday afternoon and soon afterward government surveillance cameras alerted authorities that gunmen in vehicles were circulating in Culiacan.

Castaneda said gunmen blocked streets with burning vehicles, a common tactic to make it difficult for security forces to maneuver. Simultaneously, some 20 to 30 prisoners escaped though some were quickly recaptured, he said.

State officials asked residents to avoid going out in parts of city.

Sinaloa’s soccer club Dorados announced that it had canceled its game Thursday because of security concerns.

Sinaloa home to cartel

Sinaloa is home to the cartel by the same name, which was led by “El Chapo” Guzman. Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in July. He has many children.

After Guzman’s third arrest in 2016, an internal battle for succession began playing out. The battle was resolved with the arrest of Damaso Lopez Nunez and his son Damaso Lopez Serrano, who led a rival faction.

Since then “Los Chapitos” and Zambada are believed to have run the cartel.

China’s economic growth slowed to a 26-year low in the latest quarter amid a tariff war with Washington, adding to deepening slump that is weighing on global growth.

The world’s second-largest economy expanded by 6% in the three months ending in September, down from the previous quarter’s 6.2%, data showed Friday. It was the lowest rate since China started reporting data by quarters in 1993.

The slump increases pressure on Chinese leaders to avert politically dangerous job losses as they fight a tariff war with President Donald Trump over Beijing’s trade surplus and technology ambitions.

“Pressure on economic activity should intensify in the coming months,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report.

Global repercussions

The slowdown in China, the world’s biggest trader, has global repercussions. It is depressing demand for industrial components from Asian countries and prices of soybeans, iron ore and other commodities, hitting Brazil, Australia and other suppliers.

The International Monetary Fund cited the U.S.-Chinese tariff war as a factor in this week’s decision to cut its 2019 global growth forecast to 3% from its previous outlook of 3.2%.

Trump agreed last week to delay a tariff hike on Chinese goods and said Beijing promised to buy up to $50 billion of American farm goods. Officials say the two sides still are working out details.

Beijing has yet to confirm the scale of possible purchases of U.S. goods. It is unclear whether Chinese leaders want more steps including possibly lifting punitive tariffs already in place before purchases go ahead.

Cooling domestic activity

An even bigger impact on Chinese growth appears to come from cooling domestic activity including consumer spending and investment.

Retail sales growth declined to 8.2% over a year earlier in the first three quarters of 2019, down from the first half’s 8.4%, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.

Chinese leaders are in a marathon campaign to nurture growth based on domestic consumption and reduce reliance on trade and investment. But those plans call for maintaining the level of exports that support millions of jobs.

Factory output growth slowed to 5.6% in the January-September period, down from 6% in the first six months of the year.

China’s exports to the United States, its biggest foreign market, fell 21.9% in September from a year ago. That helped to drag down overall Chinese exports by 1.4%. Imports of American goods sank 15.7%.

The latest economic growth figure was the lowest since China began reporting data by quarters in 1993. Annual growth tumbled to 3.9% in 1990 but rebounded to 9.3% the following year.

An extended gunbattle with high-caliber weapons raged Thursday in the streets of the capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state. 
  
Heavily armed civilians in trucks were firing in downtown Culiacan, with some shooting what appeared to be .50-caliber sniper rifles and truck-mounted machine guns, according to Culiacan-based news outlet Riodoce. 
 
Riodoce reported there was a heavy deployment of Mexican security forces and that gunmen had blocked entrances to the city with burning vehicles, a common tactic to make it difficult for security forces to maneuver. 

Sinaloa public safety director Cristobal Castaneda told Milenio television the army started an operation Thursday afternoon and soon afterward government surveillance cameras alerted authorities that gunmen in vehicles were circulating in downtown Culiacan. 

Simultaneously, 20 to 30 prisoners escaped, though some were quickly recaptured, he said. 

Castaneda did not state what the military’s objective was with the operation.  

State officials asked residents to avoid going out in parts of city. 

Sinaloa’s soccer club Dorados announced that it had canceled its game Thursday because of security concerns. 

Sinaloa cartel

Sinaloa is home to the cartel by the same name, which was led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in July. 

After Guzman’s third arrest in 2016, an internal battle for succession began playing out. The battle was resolved with the arrest of Damaso Lopez Nunez and his son Damaso Lopez Serrano, who led a rival faction. 

The cartel is currently led by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Guzman’s sons, Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo, known as “los Chapitos,” or “the little Chapos.” 

As thousands of pro-independence protesters poured into the streets of Barcelona for a fourth straight day Thursday, the president of Spain’s Catalonia region vowed to push for a new independence referendum within two years. 
 
Quim Torra also condemned the violence that has marred the protests, saying the separatist cause was a peaceful movement. 
 
Catalan protesters, frustrated by the lengthy prison sentences handed to pro-independence politicians this week, have clashed with police, set fires and destroyed property. 
 
The Spanish Ministry of Interior said nearly 100 people had been injured, almost half of them police officers. More than 95 protesters have been arrested since Monday. 
 
“No criminal activity will go unpunished,” interim Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said Thursday. 
 
The protests began after the Supreme Court sentenced nine pro-independence politicians to between nine and 13 years in prison for their roles in the 2017 referendum on Catalonia’s push to split from Spain. 
 
The Spanish constitution states that Spain is indivisible and anyone pushing a split is considered a criminal. 
 
The U.S. Overseas Security Advisory Council has warned Americans traveling to northeastern Spain to travel to Catalonia will likely be disrupted by a general strike that has been planned for Friday. It said travel to Barcelona from surrounding cities would be difficult because of “marches on major highways from Tarragona, Tarrega, Berga, Vic and Girona.”  It asked visitors to “exercise caution in the vicinity of demonstrations as they may occur with little or no warning.” 

Two businessmen pleaded not guilty Thursday of conspiring with associates of Rudy Giuliani to make illegal campaign contributions, as a prosecutor said evidence includes data from over 50 bank accounts and information gathered through 10 search warrants. 

David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin are among four men charged with using straw donors to make illegal contributions to politicians they thought could help their political and business interests, including committees supporting President Donald Trump and other Republicans. 

Their next court date was set for Dec. 2, though U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken granted a request from Kukushkin to remain in California, where a $1 million bail package limits where he can go beyond home to work, legal visits and medical appointments. 
 
Two other men charged in the case, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, worked with Giuliani to try to get Ukrainian officials to investigate the son of Democrat Joe Biden. Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, has said he had no knowledge of illegal donations. 

Prosecutors say Correia and Kukushkin teamed with Parnas and Fruman in a separate scheme to make illegal campaign donations to politicians in several states to try to get support for a new recreational marijuana business. 
 
Money for those donations was actually supplied, prosecutors say, by an unidentified foreign national with “Russian roots.” 
 
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos told the judge the indictment could be updated, but he made no mention of whether others might be arrested. 
 
It was fair, he said, “to characterize the government’s investigation as ongoing.” 
 
Besides the bank and search warrant records, Roos said, prosecutors have obtained emails and electronic records for over 10 accounts. 
 
The court hearing was finished in just over 15 minutes, and lawyers and their clients declined to speak afterward.  

Meanwhile, officials in California announced they would review the dozen state marijuana distribution licenses granted to a partnership involving Kukushkin to make sure there were no improprieties, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. 
 
“We always have concerns when something like that happens, so we want to do our due diligence and look at them,” said Lori Ajax, chief of the California Bureau of Cannabis Control. 
 
All the state licenses issued to the partnership of Garib Karapetyan and Kukushkin are provisional permits, Ajax said, pending detailed background checks and disclosure of major investors. 
 
Karapetyan’s attorney, Brad Hirsch, said his clients were in complete compliance with all regulations. 
 

Separately, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg called for an investigation of his city’s permit system to determine how Kukushkin and another businessman obtained nearly one-third of the licenses issued by the city. 
 
All the defendants are U.S. citizens, but Kukushkin and Parnas were born in Ukraine and Fruman in Belarus. 

Energy Secretary Rick Perry has notified the president that he intends to leave his job soon.

That’s according to an administration official who confirmed the news on condition of anonymity.

Perry was traveling with the president to Texas on Thursday when he shared the news aboard Air Force One.

Perry is under scrutiny over the role he played in the president’s dealings with Ukraine, which are currently the subject of an impeachment inquiry.

Perry had disputed reports that he was planning to leave the administration in an interview Wednesday with The Wall Street Journal. But he reportedly left the door open, saying he expected to be at the Energy Department at Thanksgiving, but giving a less definitive answer when asked whether he’d be there through the end of the year.