Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate toured Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Thursday, where they are set to visit a cancer hospital previously visited by William’s mother, the late Princess Diana.
 
The hospital was started by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose first wife Jemima Goldsmith was a friend of the late princess.

The royal couple also played cricket with children and members of Pakistan’s cricket team at the National Cricket Academy.
 
Their day began with a birthday party at a charitable organization, SOS Children’s Village, and they were also set to visit the historic Badshahi mosque.

Since arriving, the royal couple have been advocates for girls’ education, visiting a girl’s school in Islamabad. They addressed climate change while in Pakistan’s northern region, where glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.

Keep him talking, don’t interrupt him and, no matter what, don’t ask why he killed his victims.

Those were the instructions Texas Ranger James Holland gave to the dozens of homicide detectives around the country when they got their moment with Samuel Little, hoping to solve decades-old cold cases and bring back answers to desperate families from the man the FBI identified this month as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.

Little ultimately spilled forth with chilling confessions, claiming he killed 93 women in all between 1970 and 2005 and smilingly recounting the details with startling clarity. But to get what they needed, detectives had to employ a certain amount of psychology, some of which made them uncomfortable, such as laughing along with him or putting up with his flirting.

Miami-Dade Police homicide detective David Denmark and his partner interviewed Little last October about two murders in the Miami area from the 1970s. Holland had told them what to expect.

“You have to change your attitude and you have to become his friend,” Denmark said. “And you have to laugh with him and make fun of his victims sometimes, sort of like, ‘Yeah, I guess at that point she deserved it.’ Even though you hate saying it. You want him to think, ‘These guys are pretty cool’ to keep him talking.”

For Denmark, Little recalled his first victim, 33-year-old Mary Brosley, saying that he would never again try to bury a body in Florida’s hard limestone soil and that he had to leave part of her leg exposed. He also confessed to killing 25-year-old Angela Chapman in 1976, saying he started to drown her, then pulled her out of the water and strangled her.

He remembered Brosley’s flowered sundress and how he played with her chain necklace and marveled at her beautiful neck before strangling her.

Brosley’s sister Clare Coppolino said she had no idea her sister had moved to Florida, describing it as “an absolute shock” when she heard from the detective after nearly 50 years. She said her initial reaction to Little’s crime was “anger, but then more pity for him than anything. Pity to think, ‘I don’t know what his background was,’ but to think this man ended up murdering all these women.”

Charles Manson, Notorious Cult Leader and Serial Killer, Dead at 83

Charles Manson, one of the most notorious serial killers in U.S. history, died late Sunday at the age of 83, after four and a half decades in prison.The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Manson died of natural causes at a hospital in Kern County.Manson and six of his associates were jailed in 1971 for a series of seven grisly murders in the Los Angeles area over two nights in 1969. Three other of his followers were later jailed for crimes linked to Manson.Manson was born to…

Little, 79, is now serving multiple life sentences for three killings in California. He also pleaded guilty to a 1994 murder in Odessa, Texas. Holland elicited scores of confessions from him last year in Texas and then set the guidelines for detectives who would later arrive in the state one by one with stacks of old case files from California to Florida. The detectives would visit him as if on an assembly line, with sometimes two or three agents a day going in.

The killer has also drawn remarkably detailed, color portraits of dozens of his victims that have proved helpful in cracking cases.

Police around the country have confirmed about 50 of his confessions so far and consider the rest credible.

As Little detailed his crimes, he showed no remorse, talked candidly, almost proudly, and seemed to be enjoying himself, detectives said.

Genealogy Site Used in Hunt for Serial Killer Suspect

More than three decades after his trail went cold, one of California’s most prolific serial killers and rapists was caught by using online genealogical sites to find a DNA match, prosecutors said Thursday.Investigators compared the DNA collected from a crime scene of the Golden State Killer to online genetic profiles and found a match: a relative of the man police have identified as Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who was arrested at his suburban Sacramento home on Tuesday.Authorities didn’t give the name…

At one point, he smiled when recalling a murder, and Detective Mali Langton from Fort Myers, Florida, found the corners of her own mouth turn up — and was horrified.

“He was giddy. That’s what threw me,” Langton said. She said that Little also flirted with her and that Holland had braced her for that, telling her to “just let it happen.”

Holland also told detectives not to bombard Little with questions, just be patient and let him fill in the details. If he tilts his head to the side and scratches his neck with the back of his hand, don’t interrupt him; he’s going back in time and reliving the crimes. When he pats his leg a certain way, pretend not to notice; he’s getting aroused thinking about the killings.

“He’s really big on respect,” said Lubbock, Texas, Detective Brandon Price. “If he sees disrespect in the room, then sometimes that may end the interview.” He added: “If you showed emotion, you’re excited or get angry, then that could end the interview. We made sure to maintain a poker face.”

California Serial Killer Search Earlier Led to Wrong Man

Investigators hunting down the so-called Golden State Killer used information from genetic websites last year that led to the wrong man, court records obtained Friday by The Associated Press showed.An Oregon police officer working at the request of California investigators persuaded a judge to order a 73-year-old man in a nursing home to provide a DNA sample.It’s not clear if officers collected the sample and ran further tests, but it was not the man arrested this week outside Sacramento in one of the…

Detective Sgt. Michael Mongeluzzo of Florida’s Marion County questioned Little about Rosie Hill , a 20-year-old woman who was picked up at a bar and strangled, her body left next to a pig pen in 1982. Mongeluzzo called the victim’s mother, Minnie Hill, and told her his last question to Little would be whatever had been weighing on her mind all these years.

“She said, ‘I just want to know why,’” the detective said.

Knowing he had to be careful how he phrased the question to the serial killer, Mongeluzzo remarked on how Little had gotten away with so many slayings over the years, and Little offered a glimpse into his motive.

“That’s when he started talking about God and how ‘When God made me, he knew what I would do,’” the detective said, adding that Little believed he was doing what he was “made to do.”

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday pushed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a cease-fire to end his military assault against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, an offensive Erdogan initiated after President Donald Trump withdrew nearly all American troops from the battlefront.

Pence, accompanied by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, met with the Turkish leader in the capital, Ankara.

The meeting came a day after Trump dismissed the importance of the outcome of the fighting, saying it “has nothing to do with us,” even as the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning his troop withdrawal. Trump instead disparaged the Kurdish fighters, who had fought alongside U.S. troops against Islamic State terrorists, as “no angels.”

Letter to Erdogan

Trump, in a letter last week to Erdogan, warned the Turkish leader, “Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!” to carry out the onslaught on the Kurdish fighters, but reports from Turkey said Erdogan threw the short note “in the bin.”

Trump said Erdogan risked being branded in history as a “devil” by carrying out the attack on the Kurdish fighters, whom he views as allied with Kurdish separatists that have been battling for autonomy inside Turkey for three decades.

But Erdogan vowed Wednesday to continue the offensive. With the U.S. troops withdrawn, Kurdish forces struck a deal with Syrian forces to return for the first time in years to northern Syrian outposts, with allied Russian soldiers entering the border town of Kobane.

Trump warned at a news conference Wednesday that economic sanctions he is imposing against Ankara “will be devastating to Turkey’s economy.”

The U.S. leader said he “didn’t give [Erdogan] a green light” for the attacks on the Kurdish fighters, but he was dismissive of the importance of the fighting to the United States.

“Syria may have some help with Russia, and that’s fine,” Trump said. “They’ve got a lot of sand over there. So, there’s a lot of sand that they can play with. Let them fight their own wars.”
 
Trump told reporters he has no regrets about having 26 to 28 U.S. military personnel inside Syria stand aside as the Turks moved across the border.

“Syria doesn’t want Turkey to take its land. I can understand that,” he said. “But what does that have to do with the United States of America if they’re fighting over Syria’s land? Are we supposed to fight a NATO member, in order that Syria, who is not our friend, keeps their land?”

The president also termed the Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, as “worse of a terrorist threat than ISIS.”

Humanitarian crisis

The Syrian conflict, which began in 2011, had already created a humanitarian crisis in Syria with millions of people fleeing their homes and in need of aid.

An estimated 160,000 people have been displaced since the Turkish operation began last week, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

At the news conference Wednesday, Trump expressed deep concern about the Turkish offensive, noting the large number of civilian victims and warning it could lead to a resurgence of ISIS.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution Wednesday opposing Trump’s decision to end U.S. operations in Syria, calling on Erdogan to immediately cease military action and for the United States to continue supporting the Kurds.

It urges the White House to “present a clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS.” A large number of Trump’s fellow Republicans voted for it.

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s fears

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a usually reliable Trump ally, bluntly criticized the president’s latest comments about the region.

“I worry we will not have allies in the future against radical Islam, ISIS will re-emerge, & Iran’s rise in Syria will become a nightmare for Israel. I fear this is a complete and utter national security disaster in the making and I hope President Trump will adjust his thinking,” Graham said on Twitter.

Graham, who sits on the foreign relations committee, said Trump’s words “completely undercut” efforts by Pence and Pompeo to end the conflict.

Erdogan is scheduled to visit the White House on Nov. 13. But he said whether his trip to the United States will still occur depends on the outcome of the discussions in Ankara with Pence and Pompeo.

Trump already has hiked tariffs on Turkish steel imports and called off negotiations on a $100 billion trade deal with Turkey.

Trump on Wednesday also addressed concerns regarding the estimated 50 tactical nuclear weapons stored at a U.S. base in Turkey. The president’s response was that he is confident those weapons are secure.

“We have a great air base there,” said Trump. “It’s a large, powerful air base.”

European Union and British negotiators have agreed on an outline Brexit deal that still needs to be backed by EU member states and by the respective parliaments. 

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker tweeted “We have one! It’s a fair and balanced agreement for the EU and the UK and it is testament to our commitment to find solutions.” 
 
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted that the two sides had struck a “great new deal” and urged U.K. lawmakers to ratify it in a special session on Saturday. 
 
Juncker said he would recommend the 27 EU nations to endorse the deal during their summit later Thursday.

Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings died early Thursday at Johns Hopkins Hospital of complications from longstanding health challenges, his congressional office said. He was 68.

A sharecropper’s son, Cummings became the powerful chairman of a U.S. House committee that investigated President Donald Trump, and was a formidable orator who passionately advocated for the poor in his black-majority district, which encompasses a large portion of Baltimore as well as more well-to-do suburbs.

As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings led multiple investigations of the president’s governmental dealings, including probes in 2019 relating to the president’s family members serving in the White House.

Trump responded by criticizing the Democrat’s district as a “rodent-infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” The comments came weeks after Trump drew bipartisan condemnation following his calls for Democratic congresswomen of color to get out of the U.S. “right now,” and go back to their “broken and crime-infested countries.”

Cummings replied that government officials must stop making “hateful, incendiary comments” that only serve to divide and distract the nation from its real problems, including mass shootings and white supremacy.

“Those in the highest levels of the government must stop invoking fear, using racist language and encouraging reprehensible behavior,” Cummings said in a speech at the National Press Club.

Long career in politics

Cummings’ long career spanned decades in Maryland politics. He rose through the ranks of the Maryland House of Delegates before winning his congressional seat in a special election in 1996 to replace former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who left the seat to lead the NAACP.

Cummings continued his rise in Congress. In 2016, he was the senior Democrat on the House Benghazi Committee, which he said was “nothing more than a taxpayer-funded effort to bring harm to Hillary Clinton’s campaign” for president.

Cummings was an early supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008.

Passionate orator

Throughout his career, Cummings used his fiery voice to highlight the struggles and needs of inner-city residents. He was a firm believer in some much-debated approaches to help the poor and addicted, such as needle exchange programs as a way to reduce the spread of AIDS.

Cummings was born on Jan. 18, 1951. In grade school, a counselor told Cummings he was too slow to learn and spoke poorly, and he would never fulfill his dream of becoming a lawyer.

“I was devastated,” Cummings told The Associated Press in 1996, shortly before he won his seat in Congress. “My whole life changed. I became very determined.”

It steeled Cummings to prove that counselor wrong. He became not only a lawyer, but one of the most powerful orators in the Maryland House of Delegates, where he entered office in 1983. He rose to become House speaker pro tem, the first black delegate to hold the position. He would begin his comments slowly, developing his theme and raising the emotional heat until it became like a sermon from the pulpit.

Cummings was quick to note the differences between Congress and the Maryland General Assembly, which has long been controlled by Democrats.

“After coming from the state where, basically, you had a lot of people working together, it’s clear that the lines are drawn here,” Cummings said about a month after entering office in Washington in 1996.

Cummings chaired the Congressional Black Caucus from 2003 to 2004, employing a hard-charging, explore-every-option style to put the group in the national spotlight.v He cruised to big victories in the overwhelmingly Democratic district, which had given Maryland its first black congressman in 1970 when Parren Mitchell was elected.

After the State Department blocked him from appearing last week, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is scheduled to appear Thursday before House lawmakers conducting an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s relations with Ukraine.

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees are holding the closed-door deposition where Sondland is expected to say Trump would only offer a White House visit to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy if he committed to investigations involving Trump’s Democratic rivals.

Sondland, a Trump donor, was one of several diplomats who advised the Ukrainian leadership about how to carry out Trump’s demands after his July phone call with Zelenskiy. In the call, Trump asked the Kyiv leader for “a favor” — that Ukraine investigate one of Trump’s top Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.

According to a U.S. intelligence whistleblower, Sondland and other diplomats exchanged a series of text messages in which the diplomats wondered why roughly $400 million in aid to Ukraine was frozen.

Reports say there was a five-hour gap between text messages, during which Sondland telephoned Trump.

The next message assured one diplomat there was no “quid pro quo” of any kind with Ukraine, followed by Sondland writing, “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.”

Former Pompeo aide

On Wednesday, a former top aide to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told House lawmakers that he quit last week in growing frustration over the politicization of the State Department, with the final straw being President Donald Trump’s ouster of the well-regarded American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.

In hours of congressional testimony, Michael McKinley, decried the agency’s unwillingness to protect career diplomats like Yovanovitch from political pressure.

McKinley’s statements, recounted by people familiar with his closed-door testimony before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, are the latest in a string of unflattering accounts about the behind-the-scenes operations of the country’s foreign policy and national security agencies.

McKinley has served as the U.S. ambassador in four countries, and he had other global postings before returning to Washington as an aide to Pompeo.

His testimony, along with that of others, has helped buttress the account of the unnamed whistleblower.

Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing, but Hunter Biden, 49, said this week he used “poor judgment” in agreeing to serve on the board of a Ukrainian energy company because it had become a political liability for his father.

Trump has described the call with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” and denied any wrongdoing.

Yovanovitch testified last week that Trump dismissed her based on “unfounded and false claims” after Trump’s personal attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, assailed her performance in Kyiv.

According to a rough recounting of the July conversation supplied by the White House, Trump told Zelenskiy, “The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news, so I just wanted to let you know that. The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, and that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look in to it … it sounds horrible to me.”

Trump continued Wednesday to attack the impeachment hearings against him.

Republicans are totally deprived of their rights in this Impeachment Witch Hunt. No lawyers, no questions, no transparency! The good news is that the Radical Left Dems have No Case. It is all based on their Fraud and Fabrication!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2019

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff defended the process in a letter Wednesday, saying Republicans have not been kept out of the process.

“Questions have been primarily asked by committee counsels for both the majority and the minority, but also by Members of both parties. And the majority and minority have been provided equal staff representation and time to question witnesses, who have stayed until the majority and minority have asked all of their questions — often late into the evening,” Schiff wrote.

He said transcripts of closed-door interviews will be made public at a time when doing so will not jeopardize the investigation, and that “at an appropriate point” witnesses will be questioned in public sessions “so that the full Congress and the American people can hear their testimony firsthand.”

South Korea is deploying snipers, installing traps and flying drones along its border as it ramps up efforts to stop wild boars from spreading swine fever from rival North Korea.

African swine fever, fatal to hogs but no threat to humans, has wiped out pig herds in many Asian countries. Feral hogs are thought to be a main reason for its spread, and North Korea has been snubbing the South’s repeated calls for joint quarantine efforts, officials say.

South Korea has culled about 154,500 pigs in the past month, all in farms near the North Korean border. North Korea hasn’t released any detailed reports on the disease, but South Korea’s spy agency says that pig herds in one North Korea province were “annihilated.” North Korea observers in Seoul say the pork prices in markets there have soared.

A look at African swine fever in North and South Korea.

Start of the disease

North Korea first reported an outbreak in May after widespread deaths of pigs in neighboring China. Chinese officials say farms there have slaughtered at least 1.17 million pigs while trying to control the disease since August 2018.

North Korea told the World Organization for Animal Health that 77 of 99 pigs at a farm in its Jagang province, which borders China, died of the disease. The remaining 22 pigs were culled. North Korea said it’s fighting hard to stop the disease’s spread, but has not reported any other outbreaks.

Suh Hoon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers in a private briefing last month that African swine fever has spread across North Korea. Pig herds in North Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, have been “annihilated” and people were complaining about the lack of meat, lawmakers said he told them.

North Korea monitoring groups say the disease occurred in North Korea well before May.

South Korea confirmed its first outbreak in the border town of Paju on Sept. 17. It has since reported 13 more cases near the border and culled 154,500 pigs, including all hogs in Paju.

Risks to South Korea

Failure to contain the disease would be potentially devastating for South Korea’s huge pork industry. The consequences would be much worse for the chronically food-scarce North.

South Korean officials say North Korea had about 2.6 million pigs in 14 government-run or cooperative farms before the disease’s outbreak.

Cho Chung-hui, a former North Korean official in charge of livestock issues who fled to South Korea in 2011 says pork accounts for up to 80 percent of protein consumption for North Korea’s 25 million people. Many North Korean households raise and sell a pig or two each year to be able to buy rice since rationing systems are in shambles.

A 100 kilogram (220 pound) hog can be sold to buy about 150 kilograms (330 pounds) of rice, enough for a family for a year, Cho said.

He said North Korean animal health officials and farms do not slaughter animals even if they’re sick.

South Korea’s own risks are somewhat contained by the fact that most of its 6,300 pig farms, raising some 11 million hogs, are indoor facilities. The country has ample experience with fighting animal diseases after dealing with numerous foot-and-mouth outbreaks since the 2000s.

Wild boars

African swine fever spreads easily through contact with infected animals, carcasses, manure and contaminated substances such as feed, clothing and vehicles.

The Koreas’ 248-kilometer (155-mile) border is the world’s the most heavily fortified with barbed wire fences installed in minefields, but South Korean officials and experts say wild boards could still roam in and out of North Korea by swimming across rivers.

Those rivers could also spread the disease if contaminated by carcasses or runoff from affected farms, says Sur Jung-hyang, a professor of veterinary medicine at Seoul’s Konkuk University.

A powerful typhoon with torrential rains in September likely caused runoff of contaminated soil and water from North Korea in early September, Cho said. Insects and rats could also spread the virus, he said.

South Korea’s Ministry of Environment said that samples taken from seven dead wild boars found on the southern side of the border have tested positive for African swine fever.

Whatever the source of the South Korean outbreaks, experts say controlling movements of wild boars is crucial.

Quarantine efforts

To stop the disease from spreading, South Korea’s military Tuesday said it has deployed snipers and civilian hunters to search for and kill wild boars in border areas. They will work in shifts around the clock, using night-vision goggles to spot the animals when it’s dark, which is when they are most active.

The military will also try flying drones equipped with thermal cameras to monitor areas for wild boars and will use helicopters to transport carcasses and other samples to labs more quickly, the Defense Ministry said.

Authorities have installed hundreds of traps and plan to install more barbed-wire fences to stop wild boars from reaching pig farms. Thousands have been assigned to enforce quarantines and beef up biosecurity practices at border farms; 2,000 checkpoints have been set up to restrict movements of people and livestock and decontaminate vehicles.

North Korea would have much less effective quarantine efforts, the experts said. When he was working in North Korea, Cho said the country did not have any disinfection trucks. It still appears to lack any.

“Even in China, there have been problems about people cooking and eating infected pigs. It would have been the same situation in North Korea,” Sur said.

Hundreds of Yazidis have fled insecurity in southeastern Syria as the Turkish military and its allied militants continue their assault against Kurdish forces.

Yazidi activists in the region told VOA that at least eight villages belonging to the religious minority had been deserted because of intense fighting that broke out last week shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the region.

Siban Sallo, a local Yazidi activist and journalist, said that more than 500 Yazidis had been displaced in eight out of 15 Yazidi villages extending across the northeastern Syria’s border with Turkey.

The villagers have escaped south toward the areas that are still intact and remain under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“All 15 villages lost electricity after the station generating power in the area was hit by a mortar,” Sallo told VOA.

Three Syriac-Christian villages in the vicinity also emptied out after the conflict broke out.

“Snipers were shooting at people in Tal Khatoun village. Four people from Tal Hasnak village were injured by fire,” he said, adding that fear spread among the Yazidi residents that they could be targeted by Islamic hardliner elements among the Turkish-backed rebels.  

Yazidi genocide

Yazidis are an ethno-religious minority of about 550,000 people, mostly residing in northern Iraq and with a substantial number in northern Syria.

Radical islamist groups consider the Yazidis infidels and “devil worshippers” who should denounce their religion or be killed.

The Islamic State (IS) terror group killed thousands of Yazidi men and enslaved their women in a genocidal campaign in Iraq in 2014.

One of the displaced villagers from Turkey’s recent campaign, language instructor Lina Khodor, 22, said she and her family of eight fled Tal Khatoun village after the Turkish army and allied militants attacked their houses. She said shelling destroyed several houses in the village.

Tal Khatoun is a small Yazidi village 14 kilometers from al-Qahtaniyah in the eastern Qamishli countryside.

“When the attack started around 3 a.m., first we heard endless gunfire rattling in our village, and then mortars fell on our homes. One mortar hit the oil station in the area, which caused a power outage. Then we just took off before it was too late,” Khodor said.

The family members packed some clothes along with their identification cards and official documents and escaped to the neighboring town of al-Qahtaniyah, where a larger population of Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians lives.

Khodor added that the Yazidi villagers feared that IS sympathizers in the area could be emboldened and their imprisoned leaders could break out amid chaos caused by the Turkish incursion. To protect themselves, they escaped to more populated areas to mix with the Muslim population.

“All women have left the village with their children, fearing that what happened to Yazidis in Sinjar in 2014 and Afrin in 2018 would happen to them. Only a few armed men are staying behind to protect their homes from looting,” she told VOA.

Human rights organizations accuse Turkey-backed rebels of targeting the minority group in the predominately Kurdish town of Afrin in northwest Syria and forcing thousands of them to flee.

The ethnically and religiously diverse town in Aleppo’s countryside was under protection of the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces before the Turkish incursion in March 2018.

Afrin example

Rights groups such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say they are documenting daily human rights violations by Turkey-backed rebels against Afrin residents, especially minorities.

Azad Diwani, a U.K.-based scholar and researcher, told VOA that many militants Turkey is backing in its operation in northeast Syria have radical jihadi sentiments, prompting fears among minorities in the region.  

“Turkey-backed rebels destroyed religious temples and forced people to convert to Islam. We even heard that a number of women from the Alwaite sect were taken as sex slaves. They violate the rights of anyone who does not abide to their ideology,” Diwani said.

Diwani said many factions who were a part of Turkey’s operation in Afrin reportedly were recruited to participate in the attack on northeastern Syria.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) finalized its decision Wednesday to go on strike against the city’s school district, the third-largest in the United States, after protracted labor negotiations did not produce a deal before their deadline.

Earlier in the day, the district canceled classes for Thursday for its 361,000 students.

School buildings will be open for students who need a place to go, officials said. Schools will serve breakfast and lunch, but all after-school activities, including sports, tutoring and field trips, are canceled.

Late Wednesday afternoon, CTU’s delegates overwhelmingly reaffirmed their decision earlier this month to go a strike Thursday if the union was unable to come to a contract agreement with Chicago Public Schools (CPS), said teachers union president Jesse Sharkey.

“We have not achieved what we need to bring justice and high-quality schools to the children and teachers of Chicago,” he said.

In addition to wage increases, the teachers union is demanding more funding to ease overcrowded classrooms and hire more support staff, two perennial issues plaguing the school district.

District offered 80 changes

The district’s bargaining team has offered 80 proposed changes to the current contract related to issues requested by the union, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said earlier Wednesday.

“I was disappointed by the CTU’s decision to begin a work stoppage and force the cancellation of classes,” Lightfoot said at a late afternoon briefing. “We rolled up our sleeves and negotiated in good faith over a long period of time.”

CPS has also offered teachers a 16% raise over five years along with support for oversized classes, enforceable targets for reducing class sizes and adding more support staff across the district, she said.

The mayor said the union’s demands would cost the district an additional $2.5 billion annually.

CPS finances “are still recovering from the brink of insolvency, and we do not have unlimited funds,” the mayor said.

The district’s credit ratings remain at the noninvestment, or “junk” status, although they have improved in the wake of a revised statewide school funding formula that boosted revenue for CPS operations and pension payments.

Thousands of Chicago teachers staged a one-day walkout in 2016 to protest the lack of a contract at that time and failures to stabilize the finances.

Nearly 400,000 students out

District officials encouraged students to go to public libraries and community organizations where educational programs and activities will be offered during the strike.

In addition to schools, park facilities across the city will be open for children during the strike after the city reached a labor agreement Wednesday with the union representing city park workers.

The agreement with the union includes wage increases ranging from 10% to 28% over the 4½ years and for paid vacation to hourly employees based on the number of hours worked, Lightfoot said.
 

Two lawyers linked to the so-called Panama Papers are asking a federal judge to stop Neflix’s upcoming release of “The Laundromat,” which they say defames them as lawless attorneys and may affect criminal cases against them.

Panamanian lawyers Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca filed a defamation lawsuit and request for a temporary restraining order Wednesday in federal court in Connecticut.

Netflix is set to release the movie Friday, after it had a limited release in theaters. It stars Gary Oldman as Mossack and Antonio Banderas as Fonseca, as well as Meryl Streep.

Netflix says the case should be dismissed or moved to California.

The Panama Papers were more than 11 million documents leaked from the two lawyers’ firm in a data breach that shed light on how the rich hide their money.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed a law clearing away legal hurdles that could have prevented state prosecutions of people pardoned by President Donald Trump for federal crimes.

The law signed Wednesday by the Democrat revises exceptions to the state’s double jeopardy law.

New York Democrats say it will ensure that the state’s ongoing investigations into associates of the Republican president can’t be derailed by a White House pardon.

Republicans have decried the law as a partisan attack.

The law was passed this year amid speculation that Trump might pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort or former lawyer Michael Cohen.

Both have been convicted of federal crimes.

Manafort is also awaiting trial on a New York state mortgage fraud charge that closely mirrors part of his federal case.
 

The SPLM-North (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North) faction based in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains suspended peace talks in Juba with Khartoum officials after military forces allegedly bombed several areas in the region and killed a sheik on Tuesday. The group’s leader said the sustained attack shows the Sudanese government’s failure to respect the cessation of hostilities agreement the parties signed last month.
 
Amar Amoua, SPLM-North’s Secretary General and spokesperson for the group, told reporters in Juba Wednesday his group will not take part in any peace talks until there is a full investigation into the attack. For the last 10 days, Amoua said Sudanese government forces bombarded several areas of the Nuba Mountains.
 

Amoua said SPLM-North will not return to the bargaining table until their demands are met.
 
“Our coming back to negotiate on table is bound by government decision to clear all these things. The government should withdraw its forces and stop from gaining new ground by occupying new areas. We will not allow that and also we need the government to release immediately the traders whom they have arrested with all their property and hand them to SPLM/N authorities in Nuba Mountains,” Amoua told South Sudan in Focus.
 
Amoua said Tuesday’s attack included 25 armed Land Cruisers that attacked civilians in Kor Waral, a rebel-controlled area of the Nuba Mountains. He said a local chief named Sheik Mahamed Afdal Fadil and one soldier were killed in the area, while at least 10 people are missing.
 
“We are asking the government also to make thorough investigations into the chief, who is been assassinated because he rejected passing of nomads in that new road, which passes through farm lands,” Amoua told VOA.
 
The Sudanese government downplayed the accusations, blaming the attack on cattle herders.
 
Mohammed Hassan Eltaishi, a spokesman representing the transitional Sudanese government delegation at the peace talks in Juba, told reporters Tuesday that the government has full knowledge of what he referred to as the “incident,” and indicated military leaders were not involved in the attack.
 
“The incident happened at the context of local inhabitants who happen to be herders attacking local merchants. Some fell victim and got captured and local goods were confiscated. The government regrets and condemns in the strongest terms these unfortunate events that keep happening in the area and in other parts of the country,” said Eltaishi.
 
It is particularly troublesome that “the event” took place at a time when people were entering peace talks, said Eltaishi, adding, “the country is united for the cause of peace in Sudan.”
 
Eltaishi vowed the government would investigate the incident and hold those responsible accountable.

Tutkew Gatluak, South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s security advisor and a chief mediator in the talks, called on Sudanese authorities to quickly launch an investigation.
 
“We have received a report from the SPLM-North, led by Alhilu, because there is an incident that happened in (the) Nuba Mountains. It is an unfortunate incident. It is an environment of peace.  We don’t want any situation from both parties that interrupts the peace process,” said Gatluak.
 
Talks between the Sudan government and an alliance of more than a dozen rebel groups headed by SPLM-North chairperson Abdelaziz Adam Alhilu was to begin on Wednesday, according to mediators. The alliance includes the rebel group Sudanese Revolutionary Front.
 
Before the announcement of the SPLM-N’s refusal to negotiate, mediators and other observers including the African Union had already convened at Juba’s Pyramid Hotel, the venue of the talks.
 
Jeremiah Kingsley, the African Union ambassador to South Sudan, offered his assurances of support to regional leaders for the Sudan talks.
 
“We are grateful that the parties have agreed to come here to begin talking. It is not going to be easy; we can only call up on them to fine each other. It is in the interest the Sudanese people who have suffered a great deal. They should put the interest of the people first,” Kingsley told South Sudan in Focus.
 
On Monday, Alhilu said the African Union held 22 rounds of peace talks between the Sudanese government and the rebels but the two sides had failed to address the root causes of the problem.

 

 

HONG KONG — Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Wednesday was forced to abruptly end and walk out on her annual policy address to the legislature by jeering lawmakers.
 
Pro-democracy legislative council members, some wearing masks of Chinese President Xi Jinping, disrupted Lam’s speech with shouts of “five demands, not one less,” referring to protester calls for democratic reforms that include universal suffrage, amnesty for democracy activists and an independent investigation into alleged abuses by police.
 
Hong Kong has been embroiled in four months of disruptive democracy demonstrations that began with opposition to a now withdrawn extradition bill, which reinforced concerns from many that China is intent on undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy guaranteed under the “one country-two systems” agreement.  

Internal affairs

The chief executive later addressed the legislature by video link and said her government will uphold Hong Kong’s autonomous status, but would not tolerate calls for independence or anything that hurts China’s national security and sovereignty.
 
She also criticized the United States and other foreign nations, urging them not to get involved in Hong Kong’s affairs.
 
“It’s extremely inappropriate for foreign parliaments to interfere” in Hong Kong’s “internal affairs in any way,” Lam said, adding that her government “will not allow (the United States) to become a stakeholder” in Hong Kong  matters.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday unanimously passed legislation that could impose sanctions on Hong Kong for suppressing basic rights and has barred the exports of military and crowd-control items that Hong Kong police could use against demonstrators. The Senate has not yet scheduled to vote on these measures.

China’s foreign ministry accused the U.S. lawmakers of “sinister intentions” to undermine Hong Kong’s stability and warned that bilateral relations would be damaged should the measures become law.

Undermining violence
 
Lam also voiced concern about the ongoing protests that, she said, caused injuries to more than 1,100 people and the arrest of more than 2,200 others; and the violence committed by some activists, including attacking police with bricks and gasoline bombs and destroying subways stations and businesses deemed pro-Beijing.

Outside the legislative council on Wednesday morning, a small group of protesters held a demonstration, criticizing Lam as a puppet of Beijing. Many protesters support the more aggressive tactics being employed by some activists to increase economic and political pressure on the government, as peaceful demonstrations alone have not been effective.

“When we use some peaceful way to express our opinion, they don’t listen,” said one protester.

However, Randall Schriver, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs,
on Tuesday voiced concern about “some of the tactics used by demonstrators in Hong Kong.” But he also emphasized Washington’s support for Hong Kong’s autonomy and said Beijing’s “heavier hand” in Hong Kong is worrisome.

Some analysts have said that acts of violence by radical elements in the democracy movement risk undermining public support, and could give Beijing and the Hong Kong government an excuse to take harsher measures in the name of public safety.

Economic anxiety

Lam has refused to make any concessions to the protesters, but in her speech to the legislature she did address some of the economic concerns that, many say, contribute to the political unrest.  
 
She promised to increase housing projects and cap rising property values that have prevented many young people in Hong Kong from buying a home, and to cut public transportation costs.

Leung Kwok-hung, also known as “Long Hair,” a longtime democracy activist, said these economic proposals will not change widespread public support for significant  democratic change.

“Maybe they can deliver big pieces of candy, but it will not solve the problem of Hong Kong at this moment,” said Leung, who is one of four former legislative council members stripped of their seats in 2017, for making defiant gestures during the swearing-in ceremony.

Lam also noted that the economy has slipped into a technical recession since the third quarter, and that violence has damaged Hong Kong’s international image and undermined its attractiveness to overseas investors.
 

Juan Rossi walks between rows of green wheat at his farm in one of Argentina’s most fertile agricultural regions, worrying about the future of the farming sector that is the main economic engine of this country.

When he planted the wheat, he expected conservative Mauricio Macri to be reelected president of Argentina. Now, farmers like Rossi are bracing for a possible return of the interventionist policies of Macri’s now-favored main rival: the presidential ticket of Alberto Fernandez and former President Cristina Fernandez.

Export restrictions imposed during Cristina Fernandez’s 2007-2015 left-of-center government triggered a revolt in 2008 by Argentina’s farmers, who are among the world’s top suppliers of grains. She is now running as vice president with her former aide bidding for the presidency in the Oct. 27 national elections.

Fears of a return of high export taxes come as agriculture seeks to rebound from one of the worst drought in years that badly damaged crops two seasons ago.

“Today, we have uncertainty about whether they’ll allow us to continue as we’ve been doing so far, or if they’re going to put a spoke in our wheel,” Rossi said on his farm on the outskirts of the city of Pergamino, where he also grows corn and keeps chickens and peacocks. “We’re in the middle of this fog and no one knows what’s going to happen.”

Rossi was among a group of jubilant Argentine farmers who cheered the business-friendly Macri when he arrived in their town in the Pampas grain belt in 2015 to announce that he would scrap taxes on exports of corn and wheat to jumpstart the economy.

It was a moment of victory for Macri, who had recently taken office, and of hope for farmers, who had been hobbled by the strict export limits imposed by the previous government. Since then, it has only been ups and downs.

Rossi says improved weather gave them some “oxygen” for this year’s harvest. But then Macri surprisingly turned in a worse showing in primary elections than the left-leaning Peronist candidate Alberto Fernandez, causing stocks to plunge and the peso to depreciate even further in recession-hit Argentina, which has been struggling with rapidly rising prices and increasing poverty.

The primary results also coincided with a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that lowered estimates for Argentina’s soy and corn crops based on weather conditions, said Esteban Copati, head of agricultural forecasts at the Buenos Aires grains exchange.

“There was a double whammy,” Copati said. “On the one side, there was this change in the political scenario that changed the intention of growers to plant since they started to become fearful of what the policies of this new government could be. And on the other hand, there was the impact of the drop in international prices.”

Farmers and ranchers say they don’t want a return to restrictions that in 2008 led them to block goods from reaching Argentine cities, causing severe shortages of beef and produce. Unmoved goods rotted and supermarket shelves were bare in many regions.

The three-week strike over export taxes became one of the biggest crises of Cristina Fernandez’s presidency. She said the taxes were aimed at redistributing the riches from the agricultural sector in a country where many are poor.

Farming leaders have met with Alberto Fernandez, who served as chief of staff during a portion of Cristina Fernandez’s first term as president but left in 2008 following the conflict. The two are not related.

Farmers said the candidate asked them to turn the page at the recent meeting. He later told reporters that the session marked the “beginning of a good, fruitful bond.”

The farming sector is a major source of foreign currency for Argentina and the next administration will be eager to count on bringing in those reserves to avert a debt default and a further deepening of a currency crisis.

Many Argentines are increasingly frustrated by the sputtering economy, rising poverty and austerity measures. Some analysts say that Macri’s administration set overly optimistic goals and that a decision by the central bank to hike the inflation target caused investors to begin doubting Macri’s commitment to taming price rises. Macri’s government was forced to strike a record $56 billion bailout loan with the International Monetary Fund following a sharp depreciation of the peso against the U.S. dollar last year.

“After four years of the Macri government, we realize that this model that some of us cautioned about has become a reality,” Sebastian Campo said as he herded cows at his farm on the outskirts of Pergamino. He said he is among a small minority in this area who don’t back Macri, but he hasn’t decided yet on whom to vote for.

In recent days, Macri has reached out to farmers, promising them “more technology, more innovation and less taxes” while praising their contributions at a time of crisis.

“Our countryside amounts to 40 percent of our economy and generates a third of jobs for Argentines,” Macri said Saturday on Twitter. “We want to propel it so it can create more employment and opportunities.”

It’s no coincidence that shortly after he took office, Macri chose a farm in Pergamino to make one of the most important economic announcements of his presidency.

“Pergamino is an icon of agriculture in Argentina. It’s the equivalent of the corn belt in the United States,” said Agustin Tejeda, chief economic analyst at the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange. “It’s in the heart of the most fertile lands and a great agricultural tradition.”

The city of 105,000 people, located in Buenos Aires province, is also a hub for Argentine agribusiness. Farmers and ranchers drive pickup trucks and tractors along dusty roads passing through seemingly endless flat fields in one the world’s top soy exporters and a key producer of corn and wheat.

“The road that Argentines have chosen is the road of change, of openness, of free trade,” said Jorge Josifovich, an agricultural engineer who owns and manages farm lands in the area.

“Faced with the likelihood of a new (Fernandez) government, we don’t have any expectations that the road that began in 2015 will continue,” he said. “They care very little about farmers. Just as we still see ghosts in them, they still see us as the enemy.”

 

An annual hip-hop festival in Ghana is celebrating the west African country’s take on the American culture and art movement. Performers use their music and art to represent culture and life in Ghana, infusing local languages, fashion, and sounds into hip-hop style. Stacey Knott reports from Accra. 

Creating human organs from a 3D printer may sound like science fiction, but researchers are working on making that a reality.  Engineers in one lab at Rice University are 3D printing complex vascular networks found in human tissue. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from Houston.

Rescue workers in Japan searched for the missing on Wednesday as the death toll from one of the worst typhoons to hit the country rose to 74, public broadcaster NHK said, many drowned by flooding after scores of rivers burst their banks.

Public broadcaster NHK said 12 were missing and more than 220 injured after Typhoon Hagibis lashed through the Japanese archipelago at the weekend. Throughout the eastern half of the main island of Honshu, 52 rivers had flooded over.

Click to see an interactive graphic plotting the path of Typhoon Hagibis) Residents in Fukushima prefecture, which has seen the highest number of casualties, were busy dumping water-damaged furniture and rubbish onto the streets. Many elderly remained in evacuation centers, unable to clean up their homes.

In Date city, not far from the site of the nuclear disaster in 2011, farmer Masao Hirayama piled damp books in the street in front of his house, adding to a mound of rubbish from the neighborhood.

He said the water had reached about 2 meters (6.6 feet) deep in his house, when he and his son were rescued by boat and taken to an evacuation centre. His wife and grandchildren had stayed with relatives through the storm.

“I feel down,” Hirayama, 70, said, adding that the flood had swept away all his green houses and farming equipment. “All that is left is the land.”

Hirayama said he had rebuilt his house in 1989, raising the ground level following a flood in 1986. His family plan to live on the second floor until he can make repairs, which he reckons could take three months.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government would spend 710 million yen ($6.5 million) to facilitate disaster relief.

China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing resolutely opposed new measures passed by the U.S. House of Representatives related to the Hong Kong protests and urged lawmakers to stop interfering.

China’s relationship with the United States will be damaged should the legislation become law, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement.

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, one of the measures passed by the House, would require the U.S. secretary of state to certify each year that Hong Kong retained its autonomy in order to receive special treatment as a major financial center.

European Union officials hoped to sketch out a Brexit deal with Britain within hours, but negotiations stretched into early Wednesday in the latest effort at producing an agreement in more than three years of false starts and sudden reversals.
 
The bloc said it might be possible to strike a divorce deal by Thursday’s EU leaders’ summit, which comes just two weeks before the U.K’s scheduled departure date of Oct. 31. One major proviso: The British government must make more compromises to seal an agreement in the coming hours.
 
Britain and the EU have been here before – within sight of a deal only to see it dashed – but a surge in the British pound Tuesday indicated hope that this time could be different. The currency rose against the dollar to its highest level in months.
 
Even though many questions remain, diplomats made it clear that both sides were within touching distance of a deal for the first time since a U.K. withdrawal plan fell apart in the British House of Commons in March.
 
Still, talks that first lingered into Tuesday night turned into negotiating past midnight as no deal materialized between experts from both sides holed up at EU headquarters in a darkened Brussels.
 
Late Tuesday, Martin Schirdewan, a German member of the European Parliament’s Brexit Steering Group, said an agreement was “now within our grasp” following a breakthrough in negotiations.

This week’s EU leaders’ meeting – the last scheduled summit before the Brexit deadline – was long considered the last opportunity to approve a divorce agreement. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson insists his country will leave at the end of the month with or without an agreement, although U.K. lawmakers are determined to push for another delay rather than risk a chaotic no-deal Brexit.
 
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said at a meeting of the bloc’s ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday that the main challenge now is to turn the new British proposals on the complex Irish border issue into something legally binding. EU member Ireland has a land border with the U.K.’s Northern Ireland, and both want to keep goods and people flowing freely across the currently invisible frontier.
 
A frictionless border underpins both the local economy and the 1998 peace accord that ended decades of Catholic-Protestant violence in Northern Ireland. But once Britain exits, that border will turn into an external EU frontier that the bloc wants to keep secure.
 
Barnier wants a clear answer by Wednesday morning, so EU capitals can prepare for the bloc’s two-day summit that begins Thursday. “It is still possible this week,” said Barnier. As so often, intricate details kept hopes from turning into immediate reality.

 
The big question is how far Johnson’s government is prepared to budge on its insistence that the U.K., including Northern Ireland, must leave the European Union’s customs union – something that would require checks on goods passing between the U.K. and the EU, including on the island of Ireland.
 
The British government has given away little detail of the proposals it has made on the issue; even government ministers have not been told specifics. In broad terms, the U.K. is proposing that Northern Ireland – but not the rest of the U.K. – continue to follow EU customs rules and tariffs after Brexit in order to remove the need for border checks.
 
But that sounds like a customs union in all but name – and would mean new checks or tariffs on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
 
An EU official said Barnier told a teleconference of some lawmakers that the Irish Sea would largely become the customs border between the EU and the U.K. That would avoid having a visible land border on the island of Ireland between the two. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were ongoing.
 
But Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, the party that props up Johnson’s minority government, strongly opposes any measures that could loosen the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
 
After DUP leaders met with Johnson late Tuesday at the prime minister’s office, the party said negotiations continued but “it would be fair to indicate gaps remain and further work is required.”
 
Brexit supporters are also wary that maintaining any kind of customs union with the EU will tie the U.K. to the bloc’s regulations and limit its ability to strike new trade deals around the world – undermining what were supposed to be some of the key benefits of a withdrawal.
 
The customs proposals on the table also appear similar to those put forward by former Prime Minister Theresa May. Opposition from pro-Brexit lawmakers, including Johnson, led to those being rejected by Parliament three times.
 
In public, Johnson has not changed his tune. But the British leader was working hard behind the scenes to secure a deal that would allow him to fulfil his vow to take the U.K. out of the bloc. And some of the staunchest Brexit-backers appeared willing to give him a chance.
 
“I am optimistic that it is possible for us to reach a tolerable deal that I will be able to vote for,” said pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker Steve Baker.
 
On Tuesday, Johnson called French President Emmanuel Macron – one of the EU leaders most skeptical about Britain’s intentions – to discuss where elements of a compromise could be found. Johnson’s spokesman, James Slack, called the conversation “constructive.”
 
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who had a long, intense talk with Barnier early Tuesday, said the EU believes a deal “is difficult, but it is doable.” He said Barnier addressed EU ministers and “did point to progress in the last number of days where the gaps have been narrowed.”
 
Still, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the British proposals to keep the Irish border protected from smuggling and fraud once it leaves the bloc were insufficient.
 
EU ministers insisted it was Johnson’s turn to make the next move – and he seemed to be listening. In addition to the call with Macron, Johnson shifted Britain’s weekly Cabinet meeting from Tuesday to Wednesday to give his ministers a better idea of Brexit progress.
 
If talks fail or stumble ahead of the EU summit, there could always be an extraordinary meeting just before the Brexit deadline – or it could be extended again. It has already been postponed twice.
 
“There will be progress tomorrow, the question is how big this progress will be,” said a senior German official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in line with department rules. “Is this progress so great that work is still needed, but this work can be done in the next few days? Or is the progress such that two more months’ work is needed?”