President Donald Trump’s promise to a foreign leader so troubled an official in the U.S. intelligence community that it prompted them to file a whistleblower complaint, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The Post, which cited two former officials familiar with the matter, said it was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver. The communication was a phone call, one former official said, according to the Post.

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of “urgent concern,” a legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight committees, the Post said.

But the acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire has refused to share details about the complaint with lawmakers, the Post reported.

Maguire has defended his refusal by asserting that the subject of the complaint is beyond his jurisdiction, the Post said.

House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a Democrat, has sought to compel U.S. intelligence officials to disclose the full details of the whistleblower complaint to Congress.

Atkinson is scheduled to appear at a closed hearing of the committee on Thursday and Maguire has agreed to testify before the panel in open session a week later, Schiff said in a statement.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Representatives of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence could not be reached.

A federal judge in Miami has denied bail for a former American Airlines mechanic accused of sabotaging a jetliner with 150 aboard.

Judge Chris McAliley ordered Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani to remain behind bars because of what the judge says is new evidence of possible Islamic extremist sympathies.

Prosecutors say Alani’s brother in Iraq may have ties to Islamic State and Alani himself allegedly made statements about Allah using “divine powers” to harm non-Muslins.

But for now, the only charge against Alani is “willfully damaging, destroying, or disabling” a commercial aircraft.

Prosecutors say Alani glued a piece of Styrofoam inside the nose of the aircraft in mid-July to disable a component allowing the pilots to gauge its speed and other information.

The aircraft flashed an error message just before takeoff from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas, and the pilots returned to the gate.

Alani told police he was angered over stalled labor talks between American Airlines management and mechanics and hoped that stopping the plane would lead to extra work and overtime pay.

Alani’s attorney says that even if the plane had taken off, it would have been safe to fly.

Judge McAliley disagreed, telling Alani “What you did with this aircraft was highly reckless and unconscionable, certainly there was a risk of a catastrophic disaster. I think it is likely you will be convicted.”

It’s an uneasy night on Bermuda as Hurricane Humberto threatens to lash the island with fierce winds and heavy rains.

Humberto is a strong Category 3 storm with top sustained winds of 195 kilometers (120 miles) per hour. The storm was centered north of Bermuda Wednesday night moving east-northeast at 31 kph (20 mph).

Bermuda is under a hurricane warning with forecasters predicting the storm will pass very close to the island overnight Wednesday into Thursday before it starts to weaken.

Bermuda’s National Security Minister Wayne Caines ordered everyone off the streets as evening approached. All non-emergency medical procedures in Bermuda’s hospitals are postponed and evening flights to and from the island have been canceled.

Qatar Airways hit turbulence Wednesday, posting a net loss for the year to March 2019 of $639 million which the airline blamed on key markets closing their airspace to Doha.

The United Arab Emirates, which was a key market for the Gulf carrier, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, have enforced an economic boycott of Qatar since June 2017.

They accuse Doha of links to extremist groups and being too close to Iran, Riyadh’s regional arch-rival — charges Qatar denies — and have closed their airspace, borders and markets to Doha.

The year to March 2019 was “a challenging year and while it is disappointing that [Qatar Airways Group] has registered a net loss of 2.3 billion Qatari riyals [$639 million] — attributable to the loss of mature routes, higher fuel costs and foreign exchange fluctuations — the underlying fundamentals of our business remain extremely robust,” the airline said in a statement.

Growth

The flag carrier said it had added 31 new destinations “since the start of the illegal blockade,” both making use of aircraft formerly used on its popular regional routes as well as new planes.

“The airline’s fleet grew by 25 aircraft to a point where it welcomed its 250th aircraft in March 2019,” said the statement.

The tiny Gulf emirate’s national airline lost only $69 million in the same period a year earlier.

That came after a bumper period in the financial year prior to the crisis when it posted a 22-percent rise in net profits for 2016-2017.

Losses for the latest period came despite a 14 percent rise in overall revenues to $13.2 billion.

Canada reported its first hospitalization for severe respiratory illness linked to vaping Wednesday, following an outbreak in the U.S. that has killed seven people and sickened hundreds. 
 
The Middlesex-London Health Unit said in a statement that “a youth has been diagnosed with severe respiratory illness that has been linked to the individual’s use of vaping products.” 
 
Medic Christopher Mackie told a news conference that the London, Ontario, high school student, who vaped daily, was admitted to a local hospital intensive care unit but has since recovered. 
 
“As far as we’re aware, this is the first case of vaping-related illness that’s been reported in Canada,” he said. 
 
E-cigarettes have been available in the U.S. and Canada since 2006 and are sometimes used to aid in quitting smoking traditional tobacco products such as cigarettes. 
 
Despite a ban in Canada on selling vaping products to youths, adolescents’ use of them has skyrocketed in recent years. 

More restrictions weighed
 
Health Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor said the Canadian government was looking at further banning of vaping advertising and certain flavors that may be appealing to young people. 
 
“At the end of the day, my number one priority is protecting our youth,” she said. “We want to make sure that the regulations in place will be protecting our youth and making sure these products are not appealing to youth in any way.” 
 
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said recently that there were more than 450 possible cases of pulmonary illness associated with vaping in the U.S. 
 
The CDC and Health Canada have cautioned against vaping as officials investigate the precise cause of the deaths. No single substance has been found to be present in all the laboratory samples being examined. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday ruled out meeting Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido if he attends next week’s General Assembly, despite the support he has among most Western and Latin American nations.

“No, that’s not being planned,” the U.N. chief told a news conference about the annual global summit when asked if he would meet Guaido.

He added, however, that the United Nations maintained “regular contact” with Venezuela’s opposition.

More than 50 nations recognize Guaido as the interim president, but leftist leader Nicolas Maduro’s government holds Venezuela’s U.N. seat and enjoys backing from Security Council members Russia and China.

Guterres said that the United Nations will not be the setting for negotiations between Maduro and the opposition.

But he voiced hope for a resumption of dialogue between the government and opposition sponsored by Norway, which broke down last month.

Maduro petition

Maduro, who presides over a crumbling economy that has caused millions to flee the oil-producing nation, is not scheduled to travel to New York for the General Assembly.

But his government plans to present signatures of Venezuelans to denounce U.S. President Donald Trump over economic sanctions.

U.S. officials and opposition leaders have already attacked the petition, and accused the Maduro government of threatening to withhold badly needed food aid for Venezuelans who do not sign.

Guaido delegation

Guaido, in turn, has said he will send a delegation to the U.N. General Assembly to denounce Maduro’s alleged support for former FARC rebels in neighboring Colombia.

Two dissidents from the demobilized rebel group, Ivan Marquez and Jesus Santrich, have announced a return to arms.

The United Nations took the lead in the 2016 agreement in which the FARC laid down its arms and ended half a century of war, with the world body recently renewing a verification mission in Colombia for one year.

“I will use this summit to talk about everything with Venezuela and Colombia because I think it’s very important to avoid an escalation of conflict in the region,” Guterres said.

Kenya has exported its first shipment of oil, worth about $12 million, under a deal with the Chinese petrochemical company, ChemChina. Members of a civil society group are demanding transparency, calling on the Kenyan government to show how the Chinese firm won the bid to buy the oil and how much revenue the country is getting from the sale.

After years of exploration, Kenya exported its first crude oil shipment last month.

Amid the excitement of Kenya joining the list of oil-producing countries, some civil society groups are accusing the government of keeping oil deals with a Chinese company secret.
 

Charles Wanguhu is the coordinator of Kenya Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas (KCSPOG) a lobby group that works around the issues of oil and gas. He says they want to know whether the country is getting the best deal for its resource.
 
“The challenge that is ongoing in the sector is a lack of proper disclosure,” said Wanguhu . “So the ministry indicated there was abiding process of the oil but we have not had access to any of the bidding documents, for example on which other companies bid for the oil and how much they bid for the oil so by the time they got ChemChina, which was the eventual buyer, we were asking for a more transparent process of these biddings that we could say the country got the best deal.”
 
Kenya’s principal secretary of petroleum, Andrew Kamau, says the information the government provided on who bought the oil and how much they paid was enough.
 
“It is not a fair comment,” said Kamau . “We told them who bought it, how much they bought for it and the volume.  What more would you want? You know people have all sort of phobias so I can’t really speak to that.”
 
The ministry was also reluctant to share how much was spent in the oil exploration.
 
China has helped Kenya to build roads and standard gauge railway line running into millions of dollars.
 
Wanguhu says he fears for the future if China will be the primary oil buyer from Kenya.
 
“The challenge is that we have a significant amount of debt that has been accrued to China in the building of infrastructure around the SGR and so its significant when you see that if our oil is going to China then the risk falls that if we are unable to service our debts that we might get into an agreement that might not be suitable for the country,” said Wanguhu .
 
Hellen Odegi, an oil and gas expert, says history does not favor Kenya when it comes to managing public resources.   
 
“The side I would be worried [about] is because of the history we have had in Kenya of misuse of resources, so that we don’t find ourselves facing another issue like what we have seen in the past two-three years, where massive amount of money being lost in counties and national government so that we don’t make money and it’s going to the pocket of two companies only,” said Odegi.
 
Kenya currently produces about 2,000 barrels of oil per day.

Last month, oil explorer Tullow said that production could rise to 100,000 barrels per day by 2024.

Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb, National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin and Katherine Ahn of VOA’s Persian Service contributed to this report.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is “substantially” increasing economic sanctions against Iran in the wake of last weekend’s missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields that Washington says were launched by Tehran.

Trump, on Twitter, said he had directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to stiffen existing sanctions against Iran that American officials say have already hobbled its economy, but gave no details of the new penalties.

I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

President Donald Trump has named Robert C. O’Brien as his new National Security Adviser, replacing John Bolton who was fired last week.

“I am pleased to announce that I will name Robert C. O’Brien, currently serving as the very successful Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department, as our new National Security Advisor. I have worked long & hard with Robert. He will do a great job!,” Trump said on Twitter Wednesday.

I am pleased to announce that I will name Robert C. O’Brien, currently serving as the very successful Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department, as our new National Security Advisor. I have worked long & hard with Robert. He will do a great job!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2019

Trump had said Bolton had been a “disaster” on North Korea policy, “out of line” on Venezuela, and did not get along with important administration officials.

Nigeria’s frenetic commercial capital, Lagos, is plunged into darkness several times a day.

Then its generators roar, and the lights flood back on.

Nigeria is one of the world’s largest economies where businesses rely so heavily on diesel-powered generators.

More than 70% of its firms own or share the units, while government data shows generators provide at least 14 gigawatts of power annually, dwarfing the 4 gigawatts supplied on average by the country’s electricity grid.

The machines guzzle cash and spew pollution, but they are reliable in a nation where nearly 80 million people – some 40% of the population – have no access to grid power. Now diesel costs could spike globally, and many businesses are not prepared.

Diesel prices are expected to surge as United Nations rules aimed at cleaning up international shipping come into effect on Jan. 1, with many ships expected to burn distillates instead of dirtier fuel oil.

Slowing economic growth and nascent trade wars could blunt a price spike, and as the shipping industry adapts to the rules, vessels will likely consume less diesel. But in the short term their impact could be profound.

Estimates vary widely, but observers warn that prices could surge by nearly 20%.

Higher costs for operating generators that power the machinery, computer servers and mobile phone towers that run Nigeria’s economy could impair growth in gross domestic product, already limping along at 1.92% at a time inflation is at 11%.

With the population growing at 2.6% each year, people are getting poorer.

“In an environment like this, where discretionary spending is very limited, this could have a big impact,” said Temi Popoola, West Africa chief executive for investment bank Renaissance Capital.

A 20% price rise could shave 0.2% off GDP growth, he said.

Generators Everywhere

Nigeria and German engineering group Siemens agreed in July to nearly triple the country’s “reliable” power supply to 11,000 megawatts by 2023. But previous such plans have failed.

While many Nigerian household and small business generators are powered by price-capped gasoline, the big generators for larger firms, apartment complexes and more substantial homes can only run on diesel.

“Businesses may struggle to survive, or in the best case scenario, would at least downsize,” said Tunde Leye, a Lagos-based analyst with SBM Intelligence. Diesel is the second or third biggest cost for many Nigerian firms, he said.

The oil industry, the Nigerian economy’s biggest driver, would not take a big hit as it does not rely on Nigerian consumers being willing to absorb extra costs it has to pass on.

As fuel producers in their own right, its firms can also recoup costs more easily.

But other heavyweight industries would feel pain. Bank branches rely on generators, with diesel often accounting for 20-30% of banks’ operating expenses, according to Popoola.

Telecommunications companies need them to run their mobile phone towers across the country. Telecoms giant MTN told local media in 2015 that it spends 8 billion naira ($26 million) annually on diesel.

Even bakeries need diesel. At Rehoboth Chops & Confectioneries Ltd., a bakery in the Ogba district of Lagos, giant diesel-powered ovens bake hundreds of loaves of bread. The factory runs 24 hours a day, six-and-a-half days a week.

The lights, mixers and fans that clear the heat are powered by two large diesel generators outside. The ovens run directly on diesel, so they never cut out.

Chief operating officer Abayomi Awe said they use cheaper grid power when they can but rely on generators for around 20 hours per day. Grid power can be down for days.

“It becomes difficult for us to expand if the price of diesel goes up,” he said as bakers scrambled to pull finished loaves from steaming ovens. “It might result in some companies, some bakeries like ours, shutting down.”

In Crisis, An Opportunity

Many businesses are already searching for solutions. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce wants electricity prices revised upwards so the grid can attract investment – a politically risky move domestically.

It has also lobbied the government to remove tariffs and taxes on imported solar panels, which stand at 10%.

Unity Bank and the Bank of Agriculture have already signed deals with solar firm Daystar Power, while mobile phone tower firm IHS Towers is trying to power more sites using solar panels.

Solar power provider Starsight Power Utility Ltd said it is working with 70% of Nigerian banks, but that cheap diesel has been one of the biggest hurdles for the development of solar.

“I think an increase in the diesel price would be most welcome for our business,” chief executive Tony Carr said.

“There is no market penetration because diesel is so cheap.”

($1 = 305.9000 naira)

 

A Parisian startup enterprise looks to ease congestion in one of the world’s densest urban transportation networks.  Entrepreneurs created a green machine unlike any you have ever seen outside of Hollywood films. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi dredges this story from the river Seine.

More than 125 migrant mothers and children have sued the U.S. government, claiming the Trump administration has violated the rights of asylum-seekers through the arbitrary and capricious implementation of a virtual asylum ban at the southern border.

The lawsuit, filed late on Monday, was the first to challenge President Donald Trump over asylum since the U.S. Supreme Court decided last week that an anti-asylum rule will be allowed to take effect while a separate lawsuit on its underlying legality is heard.

Unlike other suits that have targeted the asylum rule itself, the latest filing challenges the Trump administration on procedural grounds, saying the government has enacted changes without warning, resulting in elevated rejection rates for asylum-seekers. 

With the administration rolling out a series of anti-immigration regulations in rapid succession, asylum-seekers are not being told which of the shifting standards will apply to their cases, said Hassan Ahmad, the lead attorney on the lawsuit.

“What we’re challenging is the haphazard lack of legal procedure. There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” Ahmad said.

The plaintiffs are 126 women and children from 59 families, mostly from the impoverished and violent Central American countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, who were rejected in the early stages of the asylum process while staying at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. 

Trump’s virtual asylum ban at the southern border denies migrants if they did not first seek safe haven in another country that they traveled through on the way to the United States, such as Mexico or Guatemala.

Other lawsuits previously filed challenge the rule itself, and lower courts had agreed to block implementation immediately.

But in a big victory for Trump, the Supreme Court last Wednesday allowed the rule to take effect immediately while the trial is heard.

As a result, immigration judges can reject asylum claims, regardless of their merits, if the applicant did not first seek asylum in another country.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has called the surge of Central American immigration a crisis and says most migrants falsify asylum claims as a ruse to gain entry to the United States.

A Human Rights Watch report on Tuesday found that more than 300 people have been killed over the past decade in conflicts over the use of land and resources in the Amazon, many by organized criminal networks profiting from illegal deforestation.

Of those cases, only 14 were tried in court, the nonprofit said in the report based on 170 interviews.

“This really shows the level of impunity,” Cesar Munoz, a senior investigator at Human Rights Watch told Reuters on the sidelines of an event in Sao Paulo to discuss the report. “There is really a failure of investigation and accountability.”

The president’s office in Brazil did not respond to a request for comment.

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, responding to the report, told Reuters the government has combated criminality, including in the environmental sphere. He pointed to the mobilizing of troops to combat illegal fires and other environmental crimes in recent weeks.

About 60% of the Amazon rainforest, considered a crucial barrier against climate change, lies in Brazil. Destruction of the forest has surged this year, and the highest number of fires since 2010 has drawn worldwide condemnation of the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro, who advocates opening the Amazon to development.

Human Rights Watch traveled to several Brazilian states between 2017 and the first half of this year to research the report, which showed that almost half of the murders linked to deforestation took place in the Northern state of Para.

The town of Novo Progresso, in Para, recently made headlines for a “day of fire,” in which prosecutors suspect a coordinated group set a series of blazes to burn forest and pasture land on Aug. 10.

“In most of the killings that we examined, the victims had received threats or had been attacked before. If the authorities had taken their complaints seriously, these people might be alive today,” Daniel Wilkinson, managing director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch, told reporters.

Bolsonaro has weakened Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency Ibama, cut its budget by 25% and restricted the ability of field agents to torch the equipment of those found committing environmental crimes, Reuters has reported.

Marina Silva, a former environment minister and presidential candidate, said the report was evidence of Brazil’s backsliding on the environment.

“The little that we achieved in the past is now being taken apart,” she said.

 

New York has become the first state to immediately ban flavored e-cigarettes after nearly 400 cases of serious vaping-related lung disease have been reported in the U.S.

The New York state public health office approved the ban Tuesday on the strong recommendation of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“It is undeniable that vaping companies are deliberately using flavors like bubblegum, Captain Crunch, and cotton candy to get young people hooked on e-cigarettes,” Cuomo said. “It’s a public health crisis and it ends today.”

The ban takes effect in New York immediately. Only tobacco and menthol flavors can be sold. Michigan has also approved a ban on flavors, but it has not taken effect yet. Other states are also considering a ban.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has activated emergency measures to tackle the recent spate of lung illnesses blamed on electronic cigarettes.

There are nearly 400 confirmed and suspected cases across the country including at least six deaths.

Health experts have been unable to pinpoint an exact cause, including a specific brand or ingredient in e-cigarettes. But some suspect the use of the marijuana component THC in vaping devices. Nevertheless, they urge all e-cigarette users to stop.

E-cigarettes devices have been marketed as a safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes. Federal regulators have warned the largest e-cigarette maker, JUUL, against making such claims, saying they have not been proven.

Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb, National Security and Katherine Ahn of VOA’s Persian Service contributed to this report.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is traveling Wednesday to Riyadh to discuss with Saudi officials the attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities that U.S. officials say they believe originated from Iran.

Vice President Mike Pence said in a Washington speech that the top U.S. diplomat would be discussing “our response” to the attack.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack, which knocked out half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production. But U.S. officials say the available evidence is showing that is not possible.

“Our working assumption is that this did not come from Yemen or Iraq,” a U.S. defense official told VOA Tuesday, adding that a U.S. forensic team is on the ground working with the Saudis to examine the remnants of the missiles.

“We think that evidence will be compelling,” the official added.

Separately, other U.S. officials say the evidence that already has been collected is conclusive and points directly to Iran.

Unnamed officials told NBC News on Tuesday that more than 20 drones and missiles used in the attack on the Saudi oil facilities were launched from Iran

Other officials told CBS News that at least one of the missiles flew through Kuwait’s air space as it headed south toward Saudi Arabia, while Reuters quoted officials as saying the attacks originated in southwestern Iran.

Officials also said investigators are examining a missile-guidance mechanism found in Saudi Arabia and a mostly intact cruise missile that apparently failed to reach its intended target.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, speaking on the record to reporters in London, said Saturday’s attack looked different from those previously carried out by the Houthi rebels.

He said the United States does not have any overhead imagery of the attacks, but that in addition to the forensics team, Washington is providing additional support to Riyadh and will let the Saudis make their own assessment.

Despite the conclusions drawn by a growing number of U.S. officials, Iran has denied any role in the attack.

“US is in denial if it thinks that Yemeni victims of 4.5 yrs of the worst war crimes wouldn’t do all to strike back,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter Tuesday.

“Perhaps it’s embarrassed that $100s of blns of its arms didn’t intercept Yemeni fire,” he added.  “But blaming Iran won’t change that.”

US is in denial if it thinks that Yemeni victims of 4.5 yrs of the worst war crimes wouldn’t do all to strike back.

Perhaps it’s embarrassed that $100s of blns of its arms didn’t intercept Yemeni fire.

But blaming Iran won’t change that.

Ending the war=only solution for all.

Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb and Katherine Ahn of VOA’s Persian Service contributed to this report.

There is growing evidence that a drone and missile attack launched against Saudi Arabian oil fields under the cover of darkness originated in Iran.

Houthi rebels in Yemen, backed by Iran, originally claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack, knocking out half of the country’s oil production. But U.S. officials say the available evidence is showing that is not possible.

“Our working assumption is that this did not come from Yemen or Iraq,” a U.S. defense official told VOA Tuesday, adding that a U.S. forensic team is on the ground working with the Saudis to examine the remnants of the missiles.

“We think that evidence will be compelling,” the official added.

Separately, other U.S. officials say the evidence that already has been collected is conclusive and points directly to Iran.

Unnamed officials told NBC News on Tuesday that more than 20 drones and missiles used in the attack on the Saudi oil facilities were launched from Iran.

Other officials told CBS News that at least one of the missiles flew through Kuwait’s air space as it headed south toward Saudi Arabia, while Reuters quoted officials as saying the attacks originated in southwestern Iran.

Officials also said investigators are examining a missile-guidance mechanism found in Saudi Arabia and a mostly intact cruise missile that apparently failed to reach its intended target.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, speaking on the record to reporters in London, said Saturday’s attack looked different from those previously carried out by the Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

He said the U.S. does not have any overhead imagery of the attacks, but that in addition to the forensics team, Washington is providing additional support to Riyadh and will let the Saudis make their own assessment.

Despite the conclusions drawn by a growing number of U.S. officials, Iran on Tuesday continued to deny any role in the attack.

“US is in denial if it thinks that Yemeni victims of 4.5 yrs of the worst war crimes wouldn’t do all to strike back,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote Tuesday on Twitter.

US is in denial if it thinks that Yemeni victims of 4.5 yrs of the worst war crimes wouldn’t do all to strike back.

Perhaps it’s embarrassed that $100s of blns of its arms didn’t intercept Yemeni fire.

But blaming Iran won’t change that.

Ending the war=only solution for all.

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday called a snap election for Nov. 10, Spain’s fourth in as many years, after failing to secure support from rival parties to confirm him as premier and allow him to form a government.

Sanchez acted after King Felipe VI said there were no viable candidates to lead a new government. The king, who is the head of state, had earlier consulted all key political leaders to verify whether a deal to put together a government was still possible in a deeply fragmented parliament.

“There is no majority in (parliament) that guarantees the formation of a government, which pushes us into a repeat election on Nov. 10,” Sanchez told an evening news conference, pinning the blame squarely on the opposition.

Spain, with the fourth largest economy in the European Union’s euro currency zone, has been in political limbo since Sanchez’s Socialists emerged as the biggest party in April’s election but failed to nail down a parliamentary majority.

In July, parliament twice rejected his confirmation bid, and this week was his last opportunity to form a government.

Opinion polls show a new election might not end the impasse, with the Socialists still unable to win enough seats in the 350-seat parliament to secure a majority on their own.

Party leaders had spent more time publicly blaming each other for the impasse than negotiating, and a flurry of last-minute calls and initiatives failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Although Spain’s economy has not suffered greatly, financial analysts say further delays in implementing reforms in areas such as labor and pensions could finally start to bite.

As some world leaders question whether the world is facing a climate emergency, more than a dozen cities are stepping up to tackle global warming and sustainable development and will next week pledge to report their progress to the United Nations.

Sixteen cities will commit to implementing global goals to end poverty, inequality and other challenges by 2030 during the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. They will sign a voluntary declaration drafted by New York City.

The set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, unanimously approved by the 193 U.N. member nations in 2015, is a wide-ranging “to-do” list tackling such issues as conflict, hunger, land degradation, gender equality and climate change.

“We are living in a time when national governments are abdicating their responsibility on urgent issues. That is why cities are stepping up,” said New York City’s International Affairs Commissioner Penny Abeywardena.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has described global warming as a hoax, dealt a blow to U.N.-led efforts to fight climate change when he pulled the United States from the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has also expressed doubts as to whether climate change is man-made and is ambivalent about the Paris accord, though he walked back a campaign pledge to quit the pact.

When asked about Trump’s position on climate change, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters on Friday that there was “an extraordinary commitment to climate action” in American society.

“Governments have much less influence than what people can imagine,” he said during a visit to the hurricane-devastated Bahamas. “The influence is today, more and more in relation to climate change, related to what cities, businesses and communities do.”

Under the Sustainable Development Goals, countries are encouraged to report annually to the United Nations on their progress. In 2018, New York became the first city to do so, submitting what it called a Voluntary Local Review (VLR).

“In a time when citizens feel overwhelmed by foreign policy, the VLR allows us all to remember that action starts at home,” Abeywardena said.

Cities ‘instrumental’

This year New York, Bristol, Buenos Aires, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Taipei, Brazilian city Santana de Parnaiba and Mexico’s Oaxaca state all reported on sustainable development progress.

“Although a nation-state level commitment, the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are universal. They are the closest thing we have to a global contract,” said Jan Vapaavuori, mayor of Finland’s capital Helsinki.

“We aim to highlight the importance of collaboration between cities and nation-states in achieving the global goals. However, where countries are unable to deliver, it is even more instrumental that cities step up,” he said.

New York City, Helsinki, Buenos Aires and 13 other cities will be the first to sign a declaration next week, in which cities pledge “to use the framework of the SDGs to do our part to help end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and work to prevent the harmful effects of climate change by 2030.”

Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta said city coordination could accelerate sustainable development.

He added that even though the U.N. agenda was focused on national governments it “will also depend on the ability of cities to make them a reality, especially since they are key drivers of growth and economic and social development.”

The other cities planning to sign the declaration are: Accra, Ghana; Barcelona, Spain; Bristol, Britain; Cape Town, South Africa; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Kazan, Russia; Los Angeles, United States; Malmo, Sweden; Mannheim, Germany; Montevideo, Uruguay; Prefeitura de Barcarena, Brazil; Santa Ana, Costa Rica; and Santa Fe, Argentina.

Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents detailing government surveillance programs, is calling on French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him asylum.

Snowden, now living in Russia to avoid prosecution in the United States, stressed in an interview broadcast Monday on France’s Inter radio that “protecting whistleblowers is not a hostile act” and that he feels entitled to get protected status in France.

Snowden unsuccessfully applied for asylum in France in 2013 under Macron’s predecessor, Francois Hollande. He has also sought asylum in several other countries.
 
Snowden’s memoir, telling his life story in detail for the first time, will be released Tuesday in about 20 countries, including France.

The French presidency did not comment.

President Donald Trump is making a rare visit to California, a Democratic stronghold where he is expected to rake in millions of dollars during a series of fundraisers for his reelection effort that are almost certain to be met with jeering protests.

Trump has routinely mocked California over its liberal culture, policies and politics. His visit Tuesday and Wednesday signals that despite the state’s decidedly leftward swing in recent years there are still plenty of wealthy Republicans who support him.

“There’s not been a president in living history that is as unpopular in the state of California as Trump,” said Mike Madrid, a GOP political consultant who is an outspoken Trump critic. “But our money spends the same as everyone else’s.”

Trump continues to rake in gobs of cash more than a year out from the November 2020 contest, with his campaign and the Republican National Committee pulling in over $210 million since the start of 2019, Federal Election Commission records show. That’s more than all the current Democrats seeking to replace him raised combined during that period.

The California events, which will be spread across two days in in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego, are expected to bring in an additional $15 million, according to a Republican official familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

California was an incubator for the modern conservative movement that swept the state’s former governor, Ronald Reagan, into the White House in 1980. But demographic changes and an influx of new residents have helped drastically rework the political contours of the country’s most populated state, with the former GOP stronghold of Orange County now home to more registered Democrats than Republicans. For Republicans, who have been resigned to political irrelevance at the state level, a donation to Trump can amount to its own form of protest.

“By showing up to a fundraiser deep in the belly of the beast, one is saying: `I don’t care what the liberal politicians are saying and I want to show my support for him publicly,”’ said California’s Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, who is an ardent Trump supporter. She added: “I sold $100,000 worth of (tickets), and I could have sold another $100,000 more.”

California has long been a key fundraising hotbed for politicians of both parties, which have relied on the entertainment industry and wealthy industry heads to finance their political ambitions. But under Trump, the run-of-the-mill fundraising trip has taken on a complicating dimension due to his harsh criticism of everything from the state’s immigration laws to its forest management practices, which he blamed for fatal wildfires.

Earlier this month Trump lashed out at “Will and Grace” TV star Debra Messing after she tweeted that attendees of the Trump’s California fundraisers should be outed publicly.

“I have not forgotten that when it was announced that I was going to do The Apprentice, and when it then became a big hit, helping NBC’s failed lineup greatly, (at)DebraMessing  came up to me at an Upfront & profusely thanked me, even calling me “Sir.” How times have changed!” Trump tweeted.

In August, he took aim at the state’s massive film industry, calling Hollywood “very dangerous for our country.”

“Hollywood is really terrible. You talk about racist — Hollywood is racist,” he said.

That’s contributed to heightened security concerns surrounding the trip.

Trump has also complained about the extent of homelessness in California. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is expected to follow Trump to California, if one day behind him, on visits to San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. A senior HUD official said Carson will speak on a range of issues, including increasing the supply of affordable housing and incentivizing investment in distressed communities while protecting vulnerable neighbors.

Already, the Backbone Campaign, a Washington state-based progressive group, said on Facebook that it planned to fly a large “Baby Trump” balloon in the Bay Area when Trump is scheduled to be there on Tuesday.

In an unusual move, Trump campaign officials — not his top donors — have been listed as sponsors of the event.

Dhillon said there were concerns that Antifa, an anti-fascist group, could stir violent protests.

“For every person coming to this event, there would probably be 10 more,” she said.

Trump began his three-day trip to the West at a rally in New Mexico, which he hopes to win next year despite losing by about 8 percentage points in 2016.

Trump referred to California a couple of times in his speech, and not in a good way.

The president noted that his administration is at odds with the state over fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. He long has made clear he wants to end California’s clout in setting mileage standards, and Monday night he said he wants heavier cars because they’re safer and cheaper, even if they are less fuel efficient.

“California wants you to do the other cars and we don’t,” Trump said. “We will end up in big litigation and I am fighting for you,” he told the crowd.

He also joked about moving part of the border wall in San Diego to where it would be more appreciated.

“I would love to take that sucker down and move it right now to New Mexico,” he said to rousing cheers.