U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday he was certain that the awarding of a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft instead of Amazon was done fairly.

The Pentagon awarded the contract to Microsoft in late October, and Amazon said there was “unmistakable bias” on the government’s part and it intended to challenge the decision in court.

Esper recused himself from the contract decision because his son had worked for one of the other unsuccessful bidders.

“I am confident that it was conducted freely and fairly without any type of outside influence,” Esper said at a news conference in Seoul, South Korea.

Amazon’s competitive bid for the “war cloud” project drew criticism from President Donald Trump and its business rivals. The project, formally called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, pitted leading tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and IBM against one another.

In a statement Thursday, Amazon said “numerous aspects” of the bidding process involved “clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias.” It did not elaborate on those allegations but said “it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”

Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment. A Defense Department spokeswoman would only say that the Pentagon won’t speculate on potential litigation.

JEDI will store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.

Amazon was long thought to be the front-runner for the contract. Its Amazon Web Services division is far ahead of second-place Microsoft in cloud computing, and Amazon has experience handling highly classified government data.

It survived earlier legal challenges after the Defense Department eliminated Oracle and IBM and whittled the competition to the two Seattle-area tech giants before choosing Microsoft in late October.

The Pentagon was preparing to make its final decision when Trump publicly waded into the fray in July, saying he had heard complaints about the process and that the administration would “take a very long look.” He said other companies told him that the contract “wasn’t competitively bid.” Oracle, in particular, had unsuccessfully argued Pentagon officials unfairly favored Amazon for the winner-take-all contract.

Experts had generally expected Amazon to appeal the award, saying it had little to lose. Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University, said Trump’s comments were “inappropriate and improvident,” but said it would be a challenge for Amazon to prove the White House applied undue pressure in a way that made a difference.

Amazon said it filed its protest in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which deals with financial claims against the federal government.

It’s not uncommon for losing bidders to file a protest, either with the U.S. Government Accountability Office or in court. Unlike a review by the GAO, Amazon’s court filing will enable it to seek documents from the government as evidence for its case.

The United States is promising not to abandon the fight to eradicate the Islamic State terror group, while pushing its coalition allies to take more responsibility for foreign fighters and rebuilding Iraq and Syria. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed visiting foreign ministers of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS to the State Department Thursday to discuss the way forward, as VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
 

Australia’s national carrier Qantas Friday successfully completed a 19½-hour, nonstop flight from London to Sydney, which was used to run a series of tests to assess the effects of ultralong-haul flights on crew fatigue and passenger jetlag.

The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner took off from London’s Heathrow Airport Thursday morning and touched down at Sydney Airport 45 minutes behind schedule at 12:30 p.m. Friday.

The 17,800-kilometer (11,060-mile) journey was part of Project Sunrise — Qantas’ goal to operate regular, nonstop commercial flights from Australia’s east coast cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to London and New York.

Last month, Qantas completed the first nonstop flight from New York to Sydney, which took 19 hours and 16 minutes. Another New York to Sydney flight is expected next month to round out the project.

Improving long flight comfort

There were 52 people, mostly Qantas employees, on board. They participated in various experiments, including using wearable technology devices to track sleep patterns, food and drink intake, lighting and physical movement.

A final decision on whether the ultralong-haul flights will become a commercial reality is expected by the year’s end, with the service potentially launching by 2022.

It was the second time a commercial airline has flown the route. The first was in 1989, with a journey time of 20 hours and 9 minutes.

Ahead of the flight, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline wants to improve comfort on long-haul flights.

“We know that travelers want room to move on these direct flights, and the exercises we encouraged on the first research flight seemed to work really well,” he said.

“So, we’re definitely looking to incorporate on-board stretching zones and even some simple modifications like overhead handles to encourage low impact exercises,” he added.

Joyce and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison welcomed the arrival of crew and passengers as the airline celebrates its centenary year.

Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into Rudy Giuliani, the personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reports.

The prosecutors are conducting an inquiry into possible finance violations against Giuliani and his failure to register as a foreign agent, according to the Bloomberg account.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, has emerged as a key figure in Trump’s impeachment inquiry where lawmakers are also examining what role Giuliani played in pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Trump’s rivals.

Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York told Bloomberg, she “would not be surprised” if Giuliani is indicted as a result of the federal probe. 

“It’s clear Giuliani is up to his ears in shady stuff,” she said.

North Korea on Friday said it issued an ultimatum to South Korea that it will tear down South Korean-made hotels and other facilities at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort if the South continues to ignore its demands to come and clear them out.

The North Korean statement came weeks after leader Kim Jong Un visited the site and ordered the demolition of South Korean properties he described as “shabby” and “unpleasant-looking” while vowing that the North would redevelop the site on its own.

For months, North Korea has expressed frustration over the South’s unwillingness to defy U.S.-led international sanctions against the North and resume South Korean tours at the site.

The North later formally demanded the South Koreans come to Diamond Mountain at an agreed-upon date to clear out their facilities and proposed an exchange of documents to work out details.

South Korean tours to Diamond Mountain were a major symbol of cooperation between the Koreas and a valuable cash source for the North’s broken economy before the South suspended them in 2008 after a North Korean guard fatally shot a South Korean tourist.

South Korea has said it will prioritize protecting its property rights over the facilities and seek “creative solutions” to the problem based on political considerations and inter-Korean dialogue. But the North has so far rejected South Korean calls for face-to-face discussions or sending a delegation of government officials and businesspeople to inspect the site.

‘No room’ for South Korea

In the new statement, North Korea ridiculed the South over “begging us to let them stay even at a corner of the mountain” and participate in future tourism programs after halting the joint tours for more than a decade “in fear of the U.S.”

“On November 11 we sent an ultimatum, warning that if the (South Korean) authorities persist in their useless assertion, we will take it as an abandonment of the withdrawal, and take resolute measure for unilaterally pulling down the facilities. However, they have remained answerless until today,” the statement said.

“We will develop Mt. Kumgang to be the world-renowned tourist resort with responsibility and in our own way as its owner for the sake of the nation and posterity. There is no room for (South Korea) to find its place there.”

The South Korean government didn’t immediately comment on the statement.

U.S. relations

In a summit last September in Pyongyang, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in vowed to restart South Korean tours to Diamond Mountain and normalize operations at an inter-Korean factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, voicing optimism that sanctions could end and allow such projects.

Kim raised the subject again during his New Year’s speech this year, saying that Pyongyang was ready to restart the projects “without any precondition” while making a nationalistic call for stronger cooperation between the Koreas.

But without a breakthrough in larger nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, the inter-Korean economic projects remain shelved. North Korea in recent months has suspended virtually all diplomacy and cooperation with the South while demanding Seoul break away from its ally Washington and restart inter-Korean economic activities.
 

The parents of an American journalist who has been missing in Syria for the past seven years told VOA in an interview that they are convinced he is still alive and that the U.S. government should do what it can to reveal his whereabouts and ensure his safe return home.

The 38-year-old journalist, Austin Tice, went to Syria in May 2012 to cover the war as it was entering its second year. He was arrested three months later in August at a checkpoint in Darayya suburb, south of the capital Damascus, and has been missing since.

“In the event that Austin sees this interview, [we want him to know] that his mother and father love him very much and his siblings can’t wait to see him again,” Tice’s father, Marc Tice, told VOA. “We know he is strong and we know he will hang in there, and we can’t wait to hold him in our arms.”

Marc Tice said he and his wife, Debra Tice, believe their son is apprehended in Syria, most likely in areas currently under the Syrian government control. The couple have been trying relentlessly for years to secure the release of their son, albeit with no success.

“It doesn’t really matter who is holding him, the thing that really matters is who has the authority to secure his safe relief,” said his mother, Debra. “We know he is still alive; he is somewhere in Syria, most likely in Damascus or its whereabouts. He is staying alive because he wants to walk free.”

The parents have visited Lebanon several times hoping to get into Syria to appeal directly to the Syrian government. They were never granted a visa to enter the war-torn country.

A Marine

Tice is a veteran Marine officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. A graduate of the Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, he worked as a freelance journalist, reporting for several outlets such as The Washington Post, CBS and the French news agency.

His reporting on Syria focused on the escalating conflict and its consequences on vulnerable people, particularly children.

In a photo he posted on Flickr, June 19, 2012, he wrote, “I have more pictures of beautiful Syrian kids than I could ever possibly use. It breaks my heart to see what is happening to them. No kid should even have to know that things like this happen in the world, much less be forced to live and sometimes die this way.”

He was detained less than two months later, on Aug. 14, 2012.

Nearly five weeks after his disappearance, a video surfaced on social media showing Tice blindfolded and in distress among a group of men leading him away in what observers believe to be a staged video, according to the Tice family. Concurrently, multiple pro-Syrian regime news outlets also reported him being “still alive” and accused him of being a spy for Israel. 

The U.S. State Department has said it also believes Tice is still alive and it is actively working to bring him back. The FBI has allocated a $1 million reward for any information leading to his return.

His parents, however, say they believe more should be done to press the Syrian government for more information. The couple on Tice’s 38th birthday, Aug. 11, launched the “Ask About Austin” campaign to garner more popular support.

Organizations such as the National Press Club and Reporters Without Borders have also joined their efforts.

Congressional outreach

Last September, the National Press Club led teams of volunteers in a congressional outreach effort to inform congressional teams of Tice’s case. It lobbied U.S. lawmakers to sign a bipartisan letter to President Donald Trump urging “continued efforts to free Austin and return him to his family.”

The letter was sent to Trump after receiving 52 signatures from the Senate and 121 from the House of Representatives.

“We strongly urge you that you continue to use the full weight of your national security team — including dispatching the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs — to secure his release. Seven years is simply too long for Austin to be separated from his loved ones,” read the letter led by Representative Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The campaign came after the release two foreigners recently from their detention in Syria, American Sam Goodwin and Canadian Kristian Lee Baxter. Both were released through Lebanon’s mediation.

Unbearable environment

Dozens of Syrian and foreign journalists who went to Syria to document the war have been killed or injured over the years.

According to the World Press Freedom Index, Syria continues to be an “unbearable environment” for journalists, where the risk of arrest, abduction or death makes journalism “extremely dangerous” in the country.

The Syrian Center for Journalistic Freedoms said in its September report that since the Syrian uprising started in 2011, about 1,251 violations were committed against journalists. It claimed that half of these violations were committed by the Syrian government, while the Islamic State group seconded the regime in targeting journalists.

A former IAEA official says diplomats working with the U.N. nuclear agency do not believe Iran’s apparent explanation for the presence of manmade uranium particles at a site in southern Tehran.

In a report published Monday, the IAEA said its inspectors monitoring Iranian compliance with commitments to curb potential weapons-related nuclear activities had “detected natural uranium particles of anthropogenic (manmade) origin at a location in Iran not declared to the agency.” The report, initially provided to IAEA member nations and later leaked to the media, did not identify the location of the particles or provide any other details about them.

In an interview with VOA Persian, former IAEA Deputy Director General Ollie Heinonen said diplomats of multiple countries working with the IAEA told him that the agency’s inspectors found the uranium particles at a southern Tehran site previously identified by Israel as the location of an alleged secret nuclear warehouse.

Heinonen, a nonproliferation analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the diplomats gleaned the location of the particles from a Nov. 7 closed-door briefing in which IAEA Acting Director General Cornel Feruta discussed the report’s findings with the agency’s board of governors. The diplomats with whom Heinonen spoke were not Israelis, he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first identified the compound in Tehran’s Turquzabad district in a September 2018 speech to the United Nations, calling it a “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and materiel from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.”

Iran, which insists its nuclear program always has been peaceful, denied the Israeli allegation and described Turquzabad site as private property. Israel has called on the international community to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons because of Iranian leaders’ repeated threats to destroy the Jewish state.

Heinonen cited his diplomatic sources as saying Iran told the IAEA that the uranium particles found by the inspectors at the Turquzabad compound were a contamination from scrapped equipment used at the Gchine uranium mine and mill near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas. Iran previously has declared to the IAEA that the Gchine site produces yellowcake, a refined form of raw uranium ore mined from the Earth’s crust.

Yellowcake can be further processed into enriched uranium to make fuel for nuclear power plants, Iran’s stated aim. It also can be refined to a high degree to provide material for nuclear bombs.

Heinonen said his sources dismissed Iran’s apparent explanation that equipment from the Gchine mine and mill was the source of the uranium particles at Turquzabad.

“The diplomats told me the IAEA Secretariat described the particles as having been converted from raw uranium without specifying their exact chemical form,” Heinonen said. “They said these particles were not from yellowcake but from something more refined.”

Neither the IAEA nor Iran have disclosed the nature of Iranian responses to IAEA questions about the uranium particles found by IAEA inspectors.

The IAEA did not respond to a VOA Persian request for comment about its communications with Iran. In its Nov. 11 report, the IAEA said: “It is essential for Iran to continue interactions with the agency to resolve this matter as soon as possible. On-going interactions … relating to Iran’s implementation of its Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol require full and timely cooperation by Iran.”

Israeli officials already had disclosed some of what Heinonen said he heard from his diplomatic sources about the uranium particles.

In a separate Nov. 7 briefing that followed the IAEA’s closed-door meeting on that date, unnamed Israeli security and intelligence officials told Western news agencies that IAEA inspectors found uranium particles in samples collected at the Turquzabad compound earlier this year.

The Israeli officials said the Turquzabad particles not only came from converted uranium that was not enriched, but also had characteristics that did not match any nuclear site previously disclosed by Iran. By contrast, Heinonen’s diplomatic sources only ruled out the Gchine mine and mill as a source of the particles. There was no word on how the Israeli officials reached their broader conclusion about the particles, a conclusion that pointed to their origin as being a secret Iranian nuclear conversion facility.

A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) appeared to confirm the Israeli assertion about the location of the uranium particles in remarks to reporters on Nov. 9, two days before the IAEA published its report revealing the discovery of those particles at an undeclared Iranian nuclear site.

Iranian state news agency ISNA quoted Behrouz Kamalvandi as saying there was “not a high degree” of nuclear “contamination” at Turquzabad. “Particles can fly and land anywhere,” he said, adding that such particles can be found in any country where IAEA inspectors operate. “It is not an important issue and is completely solvable,” Kamalvandi added.

Russia, an economic partner and military ally of Iran, also has tried to downplay the issue of the uranium particles. In a Wednesday report, Russia’s state-run Sputnik news agency cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as warning against “political hysteria” regarding uranium particles being found at an undeclared site in Iran.

But the United States, Israel’s top ally, said the IAEA’s Nov. 7 meeting about Iran raised issues that were “deeply troubling.” In a Nov. 8 statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “Iran has no plausible explanation for the detected (nuclear) materials and must explain where these nuclear materials came from and where they are now.”

The IAEA has said Iran had an active program to develop a nuclear weapon until the end of 2003 and continued some related activities until as late as 2009. Israel has said documents it stole from a purported Iranian nuclear archive in Tehran in January 2018 show that Iran kept the option of restarting a nuclear weapons program in the future.

Iran has challenged the authenticity of those documents. Israel’s critics also have said there is no evidence of Iran engaging in weapons-related nuclear work since its 2015 deal with world powers to curtail sensitive Iranian nuclear activities in return for international sanctions relief. U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from that deal last year, saying it did not do enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and engaging in other malign behaviors.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

 A State Department employee working on Iranian policy was improperly removed from her post by officials who took into account her ethnic background, perceived political views and prior role in the Obama administration, according to a report Thursday from the agency’s inspector general.

The internal watchdog’s report recommends internal discipline for officials involved in removing the employee in the early days of the Trump administration.

The employee, who had worked for the State Department since 2012, was assigned in July 2016 to a one-year stint in the agency’s office of policy planning. But officials grew concerned the following March when a website called Conservative Review published an article identifying the employee as a “trusted Obama aide” who had been an architect for that administration’s agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program.

That article was forwarded to department officials at least four times. One official wrote in an email: “As background, she worked on the Iran Deal, specifically works on Iran … was born in Iran and upon my understanding cried when the President won.”

The official, Julia Haller, the acting White House liaison, said that she added the comment about the employee’s place of birth because she thought it could raise conflict of interest questions since the person was assigned to work on Iran policy. She also said her characterization of the person’s reaction to Trump’s win was likely based on office gossip but that she included it because she thought it went to questions of loyalty.

The inspector general report does not name the employee, but it matches the description of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, who was the subject of the Conservative Review article. Nowrouzzadeh did not immediately return an email seeking comment Thursday.

A senior State Department official mentioned in the report denied that he took improper action. In a detailed response attached to the report, Brian Hook, wrote that he did not take into account any improper factors when he made the decision to reassign Nowrouzzadeh. He said he selected his own expert for the position based on qualifications, as he was entitled to do.

“When I decided three days into my job to meet with the Candidate, I did not know Employee One’s political beliefs, her service in the Bush and Obama Administrations, or her national origin,” Hook wrote. “I did not care. This is true not only for Employee One but for every person I inherited on the Policy Planning staff and for every person I have ever worked with during 12 years of Federal public service.”

The inspector general found no wrongdoing in the reassignment of two other employees and made no conclusion in two other cases it examined.

The federal jury in the criminal trial of U.S. President Donald Trump’s adviser Roger Stone began deliberations on Thursday into whether he lied to Congress about his efforts to learn more about when WikiLeaks would publish damaging emails about 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The 12-member jury, consisting of nine women and three men, represents a diverse cross-section of people, including an IRS civil tax attorney, an employee with AARP, and a former congressional candidate.

Stone, 67, has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements in testimony during the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Witness tampering carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The other counts carry a maximum sentence of five years each. If Stone is convicted, under U.S. sentencing guidelines he would likely face much less jail time as a first-time non-violent offender.

Prosecutors accused Stone of telling lawmakers five different lies related to the WikiLeaks website and its founder Julian Assange. WikiLeaks released a series of damaging emails about Clinton, Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential election, that U.S. intelligence officials and Special Counsel Robert Mueller later concluded had been stolen by Russian hackers.

Some of those lies relate to the existence of certain texts or emails, while others pertain to Stone’s conversations with Trump campaign officials and a supposed “intermediary” with WikiLeaks in early August 2016 whom Stone identified to lawmakers as being comedian Randy Credico.

The government and Stone’s attorneys offered closing arguments on Wednesday, with the government telling the jury Stone lied to Congress in order to protect Trump’s image.

Stone’s lawyers counter that such a motive makes no sense, because by the time Stone testified to the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017, Trump was already president.

 

A recent Supreme Court verdict has permitted Hindus to build a temple in a northern Indian town on a spot where a 16th-century mosque was torn down by a mob in 1992. Some fear the judgment, in one of the oldest and most contentious disputes between India’s majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities, has heightened a growing sense of insecurity in Muslims under a Hindu nationalist government.

At least four protesters were killed and more than 65 wounded on Thursday in clashes with Iraqi security forces who were trying to push them back to their main camp in central Baghdad, police and medical sources said.

The protests erupted in early October over economic hardship and endemic graft. The government responded with some measures such as handouts for the poor but the protesters are now demanding an overhaul of the entire political system.

After two days of relative calm, three protesters were killed early on Thursday after being struck in the head by tear gas canisters and a fourth person died in hospital from wounds from a stun bomb fired by security forces, the sources said.

The total death toll from the protests now exceeds 300. Security forces used live rounds, rubber bullets and fired tear gas canisters to disperse hundreds of people near Tahrir Square, epicenter of the protests, a Reuters cameraman said.

At least half of the wounded protesters had sustained injuries from live ammunition, police and medical sources said.

Others choked on tear gas or were struck by rubber bullets. Ambulances raced to evacuate those hurt or affected.

Protesters used old cabinets, empty petrol drums and steel sheeting to set up a barricade near Jumhuriya (Republic) Bridge.

“We’re reinforcing in case the security forces make another push later,” said Abbas, a teenage protester who was helping to set up the makeshift barrier.

Human Rights Watch accused Iraqi security forces of attacking medical crew workers who treated the protesters.

“Medics have become another victim of the state’s excessive force,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, in a report released on Thursday.

Iraqi officials declined to comment on the HRW report.

Violence also flared anew in several locations in southern Iraq, where the protest campaign originally kicked off.
Late on Wednesday, protesters set fire to local officials’ houses in the town of Gharraf, 25 km (15 miles) north of the southern city of Nassiriya, security sources said.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government has tried to quell the unrest with measures to help the poor and college graduates, but protesters are now demanding the departure of the entire ruling elite that took power after the U.S. invasion and the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Since putting down an insurgency by Islamic State in 2017, Iraq has enjoyed two years of comparative stability. But despite its oil wealth, many people live in poverty with limited access to clean water, electricity, healthcare or education.
 

Egyptian authorities have arrested a woman who voiced harsh criticism of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and his wife in a series of online videos, police and judicial officials said on Thursday, as the Egyptian government prepared to defend its human rights record during a major U.N. rights review.

Radwa Mohamed was arrested at her house on Wednesday evening and accused of spreading false news, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to brief the media.

In recent weeks, Mohamed appeared in several videos on YouTube where she dismissed Sissi as an “unsuccessful” president and mocked Egypt’s first lady Intissar el-Sissi. Using profane language, the videos denounced the misuse of public funds and deplored her country’s poor human rights records. Her videos have been viewed by tens of thousands.

Mohamed’s videos recall the viral posts of the self-exiled Egyptian businessman, Mohamed Ali, that provoked scattered protests in Cairo and several provinces in September. Security forces arrested at least 3,000 people following the anti-government demonstrations, according to rights groups.

Ali, a contractor who said he had worked with the Egyptian military for 15 years, accused general-turned-president Sissi of corruption and called for his overthrow. Sissi dismissed the accusations as sheer lies.

In one of her videos, Mohamed warned that another outburst of public anger could end Sissi’s rule. “I cannot recognize you as a president. Down with your rule,” she said in another posting.

Mohamed’s arrest comes as the U.N. is holding its periodic review of Egypt’s human rights record in the Swiss capital, Geneva.

On Wednesday, representatives of several Western countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and Germany, called for Cairo to investigate accusations of torture and enforced disappearances.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies also accused the government on Wednesday of silencing human rights advocates by continuing to bar them from travelling abroad.

The rights group called for the immediate lifting of the “unjust” travel ban imposed on dozens of Egyptian rights activists.

“The state is scared that someone would go to Geneva with a different narrative about human rights in Egypt than the one it is propagating,” said Mohamed Zaree, a rights activist with the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, who has been subject to a travel ban since 2016.

On Wednesday, an Egyptian government delegation addressed the U.N. Human Rights Council saying that “long strides” had been taken toward fulfilling “more of the aspirations, rights and freedom” of its people.

The U.N. Human Rights Council will draft recommendations regarding Egypt’s human rights situation following the meetings in Geneva.

The country’s rights record under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has drawn growing international criticism following a crackdown on dissent and media freedoms.

Italy’s government is set to declare a state of emergency in flood-ravaged Venice, to swiftly secure the historic city funds to repair damage from the highest tide in 50 years.
                   
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte described the flooding as “a blow to the heart of our country.”
                   
He said a cabinet meeting called for Thursday afternoon will declare a state of emergency and approve the first measures aimed at helping the city’s recovery.
                   
Conte spent Wednesday night in Venice, where world-famous monuments, homes and businesses were hit hard by the exceptional flooding. The water reached 1.87 meters above sea level Tuesday, the second-highest level ever recorded in the city.
                   
Venice’s mayor said the damage is estimated at “hundreds of millions of euros.”

Ahmed Sabrie woke up to find his house half-submerged in fast-rising flood waters.

Frightened and confused, he herded sleepy family members onto the roof of their home in central Somalia as scores of thousands of people in the town, Beledweyne, scrambled for their lives. Clinging to an electric power pylon by the edge of the roof, the family watched as their possessions were washed away.

“I could hear people, perhaps my neighbors, screaming for help but I could only fight for the survival of my family,” the 38-year-old Sabrie, the father of four, recalled. As one of his children wailed, the family waited for more than 10 hours before a passing rescue boat spotted them.

Death toll unknown

Authorities have not yet said how many people died in the flooding last month, Somalia’s worst in recent history and the latest reminder that the Horn of Africa nation must prepare for the extremes expected to come with a changing climate.

At least 10 people went missing when their boat capsized after the Shabelle river burst its banks. Local officials have said at least 22 people in all are presumed dead and the toll could rise.

“This is a catastrophic situation,” Mayor Safiyo Sheikh Ali said. President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who visited the town and waded through submerged areas, called the devastation “beyond our capacity” and pleaded for more help from aid groups.

With no proper emergency response plan for natural disasters, local rescuers used rickety wooden dhows to reach trapped people while helicopters provided by the United Nations plucked people from rooftops. African Union and Somali forces have joined the rescue operations and the Somali government airlifted food.

“Many people are still trapped in their submerged houses and we have no capacity and enough equipment to cover all areas,” said Abdirashakur Ahmed, a local official helping to coordinate rescue operations. Hundreds are thought to still be stuck.

More rain, flooding

With more heavy rains and flash flooding expected, officials warned thousands of displaced people against returning too quickly to their homes.

More than 250,000 people across Somalia were displaced by the recent severe flooding, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Beledweyne town was the worst affected. Several thousand people were sheltering under trees or in tents.

“Floods have destroyed more than three-quarters of Beledweyne and submerged many surrounding villages,” said Victor Moses, the NRC’s country director.

Aid groups said farms, infrastructure and roads in some areas were destroyed. The destruction of farmland near rivers is expected to contribute to a hunger crisis.

To better prepare for “major climate-induced shocks” such as flooding and drought that Somalia already faces every two to five years, the country and the U.N. Development Program this week launched a $10 million project to expand weather monitoring resources and train a largely rural population in water conservation and flood management.

The possibility of further damage from heavy rains in the coming days remains a concern, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Parts of the Lower Juba, Gedo and Bay regions, where IOM has supported displaced populations for years, have been affected. Many displaced people were stranded without food, latrines or shelter.

“In Baidoa, people have moved to high ground where they are in immediate need of support,” said Nasir Arush, the minister for humanitarian and disaster management for South West State.

Survivors like Sabrie now must struggle to rebuild their lives.

“We’re alive, which I am thankful to Allah for, but this flood disaster wreaked havoc on both our livelihoods and households so I see a tough road ahead of us,” he said from a makeshift shelter built on higher ground outside town.

China invited observers to a successful test Thursday of its Mars lander as the country pushes for inclusion in more global space projects.

The demonstration of hovering, obstacle avoidance and deceleration capabilities was conducted at a site outside Beijing simulating conditions on the Red Planet, where the pull of gravity is about one-third that of Earth.

China plans to launch a lander and rover to Mars next year to explore parts of the planet in detail.

Growing space program

China’s burgeoning space program achieved a lunar milestone earlier this year by landing a probe on the mysterious far side of the moon.

It has developed rapidly, especially since it conducted its first crewed mission in 2003 and has sought cooperation with space agencies from Europe and elsewhere.

The U.S., however, has banned most space cooperation with China out of national security concerns, keeping China from participating in the International Space Station.

Despite that, China’s ambitions continue to grow as it seeks to rival the U.S., Russia and Europe in space and cement its position as a regional and global power. It is gradually constructing its own larger, more permanent space station in which it has invited foreign participation.

The lander on Thursday successfully avoided ground obstacles during a simulated low-gravity descent, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the Chinese space program’s main contractor.

The refrigerator-sized craft was lowered gently on 36 cables through the air for about a minute and used onboard jets spraying rust-colored fumes to alter its downward course.

“After the probe is launched, it will take about seven months to reach Mars, and the final procedure of landing will only last about seven minutes, which is the most difficult and the most risky part of the whole mission,” said the Mars mission’s chief designer, Zhang Rongqiao, standing before the 140-meter-(460-foot-) tall testing facility.

Recent rover crashes on the moon by Israel and India highlight the difficulties of safe landings from space.

The remote Comprehensive Testing Ground for Landing on Extraterrestrial Bodies run by CASC lies an hour north of the Great Wall from Beijing.

Guests at Thursday’s event came from 19 countries and included the ambassadors of Brazil, France and Italy.

“This event is the first public appearance of China’s Mars exploration mission, also an important measure for China to pragmatically carry out space international exchanges and cooperation,” the China National Space Administration said in a news release.

U.S. President Donald Trump became the third president in modern U.S. history to face open impeachment hearings Wednesday. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives called two key State Department witnesses to begin making the case that Trump abused the power of his office by allegedly pressing Ukraine for information that would help him in the 2020 election.  VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the first day of hearings and Republican response from Capitol Hill.
 

The political crisis in Bolivia — where roiling street protests amid accusations of election fraud forced the resignation of longtime President Evo Morales this week — is exposing long-held differences within Russia’s own political system, with pro-Kremlin and opposition voices splitting along familiar dividing lines.

As the events in La Paz unfolded, Russia’s Foreign Ministry was quick to express support for Morales, a Kremlin ally who has paid repeated visits to Moscow, most recently in July to expand economic ties.

In a statement posted to its website, the ministry condemned violence “unleashed by the opposition” and blamed it for preventing Morales from “completing his tenure” amid “developments typical of a well-orchestrated coup d’etat.” 

“It would be foolish to expect another reaction — it’s absolutely the consolidated position from the Russian side,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, when asked by journalists about the Foreign Ministry’s assessment.

“Of course, we hope that Bolivians themselves will determine their fate without the interference of any third countries,” he said.

Pro-Kremlin media outlets quickly picked up on the hint, noting that the United States included Bolivia, along with Venezuela and Cuba, as Latin American dictatorships.

“The most logical version — a virtuosically prepared and executed coup by the United States, which is traditionally masked by slogans about democracy and human rights,” wrote Igor Pshenichnikov in a column explaining the events in Bolivia in the weekly Izvestia.

“And now the time has come for the president and his country to experience for itself the might of American democracy,” he said.

Collectively, the arguments were reminiscent of Russia’s position relative to neighboring Ukraine, where Moscow has long maintained that a 2014 pro-Western street revolution that drove another Kremlin ally — then-President Viktor Yanukovich — from power also was the work of the United States.

As if to emphasize the Ukraine comparisons, pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine’s official Twitter account condemned the events in La Paz as a “fascist junta.” It’s another talking point widely used by Kremlin state media beginning in 2014 to denigrate Ukraine’s so-called “Maidan Revolution.”

Other views

Russian opposition voices saw the events in La Paz, however, in an entirely different light — underlining Russia’s own fractured political environment.

Proekt, an online investigative outlet funded by Kremlin foe and businessman Mikhail Khodorkvosky, issued a story reporting it was in fact Russia — driven by economic interests of its oil, gas and energy industries — that had played a key role in Morales’ reelection campaign.

In turn, opposition figures were quick to note Russian President Vladimir Putin, like the now former Bolivian leader, also has stretched constitutional norms by serving an unprecedented fourth term in office and soon will face similar questions of if and whether to remain in power.

“A corrupt president, unlawfully holding on to power at the expense of lies and falsification, has run from his country,” wrote Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in posting a picture of Morales and Putin together on Twitter.

Коррумпированный президент, незаконно удерживавший власть за счёт лжи и фальсификаций, сбежал из страны. Пока речь идёт о том, что слева. pic.twitter.com/1Wmr38cu5t

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) November 10, 2019

“For now, that means only the guy on the left,” Navalny said, in referring to Morales.

“Oh, what’s this?” chimed in Navalny’s key strategist, Leonid Volkov, in a similarly themed post.

Ой что это?
После фальсифицированных выборов люди вышли на улицу и полоумный престарелый диктатор, нарушивший конституционные ограничения на количество сроков, вынужден был уйти в отставку.
Ух как хочется, как в Боливии! pic.twitter.com/J79tXbpyyG

— Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) November 10, 2019

“After falsified elections, people went out on the streets and a crackpot old dictator, having broken the constitutional limit on number of terms, was forced to resign,” Volkov wrote. “Oh, how I would love for us to be like Bolivia!”

In a column in business daily Vedomosti, however, political analyst Fyodor Krasheninnikov warned that events in faraway Bolivia could negatively affect politics at home — particularly in the wake of a summer of rolling protests in Moscow and other cities over the banning of opposition candidates from elections.

“After Bolivia, all talk about how Russia could have some competitive elections and some softening of the regime amid a future transfer of power should be taken with even more skepticism,” Krasheninnikov wrote. 

His point? As with Ukraine in 2014, the events in Bolivia have made an impression in Moscow. Perhaps too big of one.

The Kremlin has taken note.

Funding of $1.35 billion will be needed to provide health care, education, nutrition and other services to Venezuelan migrants and to help their hosts in 2020, nongovernmental organizations said Wednesday. 
 
The request for increased donations from countries around the world was the most recent of repeated appeals for help for the 4.6 million Venezuelans who have fled shortages of food and medicine in their homeland in recent years. 
 
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration said they would start a fundraising effort for next year for projects aimed at migrants and host communities in 17 countries. 

Syrian crisis ‘much closer’
 
For European donors, the needs of Venezuelans seem very far away, Eduardo Stein, joint special representative of the UNHCR and IOM for Venezuelan refugees and migrants, told Reuters. 
 
“The Syrian crisis is much more immediate for Europe. It is much closer than the Venezuelan crisis for them,” Stein said. 
 
Aid needs are growing not just because there are increasing numbers of migrants, he added, but because conditions in Venezuela continue to worsen. 
 
In a statement earlier Wednesday Stein said international contributions needed to be doubled. 
 
Colombia has borne the brunt of the exodus. It is now home to more than 1.4 million Venezuelans, many of whom arrived with little money and in desperate need of basic services. 

Sharp increase expected
 
The number of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia is going to sharply increase next year, the organizations said, to 2.4 million, in tandem with a possible increase of total Venezuelan migrants to 6.5 million by the end of 2020. 
 
Colombia has repeatedly lamented a lack of funding for Venezuelans, saying other humanitarian crises in Syria, South Sudan and Myanmar have received many times more in donations. 
 
Care for migrants costs Colombia around half a percentage point of its gross domestic product, or about $1.5 billion, annually. The United Nations had called for global donations of $315 million in 2019 to help Colombia cope with the influx, but donations have fallen far short of the target. 
 
Unlike its neighbors, Colombia has not imposed stringent immigration requirements on Venezuelans, instead encouraging migrants who entered the country informally to register with authorities so they can have access to social services. 
 
Colombia has also said it will give citizenship to more than 24,000 children born to Venezuelan parents to prevent them from being stateless. 

The U.S. government recorded a $134 billion budget deficit in October, the first month of the new fiscal year, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.

That compared to a budget deficit of $100 billion in the same month last year, according to the Treasury’s monthly budget statement.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a $133 billion deficit for the month.

Unadjusted receipts last month totaled $246 billion, down 3% from October 2018, while unadjusted outlays were $380 billion, a rise of 8% from the same month a year earlier.

The U.S. government’s fiscal year ends in September each year. Fiscal 2019 saw a widening in the deficit to $984 billion, the largest budget deficit in seven years, a result of the Trump administration’s decision to cut taxes and increase government spending.

Those figures reflected the second full budget year under U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, and a time when the country had an expanding tax base with moderate economic growth and an unemployment rate near a 50-year low.

When adjusted for calendar effects, the deficit for October remained at $134 billion compared with an adjusted deficit of $113 billion in October 2018.
 

Republicans contended Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump did not improperly pressure Ukraine to investigate political rivals for political advantage, with Representative Devin Nunes declaring the accusations were based on “zero evidence” and that Democrats “made it up.” 
 
At the urging of Trump, Republican lawmakers mounted a vigorous defense of the president’s actions in dealing with Ukraine over several months, and they asserted that the Democrats’ case for impeachment against Trump was nonexistent. Trump’s political supporters on the House Intelligence Committee focused on the fact that the president released military aid that Ukraine wanted, without opening investigations of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, which Trump had urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to undertake. 
 
The Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against Trump entered a new phase Wednesday as witnesses began testifying publicly after weeks of closed-door testimony.   
 

Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor and George P. Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, were the first to testify at the open hearing. Taylor said a member of his staff overheard Trump on a July phone call with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland inquire about “the investigations.” 
 
The call was said to have taken place on July 26 at a restaurant, a day after Trump asked Zelenskiy in a call to investigate a political rival, Biden, a potential rival in the 2020 presidential election, and his son Hunter, at a time when the Trump administration was withholding critical military aid to Ukraine. 
 
“Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine,” Taylor testified. “Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigation of Biden,” for which Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuiliani, was pressing. 
 
Taylor acknowledged under questioning from Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and steadfast Trump supporter, that he met with Zelenskiy three times last summer, but that linkage of U.S. military aid to Ukraine was never mentioned. 
 
The impeachment probe was triggered by a whistleblower complaint related to concerns about the July 25 phone call. 
 
Before Republicans questioned the witnesses, the party took to social media to criticize the hearing. 
 
A tweet from House Oversight Committee Republicans said: 

FACT CHECK: Neither Ambassador Taylor nor George Kent have first-hand knowledge of a quid pro quo from the President.

We must hear from the whistleblower. https://t.co/nXnFytSkrb

— Oversight Committee Republicans (@GOPoversight) November 13, 2019

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California contended, “Both of the Democrats’ star witnesses just admitted that they were NOT on the July 25th call between Presidents Trump and Zelenskiy. Everything they are saying today is 2nd or 3rd or 4th-hand knowledge. Democrats are trying to impeach the president based on a game of telephone.” 
 
In the lead-up to Wednesday’s testimony, a Republican strategy memo circulating at the Capitol outlined four defenses for Trump: that the July 25 call “shows no conditionality or evidence of pressure”; that both Zelenskiy and Trump have subsequently said there was no pressure during the call; that Kyiv was not aware at the time, only later, that U.S. military aid was being withheld; and that Trump eventually released the military aid on September 11 without the investigations of the Bidens being opened. 
 
“These four key points undercut the Democrat impeachment narrative that President Trump leveraged U.S. security assistance and a presidential meeting [with Zelenskiy at the White House] to force Ukraine to investigate the president’s political rivals,” the memo said. 
 
Trump has described his telephone call with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” and he is accusing Democrats of conducting a witch hunt, calling the entire impeachment inquiry a hoax. 
 
Some of Trump’s Republican supporters have said they don’t agree with asking a foreign government to investigate a political rival but they don’t believe it is an impeachable offense that could lead to his removal from office.