U.S. officials say Friday’s shooting suspect at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida was a Saudi aviation student. Authorities say four people, including the gunman, were killed and several others were wounded in the incident. A motive for the attack remains under investigation. This is the second deadly shooting at a U.S. military base this week. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.

An attorney told a Los Angeles federal jury Friday it would be reasonable to award $190 million in damages to a British cave explorer who is suing Elon Musk for allegedly branding him as a pedophile during a Twitter spat.

Attorney Lin Wood said the suggested sum includes $150 million in punitive damages.

Musk, who testified his stock in Tesla and SpaceX is worth about $20 billion, contends that he was not being literal when he referred to Vernon Unsworth as a “pedo guy.”

The case was expected to go to the jury later in the day after closing arguments end.

The spat happened as Unsworth was involved in the rescue of a youth soccer team and its coach from a flooded cave in Thailand.

Unsworth had ridiculed Musk’s effort to help in the rescue by having engineers at his companies, including Space X and The Boring Co., develop a mini-submarine to transport the boys. Despite working around the clock to build the sub, Musk arrived in Thailand late in the rescue effort and the craft was never used.

Unsworth called it nothing more than a “PR stunt” and said Musk could stick the sub “where it hurts.”

In his closing argument, Wood called Musk a “billionaire bully” who lied when he claimed “pedo guy” only means “creepy old man” and when he apologized to Unsworth.

The biggest lie, Wood said, was when Musk accused Unsworth of being a pedophile.

“When Elon Musk tweets something it goes around the world,” Wood said.

He added: “It can never be deleted.”

Unsworth testified that he had to sue Musk for defamation because if he didn’t, the allegation would seem true.

In his testimony, Musk insisted that the phrase he tweeted off-the-cuff “was obviously a flippant insult, and no one interpreted it to mean pedophile.”
 

U.S. investigators are trying to determine what caused a Saudi air force pilot in the United States for flight training to go on a deadly shooting rampage at a U.S. naval base in Florida.

The shooting, which took place at the Pensacola Naval Air Station early Friday, left four people dead, including the shooter. A law enforcement official said another eight people were wounded.

The U.S. Navy and law enforcement officials identified the shooter as a Saudi pilot, one of up to a few hundred foreign nationals who had come to the base in Pensacola for training.

NBC News, quoting law enforcement officials, further identified the shooter as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani.

Guns are not permitted at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, but Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said the shooter managed to get a handgun onto the base before targeting individuals at one of the buildings. Officials said the rampage ended when a sheriff’s deputy cornered and shot the suspect in a classroom.

Officials with the U.S. FBI confirmed they were leading the probe, telling VOA it was still in the early stages.

“It is too early to determine motive,” a FBI official said on condition of anonymity, admitting terrorism had not been ruled out.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the nature of the investigation would be different because of the involvement of the Saudi air force pilot.

“There is obviously going to be a lot of questions about this individual being a foreign national, being a part of the Saudi air force,” he told reporters.

“The government of Saudi Arabia needs to make things better for these victims,” he added. “They are going to owe a debt here, given that this was one of their individuals.”

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that he had been in contact with King Salman, who offered condolences.

“The king said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter,” Trump said.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia just called to express his sincere condolences and give his sympathies to the families and friends of the warriors who were killed and wounded in the attack that took place in Pensacola, Florida….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Dozens of Afghan activists participated in a candlelight vigil Thursday near the Japanese Embassy in Kabul to mourn for Tetsu Nakamura, a physician and longtime aid worker who was fatally shot with five other people in eastern Afghanistan this week. VOA’s Rahim Gul Sarwan reports.

As countries throughout Africa continue to promote gender parity in politics, this week on #VOAOurVoices we explore how prejudice, bias and patriarchal systems shape the inclusion of women in leadership. Former Tanzanian Ambassador to the U.S. Liberata Mulamula joins our co-hosts Auriane, Hayde and Ayen to share how women can overcome barriers and effectively lead. In the #WomentoWatch segment, we feature a women working to “enrich foreign policy with African accents.”

Most Americans understand the Palestinian people in context of their decades long conflict with Israel. To provide more context, a museum in Washington D.C. is shining a light on its culture and heritage; one artifact at a time. More on this museum from VOA’s Imron Jadoon

An outside group founded by top political aides to Sen. Joni Ernst has worked closely with the Iowa Republican to raise money and boost her reelection prospects, a degree of overlap that potentially violates the law, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

Iowa Values, a political nonprofit that is supposed to be run independently, was co-founded in 2017 by Ernst’s longtime consultant, Jon Kohan. It shares a fundraiser, Claire Holloway Avella, with the Ernst campaign. And a condo owned by a former aide — who was recently hired to lead the group — was used as Iowa Values’ address at a time when he worked for her.

Political nonprofits are often referred to as “dark money” groups because they can raise unlimited sums and are not required to reveal their donors. But they must take steps to keep their activities separate from the candidates they support. Additionally, while such tax-exempt groups can do political work, they can’t make it their primary purpose.

The documents reviewed by the AP, including emails and a strategy memo, not only make clear that the group’s aim is securing an Ernst win in 2020, but they also show Ernst and her campaign worked in close concert with Iowa Values.

Ernst is hardly the first politician to push campaign finance law boundaries. But the revelation could complicate her efforts to fend off a Democratic challenger in a closely watched race next year.

“The truth is, our campaign is completely separate and independent from any outside organization,” Ernst senior adviser Brook Ramlet said in a statement. “Our campaign always has and always will act in full compliance with and in the spirit of the law. For the AP to suggest otherwise, is the definition of fake news.”

Campaign finance law states that candidates and their “agents” can’t solicit, direct or spend contributions that exceed federal limits, even if the donations are made to an outside group. Those limits currently prevent donors from giving more than $2,800 to a candidate and $5,000 to a political action committee per election.

In July, Holloway Avella requested “an investment of $50,000” from a donor after Ernst made an introduction. She made clear in an email, which was obtained by the AP, how much a contribution of that size could help.

“As a follow up to our introduction by Senator Ernst, I am reaching out to you on behalf of Iowa Values,” she wrote.

“As you may have seen, an outside group on the left … recently launched a six-figure ad buy in media markets across the state attacking Senator Ernst on her vote to repeal Obamacare,” she continued. “The purpose of our group, Iowa Values, is to push back against these type of negative attacks.”

Separately, a strategy memo states the group will use door-knocking, as well as TV, radio and digital advertising, to build a “firewall” that could be the difference “between winning and losing in 2020 for Senator Ernst.” The group is targeting about 120,000 Iowans who “lean Republican on the issues” but abandon the party at times over “the tone of the GOP.”

Taken together, some legal experts say the documents offer proof that the effort violates the spirit of campaign finance and tax law, if not the letter of it.

“It seems like pretty strong evidence” that the $50,000 request was for an “illegal donation” while it’s “clear that the goal of Iowa Values is to reelect Joni Ernst, which may violate its tax-exempt status,” said Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington.

He also said the documents pulled back the curtain on how dark money works.

“This is a striking example of how secret campaign money operates,” Fischer said. “The big donors that bankroll a dark money group like Iowa Values remain hidden from the public, but the politician that benefits knows where the money is coming from.”

Still, it’s far from certain that the Federal Election Commission, or the IRS, will find that they broke the law.

The FEC often gridlocks along partisan lines. And after a recent resignation, the panel doesn’t have enough members to legally meet for conducting business. Similarly, the IRS has shown little appetite for cracking down on dark money groups that push the limits.

“There’s a real disconnect between the principles behind the law and how they are enforced,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel to the FEC who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Noble said he would need more details before assessing whether Ernst’s campaign broke the law. But, he added: “The bottom line is that this is really questionable.”

Dan Petalas, a former FEC attorney, said that the “law is undecided” but that his personal view is the fundraising was permissible because Holloway Avella said she was requesting the $50,000 on behalf of Iowa Values, not the campaign.

In a statement, Iowa Values executive director Derek Flowers said the organization has “systems and controls in place to make certain that it complies with all laws” and is “careful to follow all requirements that limit how much of its activities can be focused on supporting candidates.”

What’s undeniable is the close connection between Ernst and the group.

Kohan, a former Ernst deputy chief of staff who is now a general consultant to her campaign, was paid $120,000 to serve as executive director of Iowa Values for two years, according to the group’s tax filings. He left the group earlier this year. Jamestown Associates, where he is a named partner, also collected an additional $101,000 from Ernst’s campaign in the years he served as executive director.

Holloway Avella raised about $520,000 for Iowa Values in 2017 and 2018, tax records show. The group lists her Arlington, Virginia, office as one of its business addresses and paid her about $60,000. Ernst paid her an additional $363,000 those years, record show.

The group listed a Waukee, Iowa, condo owned by Flowers as another business address in 2017, records show. Flowers was campaign manager during Ernst’s 2014 Senate primary. A company called Midland Strategies, which has been paid $145,000 by Ernst since 2013, also listed Flowers’ condo as a business address. Flowers succeeded Kohan as the group’s executive director this year.

After Ernst launched her reelection campaign, Holloway Avella was deeply involved with both operations.

Holloway Avella’s website lets prospective donors request to host a fundraiser for the senator. And invitations for several recent Ernst events list her as an organizer, including two held in September at Bistro Bis, a French eatery a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

Around the same time, Holloway Avella was seeking donations for Iowa Values from prominent Ernst supporters, like dieting entrepreneur Jenny Craig and San Francisco philanthropist Diane “Dede” Wilsey. Craig previously gave $30,000 to Ernst; Wilsey donated $46,000.

A legal compliance letter Holloway Avella sent to donors underscored the delicate terrain.

Iowa Values’ mission “is to educate the public about common-sense solutions to various public policy issues of national importance,” it stated. “It was not formed by any federal candidates or agents of candidates or at the direction or request of any candidates or an agent of a candidate.”

Five world powers trying to save their 2015 nuclear deal with Iran from U.S. efforts to overturn it are grappling with a new setback as they meet with Iranian officials in Vienna Friday.

A day before Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia were to hold talks with Iran in the Austrian capital, Moscow said it was suspending its work to reconfigure Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility for civilian medical research. The Trump administration had warned last month that it would revoke a waiver shielding Moscow from U.S. sanctions against the Fordow project starting Dec. 15.

TVEL, a unit of Russian state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom, had been working on the Fordow project since 2017. The project had been one of several that Iran agreed to undertake with international companies to modify various Iranian nuclear sites in ways that would ensure their peaceful, civilian uses, rather than military ones.

Those projects were part of the 2015 deal in which Iran accepted restrictions on its nuclear activities in return for six world powers giving it relief from international sanctions.

The U.S. withdrew from that agreement last year, saying it did not do enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons or engaging in other perceived malign activities. Tehran has said its nuclear ambitions are solely peaceful.

 

quoted Russian atomic energy expert Alexander Uvarov as saying Rosatom has many international projects and did not want to risk hurting them by exposing itself to U.S. sanctions.

Ryabkov said he would use the Vienna talks to raise the issue of the U.S. preparing to sanction international work at Fordow, a move he criticized as an attempt to break up the nuclear deal.

Some analysts predicted Iran and the five world powers in Vienna likely would agree that the U.S. is to blame for the suspension of the Fordow project and avoid blaming each other for the setback to the deal or using its dispute resolution mechanism to resolve the issue.

“The Europeans realize that triggering the dispute resolution process could end in a re-imposition of U.N. Security Council sanctions and that would kill the JCPOA,” analyst Kelsey Davenport of the Arms Control Association told VOA Persian, using an acronym for the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “So I think they will be judicious in their decision-making process before going down that road.”

But Davenport said Britain, France and Germany could act if Iran follows through on a threat to more seriously breach its nuclear deal commitments in January and moves closer to having the capability to make an atomic bomb.

“The Europeans may no longer see security value in remaining in the deal and trigger that dispute resolution mechanism,” she said. “So the window to try to preserve the JCPOA and bring Iran back into compliance is unfortunately closing.”

“At the moment, I don’t think that is what the Iranians want,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also speaking to VOA Persian.

“The Iranians have an incremental strategy (for violating the nuclear deal) for a reason, which is to keep the JCPOA on life support, in case there is a change in Washington in 2020,” Taleblu said. “At that point, they could tempt a new U.S. president to come back into the deal and perhaps provide Tehran with some kind of payment for the damages incurred during sanctions.”

Iran did not immediately comment on what it plans to do with its nuclear program following the Russian exit from Fordow.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

A nationwide strike about planned pension reforms that has paralyzed most of France enters its second day Friday.

Concern that the proposed pension overhaul would force millions of people to work longer or have less lucrative benefits has prompted the strike, bringing much of the country to a halt.

Tens of thousands of workers in France walked off the job Thursday as unions staged a nationwide strike against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to reform the country’s pension system.

The strike shut down transportation, forced most schools to close, left hospitals understaffed and basic government services unmet.

Largely peaceful demonstrations were held in Paris and in more than two dozen cities throughout the country.

Violence erupted, however, near Place de la Republique in eastern Paris, where thousands of protesters had gathered. Some protesters set fire to a construction trailer and police responded by firing tear gas, witnesses said.

Police also used tear gas against protesters in the northwestern city of Nantes and in the southeastern city of Lyon.

Union leaders have promised to continue protesting unless Macron abandons the proposed pension overhaul, which officials admit would force employees to gradually work longer.

Officials have given few details about the plan, but Macron’s office said Thursday that Prime Minister Edouard Philippe would unveil the framework next week after negotiations with unions.

The strike is a test of the political prowess of Macron, a former investment banker who won the presidency on the promise to transform France.
 

China will waive import tariffs for some soybeans and pork shipments from the United States, China’s finance ministry said Friday, citing a decision by the country’s cabinet.

The tariff waivers were based on applications by individual firms for U.S. soybeans and pork imports, the ministry said in a statement. It did not specify the quantities involved.

China imposed tariffs of 25% on both U.S. soybeans and pork in July 2018 as a countermeasure to tariffs levied by Washington over allegations that China steals and forces the transfer of American intellectual property to Chinese firms.

The waiver comes amid negotiations between the United States and China to conclude a “phase one” or interim deal to de-escalate a 17-month trade war between the two countries.

Lifting tariffs on each other’s goods is a key part of those talks.

China has also been scouring the world for more meat to fill a big shortage of protein after an outbreak of African swine fever devastated its massive hog herd, cutting supplies of pork.

Big oil companies operating in Mexico have launched a drive to convince leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to resume auctions of oil and gas contracts he has branded a failure in reviving the industry.

Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, among other firms in Mexico’s Association of Hydrocarbon Companies (Amexhi), say they have met output targets and investment pledges worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the initial phases of their contracts.

“We’ve been complying (with contractual obligations), and by any metric you look at, we’ve been successful,” Amexhi President Alberto de la Fuente told reporters this week.

Now they want the government to restart the auctions initiated under a 2013-2014 energy opening, including those to select partners for state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

Lopez Obrador has strongly criticized the reform, which was enacted under his predecessor and opened the door to over 100 exploration and production contracts for oil companies.

Having canceled auctions scheduled for 2019, he points out the reform has failed to lift crude output to the previous government’s target of 3 million barrels per day (bpd).

Production is below 1.7 million bpd, the lowest in decades.

The government said it will not do more until seeing “tangible” results, without specifying what that means.

The president also suspended auctions for the heavily-indebted Pemex to seek private partnerships known as “farmouts.”

Amexhi argues output is a poor yardstick because only 29 contracts are in the production stage out of 111 awarded through 2018. The rest still need time to finish exploratory drilling and studies before beginning commercial production, it says.

“What we need is to sit down with the energy ministry, with the government and understand which metrics are important to them,” said de la Fuente, a former energy regulator who is now Shell’s country manager in Mexico.

Some voices within Lopez Obrador’s administration are trying to convince the president to resume auctions, two officials told Reuters. The task is hard, they said, because he believes the state should hold a prominent role in the sector.

Meanwhile, private and foreign oil firms have spent about $11 billion in investment, taxes and payments to Pemex, and plan to invest another $37 billion in the coming years, Amexhi says.

“We’re looking to raise awareness in the government about how imperative it is to resume tenders,” said a director of a foreign oil company in Mexico who requested anonymity.

“If not, it’s going to be impossible for production to pick up given the state Pemex is in and because the government is racing against the clock to meet its own goals,” he said.

Lopez Obrador has pledged to reverse more than a decade of falling crude output at Pemex. The firm’s exploration and production budget has been crimped by its debt, the largest of any oil company in the world.

Experts say it will be impossible for Pemex to reach its output goal of 1.8 million bpd by the end of 2019 after October closed with production at 1.66 million bpd.

In the private sector, Amexhi expects production to reach nearly 50,000 bpd this year and jump to 280,000 bpd by 2024. But it argues new auctions could produce even faster results.

Carlos Salazar, head of powerful Mexican business lobby CCE that helped resolve a dispute between the government and several energy infrastructure firms, said he supports Amexhi’s efforts.

“Let’s set the milestones so that everyone, the public opinion, knows the objectives,” he said.

 

Peru and Washington are in the final stages of talks on a deal to promote American investments in the South American country as part of a U.S. initiative to counter Chinese influence in the region, a Peruvian diplomat told Reuters.

The United States launched its “Growth in the Americas” initiative in 2018 to bolster private-sector investments in energy and infrastructure in Latin America after China invited countries in the region to join its global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

So far, the United States has signed memorandums of understanding within the Growth in the Americas framework with Argentina, Chile, Jamaica and Panama. Chile, Jamaica, Panama and Peru have also signed MOUs with China to join the BRI.

“The Trump administration is interested in balancing Chinese influence in the region a bit,” Cecilia Galarreta, the director of North American affairs in Peru’s foreign ministry, told Reuters on the sidelines of an event on Thursday.

Galarreta said the draft MOU with Washington to join the Growth in the Americas initiative was now being evaluated in the energy and mines ministry and the finance ministry.

China replaced the United States as Peru’s top trade partner years ago and Chinese companies are increasingly investing in infrastructure projects in the Andean country.

“We’ve had meetings with delegations from the United States that have strongly insisted on the importance of the greater presence of North American companies investing here, especially in infrastructure,” Deputy Foreign Minister Jaime Pomareda told Reuters on the sidelines of the same event.

The U.S. embassy in Lima did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

The Homeland Security Department is backing away from requiring that U.S. citizens submit to facial-recognition technology when they leave or enter the country. 

The department said Thursday that it had no plans to expand facial recognition to U.S. citizens. A spokesman said DHS would delete the idea from its regulatory agenda, where privacy advocates spotted it this week. 

The advocates and lawmakers accused DHS of reneging on repeated promises not to force American citizens to be photographed leaving or entering the United States, a process that is required for foreign visitors. 

Senator Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, called the administration’s retreat “a victory for every single American traveler who flies on a plane.” He credited public pressure for the about-face. He said, however, that he still planned to introduce legislation to ban biometric surveillance of Americans. 

Settled issue?

Edward Hasbrouck, a privacy advocate who pointed out the proposal, said the matter might not be settled. 

“Was this a trial balloon to find out whether the DHS had finally reached the limits of our willingness to be treated like criminals whenever we fly?” he said. “And if so, has the DHS partially backed off, at least for now? Maybe.” 

Customs and Border Protection officials said they originally considered including U.S. citizens in the biometrics program because having one system for Americans and another for foreigners added complexity and could compromise security or make lines longer. 

But after meeting with lawmakers and privacy experts — including this week — CBP decided it was better to continue letting Americans opt out. 

Privacy experts have questioned the accuracy of facial recognition and have warned that personal information could be vulnerable to hackers or used improperly by companies holding the data. In response to those criticisms, DHS made some changes, including shortening the time it would retain photographs from 14 days to 12 hours. 

Facial recognition is used to screen passengers at more than a dozen U.S. airports. Some airlines, including Delta and JetBlue, tout it as a convenience for passengers who no longer need to show boarding passes and identification. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has the “full right” to annex the Jordan Valley if it chose to, even as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned the country against taking the bold step.

Netanyahu said his proposal to annex the strategic part of the occupied West Bank was discussed during a late-night meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He said they also agreed to move forward with plans for a joint defense treaty.

The longtime Israeli leader, beleaguered by a corruption indictment and political instability at home, is promoting the two initiatives as a justification for staying in office.

The Trump administration has already delivered several landmark victories to Netanyahu, such as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. Netanyahu says that thanks to his close relationship with Trump, he is singularly positioned to further promote Israeli interests at this junction before the 2020 U.S. election season heats up.

The annexation move would surely draw condemnation from the Palestinians and much of the world and almost certainly extinguish any remaining Palestinian hopes of gaining independence.

The Palestinians seek all the West Bank, captured by Israel in 1967, as the heartland of their hoped-for state. The Jordan Valley comprises some 25% of the West Bank and is seen as the territory’s breadbasket and one of the few remaining open areas that could be developed by the Palestinians.

But many Israelis say the area is vital to the country’s security, providing a layer of protection along its eastern flank.

In her annual report, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office was following the Israeli annexation proposal “with concern.”

When asked by reporters about the warning, Netanyahu insisted that it is Israel’s “full right to do so, if we chose so.”

Netanyahu’s visit with Pompeo was their first since the secretary of state announced last month that the U.S. no longer considers Israeli settlements illegal under international law. Israeli nationalists have interpreted that policy change as a green light to begin annexing parts or all of the West Bank.

Netanyahu called their 1 hour and 45 minute-meeting in Lisbon “critical to Israeli security.”

In particular, he noted the progress they made toward a joint defense pact that would offer Israel further assurance against a future attack from Iran. He said he has informed his chief rival, former military chief Benny Gantz, of the progress in the initiative.

Israeli defense officials, and Gantz as well, have expressed concern that such a pact could limit Israel’s freedom to operate militarily. Netanyahu said he was aware of the reservations but assured that it was a “historic opportunity” and Israel would not be limited to act against archenemy Iran.

Mike Makovsky, president and chief executive of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America in Washington, which has been promoting the idea of a narrow defense pact, said the proposal would offer “an extra layer of deterrence” and “mitigate the intensity and scope” of a potential war with Iran.

“Just like every other mutual defense treaty it would be left to the discretion of both parties how it would be implemented,” he said. “Mutual defense pacts have been sources for stability.”

In Lisbon, Netanyahu also met with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa and thanked him for adopting the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism, which toughens guidelines to include some forms of criticism of Israel. Israeli researchers reported earlier this year that violent attacks against Jews around the world spiked significantly in 2018, with the largest reported number of Jews killed in anti-Semitic acts in decades.

The trip gave Netanyahu a brief respite as he fights for political survival in the wake of two inconclusive elections and a damning corruption indictment. He refused to discuss his future options but vowed to carry on.

Israel’s attorney general last month indicted Netanyahu for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases.

It is the first time in Israeli history that a sitting prime minister has been charged with a crime. Unlike mayors or regular ministers, the prime minister is not required by Israeli law to resign if indicted. Netanyahu is desperate to remain in office, where he is best positioned to fight the charges.

Bethelihem Tesfatsion is a successful businesswoman who has sold thousands of hand-stitched Eritrean dresses worldwide, but she operates in the shadows, waiting for Ethiopia to make good on its promise to allow refugees to work. 

As an Eritrean asylum-seeker, Bethelihem, 29, is not eligible for a work permit, so she got an Ethiopian friend to put his name on the business license in 2017 when she opened her shop in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. 

“It doesn’t feel like the brand is mine,” said Bethelihem, who left Eritrea five years ago to get treatment for a kidney problem and never returned — like tens of thousands who flee the tiny Horn of Africa country every year, citing political repression and lengthy military conscription. 

“You always fear you do something that you’re not supposed to do, that someone from the government is going to come after me.” 

Home to Africa’s third-largest refugee population, Ethiopia won praise in January for passing a law giving 700,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers who have fled conflict, drought and persecution the right to live outside 26 camps where they are currently hosted. 

‘Very disappointed’

But 11 months after the Refugee Proclamation was announced — allowing refugees and asylum-seekers to work, open bank accounts, legally register births and marriages, and attend primary school — Bethelihem is frustrated Ethiopia has yet to pass further legislation to bring it to life. 

“I am very disappointed,” she said, as her sister and aunt busily packed a traditional white cotton dress with colorful edging to send abroad, while passers-by glanced in at the elegantly dressed mannequins in the window. 

“We are sick of [waiting] because we have the capacity [to work].” 

Politics may be preoccupying Ethiopia’s leaders. Deadly clashes and protests have erupted following democratic reforms introduced by Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed since 2018, which lifted the lid on long-repressed ethnic tensions. 

“The government has certainly not backed away from its commitments but it’s not a top priority,” said one aid worker who declined to be named. 

“They have a lot on their plate,” he said, adding that allowing refugees to work could add to the strain, amid high unemployment. 

Eritreans struggling 

As the U.N. readies for the first Global Refugee Forum in Geneva on December 17 — which aims to identify best practices to support refugees and get donors to make pledges — Ethiopia is seen as exemplary for seeking to boost refugees’ self-reliance and ease the burden on host nations. 

Eritrea, a country of 5 million people, is the world’s ninth-largest source of refugees, with 500,000 registered. One in three Eritrean refugees lives in Ethiopia, one of Africa’s poorest countries despite impressive growth. 

Many of the 20,000 Eritreans in Addis Ababa find it hard to survive as they do not have the right to work and rely on informal jobs where they risk being exploited, a study by Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre found. 

“Some of them are really struggling,” said Bethelihem, who makes half of her sales online, mostly via Facebook and Instagram, to Eritreans in the United States, Europe and Australia who spend up to 9,000 birr ($299) on outfits for special occasions. 

“They engage in child labor to support themselves [and] prostitution.” 

The U.N. allows Eritreans to live in the capital if they can prove they have financial support from friends or family. But remittances are not a reliable source of income and many Eritreans in Addis Ababa work as poorly paid waiters, hairdressers or plumbers, Bethelihem said. 

“Family members in the diaspora are desperately wanting the refugees to take care of themselves,” said Bethelihem, whose sisters work with her in the shop, having also left Eritrea to escape indefinite national service, which Human Rights Watch has said includes hard labor and physical abuse. 

‘Remaining tasks’ 

Refugees can already register births and marriages, open bank accounts and buy mobile phone SIM cards, said Addisu Kebenessa, deputy director general of the government’s Agency for Refugees and Returnees Affairs. 

“Most of the [Refugee] Proclamation is already implemented,” he said, adding that work and residence permits are the two “remaining tasks,” with a long-term goal of ending refugee encampment by 2030. 

Addis Ababa’s Nefas Silk Polytechnic College offers a hopeful vision of a more inclusive world, as donors struggle to provide for record numbers in need of aid and U.S. and European hostility to refugees and migrants grows. 

Dozens of refugees and Ethiopians learn cooking, sewing, welding and other skills at the college, which is supported by GIZ, a German development agency. 

“We treat the refugees as regular students,” dean Melese Yigzaw said. 

One of his students is Ayda Gebremichael, who left Eritrea with her husband and three children five months ago. They plan to build a life in Addis Ababa if they can find decent work — with a dream of moving to Canada in the future. 

“Sometimes, I forget that I am a refugee here,” said Ayda, 28, as she took a break from her sewing class. 

Reduction of tension

Bringing the two groups together to study can also reduce tensions that often erupt when large numbers of refugees arrive, overwhelming local services — a problem faced from Germany and Jordan to Brazil and Kenya. 

“We have to make sure both refugees and host communities benefit from our interventions,” said Moges Tamene, a program manager with DanChurchAid, which works with refugees throughout Ethiopia. 

“So far it has never been the case,” he said, highlighting camps in the western Gambella region where South Sudanese refugees outnumber locals and receive clean water, while Ethiopians a few kilometers away drink from a river. 

Ethiopia has promised to create 30,000 jobs for refugees as part of its industrialization drive, but Bethelihem is not interesting in working in a factory where garment workers earn about $26 a month, according to the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. 

“Nobody will go there,” Bethelihem said. “We have the capacity to be self-reliant and even to support the host community.” 

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it official Thursday — Democrats in the House of Representatives will begin drafting articles of impeachment with the goal of removing President Donald Trump from office. That would make Trump the fourth president in U.S. history to face formal impeachment charges in the House. As the impeachment battle intensifies, both sides are keeping a close watch on public opinion polls. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington. 

Senior U.S. diplomats and national security experts have testified before Congress about behind-the-scenes maneuvering by President Donald Trump or aides to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

With Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives moving toward possibly impeaching Trump, who urged Ukraine’s president in a July 25 phone call to carry out the investigations, here are highlights of testimony already given by key witnesses in televised hearings:

The quid pro quo

Since the House began a formal impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24, Democrats and Republicans have argued over whether Trump demanded a political favor from Ukraine to benefit him personally in return for the release of $391 million in U.S. security assistance to Kyiv.

In testimony on Nov. 13, William Taylor, acting ambassador to Ukraine, said it was his understanding that the delivery of the U.S. aid to Ukraine was linked to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announcing investigations of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine. The elder Biden is a leading Democratic candidate for president in 2020.

Democrats contend that any linking of aid to the probes Trump sought would fit the definition of the Latin term “quid pro quo,” or a favor for a favor.

Under questioning from Republicans, Taylor acknowledged that he did not have firsthand knowledge of Trump explicitly tying the aid to investigating the Bidens.

But Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor and ambassador to the European Union, told Congress: “Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”

Sondland was referring to Zelenskiy’s drive to get a White House meeting with Trump.

National security concerns

National security officials working in the White House told of their worries over Trump’s phone call with Zelenskiy and the role that Trump’s private lawyer Rudy Giuliani was playing in shaping policy toward Ukraine, an important U.S. ally.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a top Ukraine expert assigned to the White House, was one of several people who listened to that call. Vindman testified that Trump had made an “improper” demand of Zelenskiy, referring to the American president urging Zelenskiy to initiate investigations.

“Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was probably an element of shock that maybe, in certain regards, my worst fear of how our Ukrainian policy could play out was playing out,” Vindman said.

Trump has repeatedly defended what he calls a “perfect” phone conversation, saying his goal was to ensure that any U.S. aid delivered to Ukraine was not falling into corrupt hands.

Giuliani’s role

David Holmes, a career diplomat serving in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, testified that his work started to become overshadowed in March by Giuliani, who was pushing Ukraine to carry out probes of the Bidens and a debunked conservative theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill recalled how then-national security adviser John Bolton called Giuliani, a private citizen with no formal job in the administration, “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

Trump has defended the former New York City mayor and ex-federal prosecutor, saying his crime-fighting abilities were needed to deal with corruption in Ukraine. Giuliani has said that everything he did was to protect his client: Trump.

Pence and Pompeo

Sondland told the House Intelligence Committee that several senior administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, knew about efforts to pressure Ukraine to carry out investigations that might help Trump.

“Everyone was in the loop” about the efforts to get Ukraine to conduct investigations that Trump sought, Sondland testified.

A top Pence aide said in a statement that the vice president “never had a conversation” with Sondland about investigating the Bidens or the conditional release of aid to Ukraine.

A State Department spokeswoman said Sondland never told Pompeo that he believed Trump was linking the aid to the requested investigations and “any suggestion to the contrary is flat out false.”

 

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been proposed for International Olympic Committee membership, but World Athletics head Sebastian Coe will have to wait due to a conflict of interest, IOC President Thomas Bach said on Thursday.

FIFA and World Athletics, the governing bodies of two of the biggest sports in the Olympics, have been without membership ever since the departure from the IOC of their respective former presidents Sepp Blatter and Lamine Diack in 2015.

For years, membership of the IOC for the heads of soccer and athletics was seen as almost automatic.

Yet the two international federations have been left out in the cold as they struggled with widespread corruption and doping scandals which tarnished their images. Diack, who has denied wrongdoing, faces a corruption trial in France in January.

Bach said Infantino had been proposed for election at their next session in January along with International Tennis Federation chief David Haggerty and Japanese Olympic Committee president Yasuhiro Yamashita.

World Athletics chief Coe, however, had not been proposed due to a conflict of interest.

“We wanted him (Coe) to become an IOC member as president of one of our most important Olympic sports,” Bach said. “Since then we are in close consultation with him and since then we have addressed the risk of a potential of conflict of interest he may have.”

Apart for his role at World Athletics, Coe is also Group Chairman of consultancy firm CSM which also works with the IOC.

“CSM is consulting various organizations and stakeholders including having contractual partnerships with the IOC itself.”

Bach said Coe had informed them that he could not immediately resolve this situation but was working on it. Bach said Coe could become a member at their session during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

“He is hopeful to address it in a couple of months. Then that would mean the door is still open for Tokyo.”

The IOC elects new members at its sessions once candidates are vetted by the Olympic body.

 

Police in Nepal have arrested the brother-in-law of a woman who died after she was banished to a ‘menstrual hut’, the first such arrest in the Himalayan nation as it seeks to end the practice.

The body of Parbati Buda Rawat, 21, was found on Monday after she lit a fire to keep warm in a mud and stone hut and suffocated in Nepal’s western Achhan district, the latest victim of the centuries-old, “chhaupadi” custom, outlawed in 2005.

“This is the first time we have arrested any person in connection with a death under the chhaupadi custom,” Achham’s chief district officer, Bhoj Raj Shrestha, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The custom remains prevalent in Nepal’s remote west where some communities fear misfortune, such as a natural disaster, unless menstruating women and girls – seen as impure – are sent away to animal sheds or huts.

Police official Janak Shahi said Chhatra Rawat, 25, a brother-in-law of the dead woman, was arrested in the district capital, Mangalsen, to investigate if he was responsible in sending her to the illegal hut, and he may later be charged.

If found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to three months in jail and a fine of up to 3,000 Nepali rupees ($26).
A village in the neighboring Doti district this week announced a financial reward of 5,000 rupees for each woman who refuses to be confined to a hut during her period, in the hope this would deter her family from attempting to banish her again.

Outrage led to a parliamentary investigation into chhaupadi after a teenage girl and a mother and her young sons died in two similar incidents earlier this year.

($1 = 114.7400 Nepalese rupees)
 

The highly anticipated final chapter in the Skywalker film saga will feature a significant role for Princess Leia, the beloved “Star Wars” character played by late actress Carrie Fisher.

Writer and director J.J. Abrams said he had enough unused footage of Fisher from the filming of 2015 movie “The Force Awakens” to make Leia a key player in “The Rise of Skywalker,” the “Star Wars” film that debuts in theaters on Dec. 20.

Fisher died in 2016 at age 60.

“We couldn’t tell the story without Leia,” Abrams said in an interview on Wednesday. “She’s the mother of the villain of the piece. She’s in a sense the mother of the resistance, the rebellion, the leader, the general.”

“Her role is, I would say, integral,” he added. “This is not just a cosmetic thing where we’re sort of inserting Leia.”

“The Rise of Skywalker” is the ninth movie in the celebrated space franchise that debuted in 1977 and is now owned by Walt Disney Co.

In recent films, Leia had risen to general leading the fight against the evil First Order in the galaxy far, far away. Her son is Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the warrior who took over as ruler of the First Order at the end of 2017 film “The Last Jedi.”

If Fisher had been alive, “there is no question we would have done, I’m sure, additional and other things,” Abrams said. “But the fact we had the material to do what we did is incredibly gratifying.”

Daisy Ridley, who portrays resistance fighter Rey, recorded scenes for “Rise of Skywalker” in which her character interacted with the previously recorded images of Fisher.

“I was basically reacting to footage I had seen of her, so it was quite emotional, very strange,” Ridley said. “But I do think you feel a real sense of love between Leia and Rey in this one, and Leia is a big part of the story.”

Pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and maintenance worker Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) also have scenes that include dialogue with Leia, cast members said.

Abrams said Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, who will appear for the third time as a lieutenant in the resistance forces, also will be seen on screen with her mother.

Anthony Daniels, who plays the droid C-3PO, said the scenes with Fisher looked “totally believable, quite wonderful, quite respectful” in the final cut of the film, which was shown to some cast members this week.

Isaac said he felt “a real melancholy” when he watched Fisher on screen in “Rise of Skywalker.”

“You see her right there, and she’s so vital and alive, and to think she’s not there anymore, and she won’t get to see how we say goodbye to Princess Leia,” he said. “It’s bittersweet.”