Congressional Democrats launched the next step in the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday, hearing testimony from legal scholars on what the U.S. Constitution says about the standards for impeaching and removing a president from office. The House Judiciary Committee hearings take lawmakers a step closer to a vote on Articles of Impeachment, measures that if passed would lead to a Senate trial. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
 

U.S. President Donald Trump appears intent on following through with his plan to formally designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. His announcement has put the Mexican government on the defensive. VOA’s Ardita Dunellari looks at the political impact of such a move and its effect on bilateral relations with Mexico.
 

A British caver who was labeled “pedo guy” by Tesla co-founder Elon Musk said Wednesday he felt “humiliated” and “dirtied” by the tech billionaire’s accusation, and that it amounted to “a life sentence.”

Speaking on the second day of a trial in Los Angeles federal court to determine whether Musk’s comment constituted defamation, Vernon Unsworth said the entrepreneur’s tweet referring to him as “pedo guy” had branded him as a pedophile.

“It’s disgusting,” Unsworth told the court, his voice quivering. “I feel humiliated, shamed, dirtied.”

“Effectively from day one, I was given a life sentence without parole,” Unsworth, who helped rescue youth soccer players trapped in a cave in Thailand, told the court.

He said Musk’s Twitter rant had resulted in his name being associated with pedophilia.

“Sometimes I feel very vulnerable, very isolated,” he said. “I deal with it on my own, I bottle it up.”

Twitter spat

Musk’s highly publicized row with Unsworth erupted in July 2018 after the British caver dismissed the entrepreneur’s proposal to build a mini-submarine to rescue the boys stuck in the cave as a “PR stunt.”

He also said that Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts.”

Attorneys for both sides in court have been going over the meaning of the term “pedo guy,” which Musk claims was a common insult in South Africa, where he grew up, and meant nothing more than “creepy old man.”

The 48-year-old tech tycoon insisted during two days of testimony that he was just reacting to Unsworth’s “unprovoked” comments about him when he published the tweet.

Musk also referred to Unsworth in email messages as a “child rapist.”

Musk apologized

He apologized to Unsworth several times during his testimony and insisted his “pedo guy” tweet did not mean he was accusing the caver of being a pedophile.

“Pedo guy is more flippant than pedo, especially in the context I used in the tweet,” Musk told the court Wednesday. “It’s obviously an insult, no one interpreted it as meaning he was actually a pedophile.”

The trial, which began Tuesday and is expected to last through Friday, hinges on whether Musk’s tweet could have been interpreted by a reasonable person as accusing Unsworth of pedophilia.

Unsworth, who lives in Britain and Thailand, is seeking unspecified damages for pain, suffering and emotional distress.

His testimony was set to continue Thursday.

By day, the small commercial kitchen in a Hong Kong industrial building produces snacks. At night, it turns into a secret laboratory assembling a kit for pro-democracy protesters seeking to detox after repeated exposure to tear gas.

Volunteers seated around a kitchen island sort and pack multicolored pills into small resealable bags. At another table, a woman makes turmeric pills by dipping gelatin capsules into a shallow dish of the deep orange spice.

“Police have used so much tear gas and people are suffering,” said the owner of the kitchen, speaking on condition of anonymity because she fears repercussions for her business. “We want to especially help frontline protesters, who have put their lives on the line for the city.”

10,000 canisters of tear gas

Hong Kong police have fired more than 10,000 tear gas canisters to quell violent protests that have rocked the city for six months. The movement’s demands include fully democratic elections and an investigation into police use of force, including tear gas.

Its heavy and prolonged use in Hong Kong — one of the world’s most densely populated cities and known for its concrete jungle of high-rises — is unusual and has sparked health fears.

While there’s no evidence of long-term health effects, it’s also largely untested territory.

“I don’t think there have been circumstances where there has been this level of repeated exposure for people to tear gas. What’s going on in Hong Kong is pretty unprecedented,” said Alistair Hay, a British toxicologist from the University of Leeds.

Police have fired it in cramped residential areas and near hospitals, malls and schools, affecting not only protesters but also children, the elderly and the sick.

Fears of exposure

Some worry that tear gas residue could stick for days or weeks to asphalt, walls, ventilation ducts and other places. Parents, schools and various community groups have demanded to know the chemical makeup of the gas, which police won’t divulge, so they can clean up properly.

In the absence of official information, some parents have stopped taking their kids to parks, and online tips urge mothers to refrain from breastfeeding for a few hours if they are exposed the gas. Many avoided fresh fruits after a wholesale market that supplies half of the city’s supply was gassed last month.

New daily rituals include using a baking soda solution to bathe, wash clothes and clean surfaces. Tips shared by protesters include not bathing in hot water after exposure as it is believed it will open pores and let the chemicals seep in.

The kitchen owner making detox kits said she wants to help protesters, who often avoid seeking treatment at hospitals to hide their identity and avoid possible arrest.

The kits contain capsules that include vitamins and other natural ingredients and are packed into a small pouch with 10 bottles of a cloudy caramel-colored drink that contains an antioxidant said to be an immune-system booster. They come with instructions for a 10-day detoxification program that includes no alcohol and no smoking.

It has not been scientifically tested for treating tear gas symptoms, but the kitchen owner claimed that feedback was positive from a first batch distributed to frontline protesters through a clandestine network of first-aid and social workers.

Hay, the toxicologist, said that excessive concentrations of CS gas, a common tear gas component, and residue that persists in the environment could cause prolonged symptoms and health complications for vulnerable groups.

Protesters sickened

A survey in August by a group of doctors of some 170 reporters covering the protests found most of them had difficulty breathing, persistent coughing or coughed up blood, skin allergies and gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea or vomiting, according to Hong Kong media reports.

Further spooking residents are reports that the tear gas could emit dioxin, a cancer-causing substance. Hay said he wasn’t aware of any cases of tear gas producing dioxin, although it could in theory be released if the canister burns above 250 degrees Celsius (480 degrees Fahrenheit).

Government officials say that any toxin found could come from the many street fires set off by protesters. They refuse to reveal the components of the gas, citing operational sensitivities.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where more than 1,000 rounds of tear gas were fired on a single day last month, hired an independent laboratory to test air, water and soil samples. Preliminary tests reportedly showed no harmful substances.

Nonetheless, a high school near the campus hired professional experts to decontaminate its grounds.

A 17-year-old volunteer helping make the detox kits said he has joined many protests and often experienced stomach cramps, nausea and rashes for days after being gassed. During a rally in June, he said couldn’t breathe and thought he was going to die.

Another volunteer said she can see clouds of tear gas in the streets below her apartment in Mongkok, a hot spot for protests, and smell it even with her windows closed.

She doesn’t have the courage to join the protests, she said, but feels she must contribute.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution in a city that has become starkly divided by the violent protests.
 

Chinese official media excoriated the United States and called for harsh reprisals in editorials on Thursday after the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation requiring a stronger response to Beijing’s treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority. 

The commentaries followed warnings from China on Wednesday that the legislation could affect bilateral cooperation, including a near-term deal to end the two countries’ trade war. 

A front-page editorial in the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper said the passage of the U.S. legislation “harbors evil intent and is extremely sinister.” 

“Underestimating the determination and will of the Chinese people is doomed to fail,” it said. 

By a vote of 407 to 1, the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved the Uighur bill, which would require the Trump administration to toughen its response to China’s crackdown in Xinjiang, a region in China’s far west. 

The bill still must be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate before being sent to U.S. President Donald Trump to sign into law. 

The White House has yet to say whether Trump would sign or veto the bill, which contains a provision allowing the president to waive sanctions if he determines that to be in the national interest. 

Kept in camps

U.N. experts and activists say China has detained possibly 1 million Uighurs in camps in Xinjiang. China says the camps are part of an anti-terror crackdown and are providing vocational training. It denies any mistreatment of Uighurs. 

The English-language China Daily called the bill a “stab in the back, given Beijing’s efforts to stabilize the already turbulent China-U.S. relationship.” 

“It seems an odds-on bet that more [sanctions] can be expected if the latest approval for State Department meddling goes into the statute books,” it said. 

The English-language edition of the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid published by the People’s Daily, said China should be prepared for a “long-term battle with the U.S.” 

The editorials echoed comments by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, who said on Wednesday that “any wrong words and deeds must pay the due price.” 

Official commentary also took aim at the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, recently signed into law by Trump. 

The act requires the U.S. State Department to certify at least annually that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify favorable U.S. trading terms, and it threatens sanctions for human rights violations. 

‘Idiotic’

A front-page editorial in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily framed the bill as a U.S. attempt to use Hong Kong to contain China, calling such a move “idiotic nonsense.” 

“The Chinese government will in no way allow anyone to act wilfully in Hong Kong, and must take effective measures to prevent, contain and counteract external forces from interfering in Hong Kong affairs.” 

Hong Kong has been wracked by nearly six months of often violent protests, with demonstrators demanding greater democratic freedoms in the Chinese city. 

Colombian unions and student groups held a third national strike Wednesday amid fraught talks between protest leaders and the government over President Ivan Duque’s social and economic policies. 

The strike was the latest demonstration in two weeks of protests, which have drawn hundreds of thousands of marchers and put pressure on Duque’s proposed tax reform, which lowers duties on businesses. 

The protests prompted him to announce a “great national dialogue” on social issues, but government efforts to stop new demonstrations have failed as the union-led National Strike Committee has stuck firmly to demands for one-on-one talks and refused to call off protests. 

The demonstrations, while largely peaceful, resulted in damage to dozens of public transport stations and curfews in Cali and Bogota. 

Protesters have wide-ranging demands, including that the government do more to stop the killing of human rights activists, offer more support for former leftist rebels who demobilized under a peace deal and dissolve the ESMAD riot police, whom marchers accuse of excessive force.

“We’re continuing to march to send a message to the president and to Congress: Don’t play with the people,” said student Diana Rodriguez, 23, as she made her way toward Bogota’s Bolivar Plaza late Wednesday morning. 

“Yesterday they approved the tax reform, and that shows they aren’t taking us seriously,” Rodriguez said, referring to the Tuesday approval of the bill by economic committees in both houses of Congress. The proposal now moves to a floor debate. 

Five people have died in connection with the demonstrations, which started November 21 and have occurred in tandem with protests in other Latin American countries. 

“I invite all Colombians to mobilize massively to show the government that there is another opinion in the country, that the other Colombia has the right to be listened to,” Central Union of Workers President Diogenes Orjuela told Reuters by phone early on Wednesday, adding marches must be peaceful. 

Meetings between Duque’s representatives and the committee are expected to continue on Thursday. 

The committee has made 13 demands, including that the government reject a rise in the pension age and a cut to the minimum wage for young people, both policies Duque denies supporting. 

The government has repeatedly said the demands for one-on-one dialogue exclude other sectors and that it cannot meet demands that it refrain from deploying the ESMAD. 

The Trump administration said on Wednesday it will make it harder for states to keep residents in the U.S. food stamp program in a move that is projected to end benefits for nearly 700,000 people.

President Donald Trump has argued that many Americans receiving food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, do not need it given the strong economy and low unemployment. The program provides free food to 36 million Americans.

The administration has now finalized a rule that tightens guidelines on when and where states can waive limits on how long certain residents can receive benefits. The changes will move more “able-bodied” adults into the workplace, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said.

“States are seeking waivers for wide swaths of their population, and millions of people who could work are continuing to receive SNAP benefits,” he told reporters.

The United States generally limits the amount of time that adults ages 18-49, who do not have dependents or a disability, can receive food stamps to three months in a 36-month period, unless they meet certain work requirements.

States can apply for waivers to this time limit due to tough economic conditions. However, counties with an unemployment rate as low as 2.5% have been included in waived areas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP.

The agency is stiffening guidelines defining where recipients can reside to be eligible for waivers and standards for demonstrating whether an area has enough jobs to justify a waiver.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 3.6% in October.

“We need everyone who can work to work,” Perdue said.

But critics say the moves will hurt poor Americans.

“This is an unacceptable escalation of the administration’s war on working families, and it comes during a time when too many are forced to stretch already-thin budgets to make ends meet,” said U.S. Representative Marcia Fudge, an Ohio Democrat.

The administration has sought to tighten requirements for food stamps without congressional approval after Congress blocked a Trump-backed effort to pass new restrictions through the Farm Bill last year.

The latest rule will take effect next year and save the U.S. government $5.5 billion over five years by removing about 688,000 people from food stamps, said Brandon Lipps, a USDA deputy undersecretary.

“For those impacted it will mean less nutritious meals, or meals that are skipped altogether,” said Cassie Ramos, policy associate for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group.

 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged all countries to suspend plans for digital services taxes that Washington believes unfairly target U.S. tech companies, to allow the OECD to reach an agreement on international taxation.

In a letter to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) dated Tuesday, Mnuchin underscored U.S. concerns about digital services initiatives launched by France and other countries that target revenues, not profits.

In the letter, which was viewed by Reuters, he said U.S. taxpayers supported greater tax certainty, but worried that changing the mandatory rules for when countries have the right to tax companies could affect “longstanding pillars of the international tax system upon which U.S. taxpayers rely.”

The rise of big internet companies like Google owner Alphabet and Facebook has strained current tax rules since such corporations can legally book profit and park assets like trademarks and patents in low-tax countries such as Ireland regardless of where their customers are.

The U.S. government on Monday said it may slap punitive duties of up to 100% on $2.4 billion in imports from France of Champagne, cheese and other products, after concluding that France’s new 3% digital services tax would harm U.S. tech companies.

Washington also said it was exploring whether to open similar investigations into the digital services taxes of Austria, Italy and Turkey, but made no mention of proposed digital taxes in Canada or Britain.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday said he would press ahead with new digital services taxes despite U.S. objections.

Months of negotiations 

Mnuchin’s letter and the U.S. trade representative’s report followed months of negotiations between French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Mnuchin over a global overhaul of digital tax rules.

The two struck a compromise in August at a Group of Seven summit in France that would refund U.S. companies the difference between the French tax and a new mechanism being drawn up through the OECD.

In his letter, Mnuchin said the United States looked forward to working with the OECD, but had “serious concerns” about any moves to abandon certain current taxation structures such as arm’s-length transfer pricing and taxable nexus standards.

He said concerns could be addressed by creating a safe-harbor regime under Pillar One, the first spate of taxation reforms that the OECD wants to complete by January.

The OECD in October released its proposal for overhauling cross-border tax rules that go back to the 1920s, which would give governments more power to tax big multinationals doing business in their countries.
 

The meeting of NATO leaders in London to mark the alliance’s 70th anniversary got off to a difficult start Tuesday as the leaders of the United States, France and Turkey clashed over burden sharing and the future direction of the alliance. The official summit is set to take place Wednesday, where the various threats to NATO are due to be discussed – but as Henry Ridgwell reports, the biggest challenge could be keeping a lid on tensions within the organization

U.S. President Donald Trump accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of being “two-faced” after Trudeau and other NATO leaders appeared to have been gossiping about him.

A recording of a reception Tuesday night in London’s Buckingham Palace shows Trudeau huddling with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Britain’s Princess Anne, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rute and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Trudeau was overheard apparently commenting on Trump’s lengthy impromptu exchange with journalists, during which Trump said Trudeau was perturbed over his remarks that Canada is not fulfilling its NATO financial commitments.

Shortly after Trump’s comments about Trudeau, he tweeted NATO has made “Great progress” since he won the presidency nearly three years ago.

Great progress has been made by NATO over the last three years. Countries other than the U.S. have agreed to pay 130 Billion Dollars more per year, and by 2024, that number will be 400 Billion Dollars. NATO will be richer and stronger than ever before….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

The two leaders met hours after Trump criticized Macron for his recent statement describing NATO as experiencing a “brain death,” due to diminished U.S. leadership. Trump called it a “nasty statement.”  

As the two sat down for talks, Trump warned that NATO member countries who do not meet NATO’s guideline of spending 2% of GDP on collective defense could be dealt with “from a trade standpoint” referring to tariffs on products, including French wine.

This prompted Macron, who is currently contributing 1.9% of France’s GDB towards NATO’s defense, to push back.

“It’s not just about money,” Macron said. “What about peace in Europe?” he asked Trump.

“It’s impossible just to say we have to put money, we have to put soldiers, without being clear on the fundamentals of what NATO should be,” Macron said.

Islamic State fighters

Trump and Macron argued about how to deal with Islamic State after the October withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, a move Trump made without consulting the alliance. The withdrawal paved the way for Turkey to launch an offensive against the U.S.-allied Kurdish militia in northern Syria and triggered fear among allies of a potential IS resurgence.

In response to a question on whether France should do more to take Islamic State fighters captured in the Middle East, Trump asked Macron if he would like “some nice ISIS fighters.”

Macron countered that the main problem is IS fighters in the region. Referring to the abrupt U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria, Macron said “you have more and more of these fighters due to the situation today.”

Macron is “more on the side of those who want to actually face up to the crisis and talk about it,” said Hans Kundnani of Chatham House. He is the sort of “disruptive factor” compared to other leaders who may choose to paper over disagreements, Kundnani said.

The summit came as Trump faces an impeachment investigation back home. He repeated his criticism Tuesday of Democrats who control the House of Representatives, saying it is unfair to hold hearings while he is attending the summit.

Trump is not the first U.S. president to attend a NATO summit under the cloud of impeachment. In 1974, Richard Nixon went to NATO’s 25th anniversary meeting in Brussels while the U.S. House of Representatives was concluding its impeachment inquiry. Nixon stepped down a few weeks later.

The next step by congressional Democrats pushing the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump is unfolding Wednesday, with four constitutional scholars testifying on what they believe the country’s founding fathers intended when they decided how a president could be impeached and removed from office.

The Democratic majority on the House Judiciary Committee is calling law professors Noah Feldman of Harvard, Pamela Karlan of Stanford and Michael Gerhardt of North Carolina to advance their case that Trump abused the presidency by pushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, meddled in the 2016 U.S. election.

Watch Hearing LIVE

In a prepared opening statement, Gerhardt says, “If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning, and, along with that, our Constitution’s carefully crafted safeguards against the establishment of a king on American soil. No one, not even the president, is beyond the reach of our Constitution and our laws.”

Republicans defending Trump are calling George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley to buttress their contention that Trump did nothing wrong while asking for the Ukrainian investigations at the same time he was withholding $391 billion in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Trump eventually released the assistance in September without Ukraine opening the Biden investigations, proof, Republicans say, that there was no quid pro quo, an exchange of favors between Trump and Ukraine.  

Under the U.S. Constitution, a president may be impeached and removed from office for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” but the definition of those terms has been left to lawmakers throughout the country’s 243-year history.

Trump is only the fourth U.S. leader to face a formal impeachment proceeding. Two former presidents were impeached but not convicted by the Senate and removed from office, while a third resigned in the face of certain impeachment. Many constitutional scholars believe abuse of office and obstruction of justice are also impeachable offenses, but the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of such offenses.  

Trump has assailed the impeachment effort targeting him, saying he is blameless in his request for investigations that would have benefitted  him politically. While he is in London for NATO meetings, his political campaign complained that the majority “Democrats will get THREE constitutional lawyers and Republicans will only get ONE!” at Wednesday’s hearing. “This entire process is unfair to not only @realDonaldTrump, but the American People!”

Tomorrow, Democrats will get THREE constitutional lawyers and Republicans will only get ONE!

This entire process is unfair to not only @realDonaldTrump, but the American People!#StopTheSchiffShowpic.twitter.com/gDfqHco5vo

— Team Trump (@TeamTrump) December 3, 2019

The new testimony comes a day after the Democratic-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a 300-page report accusing Trump of “misconduct” in seeking Ukrainian political interference in the 2020 presidential election and then relentlessly trying to “obstruct” Congress as it carried out an inquiry into his actions.
 
The nearly three-month impeachment inquiry “has found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection,” the report stated.
 
“In doing so, the president placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security,” the report declared.

A Trump defender, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, rebuffed the claims, saying , “House Democrats have been trying to undo the results of President Trump’s historic election since before he was sworn in.” He said Democrats have not found “a single legitimate reason” for impeachment.
 
“Instead, Democrats have relied on smears, hearsay, and presumption to build their false narrative,” he said.

A U.K-based correspondent for Dawn, Pakistan’s main English language newspaper, filed a story on the terror attack last Friday in London and her choice of words triggered criticism by several Pakistani government authorities.

The attacker, Usman Khan, 28, a British citizen whose family originates from Pakistan, put on a fake suicide vest on Friday and started attacking people with knives before he was confronted by bystanders and shot dead by police officers near London Bridge. He stabbed five people, two of whom died later of the wounds sustained in the attack.

The reporter’s identification of the attacker as a British citizen of Pakistani origin was deemed as unpatriotic and defamatory because of the usage of the phrase “Pakistani origin” and the linkage to Pakistan.  

Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Science & Technology, took to his official Twitter page and criticized Dawn’s writers and editors for the story.

“Dawn walas [people] please have some mercy on this Nation, shocked on your cheap attempt to link a British terrorist to Pakistan, Anwar Al Awlaki and Anjem ch[Chaudhary] both are brit origin nothing to do with Kashmir or Pak, Britain should handle its problem within—irresponsible n cheap attitude,” Hussain wrote in a tweet on Sunday.

Dawn walas please have some mercy on this Nation, shocked on your cheap attempt to link a British terroist to Pakistan, Anwar Al Awlaki and Anjem ch both are brit origin nothing to do with Kashmir or Pak, Britain should handle its problem within—irresponsible n cheap attitude

Despite Washington’s efforts to maintain a dialog with Pyongyang, chances for a diplomatic breakthrough leading to the denuclearization of North Korea are fading away, said experts, as the two nations remain locked in their position.

“At some point, there needs to be a determination that diplomacy is yielding diminishing returns,” said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

After almost two years of diplomacy, North Korea has been repeating an ultimatum more frequently that the United States has until the end of this year to present a new proposal for denuclearization. As the Pyongyang-imposed deadline approaches, the regime has increased threats to change Washington’s stance.

Washington has been demanding North Korea conduct full denuclearization. Pyongyang wants the U.S. to relax sanctions and cease regularly held joint military exercises with South Korea, which it claims as a threat against its regime, before denuclearizing. Those positions have remained unchanged for months, despite the publicly affectionate relationship between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Christopher Ford, assistant secretary of state for International Security and Nonproliferation, said on Monday that the U.S. is still seeking “the final and fully verified denuclearization” of North Korea.

On Tuesday, Ri Thae Song, North Korea’s vice minister of Foreign Affairs, released a statement, reminding the U.S. that “drawing nearer is the year-end time limit the DPRK set for the U.S.” to change its position. The DPRK stands for North Korea’s official English name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Song said, “The U.S. is keen on earning time needed for it, talking about the ‘sustained and substantial dialogue,’” but “far from acting in response to the measures taken by the DPRK first.”

He continued, “What is left to be done now is the U.S. option and it is entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift it will select to get,” presumably referring to more missile tests.

The statement follows a test of two projectiles North Korea conducted on Thanksgiving Thursday.  Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Friday it tested a “super large multiple rocket launcher.”  It is North Korea’s 13th missile test since May.

In response, the U.S. on Monday called on North Korea to “avoid provocations” and “return to sustained and substantial negotiations to do its part to achieve complete denuclearization,” in an email message that a State Department spokesperson sent to VOA’s Korean Service.

Trump on Tuesday said the U.S. has “the most powerful military” and “

Despite the lack of progress made on reaching a denuclearization deal, experts think talks could continue if Trump feels they could serve his political future and because North Korea does not want to end diplomacy despite threats it raised.

“President Trump has a large personal investment in his North Korean policy and his bromance with Kim Jong Un,” said Manning.  “I think it would be difficult in an election year to admit failure of a signature policy. As long as talks or talks about talks are going on, Trump will continue to say his policy is working.”

Gause said, “What North Korea doesn’t want to do is step over any red line that’s going to slam the door shut on relations, potential diplomatic relations with the United States.”

He continued, “I suspect they will try to keep their tests to short-range and maybe medium range tests. But if they start to get into ICBM [Intercontinental Ballistic Missile] tests and another nuclear test, then that means North Korea probably has made the calculation that the Trump administration cannot be dealt with.” 

Baik Sung-won and Kim Young-gyo of VOA’s Korean Service contributed to this report.

Unknown gunmen have killed a Japanese aid worker and his five colleagues in eastern Afghanistan.

Officials said the deadly shooting took place Wednesday morning in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province.

A provincial government spokesman told VOA that slain Dr. Tetus Nakamura and members of the Japan Medical Services (JMS) non-governmental organization were traveling to a project site when they came under attack.

Attaullah Khogyani said that Nakamura, the head of the non-governmental organization, was “seriously” wounded and taken to a city hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. His Afghan driver and several security guards were among those killed, he added.

The Taliban in a brief statement denied involvement in the attack that killed the 73-year-old Japanese medical doctor and his colleagues.  Both Taliban insurgents and militants linked to the Afghan branch of Islamic State terrorist group operate in Nangarhar.

Eyewitnesses told VOA at least three assailants took part in the attack and managed to flee.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani recently awarded Dr. Nakamura honorary citizenship of Afghanistan for a decade long service as the head of the Japanese charity in Nangarhar. He had arrived in the country after his Japanese predecessor was abducted and killed.

Wednesday’s attack comes more than a week after a U.S. national working for the United Nations was killed in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

No one claimed responsibility for the November 24 attack.

U.S. health officials say the progress in the Trump administration’s goal of wiping out the HIV epidemic by 2030 has stalled.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 38,000 new cases of HIV occur every year. HIV is the virus that can lead to AIDS.

The CDC’s report says white Americans at risk of contracting HIV are up to seven times more likely than blacks and Hispanics to receive a drug called PrEP, which has been shown to cut the risk of getting HIV through sex by as much as 99%.

But the CDC says less than half of at-risk whites use the PrEP, which requires a doctor’s prescription.

The CDC says 40% of HIV infections involve people who don’t know they have the virus. It urges everyone to get tested and those who test positive to take daily medication to control the virus.

Human health is paying the price of the world’s failure to curb global warming, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday, urging governments at U.N. climate talks to cut climate-changing emissions faster and provide funds to address growing threats.

Those range from lung and heart problems caused by toxic air to deaths in storms and wildfires, and the expansion of dengue, malaria, cholera and other diseases spread by mosquitoes and contaminated water.

“The cost of not taking enough action at the climate summit … is paid by my lungs and your lungs,” said Maria Neira, director of the department of environment, climate change and health at the World Health Organization (WHO), a U.N. agency.

The causes of climate change and air pollution overlap, she added, calling for societies to “decarbonize,” including by ditching coal as a source of power and heat, and ending subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels.

According to the WHO, the burning of oil, gas and coal is responsible for two-thirds of the outdoor air pollution that causes about 4 million premature deaths each year.

More intense and longer heat waves are another growing health problem in many parts of the world.

A study published in the journal Nature on Monday found extreme heat in the United States from 1969-1988 caused an increase in deliveries of babies on the day it hit and the day after, with those births happening up to two weeks before they were due.

Such early births can potentially harm children’s later development, researchers said.

At the Madrid climate talks Tuesday, activists and aid agencies cited a rise in hospital emissions linked to smoke from Australia’s recent bushfires.

In southern African countries hit by Cyclone Idai this year, they said, people are struggling to feed their families after fields and homes were destroyed.

To deal with the rising human and financial health costs of climate change, health services and related institutions need a boost in funding — currently sorely lacking, the WHO said.

On Tuesday, it released a report highlighting how countries are increasingly prioritizing dealing with climate change threats to health.

Half of about 100 nations surveyed said they had developed a national strategy or plan to tackle the risks.

Paying for improvements

But only about 38% had finances in place to even partially implement their plans, and fewer than 10% had the money to put them fully into practice, the report showed.

Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, WHO’s coordinator for climate change and health, said all countries surveyed — from Europe to the Americas, Africa and Asia — are struggling to finance measures such as protecting hospitals from weather disasters and ramping up disease surveillance.

In richer countries, the difficulty lies in securing allocations from national budgets due to competing priorities.

Poorer nations, on the other hand, need international climate finance to help them cope, but are struggling to access it because of a lack of information, capacity and connections.

As a result, less than half a percent of international climate finance has gone to projects to head off climate risks to health, Campbell-Lendrum said.

“These countries are exposed, they are vulnerable and they are unsupported,” he added.

Smart hospitals

The WHO plans to help developing countries put together projects to bolster their health systems that can secure backing from international climate funds, he added.

One of the biggest potential sources of finance, the Green Climate Fund, has identified health and well being as a priority area but has yet to approve any projects with that focus, Campbell-Lendrum noted.

Things that could be financed might include “smart hospitals” — now being tested in the Caribbean — built to withstand strong winds and floods while also harvesting rainwater and running on solar power.

Off-grid renewable energy projects also can cut emissions from health facilities and make them more resilient in disasters when electricity networks go down, Campbell-Lendrum said.

He noted that the mental health impacts of climate change had “shot up the agenda.”

The effects can range from the trauma of going through disasters to the shock of being made homeless, or young people feeling anxious and frustrated about climate change.

Once a “hidden issue,” it is “the one that we have heard the most about in the past four to five months,” he told journalists in Madrid.
 

Martin Scorsese’s sprawling crime epic “The Irishman” has been named best picture by the National Board of Review.

The awards, announced Tuesday by the National Board of Review, handed Netflix its second major honor in Hollywood’s quickening awards season. On Monday evening, Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” won best feature at the IFP Gotham Awards, which honor independent film. Both movies are widely expected to eventually reap numerous nominations at the Oscars, with either potentially landing Netflix its first best-picture win.

“The Irishman” also took best adapted screenplay, for Steven Zaillian’s script, and an icon award for Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

The board, as it typically does, otherwise spread its awards around to help fill its annual gala with stars. Quentin Tarantino took best director for “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” Best actress went to Renee Zellweger for her performance as Judy Garland in “Judy.” Adam Sandler won best actor for Josh and Benny Safdie’s upcoming New York thriller “Uncut Gems.”

Brad Pitt, widely seen as the Oscar front-runner for his co-leading performance in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” won best supporting actor. The National Board of Review also threw its support behind Clint Eastwood’s upcoming docudrama on the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, “Richard Jewell,” giving it best supporting actress for Kathy Bates and breakthrough performance for Paul Walter Hauser.

The picks by the National Board of Review, a long-running organization comprised of academics and film professionals, have in recent years seldom lined up with eventual Academy Awards winners. But its best-feature choice last year, “Green Book,” went on to triumph at the Oscars.

Other awards included: best ensemble to Rian Johnson’s whodunit “Knives Out”; best screenplay to “Uncut Gems”; best documentary to “Maiden,” about a historic all-woman sailing crew; best foreign language film to Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite”; best animated film to “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”; best directorial debut to Melina Matsoukas (“Queen & Slim”); and Roger Deakins (“1917”) for outstanding achievement in cinematography.

The board additionally bestowed its freedom of expression award on both the Death Row drama “Just Mercy” and the Syrian war documentary “For Sama.”

The awards will be handed out in a ceremony in New York on January 8, hosted by Willie Geist.

The presidents of South America’s Mercosur trade bloc meet on Wednesday under the cloud of tariffs restored by U.S. President Donald Trump on steel and aluminum imports from its two largest members, Brazil and Argentina.

Hobbled by political differences and government changeovers, the four-nation common market is not expected to take a joint stance against Trump’s surprise move on Monday, which shocked South American officials and left them scrambling for answers.

Argentine Production Minister Dante Sica said on Tuesday that Argentina and Brazil will hold a bilateral meeting at the summit to discuss the U.S. tariffs.

But Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri has less than a week left in office and his left-leaning Peronist successor, Alberto Fernandez, has sparred openly with Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who called the incoming leader a “redbandit.”

Uruguay, where conservative President-elect Luis Lacalle Pou will take office in March, will be represented at the Mercosur summit by Vice President Lucia Topolansky.

Given the changeovers, the summit will not be able to agree on the main item on the agenda, reducing a common external tariff that has been in place for more than two decades and Brazil is pushing to lower, a senior Brazilian diplomat said.

Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva, head of regional negotiations at Brazil’s foreign ministry, told Reuters that any decision would have to wait for the new Argentine government to lay out its policies.

On Thursday, the leaders of the four nations, including Paraguayan President Mario Abdo, will formally sign Mercosur’s free trade accord with the European Union, completed in June after 20 years of negotiations.

The agreement, currently undergoing legal scrubbing and translation into two dozen languages, must still be ratified by the legislatures of the Mercosur and EU member states.

The question is whether Fernandez, a protectionist, will try once in office to reopen the deal, as he has said he intends to do, to re-negotiate parts that do not suit Argentina.

The U.S. pullout from Syria and Turkey’s offensive into Syria has shaken the already unstable region, and minority religious groups in the region are particularly worried about a possible resurgence of Islamic State. For VOA, Stella Grigoryan recently spoke with members of an Armenian community in the Kurdish-majority city about their security concerns in a story narrated by Anna Rice.

The U.N.’s trade and development agency estimates that Europe, led by the Netherlands, leads the world in readiness for online shopping.

UNCTAD’s annual business-to-consumer e-commerce index ranked the United States again in the teens, at 13th — largely because of its relatively low share of people using the internet compared to other developed countries.

Russia ranked 40th and China 56th, while Hong Kong came in at No. 15.

The agency said Tuesday over 80% of internet users in six European countries shop online, versus under 10% in some poorer countries.

The rankings are based on use of the internet as well as access to secure internet servers, reliable postal services, and financial institution or mobile-money-service providers.
UNCTAD called the report provisional, cautioning that some data dates to 2017.