In his last months on the run, Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was agitated, fearful of traitors, sometimes disguised as a shepherd, sometimes hiding underground, always dependent on a shrinking circle of confidants.

Associates paint a picture of a man obsessed with his security and well-being and trying to find safety in towns and deserts in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border as the extremists’ domains crumbled. In the end, the brutal leader once hailed as “caliph” left former IS areas completely, slipping into hostile territory in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province run by the radical group’s al-Qaida-linked rivals. There, he blew himself up during an Oct. 26 raid by U.S. special forces on his heavily fortified safe house.

For months, he kept a Yazidi teen as a slave, and she told The Associated Press how he brought her along as he moved, traveling with a core group of up to seven close associates. Months ago, he delegated most of his powers to a senior deputy who is likely the man announced by the group as his successor.

The Yazidi girl, who was freed in a U.S.-led raid in May, said al-Baghdadi first tried to flee to Idlib in late 2017. She said one night she was loaded into a three-vehicle convoy that included the IS leader, his wife and his security entourage, headed for the province. The convoy reached a main road but then turned around, apparently fearing it would come under attack, said the girl, who was 17 at the time.

For about a week they stayed in the southeastern Syrian town of Hajin, near the Iraqi border. Then they moved north to Dashisha, another border town in Syria within IS-held territory.

There, the Yazidi teen stayed for four months at the home of al-Baghdadi’s father-in-law, a close aide named Abu Abdullah al-Zubaie. Al-Baghdadi would visit her there frequently and rape her and at times beat her, the teen said. He would only move at night, wearing sneakers and covering his face, always with around five security men who addressed him as “hajji” or “sheikh,” she said. The AP does not identify victims of sexual assault.

“When I asked him anything, he would not give me an answer for security reasons. Not everyone knew where he was,” she said.

In the spring of 2018, she was given to another man, who took her out of Dashisha. That was the last time she saw al-Baghdadi, though he sent her a piece of jewelry as a gift, the teen said.

It appears al-Baghdadi then moved from place to place in eastern Syria for the next year as one IS stronghold after another fell to U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces, before heading to Idlib sometime in the spring. 

During that time, al-Baghdadi was a “nervous wreck,” pacing up and down and complaining of treason and infiltrations among his “walis,” or governors of the group’s self-declared provinces, his brother-in-law, Mohamad Ali Sajit, said in an interview with Al-Arabiya TV aired last week.

“This is all treason,” Sajit recalled al-Baghdadi shouting.

Sajit, an Iraqi who was married to another of al-Zubaie’s daughters, was arrested by Iraqi authorities in June. He said he saw al-Baghdadi several times over 18 months, starting in Hajin in late 2017. The last time was in the desert regions along the Syrian-Iraqi border not long before Sajit’s own capture. He said al-Baghdadi entrusted him with delivering messages on flash drives to lieutenants inside Iraq.

Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish officials have said they separately cultivated sources that led to the IS leader, and Sajit is believed to be one of them.  A U.S. official said it seemed the Syrian Kurds managed to get a “guest” inside al-Baghdadi’s inner circle whose information was key in the hunt.

Sajit said al-Baghdadi’s movements were heavily restricted, more so as greater IS territory was lost. He walked around with a suicide belt, even slept with one near him, and made his aides also carry belts. He never used a cellphone; only his aide Abu Hassan al-Muhajer did, using a Galaxy 7, said Sajit, who remains in Iraqi custody.

The stress worsened the IS leader’s diabetes, and he had to constantly monitor his blood sugar and take insulin. He didn’t fast during the holy month of Ramadan and forced his aides not to fast as well, Sajit said.

At times, al-Baghdadi was disguised as a shepherd, he said. When al-Baghdadi’s security chief, Abu Sabah, got wind of a possible raid on the desert Syrian-Iraqi border area where they were hiding they took down their tents and hid al-Baghdadi and al-Muhajer inside a pit covered with dirt, Sajit said. They let sheep roam around on top of the pit to further disguise it. Once the threat of the raid was over, they returned and put the tents back up, he said.

Al-Baghdadi moved with a circle of five to seven people, including al-Muhajer, al-Zubaie and Abu Sabah; and the group’s former governor for Iraq, known as Tayseer or Abu al-Hakim. Al-Muhajer was killed on the same day as al-Baghdadi, in a separate U.S.-led military operation, following a Syrian Kurdish tip, in Jarablus, also in northwestern Syria; al-Zubaie was killed in a raid in March. On Monday, Turkish officials said they arrested al-Baghdadi’s older sister in northwestern Syria’s Azaz region. All are areas outside of government control.

The IS leader was also in contact with his top deputy, Hajji Abdullah, Sajit said. Iraqi officials say al-Baghdadi put him in charge of most of the group’s administrative and financial affairs. Sajit said he believes Hajji Abdullah is actually the man that IS named as al-Baghdadi’s successor before his killing, identified by the nom de guerre Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi Al-Qurayshi.

U.S. officials said they did not know when al-Baghdadi arrived in Idlib but said he chose the location because it was the last territory outside of Syrian government control. U.S-allied Syrian Kurdish officials said they pinned down his movements in May but suspected he left to there after the fall of the last IS territory in late March.

There, he hid in a compound in the village of Barisha, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border with Turkey. Like many of Idlib’s border towns, it is packed with people displaced from across Syria and is administered by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a militant group affiliated with al-Qaida and a rival to IS.

The compound belonged to a man named Abu Mohammed al-Halabi, who was a sheep trader but had little contact with his neighbors, several residents told the AP. They spoke on condition of anonymity fearing they would be endangered by talking about the site. Iraqi officials said al-Baghdadi’s “technician”-a man who took care of logistics- was killed with him in the raid.

One resident said that nearly a dozen helicopters hovered over their village before 11 p.m. the night of the Oct. 26 U.S.-led raid.

“We went out in the balcony to see and they started shooting, with automatic rifles. So we went inside and hid,” the resident said. Then there was an airborne operation west of the village, in the direction of al-Halabi’s house. Later, the Americans warned residents to move away from the house because they were going to blow it up.

“No one really expected al-Baghdadi to be here,” another resident said.

The White House is signaling it’s not interested in a government shutdown when a temporary government-wide spending bill expires Nov. 21.

White House congressional liaison Eric Ueland told reporters that President Donald Trump would sign another short-term stopgap spending bill to prevent a shutdown, so long as Democrats don’t try to tie Trump’s hands on funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Trump had refused to rule out a shutdown when asked about it Sunday, but there’s no appetite for one among his allies on Capitol Hill. There has been speculation about a potential shutdown but no evidence that one is actually brewing.

Ueland said Trump wants “the spending process to continue to unfold and the government to continue to be funded.”
 

Nigerian firefighters were trying to extinguish a major fire at the Balogun market in central Lagos on Tuesday.

Thick black smoke and flames were shooting up from five-story buildings surrounding the market as firetrucks attempt to get access to the fire. Residents were throwing what belongings they could from the buildings and some people on the rooftops were using small buckets of water to try to stop the fire.

A fire truck was also spraying water onto the flames.

The fire started in the morning and became a major blaze by midday. Officials haven’t yet said if any people were injured in the fire or commented on the cause of the blaze.

The Balogun market sprawls across many blocks on Lagos Island. It is well known as one of the best places in Lagos to buy colorful Nigerian fabrics, apparel and shoes.

The U.S. trade deficit fell by the most in eight months in September as imports of autos, mobile phones and other electronics retreated after the pre-tariff surge in August, according to government data Tuesday.

Total exports also fell as the world’s appetite for key American products, including politically-sensitive soy beans, continued to slacken and Boeing’s travails dragged on, the Commerce Department reported.

The U.S. trade gap, the shortfall between what Americans buy from abroad and what they sell in foreign markets, fell 4.7 percent to $52.5 billion, which matched economists’ expectations but was the biggest tumble since January.

U.S. President Donald Trump in September piled even more tariffs on China, jacking up duties on more than $100 billion in Chinese goods, likely prompting an surge in buying in the previous month to lock-in lower prices — which widened the trade gap in August.

Recent media reports indicate U.S. and Chinese officials are considering a roll-back of some tariffs as they work to finalize a partial deal to end the trade war Trump began last year.

U.S. exports fell 0.9 percent in September to $206 billion as international sales of soy beans, passenger cars and trucks together fell $2.5 billion.

This was slightly offset by higher exports of aircraft and aircraft engines.

Imports fell 1.7 percent to $258.4 billion, the report said. Ahead of the holiday shopping period, purchases of toys, games, artwork and collectibles fell, as did foreign purchases of trucks, buses, semiconductors, autos and parts.

American oil producers also notched their first petroleum trade surplus since current records began more than 40 years ago.

The narrowing deficit should support GDP growth calculations for the July-September quarter.

However, in the year to date, the trade gap is up 5.4 percent from the first nine months of 2018 to $481.3 billion.

In a continuation of recent trends in large part driven by Trump’s trade war with Beijing, U.S. imports from China declined further as purchases from Mexico surged again.

The deficit with China has dived 13.1 percent so far this year to $266.4 billion but the gap with Mexico over the same period has skyrocketed by 29.4 percent, underscoring the rebalancing of trade relations under Trump’s trade offensive.

A strong U.S. dollar likely also encouraged tourism, sending U.S. imports of services to $49.9 billion, their highest level on record.

It started with a warning to watch her back, that people were “looking to hurt” her. From there, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told House investigators, it escalated into a chilling campaign to fire her as President Donald Trump and his allies angled in Eastern Europe for political advantage at home.

Testimony from Yovanovitch, released on Monday, offered a first word-for-word look at the closed-door House impeachment hearings. Inside, Democrats and Republicans are waging a pitched battle over what to make of Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine’s leaders to investigate political rival Joe Biden, Biden’s son and Democratic activities in the 2016 election.

The transcript came out on the same day that four Trump administration officials defied subpoenas to testify, acting on orders from a White House that is fighting the impeachment investigation with all its might. Among those refusing to testify: John Eisenberg, the lead lawyer at the National Security Council and, by some accounts, the man who ordered a rough transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader moved to a highly restricted computer system.

During nine hours of sometimes emotional testimony, Yovanovitch detailed efforts led by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies to push her out of her post. The career diplomat, who was recalled from her job in May on Trump’s orders, testified that a senior Ukrainian official told her that “I really needed to watch my back.”

While the major thrust of Yovanovitch’s testimony was revealed in her opening statement, Monday’s 317-page transcript provided new details.

Yovanovitch offered significant threads of information including the possibility that Trump was directly involved in a phone call with Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and the Ukrainians dating back to January 2018. And she pushed back on Republican suggestions that she harbored opposition to Trump.

She had been recalled from Kyiv before the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that’s at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Later, she was “surprised and dismayed” by what she saw in the transcript of the call — including that Trump had called her “bad news.” He also said that “she’s going to go through some things.”

“I was shocked,” Yovanovitch said, to see “that the president would speak about me or any ambassador in that way to a foreign counterpart.”

Asked about her as he left on a campaign trip on Monday, Trump had a more equivocal comment: “I’m sure she’s a very fine woman. I just don’t know much about her.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said transcripts from the hearings are being released so “the American public will begin to see for themselves.” Two were released Monday, and more are coming.

Republicans have accused Democrats of conducting a one-sided process behind closed doors.

But the transcripts show GOP lawmakers were given time for questioning, which they used to poke at different aspects of the impeachment inquiry. Some Republicans criticized the process as unfair, while others tried to redirect witnesses to their own questions about Biden’s work on Ukraine corruption issues while he was vice president.

In public, some Republicans say the president’s actions toward Ukraine, though not ideal, are certainly not impeachable.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Oversight committee, defended Yovanovitch’s ouster as clearly within the president’s prerogative.

“President Trump has the authority to name who he wants in any ambassador position. That’s a call solely for the president of the United States as the commander in chief,” Jordan said.

The former envoy stressed to investigators that she was not disloyal to the president. She answered “no” when asked point blank if she’d ever “badmouthed” Trump in Ukraine, and said she felt U.S. policy in Ukraine “actually got stronger” because of Trump’s decision to provide lethal assistance to the country — military aid that later was held up by the White House as it pushed for investigations into Trump’s political foes.

Long hours into her testimony, Yovanovitch was asked why she was such “a thorn in their side” that Giuliani and others wanted her fired.

“Honestly,” she said, “it’s a mystery to me.”

Yovanovitch, still employed by the State Department, is in a fellowship at Georgetown University.

She told the investigators that the campaign against her, which included an article that was retweeted by Donald Trump Jr., undermined her ability to serve as a credible ambassador and she wanted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to issue a statement defending her. But no statement was issued.

The impeachment panels also released testimony Monday from Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to Pompeo.

McKinley, a 37-year career diplomat, testified that he decided to resign from his post as a senior adviser to Pompeo after his repeated efforts to get the State Department to issue a statement of support for Yovanovitch after the transcript of the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call was released. “To see the impugning of somebody I know to be a serious, committed colleague in the manner that it was done raised alarm bells for me,” he said.

McKinley said he was already concerned about politicization at the State Department, and that the refusal to publicly back Yovanovitch convinced him it was time to leave.

It has captured the attention of teenagers, celebrities and global brands.

And now U.S. lawmakers and regulators are interested in TikTok, the video app downloaded by 1 billion people.

According to Reuters, the U.S. government is launching a national security review into the Chinese company ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of U.S. app Musical.ly. ByteDance is the parent of TikTok, which makes it easy for users to make videos 15 to 60 seconds long.  

National security concerns

The move comes at a time when lawmakers have called for increasing scrutiny of Chinese companies and their investments in the United States. Some lawmakers question whether TikTok censors users and how safe U.S. user data is if it is held in the hands of a Chinese company.

ByteDance has repeatedly defended itself. In a recent blog post, it said that U.S. user data is stored in the United States. As for content moderation, the company said its “U.S. moderation team, which is led out of California, reviews content for adherence to our U.S. policies—just like other U.S. companies in our space.”

In China, ByteDance owns Douyin, a Chinese version of TikTok.

Making a viral video

For users of TikTok, the app is a way to make a short vertical video, similar to Vine, which Twitter shut down in 2017. Video editing tools are built into the TikTok app, with a music library to choose from, so that a video can be made and posted in a school hallway between classes.

Scrolling through TikTok videos is a window into pranks played on parents and friends, dance routines in school bathrooms or in backyards. Users say that watching the videos are addictive and a quick check of TikTok can lead to hours spent watching video after video.

Silicon Valley takes note

Competitors such as Facebook and Snap, the parent of Snapchat, have not missed TikTok’s rise. They are either imitating the company or looking to acquire a similar one. Facebook has its own service called Lasso. Google, which owns YouTube, has had talks about buying a TikTok competitor, The New York Times reported.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, recently said that “China is building its own internet focused on very different values, and is now exporting their vision of the internet to other countries.”

This isn’t TikTok’s first run in with U.S. regulators. Earlier this year, it paid a $5.7 million fine to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over how it had illegally collected information about children under 13.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced Tuesday that Iran would begin injecting gas into centrifuges at its Fordo facility, the latest in steps that go against what it agreed to in a 2015 agreement on its nuclear program.

Rouhani said the injection of uranium gas into 1,044 centrifuges was set to start Wednesday.

The text of the nuclear deal that Iran reached with the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany called for Iran to convert Fordo into a research facility, while allowing it to spin two of six cascades of centrifuges without uranium.

Iran previously went past limits on the amount of enriched material it is allowed to stockpile and the level to which it is allowed to enrich uranium.

Rouhani said in his televised address Tuesday that all the steps Iran has taken so far are reversible if the other parties to the nuclear deal uphold their commitments to provide Iran with relief from economic sanctions.

The announcement came a day after Iran marked the 40th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by saying it is speeding up uranium processing.

“We see this as a continuation of nuclear blackmail,” a senior U.S. official remarked after Iran’s nuclear chief claimed Monday the country is now operating dozens of advanced centrifuges —  a move that further goes against the 2015 agreement.

The U.S. official said Tehran is attempting to get the worried European signatories of the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Agreement (JCPOA) to make concessions to Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump, asked later Monday by VOA what should be done about the new, advanced centrifuges, replied: “We’re looking into that. We’ll see.”  

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, told state television that Iran is operating the IR-6 centrifuges, which allow the processing of uranium much faster than the IR-1 centrifuges Iran was allowed to use under the JCPOA.

Salehi also said Iran is working on the development of even faster centrifuges called the IR-9, which he claimed will work 50 times faster than the IR-1.

This is “a big step in the wrong direction,” a senior administration official said adding, “We call on nations to condemn Iran’s escalatory steps.”

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday rolled out new sanctions against Tehran, adding to the more than 1,000 already imposed on Iran’s oil exports, its banks, financial transactions and the military leadership of the Islamic Republic.

Among those targeted by the new sanctions are the heads of the armed forces general staff and the Iranian judiciary, as well as the son and the chief of staff of Ayatollah Ali Khameini — Iran’s supreme leader. 

“These individuals are linked to a wide range of malign behaviors by the regime, including bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in 1994, as well as torture, extrajudicial killings and repression of civilians,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement. “This action further constricts the supreme leader’s ability to execute his agenda of terror and oppression.”

Trump administration officials contend the regime in Iran is fundamentally the same as it was in 1979 when a group of protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy, sparking a 444-day crisis that only abated when the 52 American diplomats and citizens who had been taken hostage were released.

“Forty years later, the revolutionary regime in Tehran has proven time and again that its first acts after gaining power were a clear indication of its evil character,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement issued Monday. “The regime continues to unjustly detain Americans and to support terrorist proxy groups like Hezbollah that engage in hostage-taking.”

A senior administration official on Monday called for Tehran to “immediately release, on humanitarian grounds, all Americans held on Iranian soil.”

The request came as the State Department announced a new reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the safe location, recovery, and return of Robert Levinson, who was taken hostage in Iran 13 years ago with the involvement of the Iranian government. Levinson, a retired agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is the longest-held hostage in U.S. history.

Washington and Tehran find themselves on opposite sides in the Middle East. The Iranians have been activating their proxies and allies on numerous fronts, raising fears that miscalculations could lead to open and direct confrontation between the United States and Iran.

Officials in Washington reiterate the policy of the U.S. government is to change the Iranian government’s malign behavior. But when it comes to forcing regime change in Tehran, “that’s not our policy,” a senior administration official told reporters Monday.

“The task of ‘confronting’ Iran has become highly complex for the U.S. Iran has often seemed to master the escalatory cycle, including this past summer,” said Washington Institute for Near East Policy fellow Barbara Leaf, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates who also was the first director of the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs. “The Trump administration has brought together in a jarring, discordant fashion these conflicting impulses to engage/confront, ironically in a formula least likely to produce the oft-stated U.S. policy goals.”

Leaf told VOA that U.S. engagement with Iran “has been reduced to presidential tweets and public musings about Trump’s ardent desire for a meeting — from Tehran’s view, a meaningless photo op without a clear payoff. Confrontation has been reduced to strangling economic sanctions which have in no measurable way moved the regime away from its destructive regional policies. “

Trump’s own oft-repeated aversion to using force, according to Leaf, “has removed any fear by the regime that its use of asymmetrical tools against U.S. partners will have any repercussions  — further encouraging Tehran to believe in the success of its own approach to the region.”

Nike Ching at the State Department.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s frequent official trips to his home state of Kansas have fueled speculation he may be considering resigning to run for an open Senate seat in the midwestern state. But some political observers say Pompeo’s role in the withholding of U.S. military aid to Ukraine and the impeachment inquiry may have an impact on his political prospects. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to tap Steve Biegun, the special representative for North Korea, as deputy secretary of state could spur Washington’s denuclearization talks with Pyongyang, said experts.

“[Biegun’s] in a position now where he will have much more influence, and he will be able to guide things from a senior level at the State Department to really help shape policy, even more than as … a special representative for North Korea,” said David Maxwell, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The White House announced Trump has nominated Biegun for the No. 2 spot at the State Department on Thursday, and soon after announced the Biegun nomination had been sent to the Senate.

If the Senate approves his nomination, Biegun will replace John Sullivan, who was nominated to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia. Biegun would then be the second highest-ranking official at the State Department after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

If Pompeo steps down from his post to run for a Senate seat as widely speculated, then Biegun would serve as acting secretary of state.

As the deputy secretary, Biegun will continue in his role of overseeing diplomacy with North Korea, a senior U.S. official said.

Experts think Biegun’s nomination signals the Trump administration’s effort to elevate the significance of engaging in talks with North Korea.

“Making him the deputy secretary of state raises his stature and so it naturally raises the level of working level negotiations that he will continue to lead,” said Maxwell.

Joseph DeTrani, who served as the Special Envoy for the six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration, said, “I think that means the president and our secretary of state are putting more attention to the issue of North Korea.”

North Korea on Tuesday lashed out at the United States for mentioning Pyongyang in its annual report on state sponsors of terrorism, saying the report is an example of Washington’s “hostile policy” that is limiting chances for dialogue.

The U.S. State Department on Friday published its 2018 Country Reports on Terrorism. Though the report scaled back its criticism of North Korea from the previous year, it mentioned that the U.S. re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terror in 2017. 

North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the report as a “grave politically motivated provocation,” according to a statement in the state-run Korean Central News Agency. 

“This proves once again that the U.S. preoccupied with inveterate repugnancy toward (North Korea) is invariably seeking its hostile policy towards the latter,” the statement said. 

North Korea last month walked away from working-level nuclear talks, blaming the United States for not offering enough concessions. It has since threatened to resume nuclear or long-range missile tests. 

The North Korean statement on Tuesday said it is an “insult” that the U.S. would issue the terrorism report, especially while U.S.-North Korea dialogue “is at a stalemate.” 

“The channel of the dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. is more and more narrowing due to such attitude and stand of the U.S.,” the North Korean foreign ministry said, using an abbreviation for the country’s official name. 

North Korea was originally designated as a state sponsor of terror in 1988, following its involvement in the bombing of a Korean Airlines passenger flight a year earlier. The U.S. removed North Korea from the list in 2008 during a period of dialogue.

In 2017, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism during a period of heightened tensions. 

“The Secretary determined that the DPRK government repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism, as the DPRK was implicated in assassinations on foreign soil,” the latest State Department report said. 

The North Korean entry contained less than half as many words as the previous year’s report. It also removed descriptions of North Korea’s “dangerous and malicious behavior.” 

But North Korea still took issue with its inclusion on the state sponsors of terrorism list, which imposes unilateral sanctions. 

“This is an insult to and perfidy against the DPRK, dialogue partner,” North Korea’s foreign ministry insisted. 

North Korea is looking for sanctions relief and other concessions from the United States. It has given Washington until the end of the year to change its approach, after which it has warned of “dangerous” consequences. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have met three times since last June. Though they have agreed to “work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” the two sides have not been able to agree on the first steps toward doing so.
 

Newly-announced U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s construction sector have drawn a skeptical response from some Iran analysts who foresee the measures doing only limited harm to one of its top industries.

In an Oct. 31 announcement, the Trump administration said it had imposed sanctions on Iran’s construction sector for being controlled “directly or indirectly” by the nation’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a military branch designated by U.S. officials as a terrorist organization earlier this year.

Iran sees itself as a victim, rather than a perpetrator, of terrorism. In a Saturday statement, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi denounced the U.S. sanctions on the nation’s construction industry as “economic terrorism” and said they reflected “weakness” and “failure in (American) diplomacy.”

IRGC-controlled companies such as Khatam al-Anbiya dominate Iran’s construction sector. Previous U.S. administrations sanctioned Khatam al-Anbiya in 2007 and four of its affiliates in 2010.

A State Department fact sheet said the new sanctions target international transactions with Iranian construction companies involving four specific commodities and products: raw and semi-finished metals, graphite, coal, and software for integrating industrial purposes.

“If you look at this designation of Iran’s construction sector, it is very limited,” said Saeed Ghasseminejad, a researcher on Iran’s economy and financial markets at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). 

Speaking to VOA Persian, Ghasseminejad said Iranian construction companies typically produce their own basic commodities such as steel and cement rather than relying on certain imports targeted by the new U.S. sanctions. He said Iran also commonly imports other construction commodities and products not targeted by the sanctions, such Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), a thermoplastic, and tiles used in upper- and middle-class homes.

“So there still are items that can be designated which are not,” he said.

Ghasseminejad also noted that many Iranian construction companies linked to Iran’s Islamist rulers have not faced the type of specific U.S. sanctions previously applied to IRGC-controlled Khatam a-Anbiya and its affiliates. He said other organizations involved in construction and controlled by IRGC or by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have a big share of the construction market, such as the Mostazafan Foundation and Astan Quds Razavi, two charitable trusts led by Khamenei appointees.

Iran also has an unknown number of private construction companies, some of which have connections to Iranian government bodies, according to Ghasseminejad.

“There still is a lot to sanction in the construction sector,” said Ghasseminejad. “The Trump administration should designate the whole sector by saying that any kinds of dealings with it are prohibited.”

FDD has said such a step is necessary not only because of IRGC dominance of the construction industry but also because it supplies key products for Iran’s missile program.

Campaign of ‘maximum pressure’

Trump has been tightening U.S. sanctions against Iran since last year as part of his campaign of “maximum pressure” on the Islamic republic to end its missile and other perceived malign activities.

Iran analyst Ali Vaez of the Belgium-based International Crisis Group said previous rounds of sanctions imposed by Trump and his predecessors have weakened Iran’s economy and its construction sector to the point where the new sanctions are unlikely to hurt the sector much further.

“The important point here is because of the economic downturn in Iran, generally there is a slowdown in the construction business, and as a result, Iran needs less raw material than before,” Vaez told VOA Persian. “There is less demand for new construction than in the past, and as such, whatever impacts the previous U.S. sanctions had on the construction sector in Iran, I think they already have been felt and absorbed in the sector.”

Data published by the Statistical Center of Iran show the nation’s construction sector contributed 2.9% to gross domestic product for the last Persian year that ended in March, around the same level as in the previous two years. Prior to that, the contribution of construction to Iran’s GDP had been on a steady decline from a level of 5% in the year that ended March 2012.

Ownership and activities 

Another factor that could limit the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s construction sector is a lack of information available to U.S. authorities regarding the ownership and activities of many companies.

In messages sent to VOA Persian, economist Mahdi Ghodsi of the Vienna Institute of International Economic Studies said he found only 144 large Iranian construction companies registered in Orbis, a Moody’s Analytics database of financial statements of companies around the world. He said that the estimated turnover of 113 of those companies amounted to 0.5% of Iran’s GDP, only a small part of the total construction activity in the country.

“The rest of the construction sector in Iran is not transparent. The reason could be simply to avoid the sanctions radar of the U.S. Treasury,” Ghodsi wrote.

Further complicating the challenge of sanctioning Iranian construction companies is their involvement in reconstruction efforts in war-torn Syria and in other projects in Iraq, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America.

“Most of the Iranian companies engaged in these kinds of activities do not publicize them,” said Vaez. “Sometimes they use shell companies so that you don’t know that a particular company is of Iranian origin. At the end of the day, this is a very elaborate game of cat and mouse, with the Iranians trying to obfuscate and operate in the shadows, and the U.S. Treasury trying to spotlight and designate them.”

Ghasseminejad said the new U.S. sanctions also may not do much to stop the activities of Chinese and other foreign construction companies in Iran.

“Since the entire Iranian construction sector has not been designated, the pressure on foreign companies to leave the Iranian market has not been that big,” Ghasseminejad said. “If the U.S. actually sanctions the whole industry, and enforces that policy, it will impact the presence in Iran of foreign firms that bring investment, equipment and expertise, and it will impact one of Iran’s few economic sectors that exports services to other countries, where they go and build things.” 

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. 
 

Fresh off their baseball World Series win and a victory parade through the U.S. capital city, the Washington Nationals visited the White House Monday, where they were welcomed by President Donald Trump.

“America fell in love with Nats baseball. They just fell in love with Nats baseball. That’s all they wanted to talk about,” Trump said. “That and impeachment. I like Nats baseball much more.”

Members of the team, wearing suits, were introduced to the crowd gathered on the North Lawn as the children’s song “Baby Shark” was played by the Marine band. The song was originally used earlier this season as a walk-up song by outfielder Gerardo Parra. The home crowd began joining in and other National players started making “baby shark” motions with their fingers or arms after getting on base.

Trump paid tribute to many of the players and invited some to speak to the crowd, including pitcher Max Scherzer, outfielder Juan Soto and catcher Kurt Suzuki, who donned a “Make America Great Again” hat when he got to the podium.

At least one player declined the invitation to the White House ahead of Monday’s event.  Relief pitcher Sean Doolittle told the Washington Post, “There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country.”   

Also absent was one of the team’s best players, third baseman Anthony Rendon.

The Nationals defeated the Houston Astros 6-2 last Wednesday in the deciding seventh game of the World Series to claim their first Major League Baseball championship in franchise history.

The series made history in an odd way with the visiting team winning each of the seven games. Washington won games one, two, six and seven in Houston, while Houston won games three, four and five in Washington.

November marks 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall’s demise brought an end to a divided  Berlin — and symbolized the eventual liberation of East Germany, and later the rest of Eastern Europe, from Soviet communist rule. Yet the wall’s anniversary comes as the country confronts new barriers in Germany’s charged immigration debate – barriers that some refugee supporters are working to overcome. Charles Maynes reports from Berlin. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping told Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Monday that he had confidence in her as protests in the semiautonomous city continue.

In a meeting between the two leaders in Shanghai, Xi acknowledged the work done by her and her team in the five months that Hong Kong has protested for more autonomy from mainland China, Xinhua reported.

Hong Kong police Saturday fired tear gas in an effort to disperse protesters whose rallies in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory show no signs of subsiding.

Saturday marked the 22nd consecutive weekend of pro-democracy protests in the territory’s streets.

The Asian financial hub has been mired in massive and oftentimes violent protests since June, sparked by a proposed bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China. The protests have evolved into demands for full democracy for Hong Kong, an independent inquiry into the possible use of excessive force by police and complete amnesty for all activists arrested during the demonstrations. Masked activists have vandalized businesses and the city subway system, and attacked police with bricks and homemade gasoline bombs.

Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy under the “one government, two systems” arrangement established when China regained control of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997. But political activists and observers say Beijing is slowly tightening its grip on the territory and eroding its basic freedoms.
 

Two Indonesian journalists mediating a land dispute between a palm oil company and residents have been found dead with multiple stab wounds near a plantation in Sumatra, police said.

The body of Maraden Sianipar was found Wednesday in a ditch near a palm plantation in Labuhan Batu district, an eight-hour drive from the capital of North Sumatra province.

Police found the remains of Maratua Siregar in the same area a day later.

Both bodies were covered in stab wounds.

Six people have been questioned but no suspect named, local police chief Agus Darojat told AFP.

The pair worked together for a local news portal before going freelance in 2017, and a friend of Siregar said the victims had recently become known for their activism in land dispute issues.

Local police chief Budiarto told the Jakarta Post that investigators had found indications that the reporters’ deaths were related to their activism.

Maratua “often advocated for the people”, he told the newspaper.

Prior to their deaths, Siregar and Sianipar were working on a campaign to convince the government to allow locals to work on disputed land.

Indonesian journalist associations condemned the deaths and demanded authorities investigate thoroughly.

Many cases of violence against journalists in Indonesia go unsolved, according to the Independent Journalists Alliance, which has reported at least two dozen cases this year alone.

Indonesia is ranked 124th out of 180 countries on the 2019 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.

U.S. President Donald Trump, faced with a mounting impeachment inquiry, said Monday that written answers are not good enough from the whistleblower who first disclosed that he had pressed Ukraine to pursue investigations of one of his chief 2020 Democratic political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“He must be brought forward to testify,” Trump said on Twitter regarding the whistleblower. “Written answers not acceptable!”  He called the impeachment investigation a “con.”  

The Whistleblower gave false information & dealt with corrupt politician Schiff. He must be brought forward to testify. Written answers not acceptable! Where is the 2nd Whistleblower? He disappeared after I released the transcript. Does he even exist? Where is the informant? Con!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2019

Trump offered his latest assessment on the impeachment effort targeting him in the House of Representatives a day after a Washington lawyer, Mark Zaid, said his client, the unnamed whistleblower, would be willing to answer questions in writing posed by Republican supporters of Trump, other than queries about his identity. Republican lawmakers also said the conditions were unacceptable.

“What I said on the phone call with the Ukrainian President [Volodymyr Zelenskiy] is ‘perfectly’ stated,” Trump tweeted. “There is no reason to call witnesses to analyze my words and meaning. This is just another Democrat Hoax that I have had to live with from the day I got elected (and before!). Disgraceful!”    

What I said on the phone call with the Ukrainian President is “perfectly” stated. There is no reason to call witnesses to analyze my words and meaning. This is just another Democrat Hoax that I have had to live with from the day I got elected (and before!). Disgraceful!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2019

Trump on Sunday derided the whistleblower, linking him to his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama, along with former CIA director John Brennan and former national security adviser Susan Rice — two of Obama’s top aides.

“There have have been stories written about a certain individual, a male, and they say he’s the whistleblower,” Trump said at the White House. “If he’s the whistleblower, he has no credibility because he’s a Brennan guy, he’s a Susan Rice guy, he’s an Obama guy. And he hates Trump.”

“Now, maybe it’s not him. But if it’s him, you guys ought to release the information,” the president urged reporters.

Zaid, the whistleblower’s lawyer, said his legal team has offered to allow Congressman Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, to submit questions which the whistleblower would answer “in writing, under oath and penalty of perjury.”

But Congressman Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, objected to the proposed process, saying written answers would not give Republicans a chance to cross-examine the whistleblower.

“You don’t get to ignite an impeachment effort and never account for your actions and role in orchestrating it,” Jordan said in a statement.  “We have serious questions about this individual’s political bias and partisan motivations and it seems Mark Zaid and Adam Schiff [the Democrat leading the impeachment probe] are attempting to hide these facts from public scrutiny.”

Zaid responded on Twitter, saying Jordan’s statement showed a “misunderstanding” of federal whistleblower protections.

Those laws protect the identity and careers of people who report issues such as misconduct, abuse of authority and dangers to public safety by government employees.

The whistleblower reported being “deeply concerned” about Trump’s July 25 telephone call with Zelenskiy in which Trump urged the Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden for alleged corruption, his son Hunter Biden, who worked for a Ukrainian natural gas company, and any efforts Ukraine undertook to try to defeat Trump in the 2016 election.

Although the whistleblower gave a second-hand account of the Trump phone call, witnesses who heard the call directly have verified much of what he said, as did a rough transcript of the call released by the White House.  

Despite laws protecting government whistleblowers, Trump demanded again Sunday that the whistleblower be revealed.

“The Whistleblower got it sooo wrong that HE must come forward,” Trump tweeted. “The Fake News Media knows who he is but, being an arm of the Democrat Party, don’t want to reveal him because there would be hell to pay,” Trump said. “Reveal the Whistleblower and end the Impeachment Hoax!”

Trump insisted that he does not know who the whistleblower is, although he keeps referring to that person as “he” and says it’s an “Obama guy.”

The Democratic-led impeachment probe is centered on whether Trump called on a foreign government — Ukraine — to interfere in next year’s election and withheld $391 million in military aid unless Zelenskiy publicly committed himself to investigating Biden and the Democrats.

White House aide Kellyanne Conway told CNN Sunday that Trump’s request was not an impeachable offense.

“Nothing would lead to a high crime or misdemeanor,” she said. “I feel comfortable in saying that [Trump] never mentioned a quid pro quo or 2020,” Conway said, adding that Ukraine eventually got the military aid Trump temporarily froze.

Great art can change the world. It can show us a moment in time, and it can even help heal profound pain and suffering. That’s how one Cambodian dancer is using it. Through dance, she’s telling the story of forced marriage during the Khmer Rouge regime. VOA’s Chetra Chap reports.

McDonald’s chief executive officer has been pushed out of the company after violating company policy by engaging in a consensual relationship with an employee, the corporation said Sunday.

The fast food giant said former president and CEO Steve Easterbrook demonstrated poor judgment, and that McDonald’s forbids managers from having romantic relationships with direct or indirect subordinates.

In an email to employees, Easterbrook acknowledged he had a relationship with an employee and said it was a mistake.

“Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on,” Easterbrook said in the email.

McDonald’s board of directors voted on Easterbrook’s departure Friday after conducting a thorough review. Details of Easterbrook’s separation package will be released Monday in a federal filing, according to a company spokesman. He will also be leaving the company’s board. Easterbrook was CEO since 2015.

McDonald’s would not provide details about the employee with whom Easterbrook was involved, and an attorney for Easterbrook declined to answer questions.

The board of directors named Chris Kempczinski, who recently served as president of McDonald’s USA, as its new president and CEO.

Two weeks ago, McDonald’s reported a 2% drop in net income for the third quarter as it spent heavily on store remodeling and expanded delivery service. The company’s share price has dropped 7.5% since, though it’s still up 9.2% for the year. The burger chain also has been plagued by declining restaurant traffic.

The leadership transition is unrelated to the company’s operational or financial performance, the company said in a news release.

McDonald’s decision to act may be a sign of progress on workplace issues that have come to light in the #MeToo era, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

“Other companies don’t always act on that kind of information or fire their CEO for that, and so it seems like they trying to enforce a pretty strict policy in this situation,” Tobias said.

Among other challenges at its restaurants, McDonald’s has faced workplace harassment charges. In May, McDonald’s said it was enhancing training and offering a new hotline for workers after a labor group filed dozens of sexual harassment charges against the company.

Fight for $15, the group which filed the charges, said McDonald’s response to its sexual harassment complaints has been inadequate, and “the company needs to be completely transparent about Easterbrook’s firing and any other executive departures related to these issues.”

Kempczinski joined McDonald’s in 2015. He was responsible for approximately 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. He was instrumental in the development of McDonald’s strategic plan and oversaw the most comprehensive transformation of the U.S. business in McDonald’s history, said Enrique Hernandez, chairman of McDonald’s board, in a statement.

Kempczinski described Easterbrook as a mentor.

A radio host who helped spread the word in the fight against Ebola has been stabbed to death at his home in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo, the army said Sunday.

The motive for the murder in the town of Lwemba in the troubled Ituri region was unknown, but it came as health authorities were set to introduce a new vaccine against the disease in unaffected areas.

The attackers killed 35-year-old Papy Mumbere Mahamba and wounded his wife before burning down their home late Saturday, General Robert Yav, the commander of Congolese army forces in the Ituri town of Mambasa, told AFP.

Professor Steve Ahuka, national coordinator of the fight against Ebola, confirmed a local worker in Lwemba had been killed.

A journalist at Radio Lwemba, the local radio station where Mahamba worked, also confirmed the details.

“Our colleague Papy Mumbere Mahamba was killed at his home by unknown attackers” who stabbed him to death, Jacques Kamwina told AFP.

The Observatory for  Press Freedom in  Africa (OLPA), based in the DRC, called on the Ituri authorities to conduct a “serious investigation” into the murder.

DR Congo declared an Ebola epidemic in August 2018 in the conflict-wracked eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

The highly contagious haemorrhagic fever has so far killed 2,185 people, according to the latest official figures.

Efforts to roll back the epidemic have been hampered not only by fighting but also by resistance within communities to preventative measures, care facilities and safe burials.

It is the DRC’s 10th Ebola epidemic and the second deadliest on record after an outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014-16, claiming more than 11,300 lives.

Health workers have repeatedly come under attack.

A Cameroonian doctor from the World Health Organization (WHO), Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, was shot dead in April in an attack on a hospital in North Kivu province.

A nurse and a police officer were killed in similar circumstances since the start of the epidemic.

In September, militiamen torched around 20 homes of health workers fighting Ebola in the area around Mambasa.

Dangerous burial traditions

The WHO has warned violence undermines the fight against Ebola, notably impeding safe burials of the highly contagious bodies and the administering of vaccines.

People often refuse to forgo traditional burial rites involving kissing, washing and touching of the dead body.

Funerals can become “super-spreading events” with up to 70 people infected in a single ceremony, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

To prevent contagion, health workers and volunteers form safe burial teams but deep mistrust of outsiders often hinders access to bereaved families.

Many people see Ebola as a hoax invented by medical personnel in order to land well-paid jobs.

New vaccine

On Saturday, the authorities said they had received 11,000 doses of a second anti-Ebola vaccine from Belgium, the DRC’s former colonial power.

The Ad26-ZEBOV-GP vaccine – an experimental product– is to be used to protect those living outside of direct Ebola transmission zones.

The vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson will be administered only to those who want it, the ministry said.

It will complement a first vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV-GF, manufactured by the US firm Merck Sharpe and Dohme (MSD), used in Ebola-infected areas to protect those who may have come into contact with victims of the disease.

Nearly 250,000 people have been vaccinated since the start of the program in August 2018.

A U.S.-based medical relief group operating in northeast Syria was targeted Sunday in a mortar attack allegedly by Turkish-backed Syrian militia fighters near the town of Tal Tamr, killing one medical worker and wounding at least one other.

David Eubank, founder of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), said the attack targeted his team as they were trying to enter the embattled town.

“Zau Seng was from Burma,” Eubank told local media after the attack, referring to a member of his team.

“He was hit in the head by shrapnel and in the back. He died right away.” Eubank said. The wounded volunteer is an Iraqi national, he added.  

The attack occurred outside the northeastern Syrian town of Tal Tamr, where Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been fighting Turkish-backed Syrian militia fighters.

FBR, which is active in several conflict zones, has been involved in humanitarian work in northeast Syria since the beginning of Turkey’s military incursion in the region on October 9.

“Yesterday we took out two wounded [civilians] and today we were there. The Free Syrian Army [Syrian rebels] and the Turks were mortaring in front of us… this mortar came behind us and hit this vehicle,” Eubank, a U.S. Special Forces veteran, said on Sunday.  

He noted that the wounded medics were immediately taken to a nearby hospital run by the Kurdish Red Crescent.

An official at the Kurdish Red Crescent confirmed the news to VOA.  

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t save one of them. His wounds were too deep,” said Kemal Dirbas of the Kurdish Red Crescent, adding that they “don’t have the right medical supplies and equipment for such cases.”

Dirbas added that FBR has done a “unique job to save civilians lives in this conflict.”

“The FBR has been doing a brave work in our region,” he said. “Its volunteers go to very dangerous places to rescue civilians caught in the fighting. They go to frontlines to carry out their humanitarian mission. They face death every day.”

Medical workers have been targeted since the beginning of the Turkish offensive into northeast Syria.

On October 14, a doctor with the Kurdish Red Crescent was reportedly killed in a Turkish airstrike near the town of Tel Abyad.

On the same day, at least four other medical workers were kidnapped by Turkish-backed fighters as they were on way to rescue wounded people, local news reported at the time.

Turkey defends its military operation in Syria and charges that its objective from the ongoing incursion is to remove Syrian Kurdish forces, considered as terrorists by Ankara, from the Turkey-Syria border area.

The United Nations says the Turkish offensive has forced more than 180,000 Syrian civilians to flee the border areas, including into neighboring Iraq.

Local doctors in northeast Syria say at least 206 civilians have died in the fighting, with another 1,086 people injured.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, more than 850 medical workers have been killed throughout the country, medical groups estimate.