Things are tough all over, so some red-nosed, seltzer-spraying, pie-tossing lovers of fun said: Let’s find some joy.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi tells us what it’s all about

Weekend protests in Hong Kong were smaller and more peaceful than previous actions, but the thousands of people who marched and held sit-ins on the 19th straight week of unrest say their convictions have only strengthened in the past four months. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Hong Kong on how residents are not backing down, with reporting from Yihua Lee and Paris Huang.

Syrian Kurdish officials says hundreds of suspected Islamic state supporters and family members have escaped from a displacement camp in northern Syria, as Turkey continues its military operation in the area.

Jelal Ayaf, co-chair of the Ayn Issa Camp, estimated 850 foreigners linked to IS escaped and had help from sleeper cells that infiltrated part of the camp. Escaped IS family members and supporters are thought to include those from Britain, Ireland, Russia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Turkey launched its long-planned military operation last Wednesday aimed at taking out the Kurdish forces in northern Syria that it sees as terrorists, but which most of the West views as key partners in the fight against Islamic State militants.

The military operation began days after a surprise and widely criticized White House announcement that U.S. forces would withdraw from the region.

Speaking to VOA Persian, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces Mustafa Bali said people in northern Syria were “frustrated and disappointed” that President Donald Trump withdrew dozens of U.S. troops that had been stationed in northern Syria, shortly before Turkey launched the offensive. The troops were part of a U.S. military deployment that has partnered with the SDF in the fight against IS.

The World Food Program has said  more than 100,000 people have been displaced so far by the Turkish invasion of northern Syria.

The agency said those displaced have come from the towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad.

 

 

Humanitarian groups on Sunday said they have rescued 74 migrants on a rubber boat in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya while Tunisian authorities reported blocking a smuggling boat carrying 110 migrants from setting off for Italy.

Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee said their Ocean Viking ship rescued the migrants Sunday morning about 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the Libyan coast near an oilfield. The groups said six children were among those rescued.

Tunisia’s Interior Ministry said three coast guard boats pursued the smuggling boat after it left Friday night from the city of Sfax. Officers shouted through loudspeakers at the boat and passengers threw projectiles that injured two officers and broke windows.

The coast guard eventually forced the boat back toward Tunisia and rescued 25 migrants who had jumped into the sea.

Meanwhile, three small boats carrying migrants reached Italian shores on Sunday. ANSA, the Italian news agency, said two boats – one carrying 15 people, the other 11 – landed on the island of Lampedusa. The agency says a third boat with 15 Tunisians aboard landed in southern Sicily.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump says he doesn’t know the two Soviet-born associates of his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who were indicted on charges of campaign finance violation Thursday.

“I don’t know those gentlemen,” Trump said Thursday, referring to Ukrainian-born Lev Parnas and Belarus-born Igor Fruman. “Now, it’s possible I have a picture with them, because I have a picture with everybody.”

In fact, records paint a much closer relationship, highlighting how the two Florida-based businessmen bought their way to the top echelons of the Republican party with hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to pro-Trump Republican campaigns.

As early as March 2018, Fruman attended a donor meeting with Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida,

Poles are voting Sunday in a parliamentary election that the ruling party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski is favored to win easily, buoyed by the popularity of its social conservatism and generous social spending policies that have reduced poverty.

Law and Justice is the first party since the fall of communism to break with the austerity of previous governments. Those free-market policies took a moribund communist economy and transformed it into one of Europe’s most dynamic. 

However, many Poles were left out in that transformation and inequalities grew, creating grievances that Law and Justice has addressed skillfully. Its most popular program, called 500+, gives away 500 zlotys ($125) to families per month per child, taking the edge off poverty for some and giving more disposable income to all recipients.

However, many of the party’s liberal critics fear that another four-year term for Law and Justice will reverse the achievements made three decades ago in this Central European nation, long hailed as a model of democratic transformation. 

They cite an erosion of judicial independence, pluralism and minority rights since the party took power in 2015.

More than 30 million people in this nation of 37 million are qualified to vote. They are choosing lawmakers in the 460-seat lower house of parliament and in the 100-seat Senate.

Challenge in Hungary

One country away, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s dominant right-wing Fidesz party is facing a challenge from opposition parties who are backing a joint candidate in many cities in local elections nationwide.

Fidesz has been easily winning local, national and European Parliament elections since 2010, but a more unified opposition and the release of a video showing one of the party’s best-known mayors, former Olympic champion gymnast Zsolt Borkai, participating in an orgy on a yacht have shaken up the last days of the campaign.

More than 8 million people are eligible to vote Sunday for more than 3,000 mayors and 17,200 local council members elected for five-year terms.
 

Japan sent tens of thousands of troops and rescue workers Sunday to save stranded residents and fight floods caused by one of the worst typhoons to hit the country in recent history, which killed 19 people and briefly paralyzed Tokyo.

There were also more than a dozen people missing, public broadcaster NHK said, as Typhoon Hagibis left vast swaths of low-lying land in central and eastern Japan inundated and cut power to almost half a million homes.

Landing restrictions at Tokyo’s Narita and Haneda airports were lifted, but more than 800 flights were canceled for the day, NHK said, as were some Shinkansen bullet train services to the worst-hit areas.

Authorities lifted rain warnings for the Kanto region around a becalmed Tokyo, where stores reopened and many train lines resumed operations, but they warned there was still the risk of rivers in eastern Japan overflowing and inflicting fresh damage.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an emergency meeting of relevant ministers and sent the minister in charge of disaster management to the affected areas. He offered condolences to the families of those who were killed and said the government was working to save people’s lives and property.

“The government will do everything in its power to cooperate with relevant agencies and operators working to restore services as soon as possible,” Abe said. The government had also set up a task force to deal with the damage, NHK reported.

About 27,000 members of Japan’s self-defense forces as well as firefighters, police and coast guard members were sent to rescue stranded people in central Japan’s Nagano prefecture and elsewhere, the government said.

NHK said the full extent of the widespread damage was only beginning to emerge because many areas remained under water.

Some 425,000 homes were without power, the government said, reviving fears of a repeat of the weekslong power outages suffered after another typhoon hit east of Tokyo last month.

In Fukushima, north of the capital, Tokyo Electric Power Co reported irregular readings from sensors monitoring water in its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant overnight. The plant was crippled by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Floods and landslides

Hagibis, which means “speed” in the Philippine language Tagalog, made landfall on Japan’s main island of Honshu Saturday evening and headed out to sea early Sunday, leaving behind cloudless skies and high temperatures across the country.

NHK showed fields and vast residential areas in parts of central and eastern Japan covered in brown water, with some of the worst damage caused by Chikuma River in Nagano prefecture.

Military helicopters airlifted stranded people from homes near the river, some cradling their children, after they were trapped by water reaching the roofs of their houses.

The first floor of a large care home for the elderly in Nagano city was shown under water.

Rescuers took residents from another flooded care facility by inflatable boats and carried them on their backs to safety. They also searched for survivors in homes destroyed in landslides near Tokyo’s suburbs and in Fukushima prefecture, NHK showed.

Evacuation orders

Authorities at one point issued evacuation advisories and orders for more than 6 million people across Japan as the storm unleashed the heaviest rain and winds in years. Close to 150 injuries have been reported so far, NHK said.

The storm, which the government said could be the strongest to hit Tokyo since 1958, brought record-breaking rainfall in many areas, including the popular resort town of Hakone, which received 939.5 mm (37 inches) of rain in 24 hours.

The Japan Meteorological Agency had issued the highest alert level for 12 prefectures, warning of the potential for once-in-decades rain totals, but lifted them early Sunday.

Just last month, another strong storm, Typhoon Faxai, destroyed or damaged 30,000 houses in Chiba, east of Tokyo, and caused extensive power outages.

The Rugby World Cup match between Namibia and Canada in Kamaishi on Sunday was canceled, although the crucial Japan-Scotland match was set to go ahead. Two matches were canceled Saturday.

Britain remains a long way from agreeing on a final Brexit deal and the next few days will be critical if it is to reach departure terms with the European Union, a Downing Street source said Saturday.

Negotiators for Britain and the EU entered intense talks over the weekend to see if they can break the Brexit impasse before a crucial summit next week and a deadline for Britain to leave the bloc Oct. 31.

News of progress in the talks sent financial markets surging Friday after Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar identified a pathway to a deal following months of acrimony.

But on Saturday the deputy leader of the Northern Irish party that holds a key role in the talks signaled his concern about the mooted proposal and the Downing Street source said Britain remained ready to leave without a deal if needed.

“We’ve always wanted a deal,” the person said, on condition of anonymity. “It is good to see progress, but we will wait to see if this is a genuine breakthrough.

“We are a long way from a final deal and the weekend and next week remain critical to leaving with a deal on Oct. 31. We remain prepared to leave without a deal on Oct. 31,” the source said.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that Johnson, the face of Britain’s 2016 campaign to leave the EU, was now desperate to secure a deal after security chiefs warned that leaving in a disorderly manner could inflame tensions in Northern Ireland.

Ireland has proved the toughest nut to crack in the Brexit talks, specifically how to prevent the British province of Northern Ireland from becoming a backdoor into the EU’s markets without having border controls.

Ireland fears controls on the 500-km (300-mile) border with Northern Ireland would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of sectarian and political conflict that killed more than 3,600 people.

Johnson is likely to talk to senior EU leaders Monday to reassess the situation, the source said.
 

A demonstration in central Mali Saturday turned from protests about the deployment of Malian troops to Burkina Faso to the looting of a nearby U.N. supply depot, VOA’s French to Africa service and the United Nations said.

About 1,000 people had been protesting outside the U.N. peacekeeping force (MINUSMA) camp near Sévaré, the French news agency AFP reported Saturday. But at some point, some protesters marched to the U.N. mission and began to ransack supply containers, including provisions and other items meant for the base.

“The protesters stole logistical and construction equipment,” the U.N. mission said, according to an AFP report. “Camp security was not impacted, but these acts of vandalism are totally unacceptable.”

The protest had calmed by early afternoon, VOA’s French to Africa service reported.

Deployment protest

The demonstrators, including some military spouses, were protesting the deployment of Malian forces to Boulkessi, Burkina Faso, VOA’s French to Africa service reported.

Earlier this month, 25 Malian soldiers were killed and dozens more went missing after an attack on G5 Sahel Force bases in Boulkessi and a Malian army base in Mondoro, Mali.

The attack ranks as the highest death toll this year for Malian troops, as they battle an insurgency in the country made up of militant groups linked to al-Qaida or Islamic State that have set up operations in parts of Mali.

Armed conflict in the West African nation and the neighboring Sahel region has been going on for years and is causing an unprecedented humanitarian emergency in the region.

In a statement, the Mali government condemned the looting, while regional Governor General Abdoulaye Cisse held a crisis meeting about the incident.
 

Armed men stormed a mosque in the volatile north of Burkina Faso as worshippers were at prayer, killing 16 people and sending residents fleeing, security sources and locals said Saturday.

The attack on the Grand Mosque in the town of Salmossi on Friday evening underscores the difficulties faced by the country in its battle against jihadists.

One source said 13 people died at the scene and three succumbed to their injuries later. Two of the wounded are in critical condition.

“Since this morning, people have started to flee the area,” one resident from the nearby town of Gorom-Gorom said.

He said there was a “climate of panic despite military reinforcements” that were deployed after the deadly attack.

Although hit by jihadist violence, many Burkinabes oppose the presence of foreign troops — notably from former colonial ruler France — on their territory.

Terrorism, foreign military

On Saturday, a crowd of about 1,000 people marched in the capital Ouagadougou “to denounce terrorism and the presence of foreign military bases in Africa.”

“Terrorism has now become an ideal pretext for installing foreign military bases in our country,” said Gabin Korbeogo, one of co-organizers of the march.

“The French, American, Canadian, German and other armies have set foot in our sub-region, saying they want to fight terrorism. But despite this massive presence … the terrorist groups … are growing stronger.”

Jihadists arrive in 2015

Until 2015, the poor West African country Burkina Faso was largely spared violence that hit Mali and then Niger, its neighbors to the north.

But jihadists, some linked to Al-Qaida, others to the so-called Islamic State group, started infiltrating the north, then the east, and then endangered the southern and western borders of the landlocked country.

Combining guerrilla hit-and-run tactics with road mines and suicide bombings, the insurgents have killed nearly 600 people, according to a toll compiled by AFP.

Civil society groups put the number at more than 1,000, with attacks taking place almost daily.

Burkina’s defense and security forces are badly equipped, poorly trained and have shown themselves to be unable to put a halt to the increasing violence.

France has a force of 200 in Burkina Faso but also intervenes frequently as part of its regional Barkhane operation.

Almost 500,000 people have fled their homes because of the violence, according to the U.N. refugee agency, which has warned of a humanitarian crisis affecting 1.5 million people.

Almost 3,000 schools have closed, and the impact on an overwhelmingly rural economy is escalating, disrupting trade and markets.

Xi Jinping on Saturday became the first Chinese president in more than two decades to visit Nepal, where he is expected to sign agreements on several infrastructure projects.

Xi arrived Saturday from India, where he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Nepal is expected to tread cautiously while building relations with big neighbors India and China.

India has extensive influence on Nepal’s economy and politics, while China and Nepal share a border covered with high mountain peaks.

Jiang Zemin had been the last Chinese president to visit Nepal, making the trip in 1996, but other Chinese leaders — including premiers and foreign ministers — have since paid official visits to the Himalayan nation.

Tanka Prasad Karki, a former Nepalese diplomat, said that a Chinese president had not visited Nepal in such a long time because “China was waiting for a strong government in Kathmandu, as the last few decades were marked by a Maoist war, frequent changes of government and political instability.”

Xi was received by Nepalese President Bidhya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli at the Kathmandu airport.

Trans-Himalayan connectivity and an extradition treaty will be high on the agenda during official talks on Sunday, said Narayan Kaji Shreshta, a spokesman for the ruling Nepal Communist Party. He said the countries are also expected to sign a project report on constructing a rail link between Kathmandu and Keirung in Tibet.

Nepalese officials ruled out the possibility of any immediate agreement on the extradition issue. China has been pressing Nepal to sign the treaty for some years to improve administration of border areas and fight against illegal border crossing and transnational crimes like banking fraud, trafficking and the smuggling of gold and wildlife parts, Nepalese officials said.

Police said they had arrested 22 people, including some Tibetan refugees, since Friday to prevent any protests during Xi’s visit.

Xi’s two-day visit to India came at a time of tensions over Beijing’s support for Pakistan, India’s archrival, in opposing New Delhi’s downgrading of Kashmir’s semi-autonomy and continuing restrictions in the disputed region.

Indian Prime Minister Modi told Xi on Saturday that relations between their countries had attained stability and momentum in the past year, and that it should enable them to manage their differences and avoid disputes.

The two leaders avoided the vexed Kashmir dispute from clouding their summit in the seaside temple town of Mamallapuram. Modi said both countries agreed to be sensitive to each other’s concerns as they held delegation-level talks.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said the two countries decided to set up a group at the finance ministers’ level to discuss trade and investment issues, especially India’s whopping $63 billion trade deficit with China.

According to India’s Commerce Ministry, India’s exports to China amounted to $13.33 billion in the 2018 financial year, compared with imports of $76.38 billion.

Tensions in Kashmir, which is divided between Pakistan and India but claimed by both in its entirety, have escalated since August, when India downgraded the semi-autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir and imposed a security and communications lockdown.

China supported Pakistan in raising India’s actions at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. China said India should not act unilaterally in Kashmir, a portion of which China also controls.

Xi arrived in India two days after hosting Pakistani Prime Minister Khan in Beijing.

India accuses neighboring Pakistan of arming and training insurgent groups fighting for Kashmir’s independence or its merger with Pakistan. Pakistan denies the charge. The two countries have fought two wars over the region’s control since they won independence from British colonialists in 1947.

Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno announced a military-enforced curfew starting in Quito and the surrounding valleys that started at 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) as the highland capital was rocked by unrest triggered by opposition to his austerity plan.

“We’re going to restore order in all of Ecuador,” Moreno said in a televised address to the nation. 

“We’re starting with the curfew in Quito. I’ve ordered the Joint Command of the Armed Forces to immediately take steps necessary to reestablish order in all of Ecuador.”

Moreno also thanked indigenous protest leaders for accepting talks, and blamed the unrest on radical instigators.
 

Firefighters have made progress containing wind-driven wildfires in the western U.S. state of California that has claimed one life, destroyed or damaged dozens of structures, and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.

Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Branden Silverman said Saturday morning the blaze in Los Angeles County, named the Saddleridge fire, had been 19-percent contained overnight, thanks to slightly cooler temperatures and lighter winds. The blaze damaged or destroyed at least 31 structures, including homes.

The fire, located in the San Fernando Valley in Northwestern Los Angeles County, was only 13-percent contained on Friday, after burning more than 3,000 hectares, officials said.

Authorities ordered mandatory evacuations Saturday of some 23,000 homes in an area covering about 100,000 residents.

The cause of the Saddleridge fire has not been determined, but investigators said they were following up on a report of flames from a power line when the fire started Thursday night.

To the east of the Saddleridge fire, another blaze swept through a Riverside County mobile home park, destroying dozens of homes. Authorities said that fire, which has burned about 330 hectares, had been 25 percent contained Saturday.

Red flag warnings remain in effect until 6 p.m. local time Saturday, even though the dry Santa Ana winds from nearby mountains that fueled the fires have died down and were expected to continue to weaken throughout Saturday.

Officials said one man died of a heart attack while speaking with firefighters who were battling the Riverside fire early Friday.

In Northern California, electricity has been restored to 98-percent of the nearly 2 million customers who had their power cut off earlier this week by Pacific Gas & Electric in an effort to prevent wildfires.

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared emergencies Friday for Los Angeles and Riverside counties because of the fires. The governor’s office said it has received a federal grant to help with firefighting costs.

More than 1,000 firefighters from numerous departments were battling the fires from the air and ground.

HASAKEH, SYRIA — The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on Saturday urged its U.S. allies to assume their “moral obligations” to protect them from a cross-border Turkish offensive, now in its fourth day.

“Our allies had guaranteed us protection … but suddenly and without warning they abandoned us in an unjust decision to withdraw their troops from the Turkish border,” it said in a statement.

“We call on our allies to fulfil their duties and assume their moral obligations,” to protect us by “closing the air space to Turkish warplanes”.

The SDF were the main ground partner in the protracted US-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria, losing 11,000 fighters before finally overrunning its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in March.

The Turkish offensive began after U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday ordered U.S. troops to pull back from the border.

He stands accused of giving Turkey’s operation a green light.

But Trump has since toughened his policy towards Ankara and on Friday threatened crippling sanctions if the operation goes too far.

The SDF on Saturday down-played the impact sanctions would have on the ground, saying they would not prevent Turkey from pressing ahead with its operation.

Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish-held towns and intense artillery exchanges have caused mounting casualties on both sides of the border since Wednesday.

On the Syrian side, 28 civilians and 74 SDF fighters have been killed by Turkish bombardment, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.  

On the Turkish side, 17 civilians have been killed by cross-border artillery attacks, according to Turkish reports.

The United Nations says 100,000 people in northeast Syria have been displaced by the violence.

 

Cambodian authorities have launched a crackdown on activists in a move observers say is an attempt to intimidate opposition supporters ahead of the planned, but uncertain return next month from self-exile of Sam Rainsy, the acting head of the now-dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, and other opposition leaders.

Rainsy, who faces a range of charges and convictions in absentia and multiple arrest warrants, and others who fled the country following the 2017 dissolution of the CNRP, plan to return Nov. 9, which is Cambodian Independence Day and the anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell.   

According to a CNRP list, as of midday Oct. 9, 37 activists affiliated with the party and former officials have been arrested this year and placed in pre-trial detention. Thirteen of those were arrested in September. Since then, four more members have been arrested.

More than a dozen others have been charged over the past week with incitement to commit a felony or with conspiracy to topple the government for attempts to mobilize citizens for the return of the opposition leaders.

Phay Siphan, a spokesman for Cambodia’s Council of Ministers, said the arrests were justified as those arrested had indicated they would join Rainsy on his return to stage a coup.

“Sam Rainsy ordered the army to turn the guns against the elected government,” he told VOA. “They call everyone to stand up against the government.”  Meanwhile, should the opposition return to Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened Oct. 7 to deploy armed forces to prevent an armed rebellion as the opposition party had called for armed forces to defect.

CNRP Vice President Mu Sochua rejected allegations that her group would take up arms.

The party “resolutely rejects the notion that the return from exile of the CNRP leaders can be treated as ‘intention to commit armed rebellion’ as such charges have no relation neither to reality nor to legality,” she wrote on Twitter, adding, “We have No arms!”  

In a message to VOA, she said that the CNRP called on soldiers to lay down their arms and “walk across to the civilian side.”

Deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch Phil Robertson called the idea that the CNRP would return to Cambodia and mount a coup “frankly laughable.”

“The Cambodian government, and particularly the prime minister, with his bodyguard unit, have such overwhelming force that any effort to protest on the streets against the government in a way that the government really is unhappy about could lead to an immediate violent crackdown,” he said.

“He’s manufacturing charges as fast as the Cambodian courts will pump them out to try to deter Rainsy and others from returning,” Robertson said.

Sochua told VOA she would return on Nov. 9 despite a March warrant issued against her and seven others based on charges of “plotting an incitement to commit felony.” She said she expected arrests to follow “every day,” until Nov. 9, but that this would not serve the interests of Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

“The crackdown is [Hun Sen’s] miscalculation,” she said. “It makes people more angry.”

Sochua would not provide an estimate of the number of returning opposition members but said a list of returning opposition members would be posted October 26.

Political analyst Meas Nee said arresting CNRP supporters could be harmful to Cambodia’s government, calling the arrests “too extreme.”

“I think all these things, including the arrests, just ruin the reputation of the ruling party … Maybe until then [the return of Sam Rainsy], it could be possible that people’s anger will be built up inside the country,” he said, adding that this anger could lead to political unrest and violence if Rainsy were arrested.

Nee added that if Rainsy were imprisoned, “the next question would be whether this could be a final success of the government.”

Hun Sen last month requested assistance from other Southeast Asian nations in arresting Rainsy and his supporters if they entered those countries’ territories.

Robertson said Thailand might extradite opposition leaders in exchange for Thai activists who had fled to Cambodia. In addition, he said, airlines might bar Rainsy from flights into Cambodia out of fear of government retribution.

 “It’s quite clear that Cambodia is also enlisting its neighbors to go after overseas dissidents, and try to make it more difficult for Rainsy and the CNRP to enter these countries,” he said.

Rainsy’s return, Robertson said, was therefore unlikely. “It’s hard to see how he could physically do it,” he said.

Indian and Chinese leaders at an informal summit Saturday sidestepped their differences and said they will tackle a huge trade deficit that has been troubling India, and enhance measures to strengthen border security.  
 
In the coastal heritage town of Mamallapuram in southern India, where the two leaders met, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that “we have decided to manage our differences prudently,” and not let them become “disputes.” He said both sides will remain sensitive to each other’s concerns so that the relationship “will be a source of peace and stability in the world.”
 
Without elaborating, Chinese President Xi Jinping said “we have engaged in candid discussions as friends,” as they sat down for talks.
 
Their sharp differences over the disputed region of Kashmir that came to the fore in the weeks ahead of the summit did not figure into the one-on-one talks held for several hours between Xi and Modi, according to Indian officials.
 
China has strongly backed Pakistan in raising strong objections to India’s move to scrap autonomy in the disputed Himalayan region, angering New Delhi, which says it is its internal affair.
 
Saying that there had been “visible progress” since Modi and Xi held their first informal summit in China last year, Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters that the summit had underlined that “there is no fundamental disruption and there is a forward-looking trajectory,” in their ties.

 
The informal summits are aimed at getting past decades of mistrust that have dogged their ties since they fought a war in 1962. Parts of their borders are still disputed and both sides claim parts of each other’s territories.
 
The immediate focus appears to be on addressing a $55 billion trade deficit in Beijing’s favor that is a huge irritant for India, especially as it is grappling with an economic slowdown.
 
The two countries will establish a high-level economic and trade dialogue led by senior leaders to improve business ties and better balance their trade.  
 
Calling the trade deficit economically unsustainable for India, Gokhale said “there is a very significant market in China and we need to find ways in which we can enhance exports and China can increase imports.”
 
Gokhale said Xi had welcomed Indian investment in pharmaceuticals and textiles – areas in which New Delhi has been seeking market access.

“China is ready to take sincere action in this regard and discuss in a very concrete way how to reduce the trade deficit,” he said.  
 
Indian officials also said that both leaders also resolved to work together in facing the challenges of radicalization and terrorism, which continues to pose a common threat.  
 
The Chinese leader has invited Modi for a third informal summit in China.
 
From India, Xi travels to Nepal, the tiny Himalayan country wedged between the two Asian giants. The first visit by a Chinese head of state to Nepal since 1996 comes as the two develop closer ties, raising some concern in India, which worries about Beijing’s growing influence in its immediate neighborhood.
 
Kathmandu hopes to sign agreements to begin infrastructure projects under Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, which India has stayed away from but Nepal has joined.

 

Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge made athletics history Saturday when he became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours although his remarkable effort will not be recognized by the sport’s governing body.

The Olympic marathon champion and world record holder completed a course around Vienna’s Prater Park in one hour 59:40 minutes on a cool, misty and windless autumnal morning.

Guided by rotating seven-man teams of pacesetters, many of themselves renowned athletes, and an electric pacecar that shone green lasers onto the track, Kipchoge averaged around 2.50 minutes per kilometer.

He reached the halfway mark in 59:35, 11 seconds inside the target, and ran remarkably consistently with his one-kilometer times fluctuating between 2.48 and 2.52 seconds.

For the last kilometer, the pacemakers and car peeled away and Kipchoge pointed to the crowd and smiled as he completed the run.

Kipchoge, who before the race compared the achievement to landing on the moon, said it was the biggest athletics milestone since Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier in 1954.

“I am feeling good, after Roger Bannister it took another 65 years to make history,” he said. “Now I’ve gone under two hours to inspire other people and show the world that nobody is limited.”

“I can say I’m tired. It was a hard run. Remember, the pacemakers are among the best athletes in the world, I appreciate them for doing the job.”

“It means a lot for Kenya,” he added.

The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) has said it would not recognize the run as an official record because it was not in open competition and it used in and out pacemakers although its president, Sebastian Coe, had welcomed the record attempt.

The run, organized and funded by the British chemical company INEOS and dubbed the INEOS 1.59 challenge, was Kipchoge’s second attempt to break the barrier, having missed by 26 seconds in Monza two years ago.
 

A small boat carrying African migrants off the coast of southern Mexico sank Friday, leaving one dead and two missing, authorities said.

The boat was traveling off the southern border state of Chiapas when it listed to one side, pitching its occupants into the water, the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Authorities mounted a search operation and “managed to rescue eight migrants alive,” it said.

A 39-year-old man was found dead, his body washed up on the shore. Two other migrants are missing.

All were from Cameroon, a country that has seen a growing exodus of refugees amid an increasingly violent conflict between its French- and English-speaking communities.

Chiapas is a main crossroads for migrants crossing Mexico toward the United States. They are mostly Central Americans, but in recent years there has been an increasing number of Africans, who often fly to South America and then make long treks overland and by boat.

African migrants in Chiapas regularly stage protests demanding the Mexican authorities allow them to continue their journey toward the United States.

Undocumented migrants regularly use boats to evade the authorities in southern Mexico, where the government has deployed 6,000 National Guardsmen to tighten the border, part of its efforts to crack down on irregular migration under a deal to avoid U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose steep tariffs on Mexican goods.

Under the deal, the Mexican government has deployed another 15,000 National Guardsmen along its northern border and accepted the return of more than 50,000 migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., who must now wait in Mexico while their claims are processed.
 

Robert Forster, the handsome and omnipresent character actor who got a career resurgence and Oscar-nomination for playing bail bondsman Max Cherry in “Jackie Brown,” has died. He was 78.

Forster’s publicist Kathie Berlin said he died Friday at home in Los Angeles of brain cancer following a brief illness. He was surrounded by family, including his four children and partner Denise Grayson.

Condolences poured in Friday night on social media. Bryan Cranston wrote on Twitter that Forster was a “lovely man and a consummate actor.” The two met on the 1980 film “Alligator” and then worked together again on “Breaking Bad” and the spinoff film “El Camino,” which launched on Netflix Friday.

“I never forgot how kind and generous he was to a young kid just starting out in Hollywood,” Cranston wrote.

His “Jackie Brown” co-star Samuel L. Jackson tweeted that he was, “truly a class act/Actor!!”

Stumbling into acting

A native of Rochester, New York, Forster quite literally stumbled into acting when in college, intending to be a lawyer, he followed a fellow female student he was trying to talk to into an auditorium where they were holding auditions for “Bye Bye Birdie.” He would get cast in the play, the fellow student would become his wife (they had three daughters), and it started him on a new trajectory as an actor.

A fortuitous role in the 1965 Broadway production “Mrs. Dally Has a Lover” put him on Darryl Zanuck’s radar, and Zanuck signed him to a studio contract. He would soon make his film debut in the 1967 John Huston film “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” with Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor.

Forster would go on to star in Haskell Wexler’s documentary-style Chicago classic “Medium Cool” and the detective television series “Banyon,” and worked consistently throughout the 1970s and 80s in mostly forgettable B-pictures.

“I had four kids, I took any job I could get,” he said in the same interview last year. “Every time it reached a lower level I thought I could tolerate, it dropped some more, and then some more. Near the end I had no agent, no manager, no lawyer, no nothing. I was taking whatever fell thru the cracks.”

Hollywood story

It was Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film “Jackie Brown” that put him back on the map. Tarantino said he created the role of Max Cherry with Forster in mind. The performance opposite Pam Grier became one of the more heartwarming Hollywood comeback stories, earning him his first and only Academy Award nomination. He’d ultimately lose the golden statuette to Robin Williams, who won that year for “Good Will Hunting.”

Since then, he’s worked consistently, appearing in films like David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” “Me, Myself and Irene,” “The Descendants,” and “Olympus Has Fallen,” and in television shows like “Breaking Bad” and the “Twin Peaks” revival. 

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