Nigerian police plan to acquire stun guns and revise their rules of engagement in an effort to curb the use of deadly force, the inspector general of the force said Thursday.

The West African country, which plays a pivotal role in regional stability, is riven by security problems ranging from armed bandits who have forced 40,000 people to leave the northwest in recent months to communal violence between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities in central states.

Last month, a United Nations special rapporteur described Nigeria as a “pressure cooker of internal conflict” due to security problems and what it said was an excessive use of lethal force by police and military.

Mohammed Adamu told a gathering of senior officers in the capital, Abuja, that he had “initiated actions” toward deploying less lethal weapons — commonly known as stun guns — for low-risk police operations.

“This is with the intention of addressing public concerns on misuse of firearms by the police with its attendant consequences on lives and effect on the attainment of our community policing vision,” Adamu said, according to a copy of the speech distributed to media.

He did not say how much the stun guns would cost.  

Adamu said the force had also revised and simplified Force Order 237, which outlines its rules of engagement.

He did not specify what changes were made, but said the redesign would ensure the “protection of fundamental human rights” in policing.

The force is also arranging special training for certain units, including the counterterrorism unit, anti-robbery and kidnapping squads, and criminal investigation specialists.
 

Noisy conflict is common outside Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, with protesters sometimes using bullhorns to amplify their voices and the clinic itself blaring music to keep patients from hearing the protesters.

Owners of nearby businesses say the commotion is a headache for their customers who want to enjoy a meal or buy some clothes.

In response, the Jackson City Council voted 3-1 Tuesday to enact a local law limiting amplified sound outside health care facilities and creating buffer zones to move protesters further from the entrances. The law is set to take effect in about a month, and opponents say it unconstitutionally limits their right to free speech. A court challenge is likely.

The council vote came days before a federal appeals court was set to hear arguments over a 2018 Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks.

Like many places in the Deep South, Mississippi is a conservative state with a Republican-led Legislature that has been enacting laws to restrict access to abortion. Southern cities where abortion clinics are located tend to be more socially and politically liberal. That’s the case in Jackson, where most City Council members are Democrats.

But, during the Jackson debate, council members said limiting noise and creating a buffer zone is an attempt to help patients and local businesses rather than to help the clinic.

“This really is about access to health care,” Council president Virgi Lindsay, a Democrat, said after noting that people who spoke for the ordinance live in Jackson while most of those who spoke against it live other places.

The scene outside the bright pink clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was relatively quiet Wednesday, without amplified sound.

One man, who’s a regular there, held wooden rosary beads and murmured prayers. A few men and women tried to hand biblical tracts to people as they drove into the clinic parking lot. Three people wearing rainbow-striped vests emblazoned with “Clinic Escort” took turns trying to block protesters’ view of the patients, and some escorts walked with women from their cars to the clinic door.

As a vehicle with a license plate from Newton County, Mississippi, drove into the parking lot, Pastor David Lane called out: “I know some folks in Newton who will help you! I know some folks in Newton who will adopt your baby!”

“Oh, David, that’s enough,” clinic escort Derenda Hancock said to him with exasperation.

People from both sides are outside the clinic so often that many of the protesters and the volunteer clinic escorts know each other by name.

The clinic is in Jackson’s eclectic Fondren neighborhood, a short drive from the Capitol building where legislators have enacted several abortion restrictions that have been blocked by federal courts.

Across the street from the clinic, protesters sometimes stand outside restaurants and a T-shirt shop and hold graphic posters of aborted fetuses. Hancock said the ordinance won’t get rid of those images but could reduce the noise.

“If it is enforced the way it should be, it will allow the Jackson Women’s Health Organization to be more like it should be — a normal health clinic where women can come and at least have some dignity and some privacy,” Hancock said.

The Jackson ordinance prohibits people from protesting within 15 feet (5 meters) of any entrance to a health care facility. It also says that within 100 feet (30 meters) of the entrance of a health care facility, each person has a “personal bubble zone” of 8 feet (2 meters), and that unless the person gives permission, nobody else may get inside the bubble to hand over a leaflet or to engage in “oral protest, education or counseling.” Further, the ordinance prohibits amplified sound within 100 feet (30 meters) of the property line of a health care facility.

Violation carries a $1,000 fine, 90 days in jail or both.

A federal appeals court in February upheld the constitutionality of a 2009 Chicago ordinance that created an 8-foot (2-meter) bubble zone outside medical facilities. But, in 2014, the Supreme Court struck down a 2007 Massachusetts law that banned people from standing within 35 feet (11 meters) of an abortion clinic.

Dr. Coleman Boyd, an emergency room physician who leads a nondenominational Christian church in a Jackson suburb, said he and his family often pray outside the clinic and to try to talk women out of having abortions. He believes the ordinance is unconstitutional.

“They have one purpose,” Boyd said. “They want to silence those who are against abortion.”

The owner of the T-shirt shop, Ron Chane, told the City Council abortion protesters have yelled across the street at him. He said he didn’t deserve “any of those self-righteous comments.” He also expressed frustration with the clinic, saying if it was up to him and other local business owners, the clinic might not be there at all.

“Maybe it would be a dog park or a parking lot,” Chane said. “We just want peace.”

 

A popular singer who is challenging Uganda’s long-time president is urging his supporters to defy a government ban on civilian use of the red beret that has become a symbol of his movement.

Uganda’s government in September designated the red beret a military item, effectively banning its use by civilians such as Bobi Wine, who believes he is being targeted.

Wine, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, says he will run for president in 2021, likely against President Yoweri Museveni.

Wine faces multiple criminal offenses, including a treason charge stemming from his alleged role in an incident in which the president’s motorcade was pelted with stones.

Wine is urging Museveni to retire after three decades in power, saying young people should take over leadership in key positions.

In Turkey, a commemoration was held to mark the first anniversary of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi’s murder sparked widespread international condemnation of Saudi Arabia, and the calls for justice are continuing, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul

The European Union’s highest court says that Facebook can be ordered by an individual member state to remove or block access to material that was previously declared unlawful and says that it can have a worldwide impact.

The European Court of Justice ruling Thursday is seen as a defeat for Facebook as it could increase their responsibility for what is appearing on the internet.

The court ruled after an Austrian Greens politician sued the internet company in her home nation to remove comments that she considered bad for her reputation and insulting in a post that could be seen by any Facebook user.
 

Iraqi security forces used tear gas and fired live bullets to disperse protesters on the third day of anti-government demonstrations in Baghdad.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced a curfew Thursday seeking to control the protests in the capital city and elsewhere in the country.

Since the protests began Tuesday, clashes with security forces have left at least nine 19 dead with the Associated Press reporting 10 protesters killed overnight. Hundreds more have been injured. In addition to live rounds and tear gas, authorities have deployed water cannons and rubber bullets to try to break up the crowds.

Demonstrators are unhappy about poor government services and corruption.

There were widespread reports of internet outages Thursday.

The protests are the first major challenge to Abdul-Mahdi, who formed his government a year ago.

The government blamed the violence on “groups of riot inciters” and said security forces worked to protect the safety of peaceful protesters.

Iraq’s parliament has ordered a probe into the violence.

Many Iraqi citizens blame politicians and government officials for the corruption that has prevented the country from rebounding from years of sectarian violence and the battle to defeat Islamic State militants who at one point controlled large areas in the northern and western part of the country.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting, the Iraqi prime minister released a statement promising jobs for graduates. He also ordered the oil ministry and other government agencies to apply a 50 percent quota for local workers in future contracts with foreign countries.

Former U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker is set to testify before House committees Thursday about his involvement in U.S. President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. He is expected to speak behind closed doors to the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees.

Volker has served as a special envoy to Ukraine since he was appointed to the job by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Volker was in public service for more than 20 years, starting as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency in 1986.

After that followed time in the foreign service, serving overseas in London, Brussels and Budapest. He eventually ended up as special assistant to the U.S. special envoy for Bosnia negotiations, Richard Holbrooke.

Volker also served as a legislative fellow for Sen. John McCain for two years.

He became the first secretary of the U.S. mission to NATO in 1998. He worked in different capacities in NATO until 2005. His work there included being in charge of U.S. preparations for the summit in Prague in 2002 and the summit of NATO members in Istanbul in 2004.

Volker later became deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. He served in that position until President George W. Bush named him U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO in July 2008, where he served until May 2009.

He entered the private sector as an independent director at the Wall Street Fund, and worked at other financial groups. He also worked at McLarty Associates, a global consulting firm, and BGR Group, a lobbying firm and investment bank.

When Arizona State University launched the McCain Institute for International Leadership in 2012, Volker was its first executive director, a position he still holds.

He returned to public life in 2017 when Tillerson appointed him special envoy to Ukraine.

A Cambodian judge Thursday ordered a reinvestigation in the espionage case against two former Radio Free Asia journalists, saying he could not rule on their guilt or innocence without enough evidence.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Im Vannak ordered the new investigation on the day he was scheduled to deliver a verdict in the case against the two reporters, Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin.

The 2-year-old case has added to concerns about a crackdown on criticism and dissent by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who extended his rule of more than three decades in a general election last year after the main opposition party leader was arrested on treason charges and his party banned.

The two former reporters for Washington-based RFA were arrested in November 2017 and charged with espionage and producing pornography. They denied the charges.

Hun Sen has accused the United States of trying to end his rule.

RFA earlier in 2017 shut down its Phnom Penh office complaining of a “relentless crackdown on independent voices.”
 

Australia’s ban on Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s involvement in its future 5G networks and its crackdown on foreign covert interference are testing Beijing’s efforts to project its power overseas.

In its latest maneuver, China sent three scholars to spell out in interviews with Australian media and other appearances steps to mend the deepening rift with Beijing — a move that appears to have fallen flat.

In a recent press conference at the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, Chen Hong, the head of Australian studies at East China Normal University, accused Australia of acting as a “pawn” for the United States in lobbying other countries against Huawei’s involvement in 5G networks.

“Australia has been in one way or another, so to speak, pioneering this kind of anti-China campaign, even some kind of a scare and smear campaign against China,” Chen said. “That is definitely not what China will be appreciating, and if other countries follow suit, that is going to be recognized as extremely unfriendly,” he said.

After meetings in Beijing last week, Richard Marles, the opposition’s defense spokesman, assessed the relationship as “terrible.”

Australians see threat

A growing number of Australians are convinced that Beijing has been using inducements, threats, espionage and other clandestine tactics to influence their politics — methods critics believe Beijing might be honing for use in other Western democracies.

“Australia is seen as a test bed for Beijing’s high-pressure influence tactics,” said Clive Hamilton, author of “Silent Invasion,” a best seller that focuses on Chinese influence in Australia. “They are testing the capacity of the Australian democratic system to resist,” he said.

Trade partners

Still, Australian officials have downplayed talk of a diplomatic freeze. They must balance a growing wariness toward China and their desire for strong ties with the U.S. with the need to keep relations with their resource-rich country’s largest export market on an even keel.

Australia relies on China for one-third of its export earnings. Delays in processing of Australia exports of coal and wine at Chinese ports have raised suspicions of retaliation by Beijing.

While Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared to side with President Donald Trump on the issue of China’s trade status during a recent visit to Washington, he sought to temper suggestions by Trump that he had expressed “very strong opinions on China” in their closed-door meeting.

“We have a comprehensive, strategic partnership with China. We work well with China,” Morrison replied.

Trump and Morrison did agree that China has outgrown trade rule concessions allowed to developing nations, advantages it insists it should still be able to claim.

Morrison praised

Morrison, the prime minister, has won praise from the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times for standing up for Gladys Liu, the first Chinese-born lawmaker to be elected to Australia’s Parliament, when she was attacked for her associations with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, whose mission is to exert influence overseas.

Liu, who was born in Hong Kong in 1964, was elected to the conservative government in May to represent a Melbourne district with a large population of ethnic Chinese voters. She has said she had resigned from such organizations and any honorary positions she might have held, some possibly without her “knowledge or consent.”

Morrison accused her critics of smearing the 1.2 million people who make up the Chinese diaspora in Australia.

That was a “decent gesture,” the Global Times said.

Neutralizing influence

But while it seeks to control damage from the tensions with Beijing, the Australian government has been moving to neutralize its influence by banning foreign political donations and all covert foreign interference in domestic politics.

The Chinese scholars singled out for criticism Hamilton and another Australian author, John Garnaut, who has described Australia as the canary in the coal mine of Chinese Communist Party interference.

Hamilton’s book was published last year, but only after three publishers reneged on offers to back the book for fear of retaliation from Beijing. It became a top seller.

In comments to a U.S. congressional commission last year he asserted that Beijing was waging a “campaign of psychological warfare” against Australia, undermining democracy and silencing its critics.

In separate testimony, Garnaut, a former government security adviser, told the House of Representatives Arms Services Committee in Washington, D.C., that China’s meddling was aimed at undermining the U.S.-Australian security alliance.

In 2016, Garnaut was commissioned to write a classified report that found the Chinese Communist Party had for a decade tried to influence Australian policy, compromise political parties and gain access to all levels of government.

Others beginning to take note

He has said Australia is reacting to a threat that other countries are only starting to grapple with.

“This recognition has been assisted by the sheer brazenness of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s drive for global influence and by watching Russian President Vladimir Putin and his agents create havoc across the United States and Europe,” Garnaut wrote.

“In the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, it is far more difficult to dismiss foreign interference as a paranoid abstraction,” he added.

Garnaut, whose friend Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun has been detained in Beijing since January on suspicion of espionage, declined to comment to The Associated Press.

China wants to make an example of Australia, said Chinese-born Sydney academic Feng Chongyi, who was detained for 10 days and interrogated about his friend Garnaut’s investigation while visiting China in 2017.

“For the last two decades, Australia has been taken for a soft target because of this myth of economic dependence on China, so they believe they have sufficient leverage to force Australia to back off,” said Feng, a professor of China studies at the University of Technology in Sydney.

“They are extremely upset that Australia somehow in the last two years has taken the lead in what we call the democratic pushback” against Chinese interference, he said.

A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant accused of stockpiling weapons and planning mass killings that prosecutors said was “on a scale rarely seen in this country” will likely plead guilty in federal court Thursday.

Officials say Christopher Paul Hasson had amassed 15 guns, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, silencers and hand grenades and had drawn up a hit list of 15 prominent Democrats and journalists, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. He was arrested at his Maryland home in February.

Police also found 100 pills of the opioid Tramadol and 30 bottles of human growth hormone.

Prosecutors have not charged Hasson of terrorism, instead they have filed charges on unlawful possession of silencers and two counts of possession of a controlled substance as well as possession of a firearm by an unlawful user or addict.

Officials say they began investigating Hasson after being alerted to searches on his work computer at the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.

He remains on active duty until the case is resolved.

A freakish heat wave is making early autumn feel like the dog days of summer in much of the southern and eastern U.S., with forecasters predicting Wednesday that temperatures could get close to triple digits.

Washington hit 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36 Celsius) late in the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), surpassing the city’s previous monthly record of 96 degrees on Oct. 5, 1941.

And October records were due to topple across the country, the NWS said.

Temperatures in some places could be as many as 30 degrees higher than normal, the NWS said, while a quarter of the country will reportedly experience temperatures above 90 degrees.

It’s been so bad this week that some schools in Ohio and Maryland that have no air conditioning are sending children home early or closing altogether.

In Tipp City, Ohio, teachers gave kids popsicles and held some classes in shady spots outdoors, NBC affiliate WDTN reported.

Records were set or tied Tuesday in more than a dozen cities including Cleveland, Ohio, New Orleans, Louisiana and Syracuse, New York, the Weather Channel reported.

Atlanta could break its all-time October record high of 95 degrees Wednesday or Thursday, it added.

Relief is expected late in the week as a cold front rushes in, sending temperatures way down. Some in the Northeast could even see the first frost or freeze of the season.

America has already experienced extreme weather at the other end of the scale this week, as the northern state of Montana was blanketed with record snowfall — four feet (1.20 meters) in the town of Browning.

And at 8 a.m. Wednesday in Billings, Montana’s largest town, it was a lowly 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1 Celsius).
 

The U.S. government plans to collect the DNA of all migrants detained after entering the country illegally, officials said Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is developing a plan to take DNA samples from each of the undocumented immigrants and store it in a national database for criminal DNA profiles, they said.

Speaking to journalists on grounds of anonymity, DHS officials said the new policy would give immigration and border control agents a broader picture of the migrant and detainee situation.

And stored on the FBI’s CODIS DNA database, it could also be used by others in law enforcement and beyond.

“It does enhance our ability to further identify someone who has illegally entered the country,” said one official.

“It will assist other organizations as well in their identification ability.”

Officials said they were in fact required to take the DNA samples by rules about the handling of arrested and convicted people that were issued by the Justice Department in 2006 and 2010, but which had not been implemented.

They said the program for collecting DNA was still being developed, and they did not have a date set for implementation.

Collecting and storing the DNA of people simply detained and not tried or convicted of a crime could draw criticism from civil rights groups.

Earlier this year the U.S. Border Patrol began performing “rapid DNA” tests on migrants who cross the border as family units to determine if the individuals were actually related and were not making fraudulent claims.

The new program will collect much more genetic information than that program, and will store it.

“This is fundamentally different from rapid DNA,” said a second official.

“This is a more-full scope DNA profile.”

Democratic presidential contenders on Wednesday vowed to pursue far-reaching limits on guns while standing up to the gun lobby, tackling an issue that has increasingly become a chief concern for their party’s voters.

Nine of the leading candidates gathered in Las Vegas for an all-day forum on gun safety, one day after the city marked two years since it suffered the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which killed 58 people.

The candidates offered details of various policies they have championed, including universal background checks, banning assault-style weapons and requiring gun owners to obtain licenses.

But they also urged the hundreds of gathered activists to continue pressing the issue, arguing that their movement already has the power to prevail over the National Rifle Association.

“We cannot wait for this hell to be visited upon your community for you to be activated for this fight,” said U.S. Senator Cory Booker, who spoke passionately about witnessing firsthand the everyday scourge of gun violence in his low-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. “It is a life-and-death issue for people in communities like mine.”

But the specter of the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine could overshadow policy debates on the campaign trail, while threatening to imperil negotiations between the White House and lawmakers on legislation to expand background checks for firearm purchases.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has ascended to the second spot in public opinion polling behind former Vice President Joe Biden, rejected Trump’s assertion on Wednesday that the Democratic impeachment inquiry is to blame for inaction on gun safety, calling it an “alternative reality.”

“You have to stop and ask yourself the question: What is so badly broken in this democracy that something that the overwhelming majority of Americans want to see done doesn’t get done,” she said. “And the answer is, there’s too much power in the hands of the gun industry and the gun lobby.”

Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, who has been one of his party’s leading voices on gun safety since 20 schoolchildren were massacred in 2012 in his home state of Connecticut, has been negotiating with the White House on background checks.

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, he conceded the impeachment inquiry could prove an obstacle but also said Trump may be more inclined to support legislation to demonstrate that the investigation is not “the functional end of his presidency.”

The forum, hosted by the gun safety advocacy group Giffords and the student-led organization March For Our Lives, is the latest evidence that the politics around gun control have shifted following a spate of high-profile mass shootings in recent years.

But in Washington, the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate has shown little appetite for new limits for fear of angering the gun lobby. Trump, whose election campaign in 2016 was bolstered by millions of dollars from the National Rifle Association, has offered mixed signals.

Biden, who was scheduled to appear at the forum later on Wednesday, released a gun reform plan ahead of the event that would ban assault-style rifles but does not go as far as some other proposals.

Both Booker and former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, for instance, have called for mandatory buyback programs to remove assault-style weapons from circulation, a move Biden did not endorse.

Biden also did not call for a national licensing program, which has drawn support from several other candidates. In his remarks, Booker noted that large majorities already support licensing.

“You should not be a nominee from our party that can seriously stand in front of urban places and say, ‘I will protect you,’ if you don’t believe in gun licensing,” Booker said. “This is not about leadership. It’s about standing with the overwhelming majority of Americans on gun licensing.”

The forum gave candidates an opportunity to push back against arguments that their positions are either impractical or politically untenable.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, rejected the notion that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantee of a right to bear arms would be violated by banning assault-style weapons.

“Anybody can have a water balloon; nobody can have a Predator drone,” said Buttigieg, who does not support mandatory buybacks of assault-style weapons. “Somewhere we’re going to draw a line. And all we’re saying … is that we need to draw the line a lot tighter.”

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who had been scheduled to appear, was forced to cancel after his hospitalization for a procedure to clear a blocked artery.

Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, whose eponymous nonprofit co-hosted the event, made a brief appearance at the start of the day, telling supporters to “fight, fight, fight!”

Giffords suffered brain damage when she was shot in the head in 2011 during a mass shooting in Arizona.
 

A high-tech building named after Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and Jimmy Iovine will be opened on the University of Southern California campus.

Dr. Dre and Iovine are expected to attend a dedication ceremony for the Iovine and Young Hall on the campus Wednesday. The building was named after the duo who donated a combined $70 million in 2013 to create an art, technology and business academy at the college.

The hall will provide a learning space featuring 3-D printers, electronic labs, a podcast studio and alumni incubator space.

Dr. Dre is best known as a producer, rapper and co-owner of Death Row Records. He later started his own record label, Aftermath Entertainment.

Iovine is a music industry entrepreneur who is known as the co-founder of Interscope Records.

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered inspections of Boeing 737 NG aircraft for structural cracks after Boeing discovered the problem on planes undergoing modifications, the agency said Wednesday.

The mandate affects 1,911 U.S.-registered aircraft and is expected to require about 165 planes to be inspected within seven days, the agency said. The NG is a precursor plane to the Boeing 737 MAX, which has been grounded since mid-March following two deadly crashes.

The FAA said Boeing notified the agency of the problem after encountering the issue on a plane in China and that subsequent inspections showed other planes also had cracks.

The agency said the inspections can be done visually and require about an hour.

The order comes as Boeing faces stepped-up oversight from the FAA and international regulators in the wake of crashes of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines that together claimed 346 lives.

Boeing has targeted the fourth quarter to win approval from regulators to resume flights on the MAX, while acknowledging that the time-frame is up to regulators.

 

 

The operation dubbed “Find Jovenel Moise” organized by opposition leaders demanding the resignation of Haiti’s president ended abruptly when he appeared at the National Palace early this week following violent protests in which several people were killed.
 
Haitians had become so accustomed to not seeing their president in person amid a deepening political and economic crisis that his arrival at the palace Tuesday took protesters by surprise, with only a handful of them present to pelt his convoy with rocks.
 
Despite the rarity of his public appearances, the embattled leader has given no indication that he will step down after nearly a month of demonstrations against corruption, spiraling inflation and dwindling supplies of food and gasoline. Opponents have scheduled another protest for Wednesday, promising to once again paralyze Haiti’s capital and nearby communities if he doesn’t leave office.
 
As the standoff continues, Haitians wonder who will yield first: the protesters or the president.
 
“It’s a dramatic situation, a chaotic situation,” said Evans Paul, a former prime minister and Moise ally who privately discussed the crisis Monday with the Core Group, which includes officials from the United Nations, United States, Canada, France and others.
 
Paul told The Associated Press that while those present did not say whether Moise should remain in power or resign, they urged dialogue, voiced support for Haiti’s institutions and defended democratic principles, with Paul noting that Moise was elected by the people in 2017 for a five-year term.
 
He also said government officials are outlining ways to exit the crisis. He believes Moise has two options: choose a prime minister backed by the opposition or possibly reduce the length of his presidential term. However, Paul said many problems remain, including the lack of a provisional electoral commission.
 
After the meeting, Paul said, he met with Moise to talk about the options and negotiations are continuing.
 

“He hasn’t said yes yet,” Paul said, adding that while he has encouraged Moise to make bigger concessions, “he can’t put everything on the table.”
 
The opposition has rejected Moise’s pick for a new prime minister, with a Sept. 23 vote being indefinitely postponed after a senator who said he was trying to protect himself from protesters fired his pistol outside Haiti’s Senate, injuring an AP photographer and a security guard.
 
If Moise and key officials arrive at a solution, it will likely be announced by a non-partisan group instead of the president to lend it credibility and appease the people, Paul said.
 
Moise’s rare appearance Tuesday came a day after he presided over a meeting with a special council of ministers by phone, government spokesman Eddy Jackson Alexis confirmed to AP.
 
A spokesman for Moise did not return a message for comment, and neither did officials with the U.S. Embassy in Haiti. A Canadian government official said no one was available for comment.
 
A spokesman for the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti declined requests for an interview but issued a statement saying the mission was concerned about reports of violence and arson, seeks to have democratic processes respected and is working to encourage a peaceful resolution.
 
On the day the Core Group met, opposition leader and attorney Andre Michel tweeted that Haitians must remain mobilized until a president and interim government is installed: “We will not take orders from foreigners.”
 
Among those joining the opposition’s call for Moise’s resignation is Paul Emile Demostine, an EMT who joined the protests and spoke near a barricade of burning debris.
 
“Ever since he became president, it’s been total misery,” Demostine said, adding that his children have been unable to go to school as a result of the protests. “We need Haiti to change completely.”
 
Protesters also are demanding a more in-depth investigation into allegations that top officials in the previous administration misused billions of dollars in proceeds from a Venezuela-subsidized oil plan. Critics accuse Moise of trying to protect his ally, former President Michel Martelly, and of participating in the corruption himself before becoming president.
 
The protests have paralyzed the economy and closed down roads across the country, upending the supply chain and disrupting the distribution of food and gasoline, with long lines forming at a handful of gas stations and water kiosks that remain open.
 
“It’s an extremely serious situation,” said Haitian economist Kesner Pharel. “The political situation has been disastrous, and we are paying dearly for it.”
 
Prices have been rising in a country of nearly 11 million people where some 60 percent make less than $2 a day, he said. Inflation hit 19% in July, the latest number available, and economists predict it could be at 20% or higher in October, which would mark the first time that level since 2008, a situation that sparked food riots, Pharel said.
 
He also noted the fiscal year began Oct. 1 but the government has not yet approved a new budget, adding that this year could see a 1% contraction in the economy as the demographic rate increases.
 
“You’re going to have more extreme poverty,” Pharel said. “We have a very volatile situation.”

Thousands of people protested Tuesday in the northern French city of Rouen to denounce the consequences for health and the environment of last week’s fire at a chemical factory. The blaze that broke out early Thursday ravaged the Lubrizol chemical plant in Rouen, a port city on the river Seine and the capital of Normandy, and created a huge black cloud over the region. Environmentalists and health experts are concerned that the toxic chemicals produced by Lubrizol could pollute the air and water in the area and pose health risks. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

U.S. President Donald Trump is criticizing an impeachment inquiry against him as a “coup,” while the heads of several House of Representatives committees accuse Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of blocking their efforts to gather documents and interview witnesses.

“As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2019

Majority Democrats in the House are pursuing the impeachment inquiry to see whether they want to officially bring charges against Trump under their constitutional authority to seek to remove officials who engage in “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The State Department’s inspector general is expected to meet Wednesday with staff from the House and Senate appropriations, oversight, foreign affairs and intelligence committees to discuss documents that lawmakers have requested as they probe a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The House intelligence, oversight and foreign affairs committees had asked to hear testimony Wednesday from former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, but that session was postponed until next week.  Former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker is expected to speak to the committees on Thursday.

Trump has said he did nothing wrong in his discussions with Zelenskiy.  A whistleblower filed a complaint expressing concern that Trump was seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election by asking Ukraine to investigate Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Pompeo sent a letter Tuesday to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel saying requests for State Department documents and depositions with current and former officials “can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully, and treat improperly” the department’s staff.

He said the requests raise “significant legal and procedural concerns,” and dismissed warnings that not cooperating would amount to obstruction.

Engel, along with Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, responded by pointing to reports that Pompeo was on Trump’s call with Zelenskiy, saying that means he has an “obvious conflict of interest” and “should not be making any decisions regarding witness testimony or document production in order to protect himself or the President.”

They wrote that if it is true Pompeo participated in the call, then he is “now a fact witness in the impeachment inquiry.”

Hundreds of people held a vigil Wednesday outside the Hong Kong school of a young demonstrator shot by riot police during violent anti-Beijing protests Tuesday.  

Video footage showed a police office brandishing his weapon and shooting the 18-year-old at close range in the chest as the protester was about to strike the officer with a metal rod.  The shooting marked the first time Hong Kong police have used live rounds since the demonstrations began in June.  

Hong Kong police chief Stephen Lo said the officer was justified in using his gun because he feared for his life.  Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at umbrella-carrying protesters, who hurled homemade gasoline bombs at them and set several fires throughout the main section of the city

The wounded student is reportedly in stable condition at a Hong Kong hospital.  Protesters who gathered outside his school Wednesday held up posters and photos depicting the shooting.  

Tuesday’s violent clashes between pro-democracy demonstrators and Hong Kong security forces marred the carefully choreographed celebration in Beijing marking the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China. The four-month-old protests in Hong Kong, which were sparked by a proposed bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China, mark a direct challenge to Beijing’s tightening grip on the autonomous city.  

Although Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam later withdrew the bill, the protests have since evolved into renewed demands for Hong Kongers to choose their own leaders, ending the current system where business elites with ties to Beijing select nearly half the legislative body.

The demonstrators are also demanding an independent inquiry into possible use of excessive force by police and complete amnesty for all activists arrested.  

In his National Day speech Tuesday, President Xi Jinping reaffirmed both Hong Kong and Macau’s one country, two systems autonomy, but emphasized that his government will continue to fight to reunify the entire Chinese population, which includes the autonomously ruled island of Taiwan.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday signed a decree with a variety of measures to expand financing for farmers.

The measures include the creation of a “fraternal” fund that will provide an estimated 5 billion reais ($1.20 billion) in additional credit for the sector, according to Rogerio Miranda, the Economy Ministry’s subsecretary for agriculture policy.

The fund will be partially funded by agricultural producers themselves and provides for farmers to band together to seek joint guarantees when renegotiating debts.

Bolosonaro is instituting the measures by what is known as a temporary decree, that must be approved by Congress within 120 days or its effects will expire.

The decree also included measures to equalize interest rates between all players providing loans to the farm sector, which officials said is aimed at promoting competition.

The policy will also subsidize grains companies to expand their storage capacity.

($1 = 4.1574 reais)