As Kenya marks the anniversary of the end of British colonial rule more than five decades ago (Dec 12, 1963), two communities in the Great Rift Valley want the United Nations to investigate a colonial-era land grab.  The Kipsigis and Talai communities accuse the British of collective punishment by forcefully evicting them off their land, which was turned into profitable tea farms. Mohammed Yusuf reports from Kericho, Kenya.  

Human Rights Watch says tens of thousands of Burundian refugees face mounting pressure to involuntarily leave Tanzania amid efforts by authorities there to reduce the number of Burundians in the country.

The rights group in a statement Thursday charged that the fear of violence, arrest and deportation from Tanzania is driving many of the 163,000 Burundians out of the country. Some of the refugees have since sought shelter in neighboring Uganda.

Burundi fell into instability in 2015 after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a disputed third term. The election was marked by violence and allegations of rigging. Nearly 350,000 of Burundi’s 11 million people fled.

Tanzanian authorities have expressed frustration over what they say is the U.N.’s slow pace in repatriating refugees back to Burundi. More than 70,000 refugees have returned to Burundi since December 2017, and rights groups say it is hard to tell how many of those returned voluntarily.

 

New Zealand officials now say they will send crews to White Island on Friday to recover the bodies of eight people killed in Monday’s volcanic eruption.

Authorities had been holding off on sending search crews to retrieve the bodies because of the volcano’s continued instability.  Seismologists with New Zealand’s GeoNet seismic monitoring agency said Wednesday there remains a 40-to-60 percent chance of another major eruption.  Poisonous gas continues to vent out of the volcano’s crater and the island is covered in acidic ash.  

The death toll rose Wednesday to eight, as two more victims who had been rescued from the island after the eruption died in hospital.  At least 27 survivors suffered burns over more than 71 percent of their bodies; of that number, 22 are on airway support due to the severity of their burns.  Health officials have said they need an extra 1.2 million square centimeters of skin to provide grafts for the victims.

Authorities say about 47 people were touring the island at the time of the eruption, including 24 Australians, with the rest from the United States, Britain, Germany, China, Malaysia and New Zealand.  Some of the victims were passengers from a cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean.

Australia has sent at least one military aircraft to New Zealand to bring 12 victims back to Australia for treatment.

GeoNet raised the volcano’s alert level last month to Level Two on the five-level scale that monitors its chances of eruption.  Still pictures captured by a GeoNet camera installed along the volcano’s crater showed a group of tourists walking on the crater floor moments before the eruption.

Police have launched an investigation in connection with the disaster.

White Island, also known by its Maori name Whakaari, sits about 50 kilometers northeast of the town of Tauranga on North Island, and attracts about 10,000 visitors every year.  It is New Zealand’s most active cone volcano, with about 70 percent of the island under the sea.

Voters in Britain are casting ballots Thursday in an early general election that may bring a long-awaited resolution to the departure from the European Union they approved in a 2016 referendum.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson focused his campaigning efforts on a slogan to “Get Brexit Done.” He says a parliamentary majority for his Conservative Party would allow him to push through a previously rejected divorce deal with the EU and carry out Brexit by January 31.

His challenger, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, said if he wins Britain will hold a new referendum to ask if people still want to leave the European Union, or would rather stay in the 28-member bloc.

Johnson took office in July after his predecessor, Theresa May, failed in her repeated attempts to get parliament to approve the deal she reached with the EU. May also tried during her tenure to strengthen her Brexit negotiating position by calling an early election, but the move backfired with the Conservatives losing seats.

Opinion polls ahead of Thursday’s voting suggested Johnson’s party was favored to win, but that the race appeared to tighten in the final days of campaigning.

Official results are expected early Friday.

 

Police arrested dozens of people and enforced curfew Thursday in several districts in India’s northeastern Assam state where thousands protested legislation granting citizenship to non-Muslims who migrated from neighboring countries.

Groups of protesters defied the curfew in Gauhati, the state capital, on Thursday morning and burned tires before police dispersed them.

Soldiers drove and marched though the streets to reinforce police in violence-hit districts, which included Gauhati and Dibrugarh, said state police chief Bhaskar Mahanta.

The protesters in Assam oppose the legislation out of concern that migrants will move to the border region and dilute the culture and political sway of indigenous tribal people. The legislation was passed by Parliament on Wednesda and now needs to be signed by the country’s ceremonial president, a formality, before becoming law.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed for peace and in a tweet said: “I want to assure them — no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture. It will continue to flourish and grow.”

The Press Trust of India news agency said the protesters uprooted telephone poles, burned several buses and other vehicles and also attacked homes of officials from the governing Hindu nationalist party and the regional group Assam Gana Parishad.

Police used batons and tear gas to disperse protesters in 10 out of the state’s 33 districts.

While those protesting in Assam are opposed to the bill because of worries it will allow immigrants, no matter their faith, to live in their region, others are opposed to the bill because they see it as discriminatory for not applying to Muslims.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill, seeks to grant Indian nationality to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs who fled Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh because of religious persecution before 2015. It does not, however, extend to Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled persecution in Myanmar.

Home Minister Amit Shah said it was not anti-Muslim because it did not affect the existing path to citizenship available to all communities.

Amnesty India said the legislation legitimized discrimination on the basis of religion and stood in clear violation of the India’s constitution and international human rights law.

“Welcoming asylum seekers is a positive step, but in a secular country like India, slamming the door on persecuted Muslims and other communities merely for their faith reeks of fear-mongering and bigotry,” the rights group said in a statement.

Several opposition lawmakers who debated the bill in Parliament said it would be challenged in court.

“Today marks a dark day in the constitutional history of India,” said Sonia Gandhi of the main opposition Congress party. “The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill marks the victory of narrow-minded and bigoted forces over India’s pluralism.”

Its passage follows a contentious citizenship registry exercise in Assam intended to identify legal residents and weed out those in the country illegally. Shah has pledged to roll it out nationwide, promising to rid India of “infiltrators.”

Nearly 2 million people in Assam were excluded from the list — about half Hindus and the other half Muslims — and have been asked to prove their citizenship or else be rendered stateless.

India is constructing a detention center for some of the tens of thousands the courts are expected to ultimately determine came to the country illegally.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill could provide protection and a fast track to naturalization for many of the Hindus left off Assam’s citizenship list.

The House Judiciary Committee took the first steps Wednesday evening toward voting on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, beginning a marathon two-day session to consider the historic charges.

Democrats and Republicans on the panel used the prime-time hearing to make final arguments for and against impeachment. Both sides appealed to Americans’ sense of history — Democrats describing a strong sense of duty to hold the president in check, and Republicans decrying the process and what it means for the future of the country.

On Thursday, the committee will consider amendments and likely hold a final vote to send the articles to the House floor. The two articles of impeachment that Democrats introduced Tuesday charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his dealings with Ukraine.

The articles aren’t expected to be changed, though, as Democrats are unlikely to accept any amendments proposed by Republicans unified against Trump’s impeachment.

Democrats have already agreed to the language, which span only nine pages and say that Trump acted “corruptly” and “betrayed the nation” when he asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and the 2016 U.S. election. Hamstrung in the minority, Republicans wouldn’t have the votes to make changes without support from at least some Democrats.

The Wednesday evening session of the 41-member panel is expected to last several hours, with opening statements from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler opened hearing to make a final argument for impeachment and to urge his Republican colleagues to reconsider. He said the committee should consider whether the evidence shows that Trump committed these acts, if they rise to the level of impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors and what the consequences are if they fail to act.

“When his time has passed, when his grip on our politics is gone, when our country returns, as surely it will, to calmer times and stronger leadership, history will look back on our actions here today,” Nadler said. “How would you be remembered?”

Republicans are also messaging to the American people — and to Trump himself — as they argue that the articles show Democrats are out to get the president. Most Republicans contend, as Trump does, that he has done nothing wrong, and all of them are expected to vote against the articles.

The top Republican on the panel, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, argued that Democrats are impeaching the president because they think they can’t beat him in the 2020 election.

Democrats think the only thing they need is a “32-second commercial saying we impeached him,” Collins said.

“That’s the wrong reason to impeach somebody, and the American people are seeing through this,” Collins said. “But at the end of the day, my heart breaks for a committee that has trashed this institution.”

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said Democrats are impeaching because “they don’t like us,” and he read out a long list of Trump’s accomplishments.

“It’s not just because they don’t like the president, they don’t like us,” Jordan added. “They don’t like the 63 million people who voted for this president, all of us in flyover country, all of us common folk in Ohio, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Texas.”

Republicans are expected to offer an array of amendments and make procedural motions, even if they know none of them will pass. The Judiciary panel is made up of some of the most partisan members on both sides, and Republicans will launch animated arguments in Trump’s defense.

Earlier Wednesday, Collins said the GOP would offer amendments but said they’d mainly be about allowing more time to debate.

“Remember, you can’t fix bad,” Collins said. “These are bad, you’re not going to fix it.”

In the formal articles announced Tuesday, the Democrats said Trump enlisted a foreign power in “corrupting” the U.S. election process and endangered national security by asking Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including Biden, while withholding U.S. military aid as leverage. That benefited Russia over the U.S. as America’s ally fought Russian aggression, the Democrats said.

Trump then obstructed Congress by ordering current and former officials to defy House subpoenas for testimony and by blocking access to documents, the charges say.

Trump tweeted that to impeach a president “who has done NOTHING wrong, is sheer Political Madness.”

The House is expected to vote on the articles next week, in the days before Christmas. That would send them to the Senate for a 2020 trial.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he would be “totally surprised″ if there were the necessary 67 votes in the chamber to convict Trump, and signaled options for a swift trial. He said no decision had been made about whether to call witnesses.

With a day to go before Britons head to the polls to vote in their third general election in under four years, the question the ruling Conservatives are asking themselves is, will Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s gamble to hold an early ballot pay off? 

Will he be able to accomplish what his Downing Street predecessor, Theresa May, failed to do in 2017 with her snap election and secure a large parliamentary majority? 

Johnson hopes to achieve what she failed to do — to persuade traditional working-class voters who favor Brexit in the north of England to ditch their lifetime habit of voting Labor. If successful, it would amount to a seismic reshaping of British politics. 

Opinion polls suggest the Conservatives may pull off a big win Thursday and secure a sufficient majority for Johnson to end the long-running Brexit mess by taking Britain out of the European Union by the end of January. In the final days of the campaign, Johnson has focused on Labor’s so-called “red wall,” searching for cracks to widen in old towns and farming villages crucial to the Conservatives’ hopes of winning Thursday’s election, warning voters that they face a “great Brexit betrayal,” if they vote for an increasingly metropolitan and southern Labor Party.

Most polls have been giving the Conservatives, also known as Tories, a 10-percent lead over Labor, the country’s main opposition party. But the race appears to have tightened in the final stretch. One poll midweek had the lead cut to 8 percent and a further drop would point to a likely hung parliament. Few pollsters are ready to hazard a firm prediction of a Johnson win. In 2017, the opinion polls were upended by a late surge toward Labor and a high turnout by pro-EU youngsters. Labor has a strong record in getting out their vote.

Brexit has turned Britain into a politically tumultuous country — old party allegiances have weakened and a wide generation gap has been exposed, with younger voters shifting left and older voters shifting right. New political groups have emerged; the centrist pro-EU Liberal Democrats have enjoyed a revival thanks to lawmakers defecting to them from Labor and the Tories. Both main parties have lurched toward their extremes, putting off their moderate supporters. 

All of that spells the possibility of some big surprises on election night. Twelve percent to 17 percent of Britons apparently are still undecided voters.

The conduct of this election, what has been dubbed Britain’s first post-truth election, has been anything but normal and that could come back to hurt the parties when voters are casting their ballots.

The campaigning has become more toxic as it unfolds. “Fake news” stories have been planted with abandon, and online disinformation and manipulation are being used to rally support by fomenting outrage and anger. Social media have become more influential in the national discourse than the newspapers or the broadcasters. The politicians have been lost in a world of spin, say election critics, playing fast and loose with the facts, determinedly evading serious examination of their policies and plans. 

“This election has been marinated in mendacity: big lies and small lies, quarter truths and pseudo facts; distraction, dissembling and disinformation; and digital skulduggery on an industrial scale,” the country’s storied Economist magazine said this week. 

The biggest lie by the Tories, say commentators, has been that Brexit can be delivered painlessly and without much disruption. “Get Brexit done” has been Johnson’s mantra throughout. And the Conservatives have stayed relentlessly on message, warning that a vote for anyone but them will condemn Britain to further “dither and delay” in a likely deadlocked hung parliament with a Labor-led coalition government. 

“On Thursday, the country has the chance to end the delay, get Brexit done and move on to sorting out all the other things that matter to you,” Johnson has said.

But Brexit will take longer than just a month to sort out and there will be a high economic price to pay in terms of the national debt and deficit, and major disruption for businesses, according to analysts and the Bank of England. The January Brexit deadline Johnson wants to observe is just the start of a long process of negotiations to settle on a future arrangement with Britain’s largest trading partner, the EU. Most observers argue this second stage of negotiations will be tricky and could take years.

If Johnson wins, “Skies will begin to darken as flocks of Mr. Johnson’s chickens will come home to roost,” says Matthew  Parris, a former Conservative lawmaker, and now a columnist at The Times newspaper.

Labor obfuscation, say commentators, has come with the party’s radical high-spending plans to re-nationalize the energy, rail and water industries, broadband providers and Royal Mail. It has promised to introduce a four-day work week, redistribute wealth and reinvest in Britain’s crumbling public services, all without increasing taxes except for billionaires. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a respected British research institution, has dubbed those plans as “not a credible prospectus.”

Voters have become angrier and more disillusioned as the election has unfolded, with candidates reporting unprecedented vitriol on the doorsteps. None of the party leaders has impressed the electorate in what has become a “hold-your-nose” election, described as “an unpopularity contest.” 

Both Boris Johnson and Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn, as well as the leader of Britain’s perennial third party, the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, have been laughed at and mocked by hostile, disbelieving studio audiences. Johnson is the most unpopular new prime minister since the advent of opinion polls and seen widely as an opportunist. Corbyn is the most disliked leader of the opposition since polls began, and widely regarded as a tired far-left figure from a bygone era. 

Their unpopularity goes some way to explain why so many voters are undecided, say pollsters. “We have never seen as many undecided voters this late in the campaign,” according to pollster Paul Hilder. “A much larger Conservative landslide is still possible — but so is a hung parliament,” he added. 

As the campaign has unfolded, the Liberal Democrats appear to have failed to fill the gap in the middle of British politics. Their inexperienced leader made what looks like a fatal campaign mistake in deciding to campaign not for a second Brexit referendum, but for a revocation of the 2016 plebiscite altogether.

Labor’s position has been what critics describe as a fudge, involving a pledge to renegotiate another exit deal and then to hold a second referendum. Nigel Farage’s newly-minted Brexit Party has barely figured, having been squeezed by Johnson’s pledge to deliver Brexit.

The Conservatives are banking on voters, even those who would prefer to remain in the EU, of just being sick and tired of the whole Brexit mess, and seeing Johnson as the only escape route.

But if voters are more concerned about the crumbling state of Britain’s public services and the years of austerity under the Conservatives, then Labor could defy the opinions polls. Labor has relentlessly focused on the NHS and issues around social care. 

A further high danger for Johnson is tactical voting by pro-EU voters — a strategy that’s been urged on Britons by two former prime ministers, Labor’s Tony Blair and the Conservatives’ John Major, who argue Brexit is toxic for Britain. They have urged pro-EU Britons to back the candidate from either Labor or the Liberal Democrats most likely to defeat the Tories in their constituency. 

Ten percent of voters say they plan to vote tactically and the internet is full of helpful interactive maps to assist them. Johnson could technically be denied a majority on Thursday if just 41,000 people voted tactically in 36 out of 650 seats. But some pollsters say so far, the signs are that pro-Brexiters are uniting around the Conservatives, while pro-EU voters are split between opposition parties — and that is the way the Tories want it to remain. 
 

More than 70% of the African forest elephant species has been wiped out, primarily by poachers slaughtering them for their ivory.  Park rangers are on the front lines defending them. But in the Central African country of Gabon these park rangers, also known as eco-guards, aren’t going it alone. Now the U.S military is joining the fight by helping to train the rangers who protect the elephants. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb gives us an exclusive look at the counter-poaching effort in central Gabon.

U.S. lawmakers and military leaders sparred Wednesday over the U.S. decision in October to pull troops out of northern Syria amid the threat of a Turkish offensive. 
 
“The American handshake has to mean something,” Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat and former Defense Department official who has been outspoken against the U.S. move, told Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley. 
 
The U.S. decision to withdraw troops from the area cleared the way for NATO ally Turkey to invade a region of Syria controlled by another U.S. ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes Kurdish fighters denounced by Ankara as terrorists. 
 
Officials estimate that hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes because of the Turkish incursion. Kurdish fighters, who had been key in helping the U.S. fight the Islamic State terror group, were also left open to attack. 

Turkish buildup
 
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on U.S. military policy in Syria, Milley said Wednesday that he “personally recommended to pull out 28 special forces soldiers” from northern Syria “in the face of 15,000 Turks.” He said intelligence had shown considerable buildup of Turkish forces on the Syrian border since early August. 
 
“I’m not going to allow 28 American soldiers to be killed and slaughtered just to call someone’s bluff,” Milley fired back at Representative Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat and former Navy helicopter pilot.

Committee Chairman Adam Smith argued that the Turkish buildup seen by U.S. intelligence occurred only after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria in December 2018. At the time, Trump tweeted his intention to withdraw forces from northern Syria following a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Days later, on December 20, then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigned in protest. 
 
“Mr. Secretary, the only reason you are sitting here today is because General Mattis resigned almost exactly a year ago today on the basis of the president threatening this very decision,” Slotkin told Esper at the hearing. 

‘Turmoil’ seen
 
Esper said the United States had reduced its presence in Syria to between 500 and 600 troops. He said the situation in northern Syria had stabilized, but he added that the U.S. “expected turmoil” as Turkey moved Syrian refugees into the region. 
 
“My biggest concern with Syria and Turkey is actually Turkey-Russia,” Esper said, warning that Turkey had been “moving out of the NATO orbit.” 
 
“Turkey is holding up some actions in NATO right now to the detriment of the alliance,” Esper added. 
 
The northern Syria rift appears to have brought the NATO ally closer to Moscow, which Democratic Representative John Garamendi said was potentially aimed at the “heart” of the U.S. defense strategy to combat big powers. 
 
Under the Trump administration, the National Defense Strategy — the quadrennial guidance for planning, strategy, modernization and other aspects of the nation’s defense — shifted U.S. military policy to focus more on great-power competition, especially with China and Russia. 

 

Israel is on its way to a third general election in the span of a year as the leaders of the two biggest parties in parliament remain unable to bring together a governing majority.

Members of parliament gave preliminary approval to a dissolution measure Wednesday, and are expected to finalize the process through several other rounds of voting throughout the day. That would set a new election for March 2.

Voters cast ballots in April and September, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and former military chief Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party ended up nearly deadlocked with neither having enough seats for a majority.

After both elections, both party leaders were given a chance to try to form a coalition, but failed.

Recent opinion polls suggest the situation will be similar for the March election with support for the two parties remaining about the same.

Netanyahu and Gantz have blamed each other for the inability to find a solution. One possibility under discussion was an agreement between the parties to get together for a coalition with the position of prime minister changing sides on a rotating basis.

For now, Netanyahu, who is facing bribery and fraud charges that he denies, will remain in the role as a caretaker prime minister.
 

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday he will send a new regional trade agreement to the Senate immediately for ratification.
                   
The president suggested it would be just a formality because senators from all parties were present at the signing Tuesday with representatives of Canada and the United States and were in agreement.
                   
“There’s already agreement because they were consulted before the signing,” he said. “They were told what the agreement contained and there was a condition that nothing would be signed until they gave their consent.”
                   
The trade pact will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
                   
Lopez Obrador said that the agreement would benefit Mexico’s economy. Mexico had been the first country to agree to the new accord, but was waiting for it to overcome hurdles in the U.S. Congress, including Democratic concerns over labor protections.

The number of journalists imprisoned globally remains near a record high, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which identifies China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as the world’s largest jailers of reporters.

“For the fourth consecutive year, hundreds of journalists are imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammad bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media,” says

The Trump administration got bashing from its own countrymen during the 25th United Nations climate conference in Spain. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democratic presidential contender, former Secretary of State John Kerry, and actor Harrison Ford all criticized the administration for abandoning the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate.  As VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, speakers also commended young people around the world for standing up to protect the planet.

Formula 1 car racing will debut next year in Vietnam as the fast-growing host country tries to attract high-end tourism and its own moneyed citizens take an ever keener interest in sports.

A racing circuit is due for completion next month in the capital Hanoi, Formula 1 says on its website. In April, the international car racing event will hold the country’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix.

The race’s arrival in Vietnam, a country racked by widespread poverty and the aftershocks of war 40 years ago, shows that many people have the money as well as the interest to buy tickets and the goods sold by event sponsors, country analysts say.

Hosting Formula 1 races is also expected to stimulate more tourism.

“It’s probably one of the strategies of the government to increase value-added tourism and also to brand the tourism economy in a better way, and then of course Vietnam’s own more upper middle class population would be interested in these types of events,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at market research firm IHS Markit.

The Vietnam Grand Prix circuit will extend 5.6 kilometers, 1.5 kilometers of which will be straight. It will allow speeds of about 335 kilometers per hour.

Formula 1 keen on Vietnam

The race organizer spotted in Vietnam an increasingly market-driven economy experiencing a boom in tourism and a growing local population with a “large and young workforce as well as an increase in disposable income in recent years”, corporate communications head Liam Parker said.

“Hanoi is one of the most exciting cities in the world right now with such a rich history and an incredible future ahead of it,” Parker told VOA. “This is the perfect formula for Grand Prix racing and we believe this will become a real highlight of the F1 calendar.”

Between 2010 and 2018, the number of foreign tourists in Vietnam expanded from 5 million to more than 15 million.

Raising the inbound headcount

Vietnamese officials probably hope Formula 1 will draw more tourists, said Mark Thomas, executive consultant with OmniCom Experiential Group, a marketing firm with expertise in sports. The governments of host countries pay to host the races and build the racing infrastructure.

Vietnam, like China 15 years ago, is an “up-and-coming nation that wants to showcase itself to the world,” Thomas said.

“I sort of think it works for both sides,” he said. “The government gets what they want, which is a global sort of advertising platform for what they are and what they want to become, and Formula 1 and their owners get a nice check.”

Officials probably hope the races will lure high-spending tourists, Biswas said. Some companies would take clients to the races as well to show hospitality, he said.

The races evolved more than a century ago in Europe, were officially inaugurated in 1950 and are managed now by a federation in Paris. Organizers say the world television audience totals 490 million. Around Asia, Formula 1 holds other races in China, Japan and Singapore.

China breaks even on its Shanghai circuit by renting it out between races, Thomas said. Malaysia stopped hosting Formula 1 in 2018 after losing money over 17 years.

Vietnamese automaker VinFast will help the events in Hanoi as the title sponsor.

More money, attention to sports among Vietnamese

More than one-third of Vietnam’s 97 million people will be middle class or more by next year, the Boston Consulting Group forecasts. They’re living better mainly because a boom in export manufacturing has generated new jobs.

Soccer and basketball have already gained followings as people have the money to buy event tickets and goods sold by event sponsors. A Grand Prix ticket costs $30 to $312, depending on the exact event date and location of seats.

“Generally speaking, (the) sports economy is really starting to take root in Vietnam. People in Vietnam love certain sports, especially soccer and now they’re starting to like basketball,” said Frederick Burke, partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City.

“Vietnamese now have some leisure time and entertainment is really lacking, and people like to go to these games,” he said. “They do really well.”

Car racing will grab the most attention among expatriates and white-collar Vietnamese men, especially those who already like cars, said Phuong Hong, a Ho Chi Minh City travel sector businessperson. “The upper class of Vietnam, who care about car, about autos, surely they will like this,” she said.

Phuong herself hopes to make it to Hanoi for a Grand Prix.

Myanmar’s State Counsellor — the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi — appeared at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Tuesday to defend her government against accusations of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim community. The leader of Myanmar’s civilian government, Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest for fifteen years — but she is now defending the military that once imprisoned her. Henry Ridgwell reports.

A child prodigy from Belgium will enroll in a doctoral program in a U.S. university after his parents pulled him out of his Dutch college.

Laurent Simons, 9, will attend an unnamed U.S. college and study for a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, his parents told CNN Tuesday.

Simons was studying at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE). His parents wanted him to finish the three-year engineering program in 10 months, before his birthday on Dec. 26, so he could be the world’s first 9-year-old university graduate.

His parents rejected a TUE offer to let him graduate in mid-2020.

TUE said in a statement that it would not be feasible for Simons to complete the course before turning 10, while also developing “insight, creativity and critical analysis.”

It also warned against placing “excessive pressure on this 9-year-old student” who, it said, had “unprecedented talent.”

Alexander Simons, Laurent’s father, told CNN he and his wife withdrew their son from TUE because he had received an offer from an American school, and it would be impossible for him to split his time between the two schools.

“Sometimes, you have to make choices,” Alexander Simons told CNN. “If he lets it go, you never know if he will get that opportunity again.”

Had Laurent Simons graduated before his birthday, he would have unseated Michael Kearney, who graduated from the University of Alabama in 1984 at the age of 10.

Kearney became the world’s youngest college graduate, a mark recognized by the Guinness World Records.

Venite Bernard’s feet are bloodied and torn because, she said, she had no time to grab her sandals when she fled her shack with her youngest children as gangsters roamed the Haitian capital’s most notorious slum, shooting people in their homes.

Now the 47-year-old Bernard and her family are camped in the courtyard of the town hall of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, along with more than 200 others, fleeing an outbreak of violence that is part of what civic leaders say is the country’s worst lawlessness in more than a decade.

“Bandits entered the homes of some people and beat them, and they were shooting,” Bernard said through her tears, lying on a rug in the shade of a tree. “Everyone was running so I left as quickly as I could with the children.”

United Nations peacekeeping troops withdrew from Haiti in 2017 after 15 years, saying they had helped to re-establish law and order in the poorest country in the Americas, where nearly 60 percent of the population survives on less than $2.40 a day.

But that left a security vacuum that has been exacerbated over the past year by police forces being diverted to deal with protests against President Jovenel Moise.

“With limited resources, they have been unable to contain the activity of gangs as they might have wished,” said Serge Therriault, U.N. police commissioner in Haiti in an interview.

An economic downturn with ballooning inflation and a lack of investment in low income districts has also helped boost crime, turning them into no-go areas.

The situation – which diplomats fear represents a growing threat to regional stability that could have knock-on effects on migration and drugs and weapons trafficking – is causing alarm in international circles.

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on Haiti on Tuesday, its first in 20 years.

Moise’s critics say he has lost control of the country and should resign. The 51-year old says the situation is already calming down and he will carry out his full term.

Residents say gangs fight over territory where they extract “protection” fees and carry out drugs and arms trades.

Politicians across the spectrum are using the gangs to repress or foment dissent, providing them with weapons and impunity, according to human rights advocates and ordinary Haitians.

“When those in power pay them, the bandits stop the population from participating in the anti-government protests,” said Cite Soleil resident William Dorélus. “When they receive money from the opposition, they force people to take to the streets.”

Both opposition leaders and the government deny the accusations.

Impunity Breeds Crime

Moise said in an interview with Reuters last month he was working on strengthening Haiti’s police force and had revived a commission to get gang members to disarm.

“Allegations of unlawful violence will be investigated and responded to by our justice system as a matter of priority,” the presidency wrote in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.

Critics say, however, that under his watch, authorities have failed to prosecute gang leaders, effectively giving the criminals carte blanche and weakening the authority of police.

“Every time the police stop a gangster, there is always the intervention of some authority or another to free them,” said Pierre Esperance, who runs Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) that monitors rights violations.

Esperance, who addressed Tuesday’s Congress hearing, said more than 40 police officers had been killed this year, compared with 17 last year.

The most high-profile case of apparent impunity is the massacre a year ago in the neighborhood of La Saline, a hotbed of mobilization against Moise’s government, according to rights advocates.

Over two days, gangs killed at least 26 people while police failed to intervene, according to a U.N. report. Eyewitnesses cited in the report say they saw a senior government official with the gang members.

“These allegations raise the possibility of a complicity between the gangs and state authorities,” the U.N. wrote.

The government eventually fired the official, who denied any involvement. Neither he nor anyone else has been arrested or prosecuted over the massacre.

“This dossier (on the La Saline massacre) is in the hands of the justice system,” Moise told Reuters.

Lo Saline residents say they feel abandoned to their fate.

“We never received an official visit after these events,” said Marie Lourdes Corestan, 55, who said she found her 24-year old son’s corpse among a pile of mutilated bodies and whose house was burnt down. “The bandits said they would come back and not distinguish between children, women, and men.”

There have been six massacres since Moise took office, according to the RNDDH, the most recent one last month.

The U.N.’s Therriault said a recent waning of protests was allowing police officers to regain a grip on the overall security situation and Cite Soleil Mayor Jean Hislain Frederic said authorities hoped to convince people to return home next week.

But many, including Bernard, who has been unable to locate her two eldest sons, say they are too afraid.

“I hope my boys are not dead,” she said. “I wish for the end of this violence, and that God helps us to find somewhere to live.”

Guineans took to the streets en masse on Tuesday, in the latest round of mass anti-government protests to hit the fragile West African state.

Around one million people protested against embattled President Alpha Conde in the capital Conakry, opposition MP Fode Oussouba said.

AFP could not independently verify the figure, however.

The poor former French colony country of some 13 million has seen rolling demonstrations since mid-October over suspicions that the 81-year-old president is maneuvering to seek a third term in office.

At least 20 civilians have been killed since protests began, and one gendarme has also been killed.

Scores of people have also been arrested and detained in the unrest.

There were no reports of violence on Tuesday, however, which also saw thousands of people protest in regional cities in the center and north of the country, according to witnesses.

“Today, our thoughts are with the dead, with our friends who are in court,” said Abdourahmane Sanoh, the coordinator of the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), an alliance of opposition groups.

Sanoh was temporarily freed from prison last month, pending an appeal, after originally being jailed for his role in staging demonstrations.

Conde, whose second term ends next year, launched constitutional consultations in September, saying the former French colony’s basic law “concentrates corporate interests” and needed reform.

But his adversaries say the president will try to push through an amendment allowing him to seek a third term in elections due in 2020. He has neither confirmed nor denied his intentions.

 

Hong Kong police say they defused two large homemade bombs packed with nails on a college campus.

Police say bomb disposal officers rushed to Wah Yan College in  Wanchai district Tuesday after a janitor noticed the devices.

Monday evening’s discovery is the latest cache of weaponry found during six months of anti-government protests that have rocked the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.  

Alick McWhirter, senior bomb disposal officer told a news conference, “In addition to the large quantities of explosives, there was also fragmentation, shrapnel, in the form of nails, which had been added to both of the devices. Both of these devices have only one function, to kill and to maim people.”

The bombs were radio-controlled, to be triggered with mobile phones.  Authorities did not speculate publicly who put the bombs together and why.  

In July, police announced the seizure of about two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of TATP, or tri-acetone tri-peroxide, which has been used in militant attacks worldwide.

New results from the largest long-term study of brain development and children’s health raise provocative questions about obesity and brain function.

Does excess body weight somehow reduce brain regions that regulate planning and impulse control? Is obesity a result of that brain difference? Or are eating habits, lifestyle, family circumstances and genetics to blame?

Previous studies in children and adults have had conflicting results. The new research doesn’t settle the matter and outside experts cautioned that misinterpreting it could unfairly perpetuate weight stigma.

But an editorial published with the study Monday in JAMA Pediatrics called it an important addition to mounting evidence of a link between weight, brain structure and mental function.

If follow-up research confirms the findings, it could lead to new ways to prevent obesity that target improved brain function.

“We don’t know which direction these relationships go nor do they suggest that people with obesity are not as smart as people at a healthy weight,” said Dr. Eliana Perrin, a Duke University pediatrics professor who co-wrote the editorial.

The federally-funded study involved 3,190 U.S. children aged 9 and 10. They had height and weight measurements, MRI brain scans and computer-based tests of mental function including memory, language, reasoning and impulse control. Nearly 1,000 kids — almost 1 in 3 — were overweight or obese, similar to national statistics.

Researchers found differences in the heaviest children’s brain scans, slightly less volume in the brain region behind the forehead that controls what are known as “executive function” tasks. They include things like ability to plan, control impulses and handle multiple tasks simultaneously.

 The differences compared with normal-weight kids were subtle, said study author Scott Mackey, a neuroscientist at the University of Vermont.

The heaviest kids also had slightly worse scores on computer-based tests of executive function. But Mackey and lead author Jennifer Laurent, a University of Vermont obesity researcher, said it’s unknown whether any of the differences had any meaningful effect on children’s academic functioning or behavior. It’s unclear exactly how they are related to weight and Mackey said it’s likely other factors not measured in the study including physical activity and healthy nutrition play a far greater role.

Research in adults has linked obesity with low-level inflammation throughout the body that can damage blood vessels and may increase risks for heart disease and mental decline. Some studies have also found less brain volume in obese adults and researchers theorize that it could be from inflammation.

The new study raises the possibility that inflammatory changes affecting weight, brain structure and function might begin in childhood.

The latest research confirms previous studies in children and adults, but it leaves many questions unanswered, said Marci Gluck, a research psychologist at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, who was not part of the research.

“Executive function deficits and `intelligence’ are not the same,” Gluck said.

Obesity researcher Natasha Schvey of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences called the study impressive, but noted that eating habits and obesity are influenced by many factors, including metabolic and psychological differences.

“We know from a lot of really good research that obesity is not as much in an individual’s control as we think it is. People talk about willpower — that’s a very small part of the equation,” she said. “There are much bigger contributors to our weight and a lot of it is genetic. That’s not to say it’s immutable.”