Russia faces a four-year ban from global sporting events, including next year’s Tokyo Olympics, because of a continued failure to cooperate with anti-doping investigators.

The ban recommendation made Tuesday by the compliance panel of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), came after investigators found evidence of a further drug cover-up by Russian officials, who are alleged to have deleted and tampered with positive drugs tests from a database at a Moscow laboratory earlier this year.

The executive committee of the anti-doping agency will decide at a meeting in Paris scheduled for December 9 whether to approve the sanction, including stripping Russia of sporting events already awarded to the country “unless it is legally or practically impossible to do so.” Russian government officials would also be barred from attending events for the next four years and the country’s flag wouldn’t be flown at World sporting tournaments for the ban’s period.

Russia was banned from sending a team to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea but individual athletes from the country were allowed by the International Olympic Committee to compete, if they passed strenuous doping tests. The new ban recommendation is the latest twist in a saga of state-sponsored doping stretching back to before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and which is said to rival in its magnitude the extensive and notorious East German drug program of the Cold War years.

The expert panel’s advice would include banning Russia’s team from competing in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but Russia would still be able to host four games from the 2020 European Championship in St Petersburg because it is a regional football tournament and not a World competition.

US Anti-Doping Agency head Travis Tygart welcomed the sanctions recommendation saying it “recognized the egregious conduct of Russia toward clean athletes and now let’s all hope the Wada executive committee uses the same resolve to ensure clean athletes are not again sold down the river and actually supports this unfortunate but necessary outcome.”

Rusada was initially declared non-compliant in November 2015 after a report by sports lawyer and academic Richard McLaren found widespread evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russian track and field athletics. A subsequent report in 2016 commissioned by WADA accused Russia of operating a state-sponsored doping program for four years across the “vast majority” of summer and winter Olympic sports. Last year the country sport bodies were declared compliant after the release of data from its main Moscow anti-doping laboratory but data handed over in January proved to be “inauthentic” according to investigators.

The compliance panel says a forensic review found serious inconsistencies, saying investigators had uncovered “an extremely serious case of non-compliance with the requirement to provide an authentic copy of the Moscow data, with several aggravating features.”

More than 2000 samples supplied by the Moscow laboratory had been tampered with, the compliance panel says. The huge scale of Russian doping first came to light in 2015 when Grigory Rodchenkov, who for a decade was Russia’s anti-doping lab chief, fled to the U.S..

McLaren’s report confirmed the allegations made by Rodchenkov, concluding that more than a thousand Russian athletes had been doping up  between 2012 and 2015 and that Russian officials, the country’s sports ministry and Russia’s FSB security agency had conspired in a “cover-up that operated on an unprecedented scale.”

Russian officials say a four-year ban would be devastating and unfair, pointing to an acknowledgement by the compliance panel that aside from the alleged Moscow laboratory tampering Russian officials are being cooperative. Russian sport official Yuri Ganus told local media it would be a “tragedy,” if Russian athletes faced a suspension.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday ahead of the ban recommendation: “Our sports authorities have been in close contact with WADA and will continue cooperating with the body and international sports community.” He added: “No decisions have been made so far. You know that the Russian Federation provided all necessary information. Let’s wait for results and analyses of reports provided by the Russian side.”

In October Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an international forum that Russia was keen to overcome the doping controversies. “We want our athletes to be fully represented in international events where they can demonstrate their talent without any restrictions. We want them to become role models for amateur sports lovers and professionals, first of all for our young generation,” he said.

More than 60 doctors have written to British authorities asserting that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urgently needs medical treatment at a university hospital.

The doctors said in a letter published Monday that Assange suffers from psychological problems including depression as well as dental issues and a serious shoulder ailment.

Assange is in Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London in advance of an extradition hearing set for February. He is sought by the U.S. on espionage charges relating to his WikiLeaks work.

The letter was sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Dr. Lissa Johnson of Australia said an independent medical assessment is needed to determine if Assange is “medically fit” to face legal proceedings.

The letter was distributed by WikiLeaks.
 

Indiana University’s South Bend campus is home to 5,000 students  almost 10 percent of whom are international. For the past decade, the school has put on a Thanksgiving dinner to bring international students and Indiana residents together. Esha Sarai has more.

The Danish government has repatriated an 11-month-old boy after his mother, who was linked to the Islamic State terrorist group, was killed in the Syria conflict.

The child arrived in Copenhagen on Nov.  21 from Irbil in northern Iraq after a nearly nine-month effort by relatives and the Danish government, authorities say.

They also say the child, identified as Bay T, was being held at the Al-Hol refugee camp in northern Syria since March of this year, when his mother died.

Baby T’s grandfather, who could not be named, told VOA Somali that the child was now being treated at a hospital for vomiting and diarrhea.

“The boy has gone through a lot; he is a child without a mother, without a father, he needs a lot of assistance, and he is in a difficult condition.”

“He is the son of my late daughter,” said the grandfather during a telephone interview.

The boy’s mother left Denmark in October 2015 to join Islamic State. While in Syria, she met the father of her child, who also joined the terror group. The mother was killed in an airstrike, according to her father. Kurdish fighters rescued the child and brought him to the Al-Hol camp.

It is not clear what happened to the boy’s father, who had also joined Islamic State. According to the boy’s grandfather, the family was given conflicting accounts of the child’s father. At one time, the grandfather was told that the father was injured and had lost a leg and a hand. At another time, they also heard that he was killed.

The child’s parents were not Danish citizens, according to the relatives. The child’s mother traveled to Denmark in 2002 from Somalia, and went to Syria when she was 19. She was in the process of becoming a naturalized citizen when she traveled to Syria in 2015. It is not known which country the child’s father traveled from before heading to Syria.

“The Danish government has immensely helped us trace and bring him over,” said the grandfather.

“We traveled to Irbil on Tuesday last week along with my daughter, we brought him back on Thursday,” he said. “I’m in debt to the Danish government, which helped us with everything they could.”

In neighboring Germany, a 30-year old mother of three was returned from Syria over the weekend. The mother was only identified as Laura H., from Hesse state, who traveled to Syria in 2016 along with her husband, a U.S. citizen of Somali origin, according to the French news agency. The man was reportedly killed in Syria.

Laura H. may not have been the first adult IS member returned to Germany, according to authorities. The families of Somali women and men who went to Syria and have a social media network told VOA Somali that a woman of Somali origin was one of two female IS members returned to Germany in mid-November.

A family friend says the Somali woman is in the custody of authorities in Hesse state.

VOA Somali service’s Investigative Dossier program has obtained a list of 23 women and 34 children who are now being held at al-Hol camp in Syria. Their families want the Somali government to take them in.

Feature films on slavery have been part of Hollywood since the beginning of the film industry in United States. However, only recently, movies on slavery have been told from the perspective of the slaves, and now, with the film “Harriet” from the perspective of a female slave.  “Harriet”, the latest of antebellum dramas, focuses on Harriet Tubman a female runaway slave.  Tubman played a significant role in the so called “Underground Railroad”, a human network helping enslaved African – Americans to flee to free American states and Canada. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.

An international rights group on Monday demanded authorities in Afghanistan immediately release two local human rights defenders who exposed an alleged pedophile ring involved in the abuse of hundreds of school children.

In a statement, Amnesty International accused Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS), of “arbitrarily” detaining Mussa Mahmoudi and Ehsanullah Hamidi in the eastern Logar province where the abuses occurred.

The activists were on their way to meet with the European Union ambassador in Kabul last Thursday when NDS operatives rounded them up, said the group.

Neither the Afghan government nor the NDS have responded to the allegations.

“Rather than punishing them for speaking out against these horrific crimes, the authorities should praise them for their work and hold the suspected perpetrators accountable through fair trials and without recourse to the death penalty,” said Samira Hamidi, South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International

Speaking in Kabul, former President Hamid Karzai called for the immediate release of the human rights defenders, “if the NDS arrested them.”

Mahmoudi and Hamidi began receiving threats, including from local officials in Logar, on social media after they gave interviews to domestic and foreign media about the existence of the pedophile ring in the area, according to relatives.

The activists were part of a civil society investigation that uncovered more than 100 videos of the alleged abuse, asserting that some victims were murdered. The probe alleged that the ring included school teachers, headwaters and provincial officials.

Local officials and some Afghan lawmakers have rejected and denounced the allegations as propaganda.

Afghan Education Minister Mirwais Balkhi tweeted last week that he had ordered an urgent investigation into the allegations after meeting provincial authorities “to assess and study the accusations.”

Amnesty decried the targeting of human rights defenders in Afghanistan.

“Faced with threats from both the state and non-state actors, they are operating in some of the most hazardous conditions anywhere in the world. There is impunity for attacks on these brave defenders, who have little to no protection,” the group said.

Hong Kong pro-democracy forces appear headed for a landslide victory in local elections that saw record turnout, delivering a stunning rebuke to Beijing.

Early voting results Monday showed pro-democracy candidates winning nearly every seat they contested in Hong Kong’s 18 district councils.

If the trend continues, it would be a major symbolic blow to pro-China forces that dominate virtually all levels of Hong Kong’s politics.

It is the latest evidence of continued public support for a five-month-old pro-democracy movement that has become increasingly aggressive.

“Hong Kongers have spoken out, loud and clear. The international community must acknowledge that, almost six months in, public opinion has NOT turned against the movement,” student activist Joshua Wong said on Twitter.

The vote will not significantly change the balance of power in Hong Kong’s quasi-democratic political system. District council members have no power to pass legislation; they deal mainly with hyperlocal issues, such as noise complaints and bus stop locations.

However, the district council vote is seen as one of the most reliable indicators of public opinion, since it is the only fully democratic election in Hong Kong.

Massive turnout

Nearly 3 million people voted in the election — a record high for Hong Kong, and more than double the turnout of the previous district council election, in 2015.

Voters formed long lines that snaked around city blocks outside polling stations across the territory, many waiting over an hour to vote.

“This amount of people I’ve never seen. There are so many people,” said Felix, who works in the real estate industry and voted in the central business district.

By nighttime, most of the long lines at voting stations had tapered off, but nearby sidewalks remained filled with candidates and their supporters who held signs and chanted slogans in an attempt to persuade passersby to cast last-minute votes.
 
“I’m tired, but I think it’s more important to fight,” said Elvis Yam, who waited in line for an hour to vote in the morning and then volunteered to hold a campaign sign for a pro-democracy candidate in the University District.

 
Mr. Ma, a voter in the South Horizons West constituency, said he sees the election as a continuation of the protest movement. “Many would like to have a change. So this election is very important,” he said.
 
Police promised a heavy security presence at voting locations. But outside many polling stations, there was no visible police presence. At others, teams of riot police waited in nearby vans. There were no reports of major clashes.

Hong Kong has seen five months of pro-democracy protests. The protests have escalated in recent weeks, with smaller groups of hard-core protesters engaging in fierce clashes with police.

The win “very clearly” shows the public is in support of the movement, says Ma Ngok, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“This will, I think, give (Hong Kong) much better support internationally, and also create much more pressure for the Hong Kong government to respond to the demands of the protest,” Ma said.

Wider impact?

Even though district councils have little power, the vote could affect how the territory’s more influential Legislative Council and chief executive are selected in the future.

District councilors are able to select a small number of people to the 1,200-member election committee that chooses Hong Kong’s chief executive. They also have the ability to select or run for seats in the Legislative Council.

“That’s a big deal,” said Emily Lau, a former Legislative Council member and prominent member of the pro-democracy camp. “Because of this constitutional linkage, it makes the significance of the district council much bigger than its powers show you.”
 
Hong Kong saw a major surge in voter registration, particularly among young people. Nearly 386,000 people have registered to vote in the past year — the most since at least 2003.

Many Hong Kongers are concerned about what they see as an erosion of the “one country, two systems” policy that Beijing has used to govern Hong Kong since it was returned by Britain in 1997.

Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Congressional committee investigating President Donald Trump, refused to answer questions Sunday as to whether he met with an former Ukrainian official to gather information on the son of former vice president Joe Biden.

A lawyer representing Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, has told multiple news outlets since Friday that Nunes met Ukraine’s former top prosecutor Victor Shokin in Vienna in 2018.

The claim is controversial because Nunes did not disclose any such meeting while leading the Republican defense of President Donald Trump during related impeachment hearings.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday morning, Nunes was asked point blank by the Fox news anchor whether he had met with Shokin. The congressman replied that he wanted to answer questions but could not do so “right now.”

Nunes has repeatedly denounced the impeachment proceedings, which are focused on whether Trump inappropriately pressured Ukraine to open investigations, including one that could prove embarrassing to Biden, a top contender for the Democratic Party nomination to run against Trump next year.

Democrats have said that if Parnas’ claim proves credible, Nunes could face an ethics investigation. Parnas, under indictment regarding suspect political contributions, is seeking immunity to testify to the House Intelligence Committee which is conducting the inquiry.

Congress will not convene again until Dec. 3. But speaking on CNN Sunday morning, committee Chairman Adam Schiff said that more depositions and hearings related to the impeachment probe are possible.

The timeline for an impeachment vote in the U.S. House is still unclear. Schiff’s committee still must write a report based on its investigation so far, which will be delivered to the Judiciary Committee. The latter committee would then prepare articles of impeachment for a vote by the full House.

Democrats, who control a majority of seats in the House, can impeach the president with a simple majority vote. At that point, a trial must be held in the Senate, where it would take a two-thirds majority to remove Trump from office.  No Republicans in either chamber have indicated they will support the impeachment effort.

Trump denounced the hearings on Twitter Sunday, claiming that polls “have now turned very strongly against Impeachment, especially in swing states.”

Polls have now turned very strongly against Impeachment, especially in swing states. 75% to 25%. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2019

He did not indicate what polls he was referring to, but the latest averaging of polls shows public opinion is fairly evenly split on whether Trump should be impeached.

Twelve witnesses testified in Congress over the last two weeks, providing new details on allegations that Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate domestic political rival Joe Biden and his son.
 
Witnesses told lawmakers that  Giuliani played a key role in pressing for Ukrainian officials to announce an investigation.

“We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So, we followed the president’s orders,” Gordon Sondland, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, testified Wednesday.

Michael Bloomberg is running for president of the United States.

The former New York City mayor, one of the richest men in the world, formally joined the Democratic presidential field on Sunday. The 77-year-old former Republican announced his plans on a campaign website.

He wrote: “I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America.”

Bloomberg’s entrance, just 10 weeks before primary voting begins, reflects his concerns that the current slate of candidates is not well-positioned to defeat Trump.

Bloomberg’s massive investments in Democratic priorities like climate change and gun control, backed by his extraordinary personal wealth, could make him a force. He’s already reserved more than $30 million in television ads across several states, although he’s bypassing the first four on the primary calendar.

With billions in federal aid and seats in Congress at stake, some states are dragging their feet in carrying out one of the Census Bureau’s chief recommendations for making sure everyone is counted during the 2020 census. 

Five states — Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas — have not set up “complete count committees” that would create public awareness campaigns to encourage people to fill out the questionnaires. 

In some of those states, politicians argued that a statewide body would be unnecessary, since local committees, cities and nonprofit organizations are already working to publicize the census. In others, state leaders didn’t see any urgency to act. 

The once-a-decade count of the U.S. population starts in January in a remote area of Alaska. The rest of the nation takes part starting in the spring. 

‘The clock is ticking’

“We are encouraging others to join in,” Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said this month. “The clock is ticking, and the time to join is now.” 

Six states — Iowa, Maine, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin — only got on board in the past several weeks. 

Officials say the committees can separate census winners from losers. 

“Complete count committees are extremely effective,” said Albert Fontenot, an associate director at the Census Bureau. “It’s in the states’ interests in that they get a funding flow and congressional seats.” 

Of the holdout states, all but Louisiana have Republican governors. 

In Texas, a measure to create a committee died in the GOP-dominated Legislature earlier this year, even though the second most populous state has the most to gain from the census — up to three congressional seats. 

Some Texas lawmakers were worried about losing their seats during redistricting if population surges favoring Democrats were found in urban and suburban areas, said Luis Figueroa, legislative and policy director at the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin. 

Also, at the time, the Trump administration was pushing to add a citizenship question to the form, and some lawmakers didn’t want to take a stand on the issue by promoting the census, he said. The U.S. Supreme Court later blocked the question. 

Spending varies

Twenty-six state governments are appropriating nearly $350 million to reach people and get them to respond to the census. The amounts range from California’s record $187 million to Montana’s $100,000, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. New York City is committing $40 million. 

States led by Democrats have spent more per capita. Of the 11 states spending at least $1 per resident, all but North Dakota have Democratic governors, according to an Associated Press analysis. 

California, which stands to lose a seat in Congress, is spending $4.73 per person, using the money to target certain ethnic communities, provide educational materials to schools and identify community leaders who can personally encourage participation in the most populous state. 

Spending on outreach offers a great return on investment, said Ditas Katague, director of the California Complete Count-Census 2020 Office. 

“You have to look at how many programs will suffer and how much money we will lose,” Katague said. 

In 2000, when California spent $24 million, 76 percent of residents returned the questionnaires by mail, outstripping the national average. In 2010, in the aftermath of the recession and budget cuts, California spent only $2 million, and the mail response rate dropped to 73 percent, below the national average. 

Florida bills failed

In Florida, the third most populous state, bills establishing a statewide committee died in the GOP-controlled legislature. With an influx from such places as Puerto Rico and Venezuela, Florida has gained about 2.5 million people since 2010 and could pick up two more congressional seats. 

A spokeswoman for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he is still reviewing what action should be taken to help get a full head count. “The governor takes the census seriously,” spokeswoman Helen Ferre said. 

In Nebraska, Republican Governor Pete Ricketts vetoed a bill to create a complete count committee, saying that local committees are already doing the work and that the legislation would have given a University of Nebraska program authority to create the panel without guidance from the state. 

The number of congressional seats for Nebraska is expected to remain unchanged. 

Still, “ultimately I think this will be a loss for Nebraska, especially in terms of receiving federal funds,” said state Senator Matt Hansen, a Democrat from Lincoln who sponsored the legislation. “Specifically, I am concerned children, racial and ethnic minority populations, homeless persons, and those who live in rural and isolated areas will be undercounted.” 

Read more at https://projects.voanews.com/mosul-library/?break-cache-and-show-edits

Iraqi security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters Saturday, killing two people in a third day of fierce clashes in central Baghdad, security and hospital officials said. 
 
Two protesters were struck with rubber bullets and died instantly and over 20 others were wounded in the fighting on Rasheed Street, a famous avenue known for its old crumbling architecture and now littered with rubble from days of violence. Sixteen people have died and over 100 have been wounded in the renewed clashes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. 
 
At least 342 protesters have died in Iraq’s massive protests, which started October 1 when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to decry corruption and lack of services despite Iraq’s oil wealth. 
 
Separately, Iraq’s parliament failed to hold a session Saturday because of a lack of a quorum. Lawmakers were supposed to read reform bills introduced to placate protesters. The next session was postponed until Monday.  

The fighting has centered on Rasheed Street and started Thursday when protesters tried to dismantle a security forces barricade on the street, which leads to Ahrar Bridge, a span over the Tigris River that has been a repeated flashpoint. Security forces responded with tear gas and live ammunition. 
 
The violence took off again Friday afternoon. Live rounds and tear gas canisters were fired by security forces from behind a concrete barrier on Rasheed Street. 
 
On Saturday, fighting picked up in the late afternoon and again in the evening, with security forces firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds. 
 
Protesters have occupied part of three bridges — Ahrar, Jumhuriya and Sinak — in a standoff with security forces. The bridges lead to the fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government. 

Nkeze wasn’t home when Cameroonian militants came knocking, probably to deliver their signature ultimatum to join their separatist movement or have his writing arm cut off. 
 
The 24-year-old economics student escaped to Douala, the country’s largest city, only to learn that the government wanted to arrest him for participating in a university protest. He then flew to Ecuador and traveled through eight countries to the U.S. border with Mexico, including a trek through Panamanian jungle where he saw corpses and refugees crying for shelter, food and water. 
 
In his quest to settle with relatives in Houston, Nkeze now faces a potentially insurmountable obstacle: a new American ban that forbids anyone who travels through another country to the U.S.-Mexico border from applying for asylum there. 

‘Protected’ in U.S.
 
“When you find yourself on U.S. soil, you are well-protected,” Nkeze said, sounding upbeat as he waited in Tijuana for a chance to make his case. “You are protected by human rights.” He spoke to The Associated Press on the condition that he be identified only by his last name because of safety concerns. 
 
The U.S. is increasingly aligning itself with wealthy countries in Europe and elsewhere to make asylum a more distant prospect. 
 
On Thursday, American authorities sent a Honduran man from El Paso, Texas, to Guatemala. It marked the first time the U.S. government directed an asylum-seeker back to that country under the new policy, which gave him an option to file a claim there. He decided against filing a claim and returned to Honduras, according to Guatemala’s foreign ministry. 
 
Asylum was once almost an afterthought, until an unprecedented surge of migrants made the United States the world’s top destination in 2017, according to the U.N. refugee agency. The U.S. held its leading position last year, followed by Peru, Germany, France and Turkey. 
 
Nearly half of the roughly 1 million cases in backlogged U.S. immigration courts are asylum claims, with most from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. 

U.S. is ‘full,’ Trump says
 
Trump has called asylum “a scam” and declared that the country is “full.” In nine months, the administration returned more than 55,000 asylum-seekers to Mexico to wait for their cases to wind through U.S. courts. Another asylum ban on anyone who crosses the border illegally from Mexico is temporarily blocked in court. 
 
It’s unclear how the ban will be rolled out. 
 
The U.S. Homeland Security Department did not comment on Thursday’s initial flight, which got a bare-bones announcement from Guatemala’s foreign ministry. The U.S. has struck agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras that aim to send back asylum-seekers who pass through their countries, but the Central American nations are woefully unprepared to accept large numbers. 
 
The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that the ban is at odds with international law and “could result in the transfer of highly vulnerable individuals to countries where they may face life-threatening dangers.” 
 
Asylum is designed for people fleeing persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or membership in a social group. It isn’t intended for people who migrate for economic reasons, but many consider it their best hope of escaping poverty and violence. 

The U.S. isn’t alone in asking other countries to block migrants. After about 1 million refugees traveled through Turkey and Greece to seek safety in Europe, the European Union agreed in 2016 to pay Turkey billions of euros to keep them in refugee camps. 
 
The EU has also funded the Libyan Coast Guard to stop Africans from crossing the Mediterranean, where thousands have drowned. Libyan forces have kept refugees in squalid conditions and inflicted torture. 
 
Since 2001, Australia has intermittently blocked boats from Asia and detained asylum-seekers on Christmas Island, a tiny Australian territory, or sent them to Papua New Guinea and Nauru, an island nation of 10,000 people. Australia pays detention costs. 

Number sharply cut
 
The U.S. long resettled more refugees than any other country, raising its ceiling to 110,000 during President Barack Obama’s last year in office. That practice has been sharply curtailed since Trump took office, with the country planning to resettle no more than 18,000 refugees in 2020. 
 
“There’s this race to the bottom around the world, and governments are looking to each other and trying to figure out what’s the harshest policy they can get away with,” said David FitzGerald, a sociology professor at University of California-San Diego and author of “Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum-seekers.” 
 
Cameroonians hoping to follow Nkeze’s path face mounting obstacles. Ecuador, the main gateway from Europe, began requiring visas for Cameroonians and 10 other nationalities in August, including six in Africa. Under heavy pressure from Trump, Mexico is bottling up Cameroonians and other U.S.-bound asylum-seekers near its southern border with Guatemala. 
 
Nkeze walked through Panama’s remote, mostly roadless Darien Gap in less than four days on his way to the U.S. After giving his tent and raincoat to a woman who was clinging to life, he slept on a stone and prayed for clear skies and morning light. Only about a dozen in his group of 40 men could keep up in a race to a refugee camp on the other side of the jungle. 
 
When his 20-day transit permit in Mexico expired, Nkeze helped a friend at a Tijuana juice factory for a cut of his earnings and lived at a no-frills hotel in the city’s red-light district. 

Never easy
 
Even before the ban, asylum was difficult to get in the U.S. Judges granted only 21% of cases, or 13,248 out of 62,382, in the 2018 fiscal year. Nkeze can also ask for two variations of asylum, but they are even harder to obtain, with 3% succeeding under “withholding of removal” law and only 2% under the U.N. Convention Against Torture. 
 
“They essentially want you to bring a note from your torturer before they are willing to let you stay in the U.S,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell University. 
 
Nkeze may have caught a break when a federal judge in San Diego ruled Tuesday that anyone who appeared at a U.S. border crossing before the ban was announced July 16 and waited for their names to be called should be exempt. 
 
He waited for five months in Tijuana for his turn on a list of nearly 9,000 people seeking asylum at a San Diego border crossing. When his name was finally called November 12, he wore a Mexican flag pin on the chest of his jacket as Mexican authorities escorted him to U.S. border inspectors. He said it was a show of appreciation. 
 
He was immediately taken into immigration custody and is being held in an Arizona detention center. 

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence landed in Iraq on Saturday to visit U.S. troops and was set to meet Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a source in the premier’s office said.

Pence visited Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq where U.S. troops are stationed. The Iraqi government source gave no further details.

Cambodia this week reiterated its support for China’s attempts to quell violent protests in Hong Kong, citing its adherence to the “One China” policy.

Protesters and police have clashed for months in the semi-autonomous region, initially sparked by opposition to legislation that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong residents to mainland China. More recently, protests have adopted a more strident pro-democracy tone, rejecting communist China’s influence over the economic hub.

Speaking with VOA Khmer, Cambodian government spokesperson Phay Siphan said Cambodia sides with Beijing in its efforts to end the strife.

“The Royal Government of Cambodia has stated many times that it is important we respect the One China policy,” he said, adding that the kingdom views unrest in Hong Kong as an internal Chinese matter.

Cambodia’s stance has drawn increasing scrutiny as protests intensify in Hong Kong, highlighted by a recent standoff between student protesters and security officials at the Hong Kong Baptist University, which saw the campus shrouded in tear gas and smoke from Molotov cocktails.

Phay Siphan signaled that nothing has changed from Cambodia’s point of view. 

“We classify Hong Kong as the territory of China and that there should not or must not be interference from others for any reason at all,” he said.

Similar statements of support

On the issue of noninterference, China made similar comments in support of Cambodia during Phnom Penh’s crackdown on the country’s political opposition, NGOs and media organizations starting in 2017.

In August, Cambodia first issued a statement supporting China’s effort to quell protests in Hong Kong. In response, China’s embassy in Phnom Penh released a Khmer-language statement thanking Cambodia for its support on a sensitive and divisive issue.

Where does US stand?

Earlier this week, the U.S. Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act that requires an annual review of Hong Kong’s trade status and sanctions for officials involved in human rights abuses. Another bill would prohibit the sale of nonlethal munitions to Hong Kong.

White House officials initially indicated President Donald Trump would sign the bills into law. Friday, however, Trump gave mixed signals on what he intends to do.

“We have to stand with Hong Kong, but I’m also standing with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping],” Trump said on Fox News.

The bills have elicited strong reactions from Chinese state media, with the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times labeling it the “Support Hong Kong Violence Act.” The Chinese government and state media have accused the U.S. of inciting unrest in Hong Kong.

How much sway does US have?

In Cambodia, Phay Siphan weighed in on the U.S. legislation, saying the bills would have little sway over Beijing.

“I see the world order today and the United States does not have influence on the issue of Chinese sovereignty at all,” he said.

Chheang Vannarith, an analyst with the Asia Vision Institute in Cambodia, echoed Beijing’s position.

“The interference of the United States has been the cause of prolonging the situation and making it increasingly complicated,” he said. “Without foreign interference, the situation might have been in control.”

By contrast, Cambodia-based political analyst Lao Monghay said the U.S. has consistently sided with democratic movements across the world.

American advocacy, he said, “is a weapon to resist control by the Chinese system, be it in Hong Kong, other countries, and the world.”

Hul Reaksmey of VOA Khmer contributed to this report.

U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated peace negotiations with the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan are back on track and vowed again to withdraw American troops from the country.

“You know we’re pulling way down in Afghanistan. We’re working on an agreement now with the Taliban. Let’s see what happens,” Trump told Fox News Friday in a telephone call to the program “Fox and Friends.” He did not elaborate further.

Prisoner swap

Trump’s remarks followed Monday’s successful prisoner swap that freed an American and an Australian professor in exchange for the release of three high-ranking insurgent prisoners by the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Additionally, the Taliban also released 10 Afghan soldiers as a “goodwill gesture.”

It was widely thought that the release of American Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, who had been held hostage since August 2016, could lead to a resumption of U.S.-Taliban negotiations.

“Let’s hope this leads to more good things on the peace front like a cease-fire that will help end this long war,” Trump tweeted Tuesday while praising the release of the Western hostages.

There was no immediate reaction from the Taliban as to whether their stalled talks with the U.S. have resumed.

September talks

Trump abruptly called off the yearlong dialogue in early September, citing a string of Taliban attacks in Kabul that killed among others an American soldier. Trump defended his decision Friday. 

“The last time I was supposed to have an agreement, then they (Taliban) thought when they came over, they thought it would be good to kill people so they could negotiate from a position of strength,” Trump explained.

At the time when Washington suspended the talks with the Taliban, the two adversaries in the 18-year-old Afghan war had come close to signing an agreement to set the stage for an American military drawdown in return for insurgent counterterrorism guarantees and commitments to enter into intra-Afghan peace talks.

Chief U.S. peace negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Friday he was hopeful the prisoner swap would lead to “a reduction in violence and rapid progress” toward a political settlement involving the Afghan government, the Taliban and other Afghan leaders.

“The Afghan people yearn for peace and security, and we stand with them,” tweeted the Afghan-born American diplomat.

However, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen earlier this week rejected as untrue reports that his group had agreed to engage in direct negotiations with the Afghan government in the wake of the successful prisoner swap.

The Taliban remains strongly opposed to any peace talks with the Kabul administration, dismissing it as an American puppet.

California is increasing business tax rates on legal marijuana, a move that stunned struggling companies that have been pleading with the state to do just the opposite.

Hefty marijuana taxes that can approach 50 percent in some communities have been blamed for pushing shoppers into California’s tax-free illegal market, which is thriving. Industry analysts estimate that $3 are spent in the illegal market for every $1 in the legal one.

The California Cannabis Industry Association said in a statement that its members are “stunned and outraged.”

The group said the higher taxes that will take effect Jan. 1 will make it even worse for a legal industry struggling under the weight of heavy regulation and fees, local bans on pot sales and growing and a booming underground marketplace.

Illicit market

“Widening the price … gap between illicit and regulated products will further drive consumers to the illicit market at a time when illicit products are demonstrably putting people’s lives at risk,” the group said, referring to the national vaping health crisis.

Los Angeles dispensary owner Jerred Kiloh, who heads the United Cannabis Business Association, said the increased levies added to the heavily taxed market “seems like a slap in the face.”

The changes involve taxes paid by legal businesses, which ultimately are passed along to consumers at the retail counter.

Josh Drayton of the cannabis association predicted that an eighth-ounce purchase of marijuana buds, typically priced around $40 to $45, would be pushed up to $50 or more in the new year.

For consumers, “ultimately, they’ll feel that at the register,” Drayton said.

Mark-up rate

A major change involves what’s known as the mark-up rate, which is used when calculating taxes in certain business transactions, such as when a retailer purchases wholesale cannabis that will in turn be sold to consumers. The mark-up rate is being pushed up more than 30 percent from its current mark.

Casey Wells, a spokesman for the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, said in a statement that the new rate was determined after the agency analyzed thousands of transactions in California’s computerized marijuana-tracking system.

Separately, cultivation tax rates are being increased by inflation, as required by law. For example, the tax on an ounce of dry buds will climb to $9.65 from $9.25, an increase of just more than 4 percent.

Illegal competition

Last week, the state’s top cannabis regulator, Lori Ajax, told an industry conference that the legal marketplace can expect more strain and turbulence for at least a couple of years as it deals with sustained competition from illegal sales, industry layoffs and fallout from a national vaping crisis.

California Assemblyman Rob Bonta said in a statement that the state should be cutting marijuana taxes to encourage more businesses to move into the regulated market.

“This short-sighted move ignores the realities that licensed businesses are at the breaking point, with many struggling to survive,” the Oakland Democrat said.

An FBI lawyer is suspected of altering a document related to surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, a person familiar with the situation said Friday.

President Donald Trump, who has long attacked as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign, immediately touted news reports about the allegations to assert that the FBI had tried to “overthrow the presidency.”

The allegation is part of a Justice Department inspector general investigation into the early days of the FBI’s Russia probe, which was ultimately taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller and resulted in charges against six Trump associates and more than two dozen Russians accused of interfering in the election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on Dec. 9. Witnesses in the last two weeks have been invited in to see draft sections of that document.

The release of the inspector general report is likely to revive debate about the investigation that has shadowed Trump’s presidency since the beginning. It is centered in part on the FBI’s use of a secret surveillance warrant to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“This was spying on my campaign — something that has never been done in the history of our country,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Friday. “They tried to overthrow the presidency.”

The allegation against the lawyer was first reported by CNN. The Washington Post subsequently reported that the conduct of the FBI employee didn’t alter Horowitz’s finding that the surveillance application of Page had a proper legal and factual basis, an official told the Post, which said the lawyer was forced out.

A person familiar with the case who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to AP only on the condition of anonymity confirmed the allegation. Spokespeople for the FBI and the inspector general declined to comment Friday.

The FBI obtained a secret surveillance warrant in 2016 to monitor the communications of Page, who was never charged in the Russia investigation or accused of wrongdoing. The warrant, which was renewed several times and approved by different judges in 2016 and early 2017, has been one of the most contentious elements of the Russia probe and was the subject of dueling memos last year issued by Democrats and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee.

Republicans have long attacked the credibility of the warrant application since it cited information derived from a dossier of opposition research compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy whose work was financed by Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

“They got my warrant — a fraudulent warrant, I believe — to spy on myself as a way of getting into the Trump campaign,” Page said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox’s “Mornings with Maria” “There has been a continued cover”-up to this day. We still don’t have the truth, but hopefully, we’ll get that soon.”

FBI Director Chris Wray has told Congress that he did not consider the FBI surveillance to be “spying” and that he has no evidence the FBI illegally monitored Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. Wray said he would not describe the FBI’s surveillance as “spying” if it’s following “investigative policies and procedures.”

Attorney General William Barr has said he believed “spying” did occur, but he also made clear at a Senate hearing earlier this year that he had no specific evidence that any surveillance was illegal or improper. Barr has appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate how intelligence was collected, and that probe has since become criminal in nature, a person familiar with the matter has said.

But Trump insists that members of the Obama administration “at the highest levels” were spying on his 2016 campaign. “Personally, I think it goes all the way. … I think this goes to the highest level,” he said in the Fox interview. “I hate to say it. I think it’s a disgrace. They thought I was going to win and they said, ‘How can we stop him?’”

President Donald Trump appeared to open the door on Friday for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to run for an open Senate seat in his home state of Kansas.

“He came to me and said ‘Look, I’d rather stay where I am,’ but he loves Kansas, he loves the people of Kansas,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” “If he thought there was a chance of losing that seat, I think he would do that and he would win in a landslide because they love him in Kansas.”

Many Republicans see Pompeo as their best candidate for preventing the race from becoming competitive in Kansas, where a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate seat since 1932. And talk about his possible run has only intensified as impeachment hearings into Trump’s engagement with Ukraine have scrutinized the State Department.

Pompeo has said he’ll remain secretary of state as long as Trump will have him. Asked if he will push Pompeo to run, Trump was noncommittal.

“Mike has done an incredible job … Mike graduated No. 1 at Harvard Law, No. 1 at West Point. He’s an incredible guy, doing a great job in a very complicated world. Doing a great job as secretary of state. Mike would win easily in Kansas. Great state, and it’s a Trump state. He’d win easily,” Trump said.

Pompeo has given no signal that he intends to leave his current job anytime soon, and aides say he has diplomatic travel planned through at least the end of January. En route to Brussels on Tuesday, Pompeo suggested to reporters accompanying him that he would be returning to the city several more times as secretary of state.

“He is 100% focused on being President Trump’s secretary of state,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

On Wednesday, Pompeo brushed off more questions about the impeachment inquiry and dismissed speculation about how long he’ll stay in the Trump administration. Pompeo met with NATO’s secretary general, while lawmakers heard testimony from Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that he kept Pompeo informed of efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
 

Cuba has publicly laid out the rules governing the extensive, longstanding surveillance and undercover investigation of the island’s 11 million people.

A new decree approved by President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Oct. 8 and made public this week says prosecutors can approve eavesdropping and surveillance of any form of communication, without consulting a judge as required in many other Latin American countries. 

The law also creates official legal roles for informants, undercover investigators and sting operations.

The decree is intended to “raise the effectiveness of the prevention of and fight against crime,” according to the declaration in Cuba’s register of new laws and regulations.

Cuba has been updating its laws to conform with a new constitution approved in February, which requires legal approval for surveillance.

The country’s powerful intelligence and security agencies have for decades maintained widespread surveillance of Cuban society through eavesdropping of all types and networks of informants and undercover agents, but their role has never been so publicly codified.

The decree describes a variety of roles: agents of the Interior Ministry authorized to carry out undercover investigations; cooperating witnesses who provide information in exchange for lenient treatment, and sting operations in which illegal goods are allowed to move under police surveillance.

The law allows interception of telephone calls, direct recording of voices, shadowing and video recording of suspects and covert access to computer systems.

Unlike Cuba, many countries including Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Chile and Bolivia require a judge to approve surveillance operations.