Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha met the French and U.S. ambassadors on Monday after his house arrest was lifted, although he remains charged with treason and is banned from politics and leaving the country.

U.S. Ambassador W. Patrick Murphy praised Sokha’s release and urged the government to also free dozens of others who have been jailed in a crackdown by the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Sokha’s house arrest was lifted as the European Union considers whether to cut preferential trade terms with Cambodia after a crackdown by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled with an iron grip for more than three decades.

It also came days after self-exiled opposition party founder Sam Rainsy increased public scrutiny on Hun Sen in a high-profile return to the region from Paris. He had said he would go to Cambodia despite facing arrest, but stopped in Malaysia.

Cambodian authorities have arrested about 50 of Sokha’s banned opposition party supporters and other activists this year, accusing them of plotting a coup to overthrow Hun Sen.

U.S. envoy Murphy said it was a “source of joy” to meet Sokha, 66, who was arrested on treason charges in 2017 shortly before his Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved by the Supreme Court in the run-up to last year’s general election.

Hun Sen’s ruling party went on to win every seat in parliament in the vote.

“I regret that his liberties have been denied these past two years,” Murphy told reporters after meeting Sokha, calling for the government to drop the charges and restore the opposition leader’s political freedom.

He also raised the cases of dozens of others arrested in a sweeping crackdown.

“We urge that they be freed, that they be allowed whether they are inside the country or outside the country, to participate, so that their voices can be heard,” he said.

Earlier, Sokha met French Ambassador Eva Nguyen Binh. The two made no statement after the meeting.

Sokha did not speak to reporters, saying he was not sure if the terms of his release by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Sunday allowed him to speak in public.

The crackdown on Cambodia’s opposition prompted the European Union to reconsider trade preferences granted under an “Everything But Arms (EBA) trade program for least-developed countries.

It is due to receive a preliminary determination on Tuesday on the EBA and Cambodia’s human rights situation.

The EU accounts for more than one-third of Cambodia’s exports, including garments, footwear and bicycles.

A Hong Kong policeman shot a masked protester in the torso on Monday morning, igniting clashes across the city and renewed fury towards the force as crowds took to the streets to block roads and hurl insults at officers.

The shooting, which was broadcast live on Facebook, is the latest escalation in more than five months of pro-democracy protests that have engulfed the international financial hub.

Footage showed a police officer drawing a pistol in the district of Sai Wan Ho as he tried to detain a masked person at a junction that had been blocked by protesters.

Another unarmed masked individual then approached the officer and was shot, quickly falling to the ground.

Seconds later, two more live rounds were fired as the officer scuffled with another masked protester who fell on the floor. Both were detained by officers.

A pool of blood could be seen near the first man whose body initially appeared limp, although he was later filmed conscious and even trying to make a run for it.

The second man was conscious, shouting his name to reporters as he was handcuffed.

Hong Kong police said one person was struck by a bullet while hospital authorities said a 21-year-old man was admitted with a gunshot wound.

Commuter chaos 

The semi-autonomous Chinese city has been upended by 24 consecutive weeks of huge and increasingly violent rallies, but Beijing has refused to give in to a movement calling for greater democratic rights and police accountability.

Monday’s shooting has only added to the tinderbox atmosphere.

“I don’t understand why the police has to use that kind of brutality to hurt innocent people. I think it’s just out of sense, out of control,” a 22-year-old IT worker, who gave her surname Chan, told AFP as she joined angry crowds in Sai Wan Ho after the shooting.

The city was already reeling from the death on Friday of a 22-year-old student who succumbed to injuries sustained from a fall in the vicinity of a police clearance operation the weekend before.

After a weekend of clashes and huge vigils, Monday’s chaos began with small groups of masked protesters hitting subway stations and roads during the rush hour commute.

But as footage of the shooting went viral, the protests snowballed.

During the lunchtime break in Central, a downtown district that hosts blue-chip international conglomerates and luxury retailers, police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters, many dressed in office attire, chanting “Murderers” and “Triads.”

Many expressed anger over the shooting that morning.

“He was not carrying any weapon, what threat could he pose on the officer,” a 29-year-old office worker, who gave her first name Elaine, told AFP as fellow office workers coughed and wretched from the acrid clouds.

Tear gas and rubber bullets were fired in multiple districts throughout the morning, including at two university campuses and in multiple districts across the harbour.

One video circulated by protesters on messaging channels from Kwai Fong district showed a police officer trying to drive his motorbike multiple times into protesters who had gathered on a road.

Unpopular police force

Monday’s shooting is the third time protesters have been shot with live rounds by police.

With no political solution on the table, officers have been left to battle violent protesters and are now loathed by large chunks of the deeply polarized population.

Police have defended their tactics throughout the summer as a proportionate response to protesters who have embraced throwing bricks and petrol bombs as well as vandalizing pro-China businesses and beating opponents.

But an independent inquiry into the police has become a core demand of the protest movement, with public anger fueled by weekly videos of controversial police tactics and aggressive interactions with locals.

In one incident which sparked uproar, a police officer on Friday evening shouted at protesters that he and his colleagues were “opening a bottle of champagne” after the death of the student.

The force said the officer was later reprimanded for his language.

Both Beijing and Hong Kong’s unelected leader Carrie Lam have rejected an independent inquiry, saying the city’s current police watchdog is up to the task.

But last week, in an embarrassing setback, an international panel of experts appointed by authorities said the watchdog did not currently have the capability or resources to carry out such a huge probe.

The watchdog is due to release a report in early 2020 and in a statement on Monday said the panel’s views should not have been published on Twitter by one of its members. 

A famed Russian historian who loved to dress up as his hero, Napoleon, is facing a murder charge after police fished him out of the Moika River with a backpack filled with a woman’s severed arms.

A lawyer for Oleg Sokolov says he has confessed to killing his lover and is cooperating with police.

The attorney describes his client as elderly and someone who may have been emotionally disturbed and under stress. He was taken in for questioning after spending Saturday night being treated for hypothermia.

Police have identified the victim as Anastasia Yeshchenko, one of Sokolov’s students who collaborated on his writings about Napoleon. They found the rest of her hacked-up body in Sokolov’s St. Petersburg apartment, close to where he was pulled out of the river.

Initial reports say Sokolov allegedly shot her in a rage Thursday night and kept her body concealed from guests for two days before he apparently tried to get rid of her body parts.

It is unclear if he jumped into the icy Moika River in a suicide attempt or fell in while drunk when he tried to dispose of the backpack.

Sokolov’s students describe him as an odd and eccentric teacher who liked dressing up as Napoleon and re-enacting the French emperor’s battles on horseback.

Others say he was insulting, sometimes physically abusive to students, and an alcoholic who would holler in French.

They also accuse St. Petersburg State University of doing nothing to rein in Sokolov, but say are shocked at the allegation he killed a lover.

Sokolov was highly regarded in Russian academic circles and in 2003 was awarded the French Legion of Honor, France’s highest civilian honor.

 

Voters are going to the polls Sunday in Romania for the country’s presidential election.

Analysts say incumbent Klaus Iohannis will likely be returned to office in a runoff vote.

Centrist liberal Iohannis, unlike some other Eastern European leaders, has not embraced nationalism.

Polls indicate he will receive 40% of the votes Sunday.

His toughest competition is expected to come from former Prime Minister Viorica Dancilla, leader of the Social Democrats.

If no one receives 50% of Sunday’s ballots, there will be a second round of voting November 24.    

 

Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo sign agreements to work on key road networks within 24 months, connecting the two countries to ease business. However, security concerns on the routes remain key for business. 

Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed an agreement to increase trade and investment between the two Great Lakes Region countries.
 
Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and President Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC noted that there are numerous trade restricting measures and infrastructure obstacles that raise the cost of doing business in the region.
 
Museveni noted that both Uganda and the DRC now import many products from China, Japan and India, instead of manufacturing them at home.
 
The total distance of the three key road networks will be 1,182 kilometers within 24 months after the respective ministers have agreed on implementation details.

“One road we want to work on is from Goli to Mahagi-Bunia. Then the other road would be from Mpondwe to Beni. The other road would be from Bunagana to Rutshuru to Goma. So, when you produce, you supply goods, you supply services. But you also create jobs for the youth,” said Museveni.
 
There have been expressions of fear among business about the militias operating in the eastern D.R.C. that may destabilize trade between the two countries. However, Tshisekedi reassured them that the two countries will ensure there is peace to promote business and development.
 
“We intend to develop or build infrastructure so we can carry out economic activity to lead to economic growth for the benefit of our people. Because as you know, in the absence of development, poverty sets in and becomes a vector of instability,” he said.
 
Trade this year between Uganda and the DRC, through May 18, is over $532 million, with Congo only exporting $30 million in goods to Uganda.
 
Evelyn Anite, Uganda’s state minister for investment, says the launch of the business forum and signing of the agreements will open a DRC market of 80 million for Ugandan businesses just and a Ugandan market of 40 million for the DRC.
 
“What are these things? Cement, scholastic materials, building materials. We have a company in this country that manufactures 10,000 blankets in a month, but only 3,000 gets consumed in the country because the population size is small. So, there’s a lot of natural resources that the Congolese have. They do have gold, they have palm oil. So, if they can process that and bring it to our country, that trade imbalance over time is going to improve,” said Anite.
 
Both countries continue to face the brunt of militia movements especially in the eastern part of the DRC. that has seen thousands killed and thousands more cross into Uganda as refugees.
 
 

 

 

 

Iran on Sunday said an open Revolutionary Court case involving an ex-FBI agent who disappeared there in 2007 on an unauthorized CIA mission “was a missing person” filing, not a sign that the man was being prosecuted.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi’s comments come as a new Iranian acknowledgement of the case involving Robert Levinson renewed questions about his disappearance. The U.S. is offering $25 million for information about what happened to Levinson, who disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007.
 
Speaking to journalists, Mousavi said Levinson “has no judicial or criminal case in any Islamic Republic of Iran court whatsoever.”
 
“It is normal that a case is opened like it’s done for any missing people anywhere in Iran,” Mousavi said.
 
However, Iran only acknowledged its Revolutionary Court had an open case on Levinson in a filing to the United Nations. The Associated Press obtained a copy of a U.N. report on the acknowledgement Saturday.
 
Iran’s Revolutionary Court typically handles espionage cases and others involving smuggling, blasphemy and attempts to overthrow its Islamic government. Westerners and Iranian dual nationals with ties to the West often find themselves tried and convicted in closed-door trials in these courts, only later to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations.
 
For years, U.S. officials would only say that Levinson, a meticulous FBI investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was working for a private firm on his trip.
 
In December 2013, the AP revealed Levinson in fact had been on a mission for CIA analysts who had no authority to run spy operations. Levinson’s family had received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others.
 
Since his disappearance, the only photos and video of Levinson emerged in 2010 and 2011. He appeared gaunt and bearded with long hair, and was wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
 
Iran for years has offered contradictory statements about C His family is now suing Iran in U.S. federal court, alleging the government kidnapped him.

 

 

Iran has discovered a new oil field containing 53 billion barrels of crude, President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday, a find that would increase Iran’s proven reserves by over a third.

The field covers 2,400 square kilometres (926 square miles) and is located in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan, Rouhani said in a speech aired on state TV.

“This is a small gift by the government to the people of Iran,” he said.

The 80-metre deep field stretches nearly 200 kilometres from Khuzestan’s border with Iraq to the city of Omidiyeh, Rouhani added.

The find would add around 34 percent to the OPEC member’s current proven reserves, estimated by energy giant BP at 155.6 billion barrels of crude oil.

Iran is a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and sits on what were already the world’s fourth-biggest oil reserves and second-largest gas reserves.

But it has struggled to sell its oil since US President Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Iran.

The remaining parties to the accord — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — have worked to save it by avoiding US sanctions, but their efforts have so far borne little fruit.
 

Voters in Spain are casting their ballots Sunday in the country’s fourth election in four years. 

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party is expected to be the big winner, as it was the last time.  

In the previous election, however, the Spanish leader’s party failed to win enough votes to form a stable government. 

The campaigning leading up to Sunday’s vote was mainly focused on Catalonia’s secession drive and the feared rise of Vox, a far-right party. 

Former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday attacked right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for impoverishing working Brazilians and vowed to unite the left to win the 2022 elections in a speech one day after being freed from jail. 

Lula’s wide-ranging, 45-minute speech to cheering supporters focused broadly on defeating Bolsonaro and improving the economic conditions of the working class. 

Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, also took aim at a long list of political enemies, including Bolsonaro, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and Justice Minister Sergio Moro, a former judge who initially ruled to convict Lula. 

“I want to tell them, I’m back,” the 74-year-old told hundreds of supporters dressed in red, the color of his Workers Party, outside the metalworkers union where he got his political start. 

He said Guedes seeks to remake Brazil economically in the image of Chile, long seen as a model of financially conservative governance, but that those policies are the reason for the widespread street protests paralyzing its Latin American neighbor. 

Court ruling

A judge ordered that Lula be freed on Friday, a day after Brazil’s Supreme Court issued a broader ruling ending the mandatory imprisonment of convicted criminals after they lose their first appeal. Lula had been imprisoned on a corruption conviction carrying a nearly nine-year sentence. 

Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia, “Let’s not give space to compromise with a convict.”  

Earlier on Twitter, the president called for supporters to rally around his government’s agenda, which has included a severe tightening of public spending, saying that they must not allow Brazil’s next phase of recovery to be derailed. 

“Do not give ammunition to the scoundrel, who is momentarily free but full of guilt,” Bolsonaro said.  

While Bolsonaro did not mention Lula by name, his left-wing rival took direct aim at the president. 

“If we work hard, in 2022 the so-called left that Bolsonaro is so afraid of will defeat the ultra-right,” he said. 

Ineligible to run

Lula, who left the presidency with sky-high approval ratings, is ineligible to stand for office until 2025 under Brazil’s “Clean Record” law because of a conviction for taking bribes. But his release is expected to energize the left ahead of next year’s municipal elections. 

He was imprisoned in 2018 after being found guilty of receiving bribes from construction companies in return for public contracts. 

Lula has maintained his innocence. On Saturday he repeated that Justice Minister Moro, prosecutors and police were lying about his guilt for political reasons. 

“[I’m] not responding to criminals, jailed or freed. Some people deserve to be ignored,” Moro responded on Twitter. 

Chancellor Angela Merkel led a series of commemorations Saturday in the German capital to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which divided the city during the Cold War until it was breached and torn down on November 9, 1989. 
 
Merkel, who grew up in Communist East Germany, said, “The Berlin Wall is gone and that teaches us that no wall that excludes people and restricts freedom is so high or so wide that it cannot be broken through.” 
 
November 9 also is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Jews were attacked across Nazi Germany in 1938 — a foretaste of the horrors that would follow in the Holocaust.  

“The 9th of November, which reflects in a special way both the horrible and the happy moments of our history, makes us aware that we have to face hatred, racism and anti-Semitism resolutely,” Merkel said in a speech at the Chapel of Reconciliation, located where the Berlin Wall once stood. “It urges us to do everything in our power to defend freedom and democracy, human dignity and the rule of law.”  

International attendance 
 
Leaders from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic also attended a ceremony at Bernauer Strasse, site of one of the last remaining sections of the Berlin Wall. They placed roses between gaps in the barrier that divided the city for 28 years. 
 
Germany President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to the pro-democracy protesters in the former Soviet bloc countries. 
 
“In gratitude, we remember today with our friends the historical events of 30 years ago,” Steinmeier said. “Without the courage, without the will for freedom of the Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs and the Slovaks, the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe, and German unity, would not have been possible.” 
 
A weeklong series of events in Berlin was capped off Saturday night with a concert at the famous Brandenburg Gate, involving several German and international performers.  

Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously gave a speech in front of the landmark in 1987, demanding of his Soviet counterpart: “Mr. [Mikhail] Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” A statue of Reagan, who died in 2004, was unveiled Friday next to the Brandenburg Gate. 
 
The wall was constructed in 1961 to stop the flood of East Germans fleeing to capitalist West Berlin to escape communist rule. It was officially called the “anti-fascist protection rampart” by the East German government. Hundreds of people were shot dead trying to cross it. 
 
Following growing pressure across the Warsaw Pact countries in 1989, pro-democracy protests spread to East Germany. 
 
On November 4, 1989, a half-million demonstrators gathered in Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. Five days later, a government spokesperson mistakenly said the East Germans were now free to travel to the West, prompting tens of thousands to rush to crossing points along the 43-kilometer barrier. 
 
In the confusion, border guards opened the gates and thousands of people surged across the frontier, cheered by crowds on both sides of the wall. Within hours, Berlin residents were taking pickaxes to the concrete wall, as the city erupted in wild celebrations.  

The fall of the wall is seen as a key moment in the collapse of communism. Just two years later, the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War was declared over. 
 
Tensions between East-West 
 
However, tensions between East and West have resurfaced. Relations between Russia and the West plummeted following Moscow’s forceful annexation of Crimea and support for rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Arms control treaties have been ditched, and many world leaders have warned of a new Cold War. 
 
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also attended the ceremonies to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall. In a speech on the eve of the anniversary, Pompeo warned that “the West lost our way in the afterglow of that proud moment,” adding that the U.S. and its allies should “defend what was so hard won.” 
 
“We thought we could divert our resources away from alliances, and our militaries. We were wrong,” Pompeo said. “Today, Russia — led by a former KGB officer once stationed in Dresden [President Vladimir Putin] — invades its neighbors and slays political opponents.”  

Pompeo also criticized Russia’s treatment of the political opposition. He said China was now using methods of oppression against its own people that would be “horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans.” 
 
Beijing labeled Pompeo’s comments as “extremely dangerous” and said they exposed his “sinister intentions.” 
 
Pompeo also warned that NATO needed to evolve as the alliance approaches its 70th anniversary. His comments followed sharp criticism from French President Emmanuel Macron, who warned this week in an interview with The Economist that NATO was becoming “brain-dead” in the absence of U.S. leadership. 
 
Washington has repeatedly called on European NATO members to meet the bloc’s military spending target of 2% of gross domestic product, warning it will no longer shoulder the burden of European defense. 

Iraqi security forces killed at least five people Saturday as they pushed protesters back toward their main camp in central Baghdad using live ammunition, tear gas and sound bombs, police and medics said. 

The clashes wounded scores more people and put security forces back in control of all except one major bridge linking the Iraqi capital’s eastern residential and business districts to government headquarters across the Tigris river. 

The government promised reforms aimed at ending the crisis. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Saturday that political parties had “made mistakes” in their running of the country, recognized the legitimacy of protest to bring about political change and pledged electoral reform. 

Mass protests began at Tahrir Square in Baghdad on Oct. 1 as demonstrators demanded jobs and services, and rallies have swelled in the capital and southern cities with calls for an overhaul of the sectarian political system. 

It is the biggest and most complex challenge in years to the political order set up after a U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. 

Political class vs. jobless youths

Iraq, exhausted by decades of conflict and sanctions, had enjoyed relative calm after Islamic State was defeated in 2017. 

But the government has been unable to find an answer to the current round of unrest, which pits the entire political class against mostly unemployed youths who have seen no improvement in their lives, even in peacetime. 

Despite government pledges of reform, security forces have used lethal force since the start and killed more than 280 people across the country. 

On Saturday, forces drove protesters back from some of the bridges they had tried to occupy during the week and toward Tahrir Square, the main gathering point for demonstrators. 

The protesters still hold a portion of the adjacent Jumhuriya Bridge, where they have erected barricades in a standoff with police. 

But demonstrators fear the next police target will be Tahrir Square and Jumhuriya Bridge. Fresh clashes erupted after nightfall near Tahrir Square, with the sound of tear gas and stun grenades being fired echoing around central Baghdad, as it had nightly for the past week two weeks. 

“Police have retaken almost the entire area up ahead of us. They’re advancing and my guess is tonight they’ll try to take Tahrir,” said one protester, who gave his name only as Abdullah.  

Gas bombs

On Saturday, some demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails toward security forces at another bridge, and young men took unlit homemade petrol bombs up a tall building nearby, preparing for further clashes. 

At a nearby makeshift clinic, volunteer medic Manar Hamad said she had helped treat dozens of wounded on Saturday alone. 

“Many get hit by shrapnel from sound bombs, and others choke on tear gas or are hit directly by gas canisters. People have died that way,” she said as live gunfire rang out and ambulance sirens wailed. 

Police and medics said five people were shot to death and more than 140 wounded in Baghdad on Saturday. A Reuters cameraman saw one man carried away by medical volunteers after a tear gas canister struck him directly in the head. 

As the violence flared, Abdul Mahdi issued a statement that appeared to take a more conciliatory tone and urged a return to normal life after weeks of unrest that have cost the country tens of millions of dollars, although crucial oil exports have not been affected. 

“Political forces and parties are important institutions in any democratic system, and have made great sacrifices, but they’ve also made many mistakes,” he said. 

He said protests were a legitimate engine of political change but urged demonstrators not to interrupt “normal life.” 

Weapons ban

Abdul Mahdi promised electoral reform and said authorities would ban possession of weapons by nonstate armed groups who have been accused of killing protesters, and that there would be investigations into demonstrator deaths. 

His remarks came a day after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s powerful senior Shiite Muslim cleric, urged politicians to seek a peaceful way out of the crisis and held security forces accountable for avoiding further violence. 

In southern Iraq, operations resumed at Umm Qasr commodities 
port, a port official said, after it was closed for nearly 10 days while protesters blocked its entrances. 

Umm Qasr receives imports of grain, vegetable oils and sugar shipments that feed a country largely dependent on imported 
food. 

Authorities in downtown Basra, Iraq’s oil-rich second city, erected a security perimeter, preventing protesters from gathering on Saturday, after two people were killed there on Friday in clashes between protesters and security forces. 

The Kuwaiti Consulate in Basra said it was withdrawing its staff from the city, amid the deteriorating security situation, a consular official said. 

Iran is acknowledging for the first time that it has an open case before its Revolutionary Court concerning the 2007 disappearance of a former FBI agent on an authorized CIA mission to the country, renewing questions over what happened to him.

In a filing to the United Nations, Iran said the case over Robert Levinson was “on going,” without elaborating.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long the case had been open, nor the circumstances by which it started. However, it comes amid a renewed push to find him with an offer of $20 million for information from the Trump administration amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers. That’s in addition to $5 million earlier offered by the FBI.

The Associated Press Saturday obtained the text of Iran’s filing to the U.N.’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

Short statement

“According to the last statement of Tehran’s Justice Department, Mr. Robert Alan Levinson has an ongoing case in the Public Prosecution and Revolutionary Court of Tehran,” the filing said.

It did not elaborate. Iran’s Revolutionary Court typically handles espionage cases and others involving smuggling, blasphemy and attempts to overthrow its Islamic government. Westerners and Iranian dual nationals with ties to the West often find themselves tried and convicted in closed-door trials in these courts, only later to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations.

Iran’s mission to the U.N. did not immediately respond to a request for comment and its state media has not acknowledged the case.

The Washington Post first reported on the ongoing case.

Missing since 2007

Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. For years, U.S. officials would only say that Levinson, a meticulous FBI investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was working for a private firm on his trip.

In December 2013, the AP revealed Levinson in fact had been on a mission for CIA analysts who had no authority to run spy operations. Levinson’s family had received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others.

Since his disappearance, the only photos and video of Levinson emerged in 2010 and 2011. He appeared gaunt and bearded with long hair, and was wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The video, with a Pashtun wedding song popular in Afghanistan playing in the background, showed Levinson complaining of poor health.

Rumors about him have circulated for years, with one account claiming he was locked up in a Tehran prison run by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and U.S. officials suggesting he may not be in Iran at all. Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive living in Iran who is wanted for the assassination of a former Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980, is the last known person to have seen Levinson before his disappearance. Iran has offered a series of contradictory statements about Levinson in the time since. It asked the U.N. group to close its investigation into Levinson in February, saying “no proof has been presented by the claimant in this case to prove the presence of the aforesaid in Iran’s detention centers.”

Self-exiled Cambodian opposition figure Sam Rainsy landed in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday after promising to return home to rally opponents of authoritarian ruler Hun Sen.

“Keep up the hope. We are on the right track,” Rainsy said on arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in a message to supporters. “Democracy will prevail. Democracy has prevailed in Malaysia. Democracy will prevail in Cambodia.”

Asked whether he planned to return to Cambodia he said: “I cannot say anything. I do not deny, I do not confirm.”

The veteran opposition figure had planned to return to Cambodia on Saturday, Independence Day, in what Prime Minister Hun Sen characterized as an attempted coup against his rule of more than three decades.

But Sam Rainsy was blocked from boarding a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok in Paris on Thursday. He and other leaders of his banned opposition party have said they want to return to Cambodia by crossing the land border with Thailand.

Malaysia has no border with Cambodia.

An official of Rainsy’s banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in Thailand said that nobody would be returning Saturday.

“We will be returning as soon as possible,” Saory Pon, general secretary of the Cambodia National Rescue Party Overseas told Reuters, complaining that some party officials in Thailand had been harassed and followed by security services.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said that if Sam Rainsy did return he would face outstanding charges against him in court.

“If he comes to cause instability and chaos, we will destroy him,” he said.

Opposition activists arrested

Some 50 opposition activists have been arrested in recent weeks.

In Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, security forces patrolled in pickup trucks on Saturday, which marks Cambodia’s 66th anniversary of independence from France. On Sunday and Monday, Cambodia celebrates an annual water festival.

Police armed with assault rifles lined up at Cambodia’s Poipet border crossing with Thailand, where Sam Rainsy had said he planned to cross, pictures posted on Twitter by the independent Cambodian Center for Human Rights showed.

Rainsy, a founder of the CNRP, fled four years ago following a conviction for criminal defamation. He also faces a five-year sentence in a separate case. He says the charges were politically motivated.

The 70-year-old former finance minister, who usually sports large, rimmed spectacles, has been an opponent of Hun Sen since the 1990s. He also vowed to return home in 2015 in spite of threats to arrest him, but did not.

The CNRP’s leader, Kem Sokha, is under house arrest in Cambodia after being arrested more than two years ago and charged with treason ahead of a 2018 election that was condemned by Western countries as a farce.

Before Sam Rainsy’s failed attempt to fly to Thailand, Malaysia detained Mu Sochua, his party’s U.S.-based vice president, at an airport before releasing her 24 hours later along with two other Cambodian opposition leaders detained earlier.

“We will continue our journey home,” Mu Sochua said on Twitter Saturday morning. “9 November is marked in history as our struggle for democracy.”

Rights groups have accused Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand of detaining and returning critics of neighboring governments, even those with United Nations refugee status.

The Libyan civil war has found a new battlefield: the halls of Washington. The eight-year conflict shows little sign of ending, and the warring governments are stepping up their efforts to influence policymakers in the United States.

Crucial to these efforts, and the Libyan conflict as a whole, is the country’s oil output. Production currently stands at more than a million barrels a day, and the revenue is crucial to all aspects of the conflict. It funds the weapons, the militias, and the lawyers lobbying officials in the United States.

Most of the oil is shipped to Western Europe, where Libyan oil retains an “outsized significance to the European market,” according to Dr. Cullen Hendrix, professor at the University of Denver and nonresident senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Under army’s control

Most of the oil facilities are located in territory controlled by the Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, even as the revenue generated goes to Libya’s state-owned oil company, the NOC. The oil funds are then distributed through Libya’s central bank, which supplies only the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).

The LNA, representing the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR), is currently sieging the GNA’s capital of Tripoli. The U.N. estimates more than 1,000 people have been killed in the seven-month siege alone.

The siege is symptomatic of the international nature of the conflict. Foreign drones dot the air, Turkish and Emirati-made armored personnel carriers bring fighters to the battlefield, and recent reports indicate that Russian and Sudanese mercenaries now are fighting for the LNA.

While the United States officially backs the GNA, it is largely uninvolved outside counterterrorism efforts. Libya’s rival governments are seeking to change that.

In the past year, the rival governments of Libya penned millions of dollars’ worth of contracts with government relations firms in the United States. The U.N.-backed GNA hired Mercury Public Affairs for $2 million a year, not including a $500,000 initial payment. The contract came shortly after President Donald Trump called LNA chief Haftar.

Mercury’s activities are extensive. Its contract details its services as lobbying Congress and the executive branch, identifying interest groups, public relations and international affairs. According to records from the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Mercury contacted congressional offices over 380 times, press agencies upward of 110 times and the White House deputy chief of staff.

These contacts included requests to secure interviews for the Government of National Accord’s deputy prime minister, largely with major press organizations.

Oil exports

The GNA enlisted further help to lobby on behalf of Libya’s oil exports, hiring the international law firm Gerstman Schwartz in August of this year. Gerstman’s efforts are centered on modifying the sanctions surrounding a fund built up by oil exports that is earmarked for Libya’s reconstruction.

The windfall from the export revenue will be crucial to rebuilding efforts, but current sanctions don’t allow the funds to collect any interest. As a result, banks are siphoning money through fees, draining a fund that would be best used in the extensive rebuild Libya will have to undergo after the conflict is resolved.

In September, Tripoli retained another firm, Gotham Government Relations, where Gerstman and Schwartz are partners. According to the contract, Gotham will “highlight the [GNA]’s contributions to combating terrorism; counsel GNA regarding outreach to U.S. and foreign think tanks; and prepare reports on Haftar’s human rights violations and crimes against the Libyan people.”

The contract is worth $1.5 million for the year.

On the other side of the conflict is the Libyan National Army and its nominal government, the eastern-based House of Representatives. In May the two signed a new contract with Linden Strategies after parting ways with the firm Dickens & Madson.

Ari Ben Menashe, the president of Dickens & Madson, described his role as “arranging meetings” between Haftar and officials in Russia and the United States. Menashe “advised Haftar against” the siege of Tripoli, and said he dedicated his time to mediation efforts. The eastern-based government paid handsomely for Dickens & Madson’s services, with a contract totaling $6 million.

Trip to U.S.

Since then, Linden has taken the torch and organized a trip for representatives of the eastern government to the United States. In conjunction with this trip, Linden contacted members of Congress, officials at the State and Defense departments, the National Security Council and the White House.

The Libyan delegation met with these same officials. During these meetings, Linden did not press for U.S. intervention, though it did welcome “continued cooperation” in fighting terrorist elements in Libya, such as Islamic State and al-Qaida. The fees for this agreement reached $5.4 million.

If officials in the U.S. choose to put Washington’s formidable clout to use, these millions of dollars in lobbying contracts will be money well spent.

Members of Cambodia’s opposition have spent the past few days crossing Southeast Asia in an attempt to return to Cambodia, a return promised by their exiled leader, Sam Rainsy.

Their destination is Poipet, a northwestern border town known for its casinos and a key conduit for trade with Thailand.

An uneasy calm will welcome Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) members, if they are able to reach Poipet, where mixed security forces have garrisoned the town in anticipation of Sam Rainsy’s possible return.

In Chan Kiri village, But Pov is busy making breakfast for her family: fried chicken and radishes. The mother of two works at a shoe factory across the border in Thailand, along with her husband, Kat Buny, and her son, Ny Bunat.

They have decided to take a few days off from work. But Pov said she’s worried there will be unrest in the town, as evidenced by the heightened security presence in Poipet.

“Other people are also scared. So am I,” But Pov, 37, said.

Fear and anxiety

Others in the town are reluctant to speak, all expressing fear and anxiety over the security measures taken in their town.

“People are quiet. No one dares to talk,” said Sar Sarorn, 40, a worker pulling handcarts full of goods from Thailand to Cambodia.

Another villager, Mao Mab, 50, said he is very careful of what he says, despite agreeing to speak to VOA Khmer.

“I can talk about my business, but not related to politics,” he said.

Closer to the border, Ra Chantha sells fruit from a cart and can see police forces deployed nearby. While she needs the money from her daily sales, she has decided to stay away Saturday.

“I will stop selling on November 9, since I am afraid,” Ra Chantha, also a mother of two, said. “We don’t know what happens, but there are a lot of forces.”

Intimidation

Eng Chhai Eang, deputy president of the CNRP, said the mixed forces were deployed to threaten and intimidate the party’s supporters.

For now, all the political maneuvering is happening overseas. Cambodia is leaning on members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to prevent the opposition from returning to Cambodia, but at the same time saying the government wants to arrest them as fugitives.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement issued Thursday that the Cambodian government should permit exiled opposition leaders to return to Cambodia and freely resume political activities.

“This is the culmination of three months of aggressive harassment, arrests and attacks on the CNRP and its members, which is really about preventing the restoration of multiparty democracy in Cambodia,” said Brad Adams, the executive director of the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch.

Another reason for the heavy security presence, however, could be the increasing political support for the CNRP in the area. Two of the three communes in and around Poipet were won by the opposition in 2017.

This is evidenced by some people VOA Khmer spoke to who supported Sam Rainsy’s return, though on peaceful terms.

“It is good if they get along with each other, shaking hands,” said grocery seller Ra Chantha.

And the factory worker from Chan Kiri village, But Pov, was a little more explicit in her support of the opposition, adding that the aim was to get free and fair elections.

“A country can progress only if there is an opposition party,” she said, returning to making breakfast for her children.

This article originated in VOA’s Khmer service.

Lebanon’s national news agency says the country’s banks will be closed for two extra days over the weekend amid deepening turmoil and public anxiety over liquidity and sustained anti-government protests.
 
The National News Agency says the banks will be closed both on Saturday and Monday, along with the regular Sunday closure for the weekend.
 
The report says this will allow for the observation of the holiday celebrating Prophet Mohammad’s birthday, which is set for Monday in Lebanon.
 
Earlier, banks were closed for two weeks amid nationwide protests calling for the government to resign. After reopening last week, individual banks imposed irregular capital controls to protect deposits and prevent a run on the banks.

Lebanon is one of the world’s most heavily indebted countries.

Hundreds of Haitians with health problems ranging from diabetes to bullet injuries lined up Friday hoping to be seen by a staff member aboard the USNS Comfort, which docked in Port-au-Prince this week for its last stop of a five-month medical mission. 
 
The U.S. Navy’s floating hospital has visited Haiti six times in the past decade. The latest mission comes at a critical moment, when violent demonstrations and street barricades have caused several hospitals across the country to run out of medical supplies. Some have been forced to close temporarily as protesters keep demanding the resignation of President Jovenel Moise. 
 
Among those awaiting free medical care was Miga Alfred, 33, whose 3-month-old daughter has hydrocephaly. The two live in the southern coastal town of Jacmel and had been traveling since 4 a.m. 
 
“Hopefully, my baby will be treated,” Alfred said as she breastfed her only child. 

Waiting in line
 
Others were not as lucky. Waiting outside in a line of more than 100 people was Mario Brega, 35, who said he has prostate cancer. It was the second time this week that he stood in line, having traveled more than six hours by bus from the southwest town of Cavaillon. 
 
“This has been costing me money, and I’m not sure I’m going to get to see a doctor,” he said as police kept telling him to get back into line, where some huddled under umbrellas while others placed towels on their heads to protect themselves from the harsh sun.  

More than 900 personnel were aboard the ship, including specialists from the U.S. military and volunteers from nongovernment organizations, according to the U.S. Navy. The team was providing care aboard the ship and at the Haitian Coast Guard base in the capital of Port-au-Prince, which has been wracked by two months of protests that have killed more than 40 people and shuttered many public schools. 
  
The countrywide demonstrations have been spurred in part by anger over corruption, an inflation rate of nearly 20 percent and a dwindling of basic supplies including fuel. In addition, U.N. World Food Program spokesman Herve Verhoosel said Friday that more than 3.7 million people in the country of 11 million are facing food insecurity, with more than 1 million now in the emergency category, one step below famine. 
 
Variety of medical problems

Lt. Cmdr. Gustavo Lores, a supervisor at the medical site, said the team has been treating all sorts of medical problems including chronic illnesses and diabetic lesions. 
 
“We see the need of the country,” he said. 
 
The team was treating people like Hilairesie Mondesir, 68, who said she hasn’t been able to afford a doctor in more than a decade. 
  
“Everything is hurting me,” she said. “I don’t feel well at all.” 
 
The ship’s mission in Haiti is to run through Nov. 12. The ship had previously visited Central America, South America and other Caribbean islands. 

In the 30 years that have passed since the Berlin Wall came down and ended a decades-long division between the eastern and western parts of the city, it is artists who have injected new life into the abandoned buildings in what was communist East Berlin. And as Charles Maynes reports, this cultural scene became a driving force behind the reconciliation of East and West – a process that continues to this day.

This Friday, November 8th, marks the third anniversary of Donald Trump’s 2016 election as the 45th president of the United States.  Trump remains a force of nature in American politics, but the third anniversary of his rise to power comes at a time when he is facing the gravest threat yet to his presidency: an impeachment inquiry led by congressional Democrats over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden.  VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.

If you woke up Thursday to a weird text that seemed totally out of place, you aren’t alone. A mysterious wave of missives swept America’s phones overnight, delivering largely unintelligible messages from friends, family and the occasional ex.

Friends who hadn’t talked to each other in months were jolted into chatting. Others briefly panicked.

The best explanation seems to be that old texts sent in the spring suddenly went through. Two people said they figured out the original messages were never received. It’s not clear why this months-long delay happened. Phone companies blamed others and offered no further explanations.

Stephanie Bovee, a 28-year-old from Portland, woke up at 5 a.m. to a text from her sister that said just “omg.” She immediately thought something had happened to her newborn nephew at the hospital.

She started calling everyone. Her sister and her sister’s husband didn’t answer. She woke up her mom, freaking her out. It was three hours before she learned that everything was fine and the text was an odd anomaly.

“Now it’s funny,” she said. “But out of context, it was not cool.”

Bovee figured out that people were getting some of her old texts that failed to go through when her sister and a co-worker both got texts that she had sent in February. The text her sister received wished her a happy Valentine’s Day.

Vague explanations

Mobile carriers offered unhelpful explanations for the weird-text phenomenon, which appeared to be widespread, at least according to social media.

A Sprint spokeswoman said it resulted from a “maintenance update” for messaging platforms at multiple U.S. carriers and would not explain further. T-Mobile called it a “third party vendor issue.” Verizon and AT&T did not answer questions.

Marissa Figueroa, a 25-year-old from California, got an unwanted message from an ex she had stopped talking to — and then he got one from her as well. Neither actually sent them last night, both said. Figueroa couldn’t figure it out, even worrying that her ex was messing with her, until she saw reports of this happening to others.

“It didn’t feel great,” she said. “It just was not good for me and my mental health to be in contact with him.”

Confusion and awkwardness

A friend who’d just re-entered his life got a mystifying message from Joseph Gomez at 5:32 a.m. Thursday. In that text, Gomez seemed to assume she was on her way over to his house so they could order a Lyft.

It took a half hour of back-and-forth texting and help from a screenshot to clear up the situation. Can their relationship recover? Gomez, 22, said it was “confusion, then awkward, and then funny.” No mixed messages there.