A trade war between the world’s top two economies cut U.S. imports of Chinese goods by more than a quarter, or $35 billion, in the first half of this year and drove up prices for American consumers, a U.N. study showed on Tuesday.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a trade feud for the past 16 months although there are hopes that an initial deal offering some relief may be signed this month.

If that fails, nearly all Chinese goods imports into the United States — worth more than $500 billion — could be affected.

U.S. imports from China subject to tariffs fell to $95 billion between January and June from $130 billion during the same period of 2018, the study released by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) showed.

“Overall, the results indicate that the United States tariffs on China are economically hurting both countries,” the report said. “United States losses are largely related to the higher prices for consumers, while China’s losses are related to significant export losses.”

Over time, Chinese companies began absorbing some of the extra costs of the tariffs through an 8% dip in export prices in the second quarter of 2019, but that still left 17% “on the shoulders of U.S. consumers”, said the report’s author Alessandro Nicita, an economist at UNCTAD.

The sector hit hardest by the U.S. tariffs are U.S. imports of Chinese office machinery and communication equipment, which fell by $15 billion. Over time, the scale of Chinese export losses increased alongside mounting tariffs, the study said.

Other countries stepped up to fill most of the gap left by China, the study found. It named Taiwan as the largest beneficiary of “trade diversion”, with $4.2 billion in additional exports to the United States in the first half of 2019. They were mostly office and communication equipment.

Mexico increased exports to the United States by $3.5 billion, mostly agriculture and transport equipment and electrical machinery. The European Union boosted deliveries by $2.7 billion, mostly via additional machinery exports, it found.

“The longer the trade war goes on, the more likely these losses and gains will be permanent,” Nicita said. Not all of Chinese trade losses were picked up by other economies and billions of dollars in trade were lost entirely.

The paper did not analyse the effect of Chinese tariffs on U.S. imports into China because detailed data was not yet available.

It also does not capture the most recent phase of the trade war — including 10% tariffs on about $125 billion worth of additional Chinese goods imported into the United States that took effect on Sept. 1 — beyond noting that it is likely to add to existing trade losses.
 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that the United States remains concerned about reports of China’s harsh treatment of relatives of Uighur Muslim activists and survivors of Chinese internment camps.

In a statement released by the State Department, Pompeo said the U.S. is still “deeply troubled” by reports that the Chinese government has reportedly “harassed, imprisoned, or arbitrarily detained family members of Uighur Muslim activists and survivors of Xinjiang internment camps who have made their stories public.”

The top U.S. diplomat said some of the “abuses occurred shortly after meetings with senior State Department officials.”

Over the past few years, China has established complexes in Xinjiang that it maintains are “vocational training centers” designed to combat terrorism and extremism and to teach new skills.

Beijing denies any mistreatment of the Uighurs and maintains that the detainees are at the complexes voluntarily.

Many world leaders have criticized China for setting up the complexes, where the U.N. says at least 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained.

The U.S. government and human rights groups estimate 10 percent of the Uighur population is under detention.

The nonpartisan research group the Australian Strategic Policy Institute estimates there are 143 camps where Uighurs are detained.   

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused China of committing “rampant abuses,” including torture.

The U.S. last month broadened its trade blacklist to include top Chinese artificial intelligence startup companies. It also announced visa restrictions against Chinese government and Communist Party officials it believes are behind the detention or abuse of Muslim minorities in the region.

Pompeo also Tuesday called on Beijing to “cease all harassment of Uighurs living outside China…and to allow families to communicate freely without repercussions.”  
 

The complex El Nino weather pattern that can bring disastrous heavy rainfall and long droughts to countries around the Pacific — from Peru to Indonesia and Australia — will probably emerge again in 2020, researchers have predicted.

An international team of scientists forecast an 80% chance next year of an El Nino, which occurs when sea-surface temperatures rise substantially above normal in the east-central Equatorial Pacific.

This week they said their model — which uses an algorithm that draws on analysis of links between changing air temperatures at a network of grid points across the Pacific region — could predict an El Nino at least a year ahead.

“Conventional methods are unable to make a reliable ‘El Nino’ forecast more than six months in advance. With our method, we have roughly doubled the previous warning time,” said co-developer Armin Bunde, a physicist at Germany’s Justus Liebig University Giessen. 

The term El Nino, meaning “boy child” in Spanish, was first used in the 19th century by fishermen in Peru and Ecuador to refer to the unusually warm waters that reduced their catch just before Christmas, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The phenomenon occurs every two to seven years and typically lasts for 9 to 12 months, often beginning mid-year and peaking between November and January.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director emeritus of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said insights from the new method — which has been tested over the past few years — would be made available to people affected by El Nino.

PIK researcher Josef Ludescher said he would soon discuss the findings with the weather service in Peru.

Time to prepare

El Nino often brings torrential rains in the north of the mountainous Latin American nation, with a high risk of mudslides, he said.

El Nino also can cause extended droughts in other parts of South America, Indonesia, Australia and Africa, PIK said.

In the Indian subcontinent, it may change monsoon patterns, while California can experience more precipitation.

The new prediction method could give more time for authorities to prepare for such impacts, Ludescher added.

The team is now adapting the algorithm to be able to predict the timing and strength of El Nino. In the future, a similar method could be used to improve forecasts of Asia’s monsoon, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

2014, 2018 predictions

The discovery of the new method was first published in 2013 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal — and the scientists have since been checking its accuracy.

They said this week it correctly predicted the onset of the large El Nino that started in 2014 and ended in 2016 and the most recent event in 2018, as well as absences in other years.

The next expected El Nino, due to peak in late 2020, could push global average annual temperature rise to a new record in 2021, the researchers said.

Air temperature rise lags Pacific warming by about three months, they noted.

According to the WMO, 2016 became the warmest year on record because of the powerful El Nino in 2015-2016, combined with long-term climate change. 
 

Italy will next year become the world’s first country to make it compulsory for schoolchildren to study climate change and sustainable development, Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti said.

Fioramonti, from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, is the government’s most vocal supporter of green policies and was criticized by the opposition in September for encouraging students to skip school and take part in climate protests.

In an interview in his Rome office on Monday, Fioramonti said all state schools would dedicate 33 hours per year, almost one hour per school week, to climate change issues from the start of the next academic year in September.

Many traditional subjects, such as geography, mathematics and physics, would also be studied from the perspective of sustainable development, said the minister, a former economics professor at South Africa’s Pretoria University.

“The entire ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model,” Fioramonti told Reuters in the interview conducted in fluent English.

“I want to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything we learn in school.”

Fioramonti, 42, the author of several books arguing gross domestic product should no longer be used as the main measure of countries’ economic success, has been a target of the right-wing opposition since becoming a minister in the two-month-old government of 5-Star and the center-left Democratic Party.

His proposals for new taxes on airline tickets, plastic and sugary foods to raise funds for education were strongly attacked by critics who said Italians were already over-taxed.

He then sparked fury from conservatives when he suggested crucifixes should be removed from Italian classrooms to create a more inclusive environment for non-Christians.

Despite the criticism, the government’s 2020 budget presented to parliament this week included both the plastic tax and a new tax on sugary drinks.

“I was ridiculed by everyone and treated like a village idiot, and now a few months later the government is using two of those proposals and it seems to me more and more people are convinced it is the way to go,” Fioramonti said.

ANTI-SALVINI

Surveys showed 70-80% of Italians backed taxing sugar and flights, he said, adding that coalition lawmakers had told him they would table budget amendments to introduce his proposal to hike air ticket prices before the budget is approved by end-year.

Fioramonti said targeted taxes of this kind were a way of discouraging types of consumption which were harmful to the environment or individuals, while generating resources for schools, welfare or lowering income tax.

In this vein, he suggested other levies on various types of gambling and on profits from oil drilling.

His progressive positions on the economy and the environment are the antithesis of Matteo Salvini’s hard-right League, which has overtaken 5-Star to become easily Italy’s most popular party, with more than 30% of voter support.

The European Union has voiced regret at the U.S. government’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement and expressed hopes that one of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters will backpedal on its decision and rejoin.
 
European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said Tuesday that the global deal signed in 2015 remains “the most important international agreement on climate change” and insisted that the EU will continue to “fight global climate change under this legal framework.”
 
Despite the U.S. departure, Andreeva added that the 28-member bloc will continue working with various U.S.-based entities and stakeholders who remain committed to the deal.
 
“The Paris agreement has strong foundations and is here to stay. Its doors remain open and we hope that the U.S. will decide to pass (them) again one day,” Andreeva said.  
 

Germany said the U.S. government’s decision is “regrettable” but no surprise.
 
Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said the U.S. had announced its plan to withdraw from the pact two years ago and “luckily it has remained alone in doing so.”
 
Nearly 200 nations signed the landmark 2015 climate deal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, with each country providing its own goals for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
 
Schulze said the “domino effect” some had feared after U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement didn’t occur.
 
“The rest of the world stands together on climate protection,” she said in a statement, noting that even Russia, a fossil fuel exporter, recently joined the pact.

India has become one of the world’s top three countries with the worst air quality, and its capital is the world’s most polluted city. According to the World Air Quality Project, the air quality index above 150 is considered unhealthy, but the levels in New Delhi have well above 300, the highest indicator for hazardous air quality. In an effort to reduce the dangerous levels, the authorities have restricted vehicle use in the city. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.

Dense, noxious smog continues to envelope the Indian capital and surrounding area Monday, causing residents to suffer burning eyes, sore throats and shortness of breath.

Pollution levels in New Delhi have hit a three-year high.

Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport is packed with people whose flights were either delayed, cancelled or diverted due to low visibility.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said Sunday the capital’s average air quality index (AQI) hit 494, the highest since November 6, 2016, when it was 497.

AQI is considered good when the level is below 50 and satisfactory when it’s under 100.

AQI between 301 and 500 is considered “hazardous”  for all population groups. It is not measured past 500.

Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted that the pollution level was “unbearable” and urged the central government to intervene.

Pollution has rched unbearable levels across N India. Del govt taken many steps. Delhiites hv made many sacrifices. Del suffering for no fault of theirs. Punjab CM also expressd concern. Centre shud take immediate steps 2 provide relief. V will support Centre in all initiatives https://t.co/Vx85xYlDId

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 3, 2019

New Delhi, ranked the world’s most polluted city by Greenpeace and AirVisual, routinely gets more polluted at this time of the year. The air quality gets noticeably worse as winter approaches and farmers clear their fields by burning scrub. The pollution is also made worse by smoke from firecrackers lit all across the region to celebrate Diwali, Hinduism’s biggest holiday.

The local governments have ordered all schools and colleges to remain closed at least until Tuesday.  Drivers in the city of more than 18 million people and 8.8 million registered motor vehicles have been asked to follow the odd-even road rationing plan until November 15. Under the plan, cars will only only drive on odd and even dates that correspond with the last digit of the license plate number.

Brian Tarantina, a character actor who was most recently known for his role in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” has died in his Manhattan home. He was 60.

The New York Police Department said officers responded to the apartment on West 51st Street shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday.

They found Tarantina on his couch, fully clothed but unconscious and unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The cause of death was being determined by the medical examiner.

His manager Laurie Smith said he had recently had a severe illness.

“We are shocked and saddened at the passing of this wonderful actor and good friend,” she said.

On “Mrs. Maisel,” Tarantina played an emcee at a comedy club called the Gaslight.

The show’s star, Rachel Brosnahan, remembered him as “hilarious and talented and kind” in an Instagram post . “Our family of weirds won’t be the same without him,” she wrote.

The show’s official Twitter account also posted a tribute to Tarantina.

“The Gaslight won’t be the same without you. Thank you Brian Tarantina for sharing in all of the laughs. Sending love to his family and friends in this difficult time,” it wrote in the post.

In January, Tarantina was at the Screen Actors Guild Awards when the show won the comedy series ensemble category.

Tarantina had roles in a number of television shows and movies, including “Gilmore Girls” and “BlacKkKlansman.”

South Africa’s embattled former president Jacob Zuma has appealed a court decision to try him for corruption, a judicial spokeswoman said Sunday, delaying yet again a long-awaited date with justice.

Zuma is alleged to have taken bribes during a 1990s arms deal with five European companies, including the French defense group Thales.

If the trial takes place, it would be the first time Zuma faces a court on graft charges, despite a string of accusations over his long political career.

But in the latest twist to a 15-year-old judicial saga, prosecution spokeswoman Natasha Kara told AFP: “I can confirm that Mr. Zuma has indeed filed the application for leave to appeal on Friday.”

That was the last day on which Zuma could have appealed an October 15 court rejection of his request to have 16 charges of fraud, graft and racketeering dismissed.

Zuma was forced to resign as president last year by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party after a nine-year reign marred by corruption allegations and dwindling popularity.

He is accused of taking bribes worth four million rand ($270,000, 240,000 euros) when he was deputy president from a 51-billion-rand ($3.4-billion) 1999 arms purchase.

Both Zuma and Thales, which supplied equipment for navy vessels, deny the charges.

The former president has dismissed the case as a “witchhunt”.

Since he was first accused of involvement in the affair in 2003, Zuma has avoided judicial penalties, while his financial advisor at the time was convicted of corruption in 2005 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s bid to get Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, saying the request did not amount to an impeachable offense.

“Nothing would lead to a high crime or misdemeanor,” one of Trump’s top aides, Kellyanne Conway, told CNN. She was referring to the standard for impeaching a U.S. president days after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved proceedings for the impeachment inquiry targeting Trump over his actions related to Ukraine.

But Conway said she did not know whether Trump had initially conditioned release of $391 million in military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv investigating Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, as well as a debunked political theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, had hacked into Democratic National Committee computers to try to help defeat Trump in the 2016 election.

“I feel comfortable in saying that [Trump] never mentioned a quid pro quo or 2020” in a late July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Conway said. 

“Let’s be honest …,” she added, “what is not there (in the phone call between the two leaders) is holding up the aid. They got that aid.”

Democrats contested White House assertions. “The Congress appropriated money for foreign aid for Ukraine, and the president illegally withheld that money,” Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC.

On CNN, Conway said Trump has “great faith” in the U.S. intelligence community. But she declined to say whether Trump believes its conclusion that Moscow, and not Ukraine, meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state.

Several Trump administration national security and diplomatic officials have told impeachment investigators in the House that Trump had temporarily withheld release of the money that Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russians separatists in the eastern part of the country in an effort to pressure Ukraine to open the investigations to help him politically.

But Conway dismissed the accounts of the witnesses, saying it was “inappropriate to cherry pick 10 hours of testimony.”

Soliciting and receiving foreign contributions in an election is illegal under U.S. campaign finance law. 

Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether it was appropriate for Trump to ask a foreign country to investigate an American citizen, Biden, Conway said, “That’s a very simplified version of what happened.”

Conway said, “Joe Biden is not insulated from his past actions,” when as second in command under former President Barack Obama, he, along with European leaders, pressed Ukraine to oust a prosecutor they believed was not investigating high-level corruption in the eastern European country. 

Neither of the Bidens has been implicated in any wrongdoing. The younger Biden, however, has acknowledged that he used “poor judgment” in accepting the position on the Burisma board, which he left months ago, because it has caused his father political problems as he tries to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination to face Trump in the 2020 election that is a year from Sunday.

Trump has described his call with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” and repeatedly said there was no quid pro quo even as he asked the Ukrainian leader for “a favor,” the political-related investigations.

The impeachment inquiry in the House was touched off by the account of a whistleblower, identified in news reports as a Central Intelligence Agency official who formerly worked in the White House, who was troubled by Trump’s request to Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son.

“The Whistleblower got it sooo wrong that HE must come forward,” Trump said Sunday on Twitter. However, the general thrust of the whistleblower’s account was verified by a rough transcript of the Trump-Zelenskiy call released in September by the White House and subsequent testimony to the impeachment investigators.

“The Fake News Media knows who he is but, being an arm of the Democrat Party, don’t want to reveal him because there would be hell to pay,” Trump said. “Reveal the Whistleblower and end the Impeachment Hoax!”  

The Whistleblower got it sooo wrong that HE must come forward. The Fake News Media knows who he is but, being an arm of the Democrat Party, don’t want to reveal him because there would be hell to pay.
Reveal the Whistleblower and end the Impeachment Hoax!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2019

CBS reported the whistleblower has offered to answer written questions posed by Republican lawmakers without having to go through the House Intelligence Committee’s Democratic majority, according to the whistleblower’s attorney. Republicans have argued that Trump is entitled to confront his accuser.

If the full House, on a simple-majority vote, approves articles of impeachment against Trump in the coming weeks, a trial would be held in the Republican-majority Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be needed to convict him and remove him from office. With the votes of at least 20 Republican senators needed to turn against Trump to oust him, his conviction remains unlikely.

El Salvador has ordered the expulsion of Venezuelan government diplomats, joining the U.S. and more than 50 other countries that have said opposition leader Juan Guaido is Venezuela’s rightful leader.

El Salvador said Saturday that the diplomats, who are loyal to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, had 48 hours to leave the country.

The office of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is also calling for free elections in Venezuela as a way out of its long-running political and humanitarian crisis.

Guaido, who leads Venezuela’s opposition-controlled congress, declared himself interim president in January, saying Maduro’s re-election last year was fraudulent. Maduro says Guaido is collaborating with the United States in an attempt to stage a coup.

Ronald Johnson, the U.S. ambassador in El Salvador, welcomed the country’s decision to expel pro-Maduro diplomats.

In October, California became the first US state to ban sales of animal fur products – the state’s governor signed a series of laws that ban sales of new clothing and accessories made of fur, as well as prohibiting wild animals at circuses. The decision made animal lovers happy but isn’t selling well with stores that sell fur. Angelia Bagdasaryan has the story narrated by Anna Rice. 

Beijing said Sunday it is “ready to work” with Southeast Asian nations on a code of conduct in the flashpoint South China Sea, where it is accused of bullying fellow claimants and building up military installations.

China claims most of the resource-rich waterway, a major global shipping route and long a source of tension among claimants in Southeast Asia.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been locked in talks for a code of conduct for the sea, where China is accused of deploying warships, arming outposts and ramming fishing vessels.

The agreement, set to be finished in 2021, will set out conduct guidelines for the sea along with conflict resolution parameters.

On Sunday, China’s premier Li Keqiang said the first reading of the document — a chance for all members to comment on the draft terms — was “a very important landmark.”

“We stand ready to work with ASEAN countries building on the existing foundation and the basis to strive for new progress” on the guidelines, he said.

He added that China wanted to “maintain and uphold long-term peace and stability in the South China Sea.”

Tensions have flared in recent weeks between China and Vietnam, one of Beijing’s most vocal critics in the sea.

Hanoi hit back at China after it sent a survey ship into waters inside its Exclusive Economic Zone and around islands claimed by both Hanoi and Beijing.

The ship left after several weeks in the area.

The Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also have overlapping claims with China in the sea.

The US has accused China of bullying behavior in the sea, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week America has been too easy on China.

“We hesitated and did far less than we should have,” he said, referring to China’s disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines in the sea.

Newly released documents show a Trump campaign official told the FBI that during the 2016 presidential race, the campaign’s chairman, Paul Manafort, pushed the idea that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s servers. 
 
That unsubstantiated theory was advanced by President Donald Trump even after he took office, and it would later help trigger the impeachment inquiry now consuming the White House. 
 
Notes from an FBI interview were released Saturday after a lawsuit by BuzzFeed News that led to public access to hundreds of pages of documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 
 
Information related to Ukraine has taken on renewed interest after calls for impeachment based on efforts by Trump and his administration to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, when speaking with Ukraine’s new president in July, asked about the server in the same phone call in which he pushed for an investigation into Biden. 
 
Manafort speculated about Ukraine’s responsibility as the campaign sought to capitalize on DNC email disclosures and as associates discussed how they could get hold of the material themselves, deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates told investigators, according to the notes. 
 
Gates said Manafort’s assertion that Ukraine might have done it echoed the position of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate who had also speculated that the hack could have been carried out by Russian operatives in Ukraine. U.S. authorities have assessed that Kilimnik, who was also charged in Mueller’s investigation, has ties to Russian intelligence. 
 
Gates also said the campaign believed that Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s first national security adviser, would be in the best position to obtain Hillary Clinton’s missing emails because of his Russia connections. Flynn himself was adamant that Russia could not have been responsible for the hack. 

A supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station on Saturday with sports car parts, an oven for baking cookies and a vest to protect against radiation.
 
Northrop Grumman launched its Cygnus capsule for NASA from Wallops Island, Virginia. The 8,200-pound shipment (3,700 kilograms) should reach the orbiting lab Monday.
 
“Good launch all the way around,” a ground controller observed.
 
The space station’s astronauts will test the oven by baking chocolate chip cookies and try out the new safety vest to gauge its comfort. Both experiments are seen as precursors to moon and Mars journeys.
 
Other newly arriving equipment will be used in a series of NASA spacewalks later this month to fix a key particle physics detector. Parked outside the space station since 2011, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer needs new cooling pumps to continue its search for elusive dark matter and antimatter.
 
Italy’s Lamborghini is also along for the ride. It’s sending up samples of carbon fiber used in its sports cars for six months of direct space exposure. Researchers are considering the materials for medical implants.
 
Like space, the insides of a person’s body are an extreme environment, explained Houston Methodist’s Alessandro Grattoni, who is collaborating with Lamborghini on the experiment. As a nanomedicine specialist, he said Friday he’s continuously on the lookout for new materials for devices that are inserted beneath the skin. These minuscule implants release therapeutic drugs to treat cancer, hormone deficiencies and other illnesses.
 
Northrop Grumman is now controlling two Cygnus capsules in orbit, a first for the Virginia-based company. Named for the swan constellation, the Cygnus launched last spring is flying free of the 250-mile-high (400-kilometer-high) space station, after completing its grocery run. It will be directed to a fiery re-entry sometime in the near future, taking station trash down with it, according to company officials.
 
The newest Cygnus is officially called the S.S. Alan Bean after the Apollo 12 astronaut who became the fourth man to walk on the moon 50 years ago this month. He later commanded NASA’s first space station, Skylab, and became known for his cosmic-themed paintings. He died last year.
 
NASA has contracted with Northrop Grumman and SpaceX to keep the space station stocked. This is Northrop Grumman’s 12th successful Cygnus flight since 2013. The company has upgraded both its Cygnus and Antares rocket to haul more cargo from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the eastern Virginia shore.
 
The space station is currently home to three Americans, two Russians and one Italian.  

Combat-ready troops were deployed in Cameroon’s capital Saturday as supporters of opposition party leader Maurice Kamto defied a ban on protests against the outcome of the 2018 presidential election. 

Kamto and his backers contend he won the Oct. 7 election and that his victory was stolen by long-serving President Paul Biya.  Kamto was to participate in the protests for the first time since Biya ordered his release from prison, but he reportedly was being held at his house under guard by government police.  
 
Hundreds of supporters of Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement Party (CRM) demanded that the government withdraw its anti-riot police from the esplanade of the Ahmadou Ahijo Stadium in Yaounde so they could listen to the message that Kamto had for them. 
 
Among the protesters was Etienne Tankeu, 39, a businessman who was arrested with Kamto on Feb. 28 in Douala and detained in Yaounde with Kamto until Biya ordered their release. 
 
Tankeu said he did not understand why each time the CRM has wanted to organize peaceful protests, the government has threatened them with charges of insurrection, revolt and hostilities against the state. 

Court proceedings halted
 
Kamto and hundreds of his supporters were freed Oct. 5. That’s when Biya ordered an end to court proceedings against CRM members following calls from delegates to the national dialogue he held to address the country’s crises. 
 
The Saturday protest in Yaounde was to be the first public meeting between Kamto and his supporters since he was released from custody. 
 
Christopher Ndong, CRM secretary-general, told VOA in a telephone interview that he and some party officials, including Kamto, were prohibited by the police from leaving a home where they met ahead of the protests. He said that despite a heavy police presence, they were still committed to meeting their supporters, who have been eager to hear from their leader. 
 
“We cannot let our fundamental rights be trampled upon,” he said. “We are not afraid, because what we are doing is within the law and it is our right. So you see, this is a government that is confused. They are in fact doing everything with impunity. We cannot be afraid, because we are working and acting upon our rights.” 
 
Similar protests in the southern towns of Sangmelima and Ebolowa were banned by the government. Kamto’s supporters defied the ban in Sangmelima, Biya’s hometown, and a confrontation Friday between CRM followers and those of Biya’s CPDM party left at least six people injured. 

Advice to Kamto: Stand down

Rene Emmanuel Sadi, Cameroon’s minister of communications, said Kamto was not relenting from wanting to destabilize Cameroon. He said Biya won the election in a landslide and that Kamto should accept the result or face the consequences as mandated by Cameroon laws. 
 
“We believe that Mr. Kamto and some warmongers among his supporters have failed to take full measure and to grasp the profound meaning of the presidential clemency welcomed by the entire national and international community,” Sadi said. 

The election results showed Biya winning with 71 percent of the vote. His strongest challenger, Kamto, was a distant second with 14 percent. 
 
If arrested again, Kamto could be charged with sedition, insurrection and inciting violence. Those are the same charges leveled against him when he defied a government ban on protest marches and was arrested in Douala. 

Iran has unveiled new murals painted on exterior walls of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran ahead of the 40th anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the embassy. 
 
Among the paintings is a depiction of the Statue of Liberty with an arm cut off and the shooting down of a U.S. drone, which is illustrated with bats flying out of it. They can be seen by drivers and pedestrians passing by. 
  
Iran will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover on Monday by staging a rally in front of the compound. 
 
The embassy in downtown Tehran remains frozen in time since 1979, when revolutionary students took over the compound after Washington allowed ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to leave the country and travel to the U.S. for medical treatment. 

Tens of thousands of Islamists remained in a protest camp in the heart of Pakistan’s capital on Saturday amid tight security, as authorities deployed additional shipping containers and riot police to block access to key government buildings.

The protest caravan rolled into Islamabad on Thursday led by firebrand cleric Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who heads the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party. He’s given Prime Minister Imran Khan until Sunday night to resign over the country’s economic hardships.

Khan says he won’t succumb to pressure.

Rehman has hinted he may try to force Khan to step down by staging a mass march on the “Red Zone,” where Parliament, the prime minister’s residence, government offices and foreign embassies are located.

Authorities in Islamabad were seen early Saturday moving more rows of massive shipping containers onto roads leading to the Red Zone. Paramilitary forces were also deployed.

“This mammoth crowd has the capacity to arrest the prime minister themselves from the prime minister’s house if he has not resigned within two days,” Rehman said Friday night, while asking Pakistan’s powerful military not to side with Khan.

Rehman had initially denied female journalists access to his all-male encampment, which stretches over a kilometer (mile) along a highway and into an open area allocated by the government. His ban caused a storm on social media, and women reporters were eventually allowed into the camp.

The hard-line cleric has campaigned for regressive legislation targeting women, and opposed legislation to eliminate of violence against women. He has also refused to allow women members of his party to participate in the demonstration.

Rehman has been accusing the military of influencing the 2018 parliamentary elections that saw Khan’s Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party come into power. Rehman’s seven-party political alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, could secure only 16 seats in the 342-member National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. Khan received 155.

Rehman, without naming the army, said Friday that: “If it is felt that state institutions were behind the rigged elections and protecting these incompetent and illegitimate rulers, we won’t be able to stop ourselves from forming an opinion about these institutions.”

Khan made clear he would not resign or hold early elections, after discussing the situation with Cabinet members and party leaders on Saturday, said Defense Minister Pervez Khattak. The minister, who heads the government committee that’s negotiating with Rehman’s protesters, said they can continue to assemble as long as they want. But he warned them not to violate a deal signed before the protest caravan set off for the capital, in which the demonstrators agreed to stay in the designated area while the government promised not to hinder their protests.

Khan had told a gathering Friday in the northern city of Gilgit that he “will continue to hold the corrupt accountable,” and that he’s not afraid of Rehman’s threats to his government.

The mass rally comes after Pakistani businesses observed a nationwide strike earlier this week against recently enacted taxes, which the opposition says were imposed as part of the International Monetary Fund’s $6 billion bailout package for Pakistan.

Also Friday, military spokesman Maj. Gen Asif Ghafoor told a local television station that “Chaos is not in the interest of the country … all democratic issues should be dealt with in a democratic manner.” He said the opposition should understand that the army is impartial and supports the democratically elected government, not political parties.

Vietnam Friday announced its first arrests in a suspected cross-border trafficking case in Essex, England, where authorities found the bodies of 39 Vietnamese they believe suffocated to death in a refrigerated truck.

Police in Ha Tinh province said they arrested and charged two suspects after 10 local families reported fearing their family members were among the 39 victims. The case has reached the highest levels of government, with both the British and Vietnamese prime ministers ordering investigations. The probes have expanded to include transit countries China, Ireland, and Belgium, where officials say the driver of the truck said he’d been transporting cookies and biscuits.

“The Ha Tinh Police have gathered the forces and means to clearly investigate the legal violations of individuals and organizations involved,” a post on the police website said Saturday. They did not name the suspects but said they detained others for questioning too.

 The suspects were charged with “organizing and brokering for other people to flee abroad or stay abroad illegally.” British police have also arrested or charged at least five people on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people.

Journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai, the author of the book “Chinese Whispers: The Story Behind Britain’s Hidden Army of Labour,” wrote in the Guardian Wednesday that it is not constructive to merely focus on crime or “evil human traffickers.” She argued the 39 found last month were not hapless victims lured into trafficking, but workers “fighting for a future for their families.”

“In reality, the Vietnamese young men and women who choose to travel on these dangerous routes only do so when they cannot come to Britain in formal ways,” she wrote.

Pai said there “will be more deaths in lorries unless Britain changes” its anti-migrant policies.
“Let our fellow human beings have the opportunity to live and work in the open,” she wrote.

Separately, police in another Vietnamese province, Nghe An, said last week they arrested four people suspected of involvement in a trafficking ring, local media reported. It is unclear if that network was at all involved with the Vietnamese migrants found in Essex, but the truck deaths have increased the attention and urgency around existing investigations.

For the Essex Police, the truck deaths reportedly mark the biggest investigation they have conducted into mass casualties.

Although Vietnam has greatly decreased poverty since the end of the U.S.-Vietnam war, some still find they can earn more money to support their families by going overseas.

Among Asian migrants, Vietnamese pay the highest costs to brokers, and the number of migrants is rising, according to the International Labor Organization in Vietnam. It recommends that governments collaborate to ensure safe channels for migration, so people don’t have to resort to brokers. Migrants are still going through irregular channels because globalization has created more jobs in more places; however, while globalization has fostered the flow of companies and capital across borders, it has not done so for workers, pushing them toward trafficking.

“With collaboration and cooperation, labor migration can be a positive development force, and risks to the safety of migrant workers can be reduced,” Chang-Hee Lee, the ILO country director in Hanoi, said Tuesday.

Martin Scorsese’s crime epic “The Irishman” landed in theaters Friday, but not nearly enough of them for theater owners.

John Fithian, president and chief executive of National Association of Theater Owners on Friday lamented Netflix’s rollout of one of the year’s most acclaimed films, from one of cinema’s top filmmakers.

“Martin Scorsese deserved better,” Fithian said in a statement. 

Netflix was unable to come to terms with the largest movie theater chains on “The Irishman.” The traditional theatrical window is 90 days, something Netflix has declined to follow.

That has left Netflix films essentially boycotted by the majority of multiplexes. Netflix has instead carved out a roughly three-week exclusive run in independent theaters.

“The point of an exclusive theatrical window is for movies to reach their full commercial potential. Netflix chose to artificially limit `The Irishman’s’ theatrical release,” Fithian said. “That sends a message to filmmakers who are not Martin Scorsese. If you want a full theatrical release, take your film to their competitors.”

Netflix and theater chains, including AMC and Cineplex, negotiated extensively earlier this year on a compromise but ultimately failed to reach agreement.

Netflix declined comment Friday evening. A company executive who spoke to The New York Times about its “Irishman” strategy said the company cares about box office, but also wants viewers to watch films the way they want.

“The Irishman” is opening this weekend on eight screens in New York and Los Angeles, including Broadway’s Belasco Theatre. It begins streaming on Nov. 27.