U.S. troops have crossed into Iraq from Syria, Reuters reported Monday.

The news agency said the troops traveled over the Sahela border to Iraq’s northern province of Dohuk.

A Reuters cameraman and an Iraqi Kurdish security source told Reuters that they had seen a convoy of U.S. military vehicles crossing the border into the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

A security source in Mosul also told Reuters that the U.S. troops had crossed into Iraq from Sahela.

U.S. troops withdrew from their largest base in northern Syria Sunday, with defense chief Mark Esper saying all American forces leaving Syria would be deployed to western Iraq to carry out anti-terrorist operations against Islamic State.

Esper said more than 700 U.S. troops would be moved to Iraq and not come “home” as U.S. President Donald Trump had tweeted they would.

Esper did not rule out possible U.S. counterterrorism raids from Iraq into Syria. But he said plans would be developed over time and include discussions with NATO allies in the coming days. He said if U.S. forces return to Syria they would be protected by American aircraft.

The U.S. currently has about 5,000 troops in Iraq under an agreement between Baghdad and Washington. The U.S. had pulled out in 2011 when combat operations ended there, but went back in three years later when Islamic State took over large parts of the country before later losing what it had gained.

Meanwhile, Esper said the five-day cease-fire between Turkish and Kurdish forces in northern Syria signed last Thursday “generally seems to be holding.”

Turkey said one of its soldiers was killed and another wounded Sunday after an attack by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in northeast Syria’s Tel Abyad.

Trump generally reiterated Esper’s assessment of what is happening in northern Syria in a Sunday tweet while adding a puzzling remark that Esper did not say, “We have secured the Oil.” It was not immediately clear what oil Trump was talking about.

Meanwhile, a representative of the main Kurdish group in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is in Washington for talks with U.S. officials. There is no information so far about with whom the SDF’s Ilham Ahmed plans to meet.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed in talks with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence for the five-day pause in the attack to give the Kurdish fighters time to withdraw from the 32-kilometer “safe zone” Ankara is hoping to establish in northeast Syria near its border.

The SDF says it had evacuated its fighters from the northern town of Ras al-Ayn Sunday. Turkey said that it was closely monitoring the 86-vehicle pullback toward the town of Tal Tamr and wants Kurdish fighters to move further away from its border with Syria.

Turkey regards the Kurdish fighters as a terrorist group allied with Kurdish separatists that have fought for autonomy in southeast Turkey for three decades. But the Kurdish fighters fought alongside U.S. troops against Islamic State terrorists. Trump last week said the Turkish invasion of northern Syria was “not our problem” and that the Kurds were “no angels.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who accompanied Pence, told the ABC News “This Week” broadcast there has been “relatively little fighting” since the cease-fire was agreed to.

He said the deal “will save lives,” but that the U.S. needs to “make sure the commitments” by Turkey for the cease-fire “are carried out.”

Pompeo said, “This administration’s effort to flush ISIS will continue.”

Mark Esper sought a firsthand assessment Sunday of the U.S. military’s future role in America’s longest war as he made his initial visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief. Stalled peace talks with the Taliban and unrelenting attacks by the insurgent group and Islamic State militants have complicated the Trump administration’s pledge to withdraw more than 5,000 American troops.

Esper told reporters traveling with him that he believes the U.S. can reduce its force in Afghanistan to 8,600 without hurting the counterterrorism fight against al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. But he said any withdrawal would happen as part of a peace agreement with the Taliban.

The U.S. has about 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan as part of the American-led coalition. U.S. forces are training and advising Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations against extremists. President Donald Trump had ordered a troop withdrawal in conjunction with the peace talks that would have left about 8,600 American forces in the country.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban, but a surge in Taliban violence and the death of an American soldier last month prompted Trump to cancel a secret Camp David meeting where the peace deal would have been finalized. He declared the tentative agreement dead.

‘The aim is to still get a peace agreement at some point, that’s the best way forward,” said Esper. He visited Afghanistan in his previous job as U.S. Army secretary.

He would not say how long he believes it may be before a new peace accord could be achieved.

A month after the peace agreement collapsed, Khalilzad met with Taliban in early October in Islamabad, Pakistan, but it was not clear what progress, if any, was being made.

Esper’s arrival in Kabul came as Afghan government leaders delayed the planned announcement of preliminary results of last month’s presidential election. Esper met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other government officials.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was visiting Afghanistan with a congressional delegation at the same time.

Her office said in a statement Sunday night the bipartisan delegation met with top Afghan leaders, civil society representatives and U.S. military chiefs and troops serving there. Pelosi says the delegation emphasized the importance of combating corruption and ensuring women are at the table in reconciliation talks.

Both Ghani and his current partner in the unity government, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, have said they believe they had enough votes to win. The Sept. 28 vote was marred by widespread misconduct and accusations of fraud.

Officials said the announcement of preliminary results has been delayed due to problems with the transparency of the process, delays in transferring ballot papers and delays in transferring data from a biometric system into the main server.

Esper planned to meet with his top commanders in Afghanistan as the U.S. works to determine the way ahead in the 18-year war.

Trump, since his 2016 presidential campaign, has spoken of a need to withdraw U.S. troops from the “endless war” in Afghanistan. He has complained that the U.S. has been serving as policemen in Afghanistan, and says that’s not the American military’s job.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a bipartisan delegation of American lawmakers have visited Jordan to discuss “the deepening crisis” in Syria amid a shaky U.S.-brokered cease-fire.

According to a statement from Pelosi’s office, the delegation met Saturday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman and held “vital discussions about the impact to regional stability.” Jordan is a key U.S. ally in the region.
 
The Middle East visit came as the U.S. has been withdrawing troops from Syria, following President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to have U.S. forces stand aside for a Turkish incursion into Syria’s Kurdish-held north.
 
Jordan’s official news agency Petra says Abdullah stressed in the meeting the importance of safeguarding Syria’s territorial integrity.
 
Turkey has demanded both Kurdish and Syrian government forces withdraw from a designated border zone.

 

 

India said Sunday two soldiers and a civilian were killed in cross-border shelling with Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region, while Islamabad said six died on its side, making it one of the deadliest days since New Delhi revoked Kashmir’s special status in August.

Three Indian civilians were injured and some buildings and vehicles destroyed because of several hours of heavy shelling by both sides in the Tanghdar region in northern Kashmir late Saturday night, a senior police official said.

Pakistan said six of its civilians were killed and eight wounded in the clash.

The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

There was an unprovoked cease-fire violation by Pakistan in Tanghdar sector, said Indian defense spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia.

“Our troops retaliated strongly causing heavy damage and casualties to the enemy,” Kalia said.

Indian forces in occupied Kashmir have gone “berserk,” Raja Farooq Haider, prime minister of Pakistan’s Azad Kashmir region, said in a tweet, adding that the civilian casualties and injuries were in the Muzaffarabad and Neelum districts.

“This is the height of savagery. The world must not stay silent over it,” he said in his tweet with the hashtag #KashmirNeedsAttention.

Tensions between the two countries have flared and there has been intermittent cross-border firing since Aug. 5 when New Delhi flooded Indian Kashmir with troops to quell unrest after it revoked the region’s special autonomous status.

Long after more flamboyant colleagues flamed out of President Donald Trump’s favor amid ethics scandals, low-profile and folksy Rick Perry survived in the Cabinet in part by steering clear of controversy. 
 
Until now. 
 
The former Texas governor said Thursday that he was quitting as energy secretary by year’s end. The announcement came as the House impeachment investigation highlighted his work in Ukraine, where he promoted U.S. natural gas and where Trump hoped to find dirt on Democratic rival Joe Biden. 
 
Trump said that Perry had planned for months to leave the Cabinet, but the timing of the announcement of Perry’s departure fits a Trump pattern, said governance expert Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution. Her work shows there has been more turnover in Trump’s Cabinet than under any other president since at least Ronald Reagan. 
  
“The more important the issue is to the president, the more likely you’re on the chopping block,” Tenpas said. 
 
No evidence has emerged that Perry explicitly pressured Ukrainian officials to comply with Trump’s push to investigate a Ukraine natural gas company where Biden’s son Hunter was a board member. It’s a central part of the impeachment investigation.   

Perry, an evangelical who takes part in weekly Cabinet Bible studies, told a Christian broadcast news outlet his month that as “God as my witness,” he never heard any administration figure specifically mention either Biden in discussions about corruption investigations in Ukraine. 
 
Perry did publicly pressure Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for unspecified reforms “in the energy sector,” however, including in comments at Zelenskiy’s May inauguration. 
  
That was one of several Perry trips and meetings putting him in contact with Ukraine and U.S. figures playing pivotal roles in the actions now being studied by the House committees investigating impeachment. 

White House meeting

Perry also was present for at least part of a White House meeting in July with then-national security adviser John Bolton and other U.S. and Ukrainian officials. Perry, at the time, tweeted out a photo of the group lined up in front of the White House and called it a “productive discussion.” 
 
Trump is trying to block members of his administration from testifying before lawmakers who are investigating whether Trump used the powers of his office for personal political aims in Ukraine. The Energy Department on Friday refused to comply with a House subpoena for Perry. 
  
A top State Department official, George Kent, has testified that the White House deputized Perry, Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker and Trump’s European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland, to run U.S. policy in Ukraine. “It’s outrageous,” said Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J. 
 
Perry’s public mission in Ukraine was in line with U.S. and European policy in place before the Trump administration: “flood” Europe with imported natural gas, as Perry said in a video in 2015, even before Trump won office. The policy is designed to help Ukraine and other Eastern European countries escape the political dominance that Russia’s control of the region’s energy supply has helped give Moscow. 
 
Perry’s Texas roots gave him ties with the oil and gas companies exporting to Europe. But there are no allegations that Perry improperly arranged natural gas deals to benefit oil friends. 
 
Corruption in Ukraine can make doing business there dodgy, and Ukraine lacks the giant natural gas terminals and other facilities to import much natural gas directly, energy experts say. That’s made it less of a targeted customer for Western natural gas sales than, for example, Poland. 

Better performance
  
Poland has done much better economically than Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union, enabling Polish leaders to win favor with Trump by buying U.S. warplanes and natural gas. 
 
Perry has acknowledged that he consulted on Ukraine matters with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani served as one of Trump’s main back-channel movers in the administration’s 2020-related political efforts in Ukraine, in talks bypassing official U.S. government channels. 
  
The U.S. has indicted associates of Giuliani on allegations they illegally tried to funnel cash to Republican politicians, using a natural gas company as a front. It’s part of the tangle of business and political administration efforts in Ukraine that impeachment investigators are trying to unravel. 
 
The world Perry moves in as he promotes U.S. natural gas is rife with fringe characters, said Edward Chow, an expert in Eastern European and international energy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. 
  
“There’s always these middlemen. Usually they present themselves as having some kind of political connections. Ninety-nine percent of these middlemen never score a deal,” Chow said. “They talk about billion-dollar deals, and it’s like, `Yeah? What’s your bank number?’ ”   

Publicly, Perry moved through that world as a champion of U.S. energy and energy policy, advocating for American oil, gas and coal, a Trump priority, but also encouraging countries to build up solar, wind and nuclear power. 
 
James Melville Jr., U.S. ambassador to Estonia until he resigned last year in protest of Trump’s treatment of European allies, said he was “positively impressed” by Perry, in some ways, in their one encounter at an event on the Baltic states. 
  
Perry “was friendly, he was cordial, he was talkative,” and willing to meet Estonian officials whom Melville brought over to introduce. 
 
“He struck me very much as a politician,” Melville said. “Broad knowledge but not very deep” when it came to science-heavy matters under Perry’s stewardship as energy secretary. 
 
Before now, Perry’s defining national moment came as a presidential candidate, when he forgot the name of the Energy Department in a 2011 debate as he was listing Cabinet agencies he wanted to eliminate. 

Active presence
 
As energy secretary, by most accounts he has been an active and eager leader, visiting the country’s research labs and touring power plants. He worked well with lawmakers, in a job that required him to appeal annually to Congress for money for projects despite Trump’s own call for cuts. 
  
“The coolest job I’ve ever had,” he said in his departure video Thursday. 
 
Perry stayed low-key with policy aims that ran counter to the president’s likes, tamping down public shows of support for the wind turbines he had promoted as Texas governor, for example. 
  
“The secretary knows he works for the president … and a large part of his job is enhancing and defending his administration’s and the president’s policy goals. And he has done that,” noted Ray Sullivan, Perry’s former chief of staff in Texas. 

Environmental rights groups are calling on Laos to cancel the latest hydro-electric dam it has approved for construction across the Mekong River, warning of dire consequences for the millions of people who rely on the waterway for a living.

A six-month “prior consultation process” for the Luang Prabang dam began on October 8, giving Laos’ partners in the Mekong River Commission (MRC) — Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam — a chance to review the project plans and raise concerns. But the rights groups say the farming and fishing communities expected to be hit hardest by such dams have been let down by the consultations for previously approved projects, and they expect no different this time.

The Luang Prabang dam is the fifth mainstream Mekong dam Laos will have put through the consultation process, and with 1,460 megawatts of generating capacity, it will be the biggest thus far. The first, the Xayaburi, is due to start producing electricity at the end of the month.

“For the past four prior consultation processes that we have experienced, we’ve seen big loopholes and the exclusion of affected communities in the process,” said Pianporn Deetes, Thailand campaign director for International Rivers, which advocates for sustainable river management.

“This consultation process, for me personally, I’m seeing it as just a rubber stamp to get the project approval,” she told VOA.

MRC members cannot veto each other’s plans for the Mekong during the consultations, only complain and make requests.

Responding to concerns about the Xayaburi, the Lao government and dam developer, Xayaburi Power, made changes meant to help more sediment and migrating fish pass through. But researchers and rights groups say the upgrades might not make much of a difference, some having been modeled on rivers with different conditions. The MRC secretariat itself said it could not tell how much they would help because the company had not shared enough data.

Rights groups say the consultations are failing.

Save the Mekong, a coalition of concerned citizens and non-government groups across the river basin, is urging Laos to cancel the Luang Prabang and the other dams it has planned for the main stream.

“There is little indication that a new prior consultation process for Luang Prabang dam will be any different from past experience or that it will be able to ensure minimum standards of transparency and accountability, let alone meaningful participation for affected communities, civil society and the general public,” it said in a statement.

“Rather than embarking on another flawed prior consultation process, we urge lower Mekong governments and the MRC to address outstanding concerns regarding impacts of mainstream dams and to undertake a comprehensive options assessment to study alternatives,” it added.

A six-year study by the MRC secretariat found that the cumulative effects of the 11 dams planned for the mainstream Mekong south of China by 2040 — nine in Laos, two in Cambodia — threaten the entire region’s economy and food security. It says they will slash fish stocks basinwide by at least 40%, possibly twice that.

An impact assessment for the Luang Prabang itself says the dam will make it harder for migratory fish to get upstream, and that many of those that manage it will find fewer spawning grounds. It adds that some of the studies meant to soften the blow will come only once the project is under construction.

Despite the warnings, Laos is diving headlong into its plans for the Mekong in a rush to become “Asia’s battery.”

But rights groups say power consumption forecasts show neighboring countries won’t need the amount of electricity the dams will end up churning out, and that safer alternatives abound.

“So the justification of the [Luang Prabang] project needs to be questioned, and this question needs to be answered by decision makers, [why] the important resources of the basin are being exploited more and more by construction companies together with banks, together with developers, while the existing impacts of the projects have been ignored,” said Pianporn, of International Rivers.

At the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Management and Coordination Director Syamphone Sengchandala told VOA that hydropower dams were not his concern and directed questions to the Energy Ministry, which could not be reached.

Receptionists for PetroVietnam, the state-owned enterprise developing the dam, refused to connect VOA with company officials or communications staff and said requests for comment would have to be arranged by mail, citing company policy.

In answers prepared for VOA, the MRC secretariat conceded that the consultation process was “now without flaw.”

It said it had done its best to hear feedback from “broader stakeholders” and was learning to do better with each project, including the addition of “joint action plans,” a process by which MRC members and others can continue to discuss a project once the six-month consultation is over.

The secretariat said that without the consultations the upgrades to the Xayaburi would not have happened and that project documents on some other dams would never have been made public.

“We believe that the prior consultation process has served its objective and addressed the mandate of the MRC secretariat. But as a process, we acknowledge that there is room for improvement,” it added.

It said those improvements could include project impact assessments that take into account the likely effects of each dam beyond the country hosting it and listening to the concerns of villagers and non-government groups even after the consultations end.

 

Ukrainian legal experts say they are bemused by reports of American back-channel pressure to pursue an investigation of an energy company linked to the son of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, pointing out the Trump administration could have easily achieved its goal through established legal channels.  

The lawyers say there is a well-established tradition of cooperation between the two countries in criminal investigations, based on the provisions of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) signed by the two countries in 1998.

“This treaty extensively regulates all issues related to cooperation and communication between [signatory nations] on criminal investigations,” said Ukrainian defense attorney Denys Bugay, a specialist in multijurisdictional proceedings.

“The treaty authorizes the U.S. Department of Justice and Ukraine’s General Prosecutor Office … or the agencies they delegate this responsibility to communicate. If one country thinks that it has or needs information important to criminal investigation, the communication should take place within the framework of this treaty and according to the instruments it provides.”

Normal procedure

In a normal case where the United States seeks assistance in investigating an American citizen, he and other lawyers said, the U.S. Justice Department would open a case within its own jurisdiction and then ask Ukraine for help under the MLAT.

If the United States had followed these procedures in the case of the energy company Burisma and Biden’s son, Hunter, there is little doubt that Ukrainian law enforcement authorities would have fully cooperated, the lawyers said.

That was the experience of American lawyers when they sought Ukrainian help in the successful money-laundering prosecution of Ukraine’s former prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, according to Martha Boersch, a lead prosecutor on the case and currently an attorney with the California-based Boersch and Illovsky LLP law firm.

She described MLAT requests as a routine matter in which U.S. attorneys draft a request for mutual legal assistance and send it to the Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice.

“They review it, they then forward that request to the central authority in Ukraine, which would be the General Prosecutor Office,” she told VOA. “They would review it and decide if they can execute it themselves or send it to a local prosecutor. And that might mean getting documents sent or witnesses interviewed.”

While localized legal or political considerations can affect the execution of MLAT requests, Boersch says she found that Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were typically transparent and responsive.

“The process was not difficult; they were forthcoming,” she said. “We did not have any serious problems getting information from Ukraine.”

Why go outside?

This has left the Ukrainian lawyers to puzzle over why Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, would have gone outside the normal channels to press Ukrainian authorities to open an investigation into Burisma and Hunter Biden, who served on the company’s board.

Oleksiy Shevchuk, a managing partner with Kyiv-based Barrister LLC, believes Giuliani may have chosen the indirect route because the evidentiary threshold for justifying a probe in Ukraine is lower than it is in the United States.

Since the Soviet era, Shevchuk told VOA, even the loosest of pretexts could justify an investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors. But even then, he said, “it’s hard to investigate something that has such little relation to Ukraine.”

Kostiantyn Likarchuk, an experienced international litigator in the Kyiv office of the Kinstellar law firm, also pointed out that Burisma is an offshore-registered holding company and that there is no evidence of a crime committed in Ukraine by Hunter Biden.

“What could be the subject of the Ukrainian investigation? I don’t think anybody understands it,” he said.

However, Bugay, a specialist in multijurisdictional proceedings, said if the Ukraine prosecutor’s office decides a crime took place within the country, it can indict anyone involved, regardless of the person’s citizenship. “I have Ukrainian clients who were indicted in Belarus and Russia, and Russian citizens indicted in Ukraine,” he said.

Original probe

Likarchuk said the original investigation of Burisma in 2012 — before Biden joined the board — concerned the suspected abuse of special subsoil land-use permits by the company’s owner, who at the time was Ukraine’s ecology minister. Therefore, the case and some others related to Burisma fell within Ukraine’s legal jurisdiction, he said.

The U.S. has provided support for the structural reform of Ukraine’s legal and law enforcement systems.

American officials were directly involved in the 2014 creation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), whose detectives underwent training sponsored by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The U.S. departments of State, Justice, Treasury and others all have representatives stationed in Ukraine.

Pakistan Thursday night blocked the Asia program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists from entering the country and forced him to return to the United States, claiming he had been blacklisted by the country’s Interior Ministry.

The global press freedom group Friday denounced the “baffling” expulsion of Steven Butler as “a slap in the face to those concerned about press freedom” in Pakistan.

The CPJ said in a statement that immigration authorities at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore denied entry to Butler although he had a valid journalist visa, citing “a blacklist managed by the Ministry of Interior.”

CPJ executive director Joel Simon has demanded a full explanation from Pakistani authorities.

“If the government is interested in demonstrating its commitment to a free press, it should conduct a swift and transparent investigation into this case,” said Simon.

The Pakistani government has not yet responded to CPJ.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was disappointed by the government’s decision to send Butler back from the airport and demanded the decision be re-evaluated.

“On one hand, the government claims to be building a softer image of Pakistan. On the other, it refuses entry to a reputed international journalist with a valid visa,” the commission said.

Amnesty International said Butler’s deportation is “an alarming sign that freedom of expression continues to be under attack in Pakistan.” It demanded that the decision be reversed immediately.

Butler was traveling to the country for a conference this week debating human rights in Pakistan. He has been regularly visiting the country to work with local media advocacy groups and activists. Butler’s expulsion comes amid growing censorship concerns in Pakistan, although officials decry them as misplaced.

Critics blame the powerful military for blocking media coverage critical of the institution’s increased role in Pakistani politics and abuses security forces allegedly committed during counterterrorism operations, particularly in the remote tribal districts near the Afghan border.

Army spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor has repeatedly rejected the charges as propaganda.

 

European Union leaders have approved the appointment of Christine Lagarde as the next president of the European Central Bank.
 
The former International Monetary Fund managing director will replace Mario Draghi, who has served as ECB president since 2011.
 
The European Council had already issued a formal recommendation for Lagarde, and Friday’s move was just a confirmation after the European Parliament and the ECB also supported her.
 
The ECB sets monetary policy for the 19 countries that use the euro currency.
 
Lagarde will take office on Nov. 1 and will serve a non-renewable term of eight years.

 

Fugitive former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has turned himself in to Belgian justice authorities after Spain issued a new warrant for his arrest following the sentencing of 12 of his former colleagues.

Puigdemont’s office said Friday that he, “in the company of his lawyers, voluntarily appeared before Belgian authorities” in relation to the arrest warrant.

It said that Puigdemont rejects the warrant and opposes any attempt to send him back to Spain.

It was not immediately clear whether he is still being questioned or held.

Puigdemont and a number of his associates fled to Belgium in October 2017 after they were summoned to court over the secessionist push he led and the holding of an independence referendum that the Spanish government said was illegal. 

Haiti’s embattled president was forced on Thursday to hold a private ceremony amid heavy security for what is usually a public celebration of one of the country’s founding fathers.
 
Jovenel Moise and other officials appeared at the National Pantheon Museum in downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of armed police officers closed down the surrounding area while protesters who demanded his resignation began to gather nearby.
 
“This is not how a government should be functioning,” said Mario Terrain, who is 29 and unemployed. “The president is in hiding.”
 
Moise did not speak to reporters and left after the brief ceremony to commemorate the death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose rule ended in 1806 following a military revolt. Protesters had prevented Moise from visiting Pont-Rouge, the site north of the capital where Dessalines was killed and where the ceremony is usually held.
 
Anger over corruption, inflation and scarcity of basic goods including fuel has led to large protests that began five weeks ago and have shuttered many businesses and schools.
 
A couple hundred protesters had already gathered at Pont-Rouge as they criticized Moise.
 
“We dare the president to come,” said 28-year-old Joel Theodore. “It will be his last day in office.”
 
The president held a surprise press conference on Tuesday and said he would not resign as he once again urged unity and dialogue. Opposition leaders, however, said protesters would remain on the streets until he steps down.

  

 

Men have floated out the hatch on all 420 spacewalks conducted over the past half-century.

That changes Friday with spacewalk No. 421.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will make “HERstory,” as NASA is calling it, with the first all-female spacewalk. All four men aboard the International Space Station will remain inside, as Koch and Meir go out to replace a broken battery charger.

The battery charger failed after Koch and a male crewmate installed new batteries outside the space station last week. NASA put the remaining battery replacements on hold to fix the problem and moved up the women’s planned spacewalk by three days.
 
NASA, meanwhile, is asking schoolteachers to share photos of their students celebrating “HERstory in the making.” The pictures might end up on the spacewalk broadcast.

Russia holds claim to the first spacewalk in 1965 and also the first spacewalk by a woman in 1984. The U.S. trailed by a few months in each instance.
 
As of Thursday, men dominated the spacewalking field, 213 to 14.

Meir, a marine biologist who arrived at the orbiting lab last month, will be the 15th female spacewalker. Koch, an electrical engineer, already has done three spacewalks; she’s seven months into an 11-month spaceflight that will be the longest by a woman.

NASA planned the first all-female spacewalk in March, but had to call it off because of a shortage of medium-size suits. Koch put together a second medium over the summer.
 

Thousands of people demonstrated in Beirut on Thursday against the government’s management of a dire economy in one of Lebanon’s biggest protests in years, leading the Cabinet to pull a proposed new levy on WhatsApp calls.

Protesters blocked roads across Lebanon with burning tires, broadcasts showed, the second time in less than a month Lebanon has seen demonstrations expressing anger at the political elite.

The demonstrations have been fueled by stagnant economic conditions exacerbated by a financial crisis in one of the world’s most heavily indebted states. The government is trying to find ways to bring down its gaping budget deficit.

Earlier, the Cabinet had unveiled a new revenue raising measure, agreeing a charge of 20 cents per day for calls via voice over internet protocol (VoIP), used by applications including Facebook owned WhatsApp, Facebook calls and FaceTime, Information Minister Jamal al Jarrah said.

He also said ministers would discuss a proposal to raise value-added tax by 2 percentage points in 2021 and a further 2 percentage points in 2022, until it reaches 15%.

But as protests spread across Lebanon, Telecoms Minister Mohamed Choucair phoned into Lebanese broadcasters to say the proposed levy on WhatsApp calls had been revoked.

Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri had said the measure was expected to net about $200 million in revenues for the state per year according to a statement from his press office.

Lebanon has only two mobile service providers, both state-owned, and some of the most costly mobile rates in the region.

“We are not here over the WhatsApp, we are here over everything: over fuel, food, bread, over everything,” said a protester in Beirut who gave his name as Abdullah.

Protesters scuffled with the security forces in Beirut. “The people want to topple the regime,” some chanted.

Lebanon is under pressure to approve the 2020 budget soon, a step that may help it unlock some $11 billion pledged at a donor conference last year, conditional on fiscal and other reforms.

The government has declared a state of “economic emergency” as Lebanon faces debt burdens, low growth, crumbling infrastructure and strains in its financial system from a slowdown in capital inflows.

A Bulgarian teenager was indicted for “grave hooliganism” while four others were fined and received stadium bans over racist abuse at a Euro 2020 qualifier against England, officials said Thursday.

Monkey chants and apparent Nazi salutes during Monday’s match in Sofia sparked a storm of protest that overshadowed England’s 6-0 win and led to the resignation of Bulgaria’s football chief and.

Thanks to CCTV footage from the national stadium, Sofia police have so far identified nine suspects in the stands, part of a group of black-clad fans, who directed the abuse at England’s players. Six of them were detained on Wednesday.

“One 18-year-old was indicted late Wednesday for grave hooliganism and ordered detained in custody for 72 more hours,” Sofia regional prosecution spokeswoman Nevena Zartova told AFP.

According to the indictment, the man used obscene hand gestures and Nazi salutes and turned his back to the field and pulled down his trousers twice.

If found guilty, he could face up to five years in jail.

“Out of the other five, four were handed 1,000-leva (511 euro, $568) fines and two-year bans from sports events. Procedures against the fifth, who is underage, are still ongoing,” Sofia police directorate spokeswoman Svetoslava Kostadinova said.

The game was halted twice during the first half due to the abuse.

England manager Gareth Southgate told reporters after the game that his side had been ready to walk off the pitch if the abusive behavior continued but players decided to complete the match.

The incident sparked a storm of angry reactions from fans, media and officials in both countries, leading to the resignation of Bulgaria’s football federation chief under pressure from the government and apologies from the national team manager.

UEFA called for a war on racist abuse and announced that it was launching a probe into the behavior of both the Bulgaria and England fans. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said European football’s governing body was determined to root out the “disease” of racism.

Bulgaria has tightened measures against football hooliganism after several incidents in 2018.

 

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, told House impeachment investigators on Thursday that President Donald Trump ordered diplomats to work with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to get Ukraine to open investigations that would help Trump politically.

“Mr. Giuliani emphasized that the president wanted a public statement from President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy committing Ukraine to look into anti-corruption issues,” Sondland said in a prepared statement.

Sondland, a major political donor to Trump before being named as the country’s top diplomat in Brussels, said, “Mr. Giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election,” including whether Ukraine knew of the whereabouts of a computer server used by the Democratic National Committee in Washington three years ago, and energy company Burisma, “as two anti-corruption investigatory topics of importance for the president.”

Hunter Biden, the son of one of Trump’s key political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, until earlier this year held a lucrative position on the Burisma board. Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing, although the younger Biden this week acknowledged “poor judgment” in taking the Burisma position because of the political fallout affecting his father.

Sondland told the investigators he was disappointed that Trump directed diplomats to work with Giuliani, a former New York mayor, on Ukraine matters.

“Our view was that the men and women of the State Department, not the president’s personal lawyer, should take responsibility for all aspects of U.S. foreign policy towards Ukraine,” Sondland said in the prepared remarks.

He said envoys had a choice after a May 23 meeting with Trump, abandon the goal of a White House meeting with Zelenskiy or do as Trump wanted, work through Giuliani to promote the Ukraine investigations. He said the envoys worked with Giuliani, but that he did not know “until much later” that Giuliani would push for a probe of Biden “or to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly, in the president’s 2020 reelection campaign.”

When Trump talked with Zelenskiy in a late July phone call, he prodded the Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden at the same time that the U.S. was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine.  A whistleblower complaint regarding that phone call is at the center of the impeachment inquiry launched by House Democrats.

Sondland stressed that he was not on the call and did not see a transcript until the White House released a rough version of the call’s content last month.

“Let me state clearly: Inviting a foreign government to undertake investigations for the purpose of influencing an upcoming U.S. election would be wrong,” Sondland said in his statement. “Withholding foreign aid in order to pressure a foreign government to take such steps would be wrong. I did not and would not ever participate in such undertakings.” Trump eventually released the military aid to Kyiv.

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees are taking several closed-door depositions this week delving into Trump’s actions pushing for the Ukraine investigations and his ouster of a well-regarded career diplomat, Marie Yovanovitch, as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the requests to Zelenskiy, but the Democratic-controlled House could impeach him in the coming weeks. That would lead to a trial in the Republican-majority Senate, although Trump’s removal from office remains an unlikely outcome.

According to a U.S. intelligence whistleblower, Sondland and other diplomats exchanged a series of text messages in which the diplomats wondered why the military aid to Ukraine was frozen.

Reports say there was a five-hour-long gap between text messages, during which Sondland telephoned Trump.

The next message assured one diplomat there was no “quid pro quo” of any kind with Ukraine, followed by Sondland writing, “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.”

On Wednesday, a former top aide to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told House lawmakers that he quit last week in growing frustration over the politicization of the State Department, with the final straw being  Trump’s ouster of Yovanovitch.

In hours of congressional testimony, Michael McKinley, decried the agency’s unwillingness to protect career diplomats like Yovanovitch from political pressure.   

McKinley’s statements, recounted by people familiar with his closed-door testimony, are the latest in a string of unflattering accounts about the behind-the-scenes operations of the country’s foreign policy and national security agencies.

McKinley has served as the U.S. ambassador in four countries, and he had other global postings before returning to Washington as an aide to Pompeo.

His testimony, along with that of others, has helped buttress the account of the unnamed whistleblower.

Yovanovitch testified last week that Trump dismissed her based on “unfounded and false claims” after Giuliani had attacked her performance in Kyiv.

According to a rough recounting of the July conversation supplied by the White House, Trump told Zelenskiy, “The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news, so I just wanted to let you know that. The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, and that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look in to it … it sounds horrible to me.”

Trump continued Thursday to attack the impeachment hearings against him, calling them “The Greatest Witch Hunt in American History!”

The Greatest Witch Hunt in American History! https://t.co/sPnloffJMT

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2019

A day before, he contended, “Republicans are totally deprived of their rights in this Impeachment Witch Hunt. No lawyers, no questions, no transparency! The good news is that the Radical Left Dems have No Case. It is all based on their Fraud and Fabrication!”

Republicans are totally deprived of their rights in this Impeachment Witch Hunt. No lawyers, no questions, no transparency! The good news is that the Radical Left Dems have No Case. It is all based on their Fraud and Fabrication!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2019

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff defended the process in a letter Wednesday, saying Republicans have not been kept out of the process.

“Questions have been primarily asked by committee counsels for both the majority and the minority, but also by members of both parties.  And the majority and minority have been provided equal staff representation and time to question witnesses, who have stayed until the majority and minority have asked all of their questions — often late into the evening,” Schiff wrote.

He said transcripts of closed-door interviews will be made public at a time when doing so will not jeopardize the investigation, and that “at an appropriate point” witnesses will be questioned in public sessions “so that the full Congress and the American people can hear their testimony firsthand.”

 

The future was here at a recent marquee tech show in Japan.  The Consumer Exhibition of Advanced Technology, or CEATEC, showcased technologies that may simplify our lives … or rapidly bring them to an end. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us back to the future!

A warming planet is triggering extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, and loss of wildlife habitats. An American art exhibit is delving into the effects of climate change, which include melting glaciers and the destruction of coral reefs.  VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to the University of Rhode Island to see how art is used to fight climate change.

South Korea’s national soccer team described their World Cup qualifier against North Korea in Pyongyang as a “rough” match played under strange conditions that may be reported to FIFA.

The historic match ended in a scoreless draw Tuesday at huge Kim Il Sung Stadium, which was empty of spectators. The match was also under a media blackout, and the South Koreans first spoke to journalists about the playing conditions upon their return to Seoul on Thursday.

“The opponents were very rough, and there were moments when very abusive language was exchanged,” Tottenham striker Son Heung-min said.

“It was hard to concentrate on the match because you were thinking about avoiding injury first … It’s an accomplishment that we returned from a game like that without injury,” Son said.

“Road matches can’t always be good – our players and staff had a hard time,” he told reporters at Incheon International Airport.

The team’s general manager Choi Young-il said the South Korean soccer association, known as KFA, will discuss whether to submit a complaint to FIFA over what he described as North Korea’s failure to properly accommodate the visiting team and decision to block media and spectators.

North Korea kept out South Korean media and spectators and refused a live broadcast from the stadium.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino also attended the match, and on Tuesday issued a statement saying he was “disappointed to see there were no fans in the stands.”

“We were surprised by this and by several issues related to its live broadcast and problems with visas and access for foreign journalists,” Infantino said.

North Korea did provide a DVD recording of the match to the South Koreans, but it was unclear as of Thursday afternoon whether South Korean networks would use it to broadcast the game on tape delay.

The North had been expected to have a unique home advantage in the 50,000-capacity stadium devoid of South Korean fans, but South Korean players and soccer officials were surprised to realize there would be no home crowd support, either.

Son said it was regrettable that South Korea, which has a stronger team on paper, couldn’t return with three points, but admitted that their opponents’ physical play got into the players’ heads.

Choi, a former defender who played for South Korea during the 1994 World Cup held in the United States, said the North Koreans played like they were “waging a war,” violently swinging their elbows and hands and driving into their opponents knee first when competing for balls in air.

“I have never seen something like this in soccer before,” he said.

When they weren’t playing or training, South Korean players and staff spent the rest of their time in Pyongyang holed up at the Koryo Hotel, which appeared to have no other guests, Choi said. They had no outside contact, having left their cellphones at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing before entering the North. Choi said North Korean officials didn’t inform the South Korean team that the match would be played in an empty stadium.

“We got there an hour and a half early and kept thinking that the gate will open and a crowd of 50,000 would pour in,” Choi said. “But the gate never opened until the end.”

The game was the first competitive meeting between the national men’s teams in the North Korean capital, although the North hosted the South in a friendly in 1990.

North Korea in recent months has severed virtually all cooperation with the South amid deadlocked nuclear negotiations with the United States, and repeatedly ignored the South’s calls for discussions on media coverage issues and allowing South Korean cheer squads ahead of the game.

South Korean government and soccer officials still aren’t sure why the North cast the game into media darkness and blocked out spectators.

Some experts say the North was expressing its political displeasure with the South by shutting out rival reporters and fans, but opted to compete in an empty stadium at home in an effort to level the playing field and avoid questions about fairness.

Others say North Korea might have been concerned about the possibility of its national team losing to the South in front of a massive home crowd, which would have been a humiliating development for leader Kim Jong Un, who has a passion for sports.

The awkward buildup to the game “demonstrates the immense discontent North Korea has for (South Korea)” for its failure to break away from its U.S. ally and restart inter-Korean economic projects held back by U.S.-led sanctions, said Choi Kang, vice president of Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

During qualification for the 2010 World Cup, North Korea chose to host games against South Korea in Shanghai, refusing to hoist the South Korean flag and play the South Korean anthem on its soil.

The fate of the game in Pyongyang was uncertain until last month when the governing body of Asian soccer informed the KFA that the North decided it would host the qualifier as scheduled.

South Korea’s two Group H matches against North Korea will be crucial in qualifying for the World Cup. The second match between the Koreas is scheduled for June 4 in South Korea.

South Korea has dominated the past 17 inter-Korean matches with seven wins, one loss and nine draws.

Group H also includes Lebanon, Turkmenistan and Sri Lanka.

Colombia’s constitutional court overturned on Wednesday a tax reform law that came into force this year, potentially affecting investment and forcing the government to unexpectedly find millions in resources in order to meet its fiscal goals.

The court ruled in a 6-3 vote that the law would remain valid only through the end of 2019, obliging right wing President Ivan Duque’s government to seek to pass a new law. It said the law was not properly published in the legislative gazette between votes in the lower and upper houses, violating normal procedure.

The decision was the latest in a series of headaches for Duque, whose economic projects have faced strong opposition from lawmakers, complicating his efforts to reduce debt, boost growth and avoid a potential downgrade in credit ratings.

The law included increased income tax on high earners, a reduction in business duties and an additional tax on banks’ earnings. The elements of the old law that were overturned or modified will come back into effect if lawmakers do not pass an alternative proposal by Dec. 31, the court ruled.

The government has not supplied a calculation of the fiscal impact of the court’s decision. It is targeting a deficit of 2.2% of gross domestic product next year, down from 2.4% this year.

Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla warned recently that a decision to overturn the law could affect investor confidence and bring lower growth for Colombia’s $350 billion economy. “If it is not upheld, no one will believe again. The effect is permanent and in present circumstances is worth about a point and a half of GDP growth each year,” Carrasquilla said.

The head of the tax agency said the government would propose a new law to keep benefits for businesses and raise the resources required for the budget if the reform was overturned.

Along a bustling four-lane highway that winds through the north Georgia mountains, an unassuming wooden structure breaks the monotony of churches, billboards and stores selling kitschy knickknacks.

Once a BYOB supper club, it’s now ground zero in the search for a legendary beast.

Welcome to Expedition: Bigfoot! The Sasquatch Museum.

“I can remember my great-grandmother talking about having a cabin in the woods, and she saw Sasquatch,” says Sherry Gaskinn of Villa Rica, Georgia, who was driving by one afternoon and had to stop in. “I’ve always been curious.”

Her husband, Phillip Blevins, lets out a skeptical chuckle.

“If it was up to me,” he says, “I’d already be on down the road.”

The owner of this intriguing piece of Americana at the southern edge of the Appalachians is David Bakara, a longtime member of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization who served in the Navy, drove long-haul trucks and tended bar before opening the museum in early 2016 with his wife, Malinda.

He’s looking to provide both entertainment and enlightenment in an area known for apple orchards and blazing fall colors.

“I wanted to take what I know about Bigfoot as an active researcher and investigator, but I’m also a huge Disney World fan,” the 57-year-old Bakara says. “I was thinking, ‘Maybe I can make this thing like a family attraction.’”

Instead of Space Mountain, the attraction not far from the Tennessee state line has an elaborate display of Bigfoot laying siege to a remote cabin, with a hatchet-wielding mannequin desperately trying to bar the door as two hairy paws burst over the top. Color-coded maps document hundreds of alleged sightings, a towering reproduction depicts a hairy 8-foot-tall beast, and the famed 1967 video of an alleged Sasquatch sighting plays on a loop, along with harrowing recollections from those who claim to have encountered a Bigfoot.

“The reason I didn’t shoot it is, it was just too human,” a hunter says in one account. “I couldn’t pull the trigger because something told me this ain’t right.”

There’s even a glass case claiming to hold feces collected from a Sasquatch in Oregon.

Believers continually add to the already ample collection. On a recent day, the mail carrier delivered two casts of footprints supposedly made by foreign Bigfoots.

“You want to see an Australian cast?” Bakara asks, tearing into the package.

He has filled up the former supper club and is planning to expand his museum, which welcomes about 50,000 visitors a year.

For those who think Bigfoot is a phenomenon confined to the Pacific Northwest, where that grainy video from more than five decades ago gave Sasquatch its greatest brush with fame, Bakara is quick to point out countless sightings the world over.

In Australia, the mythical creature is known as Yowie. In the Himalayas, they call it Yeti. In Russia, it goes by Alma.

Closer to home, there’s the Florida Skunk Ape, the Georgia Booger, the Missouri Momo.

“There are several subspecies of these things,” Bakara claims, displaying nothing but sincerity. “Some have short hair. Others have long, red flowing hair. Some are multicolored, almost like a squirrel where’s there’s gray and red and brown mixed together. Some of them have a very human-like face. They just run the gamut.”

He’ll gladly tell you about the time he saw a pair of the elusive beasts.

In 2010, Bakara says, he was summoned by a Florida man who had spotted strange creatures on his property. Using a thermal imager, he and his team were able to make out a pair of creatures emerging from a nearby swamp.

“We took turns looking at them,” he says. “They finally figured out we could see them, so they left.”

Bakara could talk all day about what’s become his life’s work but clams up on the most obvious questions:

What is Bigfoot?

Where did it come from?

“That’s a secret we’re not supposed to know about,” he replies ominously.

Bakara implies that the creatures are the unintended consequence of a government experiment gone haywire, hinting that his life would be disrupted if he ever went public with his entire body of work.

Bakara has been interested in Bigfoot since a young age, spurred on by early news reports and the 1972 cult classic “The Legend of Boggy Creek,” a sort of docudrama about a Sasquatch-like creature supposedly hunkered down in Arkansas.

He knows he’ll never persuade all the people — even most of the people — of Bigfoot’s existence, and he’s fine with that.

“Does everybody need to know everything you know?” Bakara asks. “No. It’s best they don’t know.′

There are doubters, of course.

One person signed the guestbook as “Bigfoot,” listing his home as the “Woods.” In the section that asks “How did you hear about us,” the visitor writes: “People were taking my picture.”

But Bakara says most visitors treat the museum with respect, at least while they’re on the grounds.

“I’m just curious,” says Angie Langellier, who stopped in with her family recently while passing through on a trip from Illinois. “So far, I’ve had nothing that’s convinced me.

“But obviously, a lot of people have seen a lot of things that have convinced them.”