Nigeria’s multiple security problems have created a crisis that requires urgent attention and could lead to instability in other African countries if it is not addressed, a United Nations rapporteur said Monday.

Security forces in Africa’s most populous country are trying to tackle a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast, banditry in the northwest and bloody clashes between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities over dwindling arable land in central states.

Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Nigeria was a “pressure cooker of internal conflict.”

“The overall situation I have found is one of extreme concern,” she told a news conference in the capital, Abuja, where she presented her preliminary findings following a 12-day visit to the country.

Callamard said the police and military had shown an excessive use of lethal force across the West African country which, combined with a lack of effective investigations and meaningful prosecution, caused a lack of accountability.

She said the country required changes in the judiciary, police and military to stop people resorting to violence in the absence of justice.

“The lack of accountability is on such a scale that pretending this is nothing short of a crisis will be a major mistake. If ignored, its ripple effect will spread in the sub-region given the country’s important role in the continent,” she said.

Spokesman for the ministries of justice, military and police did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on Callamard’s findings.

MIlitant groups

The Islamist insurgency waged by Boko Haram began in northeast Nigeria in 2009 but has spread to parts of neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger where members of the group and militants allied to Islamic State carry out attacks.

The rapporteur also condemned what she said was the “arbitrary deprivation of life” and the excessive use of lethal force in the case of processions held by banned Shi’ite Muslim group the Islamic Movement in Nigeria.

Callamard said the move to ban the group appeared be based on what the authorities thought IMN could become rather than its actions. She said she had not been presented with any evidence to suggest the group was weaponized and posed a threat to the country.

The gunman in a spate of violence after a routine traffic stop in West Texas had just been fired from his job and called both police and the FBI before the shooting began, authorities said Monday.

Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator had been fired over the weekend from Journey Oilfield Services. He said both Ator and the company called 911 after being fired Saturday but that Ator was gone by the time police showed up. FBI special agent Christopher Combs says Ator’s statements on the phone were “rambling.”

Authorities said Ator killed seven people and injured at least 22 others Saturday before officers killed him outside a busy movie theater in Odessa.

Combs said Ator “was on a long spiral down” before the shooting on the day he was fired. He went to work that day “in trouble,” Combs said. He said the place where Ator lived was “a strange residence” and that the condition reflected “what his mental state was going into this.”

Online court records show Ator was arrested in 2001 for a misdemeanor offense that would not have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms in Texas, although authorities have not said where Ator got the “AR style” weapon he used. 
 
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Monday that “we must keep guns out of criminals’ hands” — words similar to his remarks that followed another mass shooting in El Paso on Aug. 3, when he said firearms must be kept from “deranged killers.” But Abbott, a Republican and avid gun rights supporter, has been noncommittal about tightening Texas gun laws. 
 
He also tweeted that Ator failed a previous gun background check and didn’t go through one for the weapon he used in Odessa. He did not elaborate, and a spokesman referred questions to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which didn’t immediately respond for comment. 
 
Authorities said those killed were between 15 and 57 years old, but did not immediately provide a list of names. Family and employers, however, said that among the dead were Edwin Peregrino, 25, who ran out of his parents’ home to see what the commotion was; mail carrier Mary Granados, 29, slain in her U.S. Postal Service truck; and 15-year-old high school student Leilah Hernandez, who was walking out of an auto dealership.

Hundreds of people gathered at a local university in the Permian Basin region known for its oil industry Sunday evening for a prayer vigil to console each other and grieve the loss of life.

“We’re out here in the middle of nowhere,” Midland Mayor Jerry Morales told the crowd. “All we’ve talked about is oil forever. And then this happens.” 

Saturday’s shootings
 
The attack began Saturday afternoon when Texas state troopers tried pulling over a gold car on Interstate 20 for failing to signal a left turn. Before the vehicle came to a complete stop, the driver “pointed a rifle toward the rear window of his car and fired several shots” toward the patrol car stopping him, according to Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. The gunshots struck a trooper, Cesinger said, after which the gunman fled and continued shooting. He fired at random as he drove in the area of Odessa and Midland, two cities more than 300 miles (482 kilometers) west of Dallas.

Police used a marked SUV to ram the mail truck outside the Cinergy Movie Theater in Odessa, disabling the vehicle. The gunman then fired at police, wounding two officers before he was killed.

“Local law enforcement and state troopers pursued him and stopped him from possibly going into a crowded movie theater and having another event of mass violence,” FBI special agent Christopher Combs said.

Police said Ator’s arrest in 2001 was in the county where Waco is located, hundreds of miles east of Odessa. Online court records show he was charged then with misdemeanor criminal trespass and evading arrest. He entered guilty pleas in a deferred prosecution agreement where the charge was waived after he served 24 months of probation, according to records.

Gerke, the Odessa police chief, refused to say the name of the shooter during a televised news conference, saying he wouldn’t give him notoriety. But police later posted his name on Facebook. A similar approach has been taken in some other recent mass shootings in an effort to deny shooters notoriety.

2019 mass killings

The shooting came at the end of an already violent month in Texas following the El Paso attack at a Walmart that left 22 people dead. Sitting beside authorities in Odessa, Abbott ticked off a list of mass shootings that have now killed nearly 70 since 2016 in his state alone.

“I have been to too many of these events,” Abbott said. “Too many Texans are in mourning. Too many Texans have lost their lives. The status quo in Texas is unacceptable, and action is needed.”

On Sunday, a number of looser gun laws that Abbott signed this year took effect on the first day of September, including one that would arm more teachers in Texas schools. 
 
Saturday’s shooting brings the number of mass killings in the U.S. this year to 25, matching the number in all of 2018, according to The AP/USAToday/Northeastern University mass murder database. The number of people killed this year has reached 142, surpassing the 140 people who were killed of all last year. The database tracks homicides where four or more people are killed, not including the offender.

Daniel Munoz, 28, of Odessa was headed to a bar to meet a friend when he noticed the driver of an approaching car was holding what appeared to be a rifle.

“This is my street instincts: When a car is approaching you and you see a gun of any type, just get down,” said Munoz, who moved from San Diego about a year ago to work in oil country. “Luckily I got down. … Sure enough, I hear the shots go off. He let off at least three shots on me.”

He said he was treated at a hospital and is physically OK, though bewildered by the experience.

“I’m just trying to turn the corner and I got shot — I’m getting shot at? What’s the world coming to? For real?”

Norway-backed talks between Venezuela’s opposition and the government of President Nicolas Maduro must focus on elections, an opposition negotiator said on Monday, as the dialogue proceedings remain stalled after the government walked out.

Maduro’s delegation suspended its participation last month to protest a new round of U.S. sanctions, and has not yet established when it will return to the proceedings that are meant to resolve the country’s political standoff.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has been recognized by more than 50 countries as the nation’s legitimate president, has said the country needs to hold a free and fair vote following Maduro’s 2018 re-election that was widely described as rigged.

“It was the regime that walked out abruptly because it did not want to discuss … what’s important for the country, which is holding a free election,” said legislator Stalin Gonzalez, a lead opposition negotiator.

Asked when the talks will resume, Gonzalez responded “that question should be asked of the regime, if they’re prepared or not to discuss the important issues.”

Neither Venezuela’s information ministry nor Norway’s foreign ministry replied to requests for comment.

Guaido, who is head of the opposition-run National Assembly, in January invoked the constitution to assume a rival interim presidency – though Maduro continues to control state institutions.

Four sources told Reuters last month that Maduro allies during the talks had discussed the possibility of holding a presidential vote in the coming months.

The government delegation had in theory agreed to vote on the condition that the United States lift sanctions, that Maduro run as the Socialist Party candidate, and that it be held in a year, one of the sources said.

Many opposition sympathizers say Maduro uses dialogue proceedings as stalling mechanisms to burnish the international image of the ruling Socialist Party while avoiding any significant changes.

Washington has a similar view of dialogue proceedings under Maduro, according to a senior State Department official.

“We’ve seen this game before. And the game is: buy time, work on dividing the opposition … to undermine things by just kicking the can down the road,” said the official.

“Our support for the National Assembly and interim President Juan Guaido has never wavered. What we’re dealing with here is not an issue of the political right or the political left, but an issue of what is right and what is wrong.”

Maduro accuses the opposition and the United States of seeking to overthrow him, and attributes the country’s economic collapse to sanctions. His critics say it is the result of failed economic policies.

Lithuania said on Monday it had lodged an official protest to the Chinese embassy after some of its diplomats became involved in disruptions at a pro-Hong Kong demonstration in the capital Vilnius last month.

Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Chinese diplomats acted “in violation of public order” at the Aug. 23 event, which was organized to show solidarity with anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong.

A police spokesman told Reuters that two Chinese citizens were detained and fined 15 euros ($17) each after people waving Chinese flags agitated at the protest.

“We have information that some (Chinese) diplomats were more active than they should, and that is not acceptable,” Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told reporters, without giving further details or naming them.

There was no immediate comment from the Chinese embassy.

The event in Vilnius was held as activists formed human chains across Hong Kong, inspired by a similar protest against Soviet rule in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1989.

Mantas Adomenas, a member of parliament who organized the Vilnius protest, told Reuters that before police intervened, several Mandarin speakers with Chinese flags jostled activists and attempted to wrestle away their megaphone.

After the arrest of the two Chinese citizens, police were approached by people who showed embassy identification and asked for the detainees’ release, Adomenas said, citing witnesses in a version partly corroborated by the police spokesman.

“I reviewed filmed footage of the protest, and I saw that the Chinese ambassador was present at the sidelines, and was several times approached by people from the protest,” Adomenas
added.

The unrest in Hong Kong began over a now-suspended extradition bill but quickly morphed into a wider pro-democracy movement resisting Chinese control of the former British-ruled
territory.
($1 = 0.8973 euros)

 

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen staged multiple airstrikes on a detention center operated by the Houthi rebels in the southwestern province of Dhamar, killing at least 100 people and wounding dozens more Sunday, officials and the rebels’ health ministry said.

Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, suggested that the death toll could be higher after visiting the site of the attack, saying relatively few detainees survived. A Red Cross statement said the detention center held around 170 detainees. It said 40 of those were being treated for injuries and the rest were presumed dead.

“Witnessing this massive damage, seeing the bodies lying among the rubble, was a real shock. Anger and sadness were natural reactions,” Rauchenstein said.

The attack was the deadliest so far this year by the coalition, according to the Yemen Data Project, a database tracking the war. The coalition has faced international criticism for airstrikes that have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, killing thousands of Yemeni civilians.

Saudi Arabia intervened on behalf of the internationally recognized Yemini government in March 2015, after the Iran-backed Houthis took the capital. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of famine and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The attack comes as the Saudi-led coalition’s partners — chiefly the United Arab Emirates and an array of Yemeni militias — are increasingly at odds over the war’s aims. The past weeks have seen heavy fighting in Yemen’s south between Saudi-backed and Emirati-backed forces.

Yemeni officials said Sunday’s strikes targeted a college in the city of Dhamar, which the Houthi rebels were using as a detention center. The coalition denied it had struck a detention center, saying it had targeted a military site used by the rebels to restore drones and missiles.

“We were sleeping and around midnight, there were maybe three, or four, or six strikes. They were targeting the jail, I really don’t know the strike numbers,” wounded detainee Nazem Saleh said while on a stretcher in a local hospital. He said the Red Cross had visited the center two times before the airstrike.

A line of over a dozen white body bags were laid out in the rubble beside flattened buildings and crushed cars, while rescue workers dug through the debris.

“We have seen now under the ruble that there are still many, many dead bodies that its very, very difficult to extract,” said Rauchenstein.

The U.N. human rights office for Yemen said 52 detainees were among the dead, and at least 68 detainees were still missing.

The Red Cross, which inspects detention centers as part of its global mission, said it had visited detainees at the site in the past.

Former detainees said the Houthis had previously used the site to store and repair weapons.

Youssef al-Hadhri, a spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry, said at least seven airstrikes hit three buildings in the complex overnight.

The rebels’ Health Ministry said in a statement that more than 60 people were killed in Sunday’s airstrikes and another 50 wounded. Later in the day, health officials said the death toll climbed to 65. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

The Saudi-led coalition said it had hit a military facility “in accordance with international humanitarian law,” and that “all precautionary measures were taken to protect civilians.”

Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the coalition, was quoted by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV as denying the target was a prison.

Local residents said family members arrested for being critical of the Houthis were imprisoned in the detention center. They said at least seven airstrikes hit the area.

Omat al-Salam al-Haj, a mother of a detainee, said the center housed anti-Houthi political detainees who were rounded up over suspicions of cooperating with the coalition.

Former detainee Mansour al-Zelai said the Houthis were restoring weapons in and close to the detention center.

Houthi rebels have been using scores of sites as detention centers, including schools, mosques, and houses, filling them with thousands of political detainees to use later in prisoner-swap deals.

The Associated Press documented that many of these sites were rife with torture and abuses including Dhamar’s community college.

Former detainees recalled torture and abuses inside the detention center, which came under a series of airstrikes before.

Rights groups have also previously documented that Houthis place civilian detainees in detention centers as human shields by placing them next to army barracks, under constant threat of airstrikes.

In October 2016, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a prison complex in the Red Sea port of Hodeida, killing at least 58 people, mostly prisoners. At the time, the coalition said the prison complex was used as a command center for Houthis.

On Sunday, Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi in Amman to discuss her efforts to relaunch negotiations after years of stalemate between Yemen’s warring sides.

“Yemen has been at the center of my attention,” she said in a statement.

Wallstrom also met with Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and other government officials in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, according the official Yemeni news agency SABA.

Airstrikes have also punctuated the infighting between erstwhile coalition allies in southern Yemen.

On Thursday, Emirati jets bombed convoys of Saudi-backed government forces, killing scores in series of airstrikes to prevent them from retaking the interim capital, Aden, from militias backed by the UAE.

The Emirati strikes sparked popular anger in Yemen against the UAE. Activists launched an online petition collecting signatures to “kick Emiratis out of Yemen” and members of the Yemeni government issued a statement demanding the president end the UAE’s role in Yemen.

On Sunday, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash posted a reminder on Twitter that the coalition’s goal is to “confront the challenge of the Houthi coup.”

The United States and China on Sunday put in place their latest tariff increases on each other’s goods, potentially raising prices Americans pay for some clothes, shoes, sporting goods and other consumer items before the holiday shopping season.

President Donald Trump said U.S.-China trade talks were still on for September. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters as he returned to the White House from the Camp David presidential retreat. “But we can’t allow China to rip us off anymore as a country.”

The 15% U.S. taxes apply to about $112 billion of Chinese imports. All told, more than two-thirds of the consumer goods the United States imports from China now face higher taxes. The administration had largely avoided hitting consumer items in its earlier rounds of tariff increases.

But with prices of many retail goods now likely to rise, the Trump administration’s move threatens the U.S. economy’s main driver: consumer spending. As businesses pull back on investment spending and exports slow in the face of weak global growth, American shoppers have been a key bright spot for the economy.

“We have got a great economy,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. “But I do think that the uncertainty caused by volatile tariff situation and this developing trade war could jeopardize that strength, and that growth, and that is I think that’s a legitimate concern,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

As a result of Trump’s higher tariffs, many U.S. companies have warned that they will be forced to pass on to their customers the higher prices they will pay on Chinese imports. Some businesses, though, may decide in the end to absorb the higher costs rather than raise prices for their customers.

In China, authorities began charging higher duties on American imports at midday Sunday, according to employees who answered the phone at customs offices in Beijing and the southern port of Guangzhou. They declined to give their names.

Tariffs of 10% and 5% apply to items ranging from frozen sweet corn and pork liver to marble and bicycle tires, the government announced earlier.

After Sunday’s move, 87% of textiles and clothing the United States buys from China and 52% of shoes will be subject to import taxes.

On Dec. 15, the Trump administration is scheduled to impose a second round of 15% tariffs — this time on roughly $160 billion of imports. If those duties take effect, virtually all goods imported from China will be covered.

The Chinese government has released a list of American imports targeted for penalties on Dec. 15 if the U.S. tariff hikes take effect. In total, Beijing says Sunday’s penalties and the planned December increases will apply to $75 billion of American goods.

Washington and Beijing are locked in a war over U.S. complaints that China steals U.S. trade secrets and unfairly subsidizes its own companies in its drive to develop global competitors in such high-tech industries as artificial intelligence and electric cars.

“I give the president credit for challenging China on some of its really egregious behavior” on intellectual property and technology transfers, for example, Toomey said. He said he hopes that’s what Trump’s focus is, “not just the fact that Chinese clothing and shoes are popular among consumers. That’s not the problem.”

If China changes its behavior “in a meaningful way in that area … then we will have ended up in a better place. That’s what I’m hoping for. But let’s be honest. In the meantime, we’re doing damage. It’s a double-edged sword,” he said.

To try to force Beijing to reform its trade practices, the Trump administration has imposed import taxes on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese imports, and China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. exports.

“It’s a good thing taking on China. Unfortunately, he’s done it the wrong way,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“To take on China there has to be a multilateral approach. One country can’t take on China to try to dry up its overcapacity because they just send it through to you in other ways,” he said.

Trump has insisted that China itself pays the tariffs. But in fact, economic research has concluded that the costs of the duties fall on U.S. businesses and consumers. Trump had indirectly acknowledged the tariffs’ impact by delaying some of the duties until Dec. 15, after holiday goods are already on store shelves.

A study by J.P. Morgan found that Trump’s tariffs will cost the average U.S. household $1,000 a year. That study was done before Trump raised the Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 tariffs to 15% from 10%.

The president has also announced that existing 25% tariffs on a separate group of $250 billion of Chinese imports will increase to 30% on Oct. 1.

That cost could weaken an already slowing U.S. economy. Though consumer spending grew last quarter at its fastest pace in five years, the overall economy expanded at just a modest 2% annual rate, down from a 3.1% rate in the first three months of the year.

The economy is widely expected to slow further in the months ahead as income growth slows, businesses delay expansions and higher prices from tariffs depress consumer spending. Companies have already reduced investment spending, and exports have dropped against a backdrop of slower global growth.

Americans have already turned more pessimistic. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, released Friday, fell by the most since December 2012.

“The data indicate that the erosion of consumer confidence due to tariff policies is now well underway,” said Richard Curtin, who oversees the index.

Some retailers may eat the cost of the tariffs. Target confirmed to The Associated Press that it warned suppliers that it won’t accept cost increases arising from the China tariffs. But many smaller retailers won’t have the bargaining power to make such demands and will pass the costs to customers.

Philip Levy, chief economist at the San Francisco freight company Flexport who was an adviser in President George W. Bush administration, said it’s hard to say for sure when the latest tariffs may hit U.S. customers in the form of higher prices.

But, he added, “If you had to pick a time to do it, this is the worst possible time” because it’s when the bulk of holiday goods are brought into the country.

Germany’s president bowed his head and asked for forgiveness for the suffering his nation inflicted on Poland and the rest of Europe during World War II.

“This war was a German crime,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Poland’s leaders, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others Sunday at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II.

“I bow in mourning to the suffering of the victims,” Steinmeier said. “I ask for forgiveness for Germany’s historical debt. I affirm our lasting responsibility.”

The ceremony, which was also attended by President Andrzej Duda of Poland, was held at 4.37a.m. local time, exactly 80 years after the air strikes that started the Second World War.

“Here began the trail of violence and destruction which was to go through Poland and Europe for six years. We call it war, because we are at a loss to express the horror of those years,” Steinmeier said.
 
U.S. President Donald Trump had originally been scheduled to attend the event, but canceled as Hurricane Dorian barreled toward the U.S.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t invited to attend the ceremony but that didn’t stop Russia officials from marking the role Soviet Union played in ending the war.

 “One may have varying opinions on Soviet policy during the initial period of World War II, but it is impossible to deny the fact that it was the Soviet Union that routed Nazism, liberated Europe and saved European democracy,” the Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted Sunday.

A list of some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the last two years: 
 
— Aug. 31, 2019: Five people were killed in West Texas in shootings in the area of Midland and Odessa. 
 
— Aug. 4, 2019: A gunman wearing body armor shot and killed nine people at a popular nightlife area in Dayton, Ohio. Police were patrolling the area and killed the suspect.  
 
— Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring more than two dozen. A suspect was taken into custody. 
 
— May 31, 2019: Longtime city worker DeWayne Craddock opened fire in a building that houses Virginia Beach government offices. He killed 12 people and wounded several others before police shot him. 
 
— Feb. 15, 2019: Gary Martin killed five co-workers at a manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, during a disciplinary meeting where he was fired. He wounded one other employee and five of the first police officers to arrive at the suburban Chicago plant before he was killed during a shootout with police. 
 
— Nov. 7, 2018: Ian David Long killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, California, before taking his own life. Long was a Marine combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan.  

— Oct. 27, 2018: Robert Bowers is accused of opening fire at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and injuring others. It’s the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. 
 
— June 28, 2018: Jarrod Ramos shot through the windows of the Capital Gazette offices in Annapolis, Maryland, before turning the weapon on employees there, killing five at The Capital newspaper. Authorities say Ramos had sent threatening letters to the newspaper prior to the attack. 
 
— May 18, 2018: Dimitrios Pagourtzis began shooting during an art class at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. The 17-year-old killed eight students and two teachers and 13 others were wounded. Explosives were found at the school and off campus. 
 
— Feb. 14, 2018: Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The incident surpassed Columbine High School as the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history. 
 
— Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Patrick Kelley, who had been discharged from the Air Force after a conviction for domestic violence, used an AR-style firearm to shoot up a congregation at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing more than two dozen. 
 
— Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock opened fire on an outdoor music festival on the Las Vegas Strip from the 32nd floor of a hotel-casino, killing 58 people and wounding more than 500. SWAT teams with explosives then stormed his room and found he had killed himself. 

Thousands of people across Britain and Northern Ireland protested on Saturday against Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament for about a month before the deadline for the country to leave the European Union. 
 
Johnson has pledged to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal on future relations with the bloc. The move to shut Parliament for around a month in the period before that will hinder efforts by his opponents to stop him. About 2,000 people gathered outside his office in Downing Street, chanting: “Liar Johnson, shame on you!” 
 
A sign read: “#StopTheCoup. Defend our Democracy. Save our future.” 

Nothing abnormal

The government says it is usual for Parliament to be suspended before a new prime minister outlines his policy program in a queen’s speech, now scheduled for Oct. 14. His supporters also say Parliament usually breaks in late September, when the main political parties hold their annual conferences. 
 
But his critics say the suspension, known as a prorogation, is unusually long and describe the move as a thinly veiled attempt to reduce the time that lawmakers will have to debate before Britain leaves the EU at the end of October. 
 
Opposition lawmakers want to prevent the shutdown of Parliament and pass legislation to avoid a no-deal Brexit when they return from summer recess on Tuesday. 
 
Protests were scheduled in other major cities in the four nations of the United Kingdom, comprising England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  

About 100 people protested outside the city hall in Belfast, the capital of the Northern Ireland, which has become a particular focus in the Brexit negotiations because it has the United Kingdom’s only land border with the European Union. 
 
The “backstop” insurance policy, part of the withdrawal agreement negotiated between the EU and Britain’s former prime minister and which aims to keep the border with Ireland open, has become the main sticking point in negotiations. 
 
Johnson wants the backstop removed, saying it could leave Northern Ireland operating under different regulatory rules than the rest of the United Kingdom. The EU and Ireland say Britain has yet to come up with acceptable alternatives. 

Court case

A court case being heard in Belfast next week aims to block Johnson’s suspension of Parliament on the ground that a no-deal Brexit would breach the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to the British-run province of Northern Ireland. 
 
Protesters said the government had failed to consider the importance of the border issue. 
 
“The thing that scares me most is they have no appreciation of what is important for Northern Ireland. We are not on their radar,” said Graham Glendinning, 49, a software worker. “The border means nothing to them and they don’t give two hoots about it.” 

Police detained an Afghan man seeking asylum in France after one person was fatally stabbed and nine others injured Saturday outside a subway station near Lyon, authorities said. The reason for the attack was unclear. 
 
The assailant was a 33-year-old Afghan citizen who had applied for asylum in France and was awaiting a response, according to a national police official. The attacker provided contradictory information to police, but the attack did not appear to be terrorism-related, two French officials told The Associated Press. 
 
The victim who died was a 19-year-old man, and it was unclear whether he knew the attacker, according to local police. Three of the injured were in critical condition, officials said. 
 
The subway station in the Lyon suburb of Villeurbanne was cordoned off, with police combing the area. 
 
A manhunt was initially launched for a second attacker. Police later determined that the detained man was the main suspect, two officials said, but police were still looking for possible accomplices. The officials were not authorized to be publicly named because of French government policy. 
 
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has not been asked to participate in the investigation at this stage. An official with the Lyon regional administration said national security forces weren’t involved in the search, which included a few dozen local police officers and a helicopter. 
 
France remains on high alert after several deadly Islamic extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016. 

Turkey’s president threatened Saturday to launch a unilateral offensive into northeastern Syria if plans to establish a so-called safe zone along Turkey’s border fail to meet his expectations, including a demand that Turkish soldiers control the corridor. 
 
Speaking to graduates of a military academy in Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the U.S. had up to three weeks to satisfy Turkish demands. 
 
Earlier in August, Turkish and U.S. officials agreed to set up the zone east of the Euphrates River. Ankara wants U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, considered terrorists by Turkey, to pull back from the border. 
 
“If our soldiers do not start to control the area actively, we will have no choice but to activate our own operational plans,” Erdogan said. 
 
Turkey has been pressing to control — in coordination with the U.S. — a 19-25-mile (30-40-kilometer) zone within civil war-ravaged Syria, running east of the Euphrates all the way to the border with Iraq. 

Temporary accord
 
On Friday, Erdogan said Turkish officials had “temporarily” agreed to a safe zone proposed by the U.S. that was narrower than 20 miles (32 kilometers). 
 
The two countries set up a joint operations center in Turkey’s border province of Sanliurfa this month and started helicopter patrols. But Turkish officials have repeatedly vowed to go it alone if the U.S. delays safe zone plans. 
 
Turkey sees the Syrian Kurdish fighters, who make up most of the Syrian Democratic Forces, as an extension of a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey. American troops are stationed in northeast Syria, along with the Kurdish forces, and they have fought the Islamic State group together. The differing positions on the Kurdish fighters have become a major source of tension between NATO allies Turkey and the U.S. 
 
Erdogan said his visit to New York in September for the U.N. General Assembly, where he’s expected to meet President Donald Trump, would be a “last chance” before a Turkish offensive. 

The U.N. atomic watchdog reported Friday that Iran remained in violation of limitations set by the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers and that its stockpile of low-enriched uranium was increasing.  
 
In a confidential quarterly report distributed to member states and seen by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium still exceeded the amount allowed by the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 
 
It also said Iran was continuing to enrich uranium up to 4.5%, above the 3.67% allowed.  
 
The violations were announced by Iran, and confirmed by the IAEA last month, and are meant to put pressure on the signatories to the JCPOA to provide more economic incentives. 
 
Enriched uranium at the 3.67% level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. At the 4.5% level, it is enough to help power Iran’s Bushehr reactor, the country’s only nuclear power plant. 

U.S. withdrawal
 
The nuclear deal is meant to keep Tehran from building atomic weapons in exchange for economic relief. It has been complicated by the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the deal last year and Washington’s increased sanctions, which have been hurting the Iranian economy. 
 
That has left the other signatories — Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China — struggling to come up with enough incentives to keep Iran in the deal. 
 
So far, the signatories have expressed concern about Tehran’s violations and urged the country to return to the limitations set in the agreement but haven’t taken further action. 
 
Britain, France and Germany have set up a complex barter-type system dubbed INSTEX that aims to protect companies doing business with Iran from American sanctions. The first transactions through this system are being “processed” but haven’t yet been completed, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Friday. 
 
Under the weight of those sanctions, the value of Iran’s currency has plummeted by about 60% in the last year. Inflation is up 37% and the cost of food and medicine has soared 40% to 60%, according to EU figures.  

Europe’s hope
 
The Europeans hope that the possibility, however slight, of a high-level meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani might help keep Iran in the deal. 
 
“If this new momentum is real, this can build on the work that we have been doing all these years and will continue to do in these days and months and weeks to preserve the JCPOA,” Mogherini said before the IAEA report. “The two things are not alternatives. The two things might be complementary.” 
 
In Friday’s report, the IAEA said that Iran has continued to permit its inspectors to monitor its nuclear facilities and has also remained under the limit of 130 tons (143.3 U.S. tons) set on its stockpile of heavy water, with 125.5 tons (138.34 U.S. tons) stockpiled.  
 

It said Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium hit 241.6 kilograms (532.64 pounds) as of Aug. 19. The JCPOA cap is 202.8 (447.1 pounds) kilograms of enriched uranium. 
 
The stockpile is made up of 216.5 kilograms (477.3 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 3.67%, and 25.1 kilograms (55.34 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 4.5%, the IAEA reported.  

More centrifuges
 
In its previous quarterly report, it noted that Iran had installed “up to 33” more advanced IR-6 centrifuges, used to enrich uranium, and that 10 had been tested.  
 
Under terms of the nuclear deal, Iran is allowed to test no more than 30 of the IR-6s once the deal has been in place for 8½ years. The deal is murky about limits before that point, which will arrive in 2023. 
 
In the current report it repeated that Iran had installed “up to 33” of the IR-6 centrifuges, but said 11 had now been tested, and that “technical discussions in relation to the IR-6 centrifuges are ongoing.” 

The Boy Scouts of America is facing a threat from a growing wave of lawsuits over decades-old allegations of sexual abuse.

The Scouts have been sued in multiple states in recent months by people claiming to be abuse victims, including plaintiffs taking advantage of new state laws or court decisions that are now allowing suits previously barred because of the age of the allegations.

More litigation is on the way.

A lawyer representing 150 people who say they were abused as Boy Scouts is planning a suit in New Jersey when the state’s new civil statute of limitations law takes effect Dec. 1. New Jersey was home to the Boy Scouts’ headquarters for about 25 years until 1978.

Among the plaintiffs is Greg Hunt, 62, of St. Petersburg, Florida. He said he was abused during a camping trip in about 1969 in Pennsylvania, where his family lived at the time.

“It’d be nice to have the Boy Scouts account for their lack of ability to do the right thing,” he said. “It would be nice for me to have the Scouts say we did wrong by you and by these other boys and by your parents.”

The lawsuits raise the possibility that the Boy Scouts, one of the largest youth organizations in the U.S., might be staring at many millions of dollars in settlements or judgments that could lead it to declare bankruptcy, as several Roman Catholic dioceses have done amid litigation over abusive clergy.

At least 25 lawsuits

The New Jersey suit will come on top of at least 24 that have been filed against the Scouts in New York since Aug. 14, when that state opened a one-year window in which victims of child sex abuse will be able to sue over encounters outside the usual statute of limitations.

Another lawsuit was filed against the Boy Scouts this month in Philadelphia by lawyers who say they have identified hundreds of victims, after a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled that the state’s statute of limitations could be set aside if a victim could prove that abuse was concealed by fraud.

Hundreds of other lawsuits filed in Guam and other states have strained the Boy Scouts finances and have led the organization to consider bankruptcy, among other options.

“The Boy Scouts are going to have to come to grips with the issues of their past,” said Michael Pfau, Washington state-based attorney planning the New Jersey lawsuit.

In a statement responding to the pending New Jersey suit, the Boy Scouts said it apologizes to the victims and encourages them to report abuse to law enforcement.

Boy Scouts statement

“We believe victims, we support them, we pay for counseling by a provider of their choice, and we encourage them to come forward,” the organization said. It added that policies have also been changed to include mandatory criminal background checks. It also added a rule that at least two adult leaders must be present with children at all times during activities.

New Jersey’s law, signed in May, allows child victims to sue up until they turn 55 or within seven years of their first realization that the abuse caused them harm. The current statute of limitations is age 20 or two years after first realizing the abuse caused harm. The bill also opens up a two-year window to victims who were previously barred by the statute of limitation. It also allows victims to seek damages from institutions.

Caused harm

That has opened the door to lawsuits by people like Charles Wright, 75, of Salt Lake City, who said he was sexually assaulted by a “Scout commissioner” in Southern California when he was about 11.

“I kept it all a secret for years. I became an alcoholic. I wanted to become a Baptist minister. Instead I became an alcoholic. I became addicted to numerous types of drugs,” he said. “It’s not easy with this thought rolling through your head about what happened to you when you were a kid.”

The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they give permission, as both Wright and Hunt have.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys say estimating how much the Boy Scouts have paid out to date and could be liable for is hard because the organization seeks confidentiality in settlements.

Paul Mones, the plaintiff’s lawyer in a 2010 case that resulted in a nearly $20 million judgment against the Boy Scouts, said the organization never expected to face such staggering financial liabilities because of statutes of limitations, which barred many purported victims from suing and which states are now beginning to change to help those who say they were abused.

“We are witnessing now, not just with the Boy Scouts, a major transformation (in) how victims of abuse and society view these institutions,” Mones said.

All options considered

The Boy Scouts also said in a statement that they’re considering “all options available so we can live up to our social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse during their time in Scouting.”

If the suits in New Jersey and across the country lead the scouts to pursue bankruptcy, that would offer the organization a chance to come up with a plan to repay any plaintiffs, who would have to sign off on the plan, according to Pamela Foohey, a bankruptcy expert at the Maurer School of Law and Indiana University. 
 

A verdict has been delayed in the espionage case against two Cambodian journalists who worked for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia.

Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin are accused of undermining national security by supplying information to a foreign state, an act punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The two men and others were sitting inside the courtroom awaiting the verdict Friday morning when a court officer entered and announced the delay. The officer read a statement saying the judge who was set to announce the verdict was busy because of a meeting in the justice ministry. The officer said the new date for the verdict would be announced later.

Sothearin said he was keen to know the verdict so he could prepare for his future. 

“The more postponement of the verdict, the more of my freedom I’ve lost,” he told reporters outside court after the delay was announced.

Rights groups object

Rights groups consider the espionage case against the two journalists a clear attack on freedom of the press.

“As long as Cambodia treats journalists like criminals, its reputation as a failed democracy will remain,” Shawn Crispin, senior Southeast Asia representative for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said last month.

The two were arrested in November 2017 during a crackdown on the media and political opponents of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government. The crackdown, which included a court-ordered dissolution of the country’s only viable opposition party, was generally seen as an effort to ensure victory for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party in the 2018 general election.

Hun Sen has been in power for more than three decades, but in recent years has tightened his grip as his political opponents began to pose a bigger threat at the polls.

The case against them

The two defendants are accused of sending secret information to Radio Free Asia after it closed its office in Cambodia. They acknowledged sending news to their former employer but said it involved openly available information.

Radio Free Asia closed its Phnom Penh office, citing “unprecedented” government intimidation of the media. By the end of 2017, Cambodia’s government had closed more than two dozen local radio stations, some of which had rebroadcast RFA’s programs. The English-language newspaper The Cambodia Daily also was forced to close, muting almost all independent media inside the country.

Police initially said Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin had been detained for running an unlicensed karaoke studio. But they were later accused of setting up a studio for Radio Free Asia and were charged with espionage. They testified that they had been building a karaoke studio to earn some income since their employment with Radio Free Asia had ended.

They are free on bail, but their release is conditional on visiting the police station each month and their passports were confiscated, which they said makes it difficult to find jobs.

RFA is funded by an independent U.S. government agency and says its mission is “to provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press.” Its programs are aired by radio and television and carried online.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders returns to South Carolina Thursday for a conversation on climate change in a popular tourist destination along the coast of the critical early-voting state.

The gathering is being held in Myrtle Beach, a focal point of South Carolina’s $20 billion tourism industry. It comes on the heels of the Vermont senator’s release last week of a $16.3 trillion climate change plan that calls for the United States to move to renewable energy across the economy by 2050 and declare climate change a national emergency.

How climate changes affect coastal communities is a major concern along the 190 miles of Atlantic coastline in South Carolina, which holds the first 2020 voting in the South. In the historic city of Charleston, even a moderate amount of rainfall has become enough to flood streets and make parts of the urban peninsula impassable.

According to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, by 2045, chronic flooding could inundate more than 16,000 homes along the state’s coast and low-lying areas, with about 15,000 of those in the areas surrounding Myrtle Beach. The region’s subtropical climate and extensive beaches attract more than 19 million visitors each year.

Earlier this week, Sanders told voters in coal-producing Kentucky that it’s possible to be a friend of coal miners and a believer in climate change as he pushed for cleaner energy sources to combat global warming. Sanders also vowed to help communities tied to coal and other fossil fuel industries in the transition toward renewable energy production such as solar and wind power.

Sanders says his 10-year “nationwide mobilization” would create 20 million jobs. His proposals include sourcing 100% of the country’s electricity from renewable and zero-carbon emission power and committing more than $2 trillion in grants for low- and middle-income families to weatherize and retrofit their homes and businesses, with the goal of reducing residential energy consumption.

Sanders has teamed up with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on climate legislation and endorsed the Green New Deal, a sweeping proposal that’s becoming a rallying point both for Democratic presidential hopefuls and liberals in the party’s base. Republicans have argued that the plan is too radical and would drive the economy off a cliff and lead to a huge tax increase.

The climate change discussion kicks off two days of campaign events for Sanders in South Carolina. On Friday, he has scheduled a town hall meeting in Florence on “Medicare for All,” the government-run single-payer approach to health care.

The United States is offering rewards of up to $5 million for information about three Islamic State (IS) leaders, a move analysts say could place more pressure on the terror group.

The cash bounty, which is part of the U.S. Rewards for Justice program, lists three prominent IS leaders — Mutaz Numan Abd Nayif Najm al-Jaburi, Sami Jasim Muhammad al-Jaburi and Amir Muhammad Said Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla — the U.S. State Department announced last week.

“As ISIS is defeated on the battlefield, we are determined to identify and find the group’s leaders so that the global coalition of nations fighting to defeat ISIS can continue to destroy ISIS remnants and thwart its global ambitions,” a statement by Rewards for Justice said, using another acronym for IS.

Experts say the three militant leaders have been playing a key part within IS’s organizational hierarchy.

“These individuals have had a major role in regrouping the terror group after it lost control of territory in Syria and Iraq,” said Watheq al-Hashimi, director of the Iraqi Group for Strategic Studies, a Baghdad-based research center.

“In the past few months, [IS leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has heavily relied on them to organize the group and reach out to smaller jihadist groups after most of his first-rank officials were killed in the [the U.S.-led] war,” he told VOA.

Al-Hashimi noted that killing or arresting these IS leaders would significantly impact the terror group’s capabilities to carry out attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces.

Overseeing bomb-making 

Mutaz Numan Abd Nayif Najm al-Jaburi, who also is known as Hajji Taysir, is a senior IS leader, according to the U.S. State Department.

Prior to joining IS, al-Jaburi held several positions within the ranks of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI).

His primary mission with IS recently has been overseeing bomb-making and planning terrorist activities, U.S. officials and experts said.

“Al-Jaburi had a leading role with [AQI leader Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi. So when he joined Daesh, al-Baghdadi gave him a lot of power. He has had close ties with al-Baghdadi,” analyst al-Hashimi said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

He added that al-Jaburi’s effectiveness “has particularly been evident in recent months with IS stepping up its insurgent attacks in Iraq.”

IS has lost control of nearly all the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq dating to 2014. In December 2017, the Iraqi government declared the military defeat of IS. In Syria, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced in March 2019 the terror group had been defeated.

Since then, however, IS has been able to carry out deadly offensives, using car bombs and suicide attacks in both countries.

U.S. officials have warned that IS continues to pose a threat to the region.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the terror group has gained some strength in certain areas.

“There’s certainly places where ISIS is more powerful today than they were three or four years ago. But the caliphate is gone and their capacity to conduct external attacks has been made much more difficult,” he told CBS News. “We’ve taken down significant risk — not all of it, but a significant amount.”

Managing finances

Sami Jasim Muhammad al-Jaburi, also known as Hajji Hamid, is another leading IS commander the State Department has listed as a target.

Al-Jaburi has a history with al-Qaida in Iraq, and he has been instrumental in managing finances for IS terrorist operations, U.S. officials said.

“While serving as ISIS deputy in southern Mosul in 2014, he reportedly served as the equivalent of ISIS’s finance minister, supervising the group’s revenue-generating operations from illicit sales of oil, gas, antiquities and minerals,” the State Department said, referring to al-Jaburi. 

In September 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department labeled al-Jaburi a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

“When IS was in control of Mosul, al-Jaburi played an important role in setting up their local administration,” said Jawad al-Rassam, an Iraqi analyst based in Amman, Jordan. “At some point, he became the head of [IS’s] sharia council,” he told VOA.

In August 2016, Iraqi Kurdish intelligence officials said al-Jaburi was killed in a joint U.S.-Kurdish operation near Anbar province in western Iraq. It was later reported that he was not among IS members who were targeted in that raid.

Al-Baghdadi successor

The third IS figure who was included in the recent U.S. move is Amir Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla, who also is known as Hajji Abdallah. Al-Mawla is a senior leader who is considered to be the group’s main ideologue.

He “helped drive and justify the abduction, slaughter and trafficking” of the Yazidi religious minority in northwest Iraq and is believed to oversee some of the group’s global terrorist operations.

According to U.S. officials and experts, al-Mawla is a potential successor to al-Baghdadi.

“He is a particularly dangerous IS figure because he is now considered as the main force behind driving IS’s extremist ideology and even crafting its social media messaging,” analyst al-Rassam said.

Since its inception in 1984, the U.S. cash program has paid in excess of $150 million to more than 100 people who provided actionable information that helped bring terrorists to justice or prevented acts of international terrorism worldwide, the State Department says.

The U.S. already has offered cash rewards for information leading to other IS leaders, including al-Baghdadi.

Uganda’s Ministry of Health has confirmed a case of the Ebola virus in the western district of Kasese.

In a statement released Thursday evening, Dr. Joyce Moriku Kaducu, Uganda’s minister of state in charge of primary health care, said, “The confirmed case is a 9-year-old female of Congolese origin who traveled with her mother on Wednesday.”

The child and her mother entered Uganda through the Mpondwe main border post to seek medical care. 

The child reportedly has symptoms including high fever, body weakness, rash and unexplained mouth bleeding.

A blood sample was drawn and sent for testing at the Uganda Virus Research Institute and was confirmed positive for Ebola on Thursday.

“She was subsequently isolated and transferred to Bwera Hospital Ebola treatment unit, where she is currently being managed,” Moriku said.

This was the second time a confirmed Ebola case had crossed into Uganda. In June, a 5-year-old boy died in Uganda after crossing into the country with his family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than 1,800 people have died of the disease since August 2018.

Uganda’s Ministry of Health is now repeating calls to citizens to cooperate with health workers, immigration officials and security officials “to ensure effective screening at all entry points to prevent the spread of Ebola to other parts of the country.” 

The case came amidst an ongoing Ebola vaccine trial by scientists in Uganda, a project aimed at preventing the disease from spreading.

The new vaccine is manufactured by Janssen Pharmaceutical, owned by U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson. It will be administered to health care professionals, as well as ambulance drivers, burial teams and cleaners. The trial is expected to last two years and cover 800 people in the Mbarara district in southwest Uganda.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez urged Canadian counterpart Chrystia Freeland on Wednesday to help end U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in their third meeting since May on the South American country’s political and humanitarian crisis.

Communist-run Cuba is a strong ally of leftist President Nicolas Maduro, whom most Western nations including Canada want to step down in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido, arguing his election was fraudulent and there must be a new vote.

A hike in U.S. sanctions this year, aimed at intensifying pressure on Maduro, has hurt an economy already experiencing hyperinflation that has fueled malnutrition and disease while prompting millions to flee.

“I expressed that tightening of #US coercive measures vs #Venezuela damages its people and are contrary to International Law and the dialogue process,” Rodriguez tweeted in English after the meeting.

A Cuban Foreign Ministry statement added that the minister “therefore proposed Canada contribute to their elimination.” U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has railed against socialism in Latin America, accuses Havana of propping up Maduro and tightened the decades-old U.S. trade embargo on the island this year.

The strategy, which is more aggressive than that of other Western countries, appears partly aimed at winning the votes of Latin American exile communities in the battleground state of Florida in next year’s presidential election, some analysts say. Canada, a neighbor and NATO ally of the United States, also has long-standing good relations with Cuba, raising hopes it could serve as a mediator in the Venezuelan crisis.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called on Canada in June to do more to engage directly with Cuba over what he called its “malign influence” on Venezuela.

The Canadian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Rodriguez and Freeland agreed that senior officials would stay in contact and continue to exchange views over Venezuela.

The United States warned businesses against taking part in an annual trade fair in the Syrian capital opening Wednesday, saying participants would expose themselves to the possibility of U.S. sanctions. 
 
Russia, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, shot back, accusing the U.S. of undermining the reconstruction of Syria.  
 
In a statement posted on Twitter, the U.S. Embassy in Syria, which closed the mission early on in the country’s eight-year civil war, said it has received reports that some regional businessmen or chambers of commerce plan to participate in the Damascus fair. 
 
“We reiterate our warning that anyone doing business with the Assad regime or its associates is exposing themselves to the possibility of U.S. sanctions,” it said. 

The Damascus International Fairgrounds, located near the city’s international airport, is hosting the fair. Before the war started in 2011, the exhibition was a high-profile event, attracting major investors and celebrities from around the Arab world who performed to packed audiences on opening night. 

The event was halted in 2001 as the country descended into conflict and rebels seized control of the eastern suburbs of Damascus, near the fairgrounds. 
 
The fair resumed in 2017 for the first time since war broke out, an event hailed by officials as a victory and a sign of renewed confidence after rebels were ejected from the area around the capital following years-long fighting.

But participation has been largely confined to Syrian companies, followed by Lebanese and Iranian exhibitors and very few Russian, largely because of the challenges posed by international sanctions and the lack of a political solution to the conflict. 

‘Unacceptable and inappropriate’
 
Sanctions by the U.S. have been in place since 2011 but were tightened by the Trump administration in the past year. 
 
The U.S. statement said it is “unacceptable and inappropriate” for businesses and individuals to participate, “particularly at a time when the Assad regime and its allies Russia and the IRGC are attacking innocent civilians.” The IRGC is an acronym for Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is fighting alongside Assad’s forces in Syria. 
 
On its Facebook page, the embassy urged members of the public who have information on any businesses or individuals who plan to participate in the trade fair to email the U.S. Department of Treasury with the information.

China response

China’s ambassador in Damascus, Feng Biao, said the U.S. threats to impose sanctions on participants at the Damascus fair would not deter Chinese companies from taking part.

“Damascus international fair is considered as a source of power for the Syrian people and a window to develop Syria’s economy,” Feng said in an interview with the state news agency SANA late Tuesday, adding that 58 Chinese companies will take part in the fair this year. 
 
The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Washington of attempting to sabotage the event. The U.S.’s “blatant attempts to undermine the Syrian leadership’s reconstruction efforts are harmful to Syria’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the ministry said.

A federal civil rights agency says Vermont’s largest hospital required a nurse to participate in an abortion over her moral objections.

The Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that the University of Vermont Medical Center could lose some federal funding if the two parties cannot agree within 30 days on the hospital’s policies on employee participation in abortions.

The Burlington hospital says in a statement that its policies strike the balance between supporting employees’ religious, ethical and cultural beliefs, and ensuring “patients are not denied access to safe and legal abortion.”

The hospital says it is disappointed by the government’s actions.

The civil rights office says the nurse was required to participate in the abortion in May 2018.