President Donald Trump irritably defended himself Friday against an intelligence whistleblower’s complaint, including an allegation of wrongdoing in a reported private conversation Trump had with a foreign leader. 
 
The complaint, which the administration has refused to let Congress see, is “serious” and “urgent,” the government’s intelligence watchdog said. But Trump dismissed the matter, insisting he did nothing wrong. 
 
He declared Friday that the complaint was made by a “partisan whistleblower,” though he later said he did not know the identity of the person. He chided reporters for asking about it and said it was “just another political hack job.” 
 
“I have conversations with many leaders. It’s always appropriate. Always appropriate,” Trump said. “At the highest level always appropriate. And anything I do, I fight for this country.” 
 
Some of the whistleblower’s allegations appear to center on Ukraine, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person was not authorized to discuss the issue by name and was granted anonymity. 
 
Trump, who sat in the Oval Office with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whom he was hosting for a state visit, was asked if he knew if the whistleblower’s complaint centered on a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The president responded “I really don’t know” but continued to insist any phone call he made with a head of state was “perfectly fine and respectful.” 

Intelligence director’s role
 
The standoff raises fresh questions about the extent to which Trump’s appointees are protecting the Republican president from oversight and, specifically, whether his new acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, is working with the Justice Department to shield the president from the reach of Congress. 
 
It also plunged the Trump administration into an extraordinary showdown with Congress over access to the whistleblower’s Aug. 12 complaint as lawmakers press their oversight of the executive branch. 
 
The administration has kept Congress from even learning what exactly the whistleblower is alleging, but the intelligence community’s inspector general said the matter involves the “most significant” responsibilities of intelligence leadership. A lawmaker said the complaint was “based on a series of events.” 
 
The inspector general appeared before the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors Thursday but declined, under administration orders, to reveal to members the substance of the complaint.  

The chairman of the House committee said Trump’s attack on the whistleblower was “disturbing.” Representative Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters it’s also “deeply disturbing” that the White House appears to know more about the whistleblower’s complaint than its intended recipient — Congress. 
  
The information “deserves a thorough investigation,” Schiff said. “Come hell or high water, that’s what we’re going to do.” 
 
Schiff, who said he was prepared to go to court to force the administration to open up about the complaint, said he was worried the president’s actions will have a “chilling effect” on other whistleblowers. 
  
House Democrats are fighting the administration separately for access to witnesses and documents in impeachment probes. Democrats are also looking into whether Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure the government to aid the president’s re-election effort by investigating the activities of potential rival Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company. 
 
Trump was asked Friday if he brought up Biden in the call with Zelensky, and he answered, “It doesn’t matter what I discussed.” But then he used the moment to urge the media “to look into” Biden’s background with Ukraine. 
 
During a rambling interview Thursday on CNN, Giuliani was asked whether he had asked Ukraine to look into Biden. Giuliani initially said, “No, actually, I didn’t,” but seconds later he said, “Of course I did.” 

‘On my own’
 
Giuliani has spent months trying to drum up potentially damaging evidence about Biden’s ties to Ukraine. He told CNN that Trump was unaware of his actions. 
 
“I did what I did on my own,” Giuliani said. “I told him about it afterward.” 
 
Later, Giuliani tweeted, “A President telling a Pres-elect of a well known corrupt country he better investigate corruption that affects US is doing his job.” 

Giuliani’s efforts have sparked anger among Democrats who have claimed that Trump, in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, may have asked for foreign assistance in his upcoming re-election bid. 
 
Among the materials Democrats have sought is a transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky. The call took place one day after Mueller’s faltering testimony to Congress effectively ended the threat his probe posed to the White House. 
 
Schiff said he, too, could not confirm whether newspaper reports were accurate because the administration was claiming executive privilege in withholding the complaint. But letters from the inspector general to the committee released Thursday said it was an “urgent” matter of “serious or flagrant abuse” that must be shared with lawmakers.  

The letters also made it clear that Maguire consulted with the Justice Department in deciding not to transmit the complaint to Congress, a further departure from standard procedure. It’s unclear whether the White House was also involved, Schiff said. 
 
Trump named Maguire, a former Navy official, as acting intelligence director last month, after the departure of Dan Coats, a former Republican senator who often clashed with the president, and the retirement of Sue Gordon, a career professional who held the No. 2 position. 
 
Maguire has refused to discuss details of the whistleblower complaint, but he has been subpoenaed by the House panel and is expected to testify publicly next Thursday. Maguire and the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, also are expected next week at the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

‘Impasse’
 
Atkinson wrote in letters that Schiff released that he and Maguire had hit an “impasse” over the acting director’s decision not to share the complaint with Congress. Atkinson said he was told by the legal counsel for the intelligence director that the complaint did not actually meet the definition of an “urgent concern.” And he said the Justice Department said it did not fall under the director’s jurisdiction because it did not involve an intelligence professional. 
 
Atkinson said he disagreed with that Justice Department view. The complaint “not only falls under DNI’s jurisdiction,” Atkinson wrote, “but relates to one of the most significant and important of DNI’s responsibilities to the American people.” 
 
The inspector general said he requested authorization to at the very least disclose the “general subject matter” to the committee but had not been allowed to do so. 

…

Two reporters for the U.S.-based Bloomberg news agency have appeared in court accused of trying to undermine Turkey’s economic stability with a story they wrote on last year’s currency crisis.

The trial against Kerim Karakaya and Fercan Yalinkilic opened in Istanbul on Friday. Thirty-six others have also been charged for their social media comments on the story written in August 2018, increasing concerns over media freedoms in Turkey.

The trial is part of a fierce crackdown on journalists and media outlets. The Turkish Journalists Syndicate says at least 126 journalists or media workers are currently in prison.

Karakaya and Yalinkilic face up to five-year jail terms if convicted.

Bloomberg has condemned the prosecution and defended the pair, saying they reported “fairly and accurately on newsworthy events.”

…

Sixty years ago, children accounted for more than one-third — 36% — of the U.S. population. Today, that number is 22% and shrinking faster than anticipated.

The U.S. Census Bureau had not expected the kid population to drop that low until 2030, but the reality hit more than a decade ahead of projection.

Last year, the U.S. birth rate dropped to its lowest number in 32 years.  The births of 3,788,235 babies in 2018 is a 2% drop from 2017. That’s the lowest number of babies born in the U.S. since 1986.

The birth rates declined among all racial groups and all women under 35, while rising slightly for women in their late 30s and early 40s. 

And it’s a nationwide trend. Since 1990, child population rates have fallen off in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Center.

The biggest drops were in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The share of kids in each of those states decreased from 25% in 1990 to 19% in 2018. 

New Jersey experienced the smallest decline. Children accounted for 23% of the Garden State’s population in 1990 and 22% in 2018.

Meanwhile, the overall adult population has continued to climb since 2009.

The decline in births might be attributable to the fact that young American adults in their 20s and 30s, among the hardest hit by the Great Recession of 2007-2009, are still recovering professionally and financially from their rough entry into the workforce, prompting them to postpone starting their families.

Meanwhile, the graying of America continues. By 2030, all Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — will be over the age of age 65, meaning that 1 in every 5 residents will be of retirement age.

Experts had expected the U.S. birth rate to stabilize by now. America’s senior citizens will need more young workers, not fewer, to help bolster economic safety net programs like Social Security, which was designed in 1935 primarily to provide retired workers with a continuing income.

The program currently also serves disabled workers and their dependents as well as survivors of deceased workers.

In 2014, there were 35 workers per every 100 people drawing Social Security benefits. By 2030, the number of workers is projected to drop to 44 for every 100 beneficiaries.

As of June 2018, about 175 million workers paid Social Security taxes while approximately 62 million people received monthly Social Security benefits.

…

Police in Zimbabwe say the leader of a doctors’ strike, who allegedly was abducted by government agents, is receiving care at a Harare hospital and is not under arrest.

Dr. Peter Magombeyi reappeared in the village of Nyabira late Thursday, five days after he went missing. In his absence, doctors and nurses held protests in Harare, demanding the government find him and ensure his safe return.

Speaking Friday to VOA’s Zimbabwe service, national police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said Magombeyi is under observation at a hospital.  

“He has been examined by his own medical team and a government team,” Nyathi said. “He is safe and has not been arrested at all as claimed in some sections of the media.”

He added: “Dr. Magombeyi has accessed his lawyers who are interacting with the police. He has accessed his family and they are also interacting with the police.”

Nyathi said police will interview Magombeyi once he is cleared by doctors.

Magombeyi is acting president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, whose members went on strike September 3.  

The doctors, who are paid less than $200 per month, are demanding a pay raise to keep pace with Zimbabwe’s soaring inflation. The doctors have rejected government calls to return to work while negotiations continue.

Officials have denied accusations that agents kidnapped Magombeyi as a form of punishment or intimidation.

Speaking Thursday on VOA Zimbabwe Service’s Livetalk program, a disoriented-sounding Magombeyi confirmed he was alive, but said he could not remember exactly what happened to him or how he ended up in Nyabira.

“That part I’m just so vague about, I need time to recall,” he said.

Magombeyi said his last recollection before being taken by unnamed people was the memory of being electrocuted.

“I remember being in a basement of some sort, being electrocuted at some point, that is what I vividly remember. I, I just don’t remember,” Magombeyi said, struggling to speak.

Officials also suggested a third party could be involved in the disappearance to taint the government’s image.

Responding to the police allegation, and also Twitter posts alluding to the same accusations, Magombeyi said he had no answers.  

“I need time to think about it, I don’t know,” he said.

…

Online shopping giant Amazon revealed a carbon footprint Thursday that rivals that of a small country and vowed to reduce the damage to the planet by cutting its use of fossil fuels.

The company, which ships more than 10 billion items a year on fuel-guzzling planes and trucks, said it has ordered 100,000 electric vans that will start delivering packages to shoppers’ doorsteps in 2021. It also plans to have 100% of its energy use come from solar panels and other renewable energy by 2030. That’s up from 40% today.

“We’ve been in the middle of the herd on this issue and we want to move to the forefront,” said Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, who announced the initiatives at an event in Washington.

Amazon said it emitted 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, a number that comes close to pollution rates of some small nations.

“Its greenhouse gas emissions are about 85% of the emissions of Switzerland or Denmark,” said Gregg Marland, a professor at the Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics at Appalachian State University.

Amazon’s employees have pressed the company to do more to combat climate change. Earlier this year, more than 8,000 Amazon staffers signed an open letter to Bezos, demanding that Amazon cut its carbon emissions, end its use of fossil fuels and stop working with oil companies who use Amazon’s technology to find drillable oil faster. More than 1,500 employees are planning a walkout Friday to support the Global Climate Strike, a worldwide climate change protest.

Amazon plans to be carbon neutral by 2040 and wants other companies to join it. Bezos unveiled a climate pledge and said he would talk with CEOs of other large companies to get them to sign it.

“We want to use our scale and our scope to lead the way,” Bezos said.

Amazon workers get ‘huge win’

A climate change advocacy group founded by Amazon workers said the company’s announcement amounted to a “huge win” and proved that employee pressure works. In a statement, Amazon Employees For Climate Justice said that it would keep pushing the issue as long as Amazon continues working with oil and gas companies and donating to politicians who deny climate change.

Bezos defended Amazon’s work with the oil and gas industry, arguing that “we need to help them instead of vilify them,” and said Amazon would take a “hard look” at campaign contributions to climate deniers. However, he stopped short of saying such donations would stop.

Employees from other big tech giants, including Google and Microsoft, also planned to walk out Friday. Their gripes mirror those of Amazon’s employees, including that their companies provide technology to the oil industry. Ahead of the strikes, Google made its own announcement Thursday, saying it would buy enough renewable energy to spur the construction of millions of solar panels and hundreds of wind turbines across the world.

Comprehensive carbon footprint

To measure its carbon footprint, Amazon looked at emissions from all of its businesses, including the planes it operates and the energy it uses to make Echos, Kindles and its other devices. Amazon even included customers’ trips to Whole Foods, the grocery chain it owns.

“It’s very comprehensive,” said Beril Toktay, professor of operations and supply chain management at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business. She said she would like to see Amazon include the carbon footprint of the products it sells on its website, which could help drive people to shop for items that are less damaging to the environment.

Robin Bell, a research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said it was exciting to see Amazon taking meaningful steps to reduce its carbon footprint.

“They’re blazing a trail for other companies to follow suit,” Bell said.

…

The U.S. military is joining federal, state and local officials on the frontlines of the battle to protect the country’s elections from foreign interference.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper made the announcement Thursday, saying that, from now on, election security will be one of the military’s enduring missions, and that his department will seek to take the fight to the country’s enemies.

“The lines between war and peace have now blurred,” Esper said, citing an exponential expansion of dangers in cyberspace. “Our paradigm for war has changed.”

“Our adversaries see cyberwarfare as a way to take on the United States and impose costs without confronting our traditional strengths,” he said.

Election security

The decision to make election security a core part of the military’s mission comes with campaigning for the 2020 U.S. presidential election well underway, with more than a dozen candidates looking to unseat President Donald Trump.

It also represents a significant expansion of the military’s role in protecting the integrity of U.S. elections, which until now had been more modest.

Despite concerns about Russian and Chinese efforts to meddle in last November’s midterm elections, the Defense Department was in the background, standing up a handful of cyber protection teams that could have been called upon to assist the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), if needed.

“There would not be any independent DoD teams. We would operate in concert with DHS for incident response for election security,” Ed Wilson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, said at the time, emphasizing Homeland Security officials would be in the lead.

But Esper said the growing threat landscape necessitated a larger military role.

“We need to do more than just play goal line defense,” he said. “The Department of Defense has an important role in defending the American people from this misinformation, particularly as it pertains to preserving the integrity of our democratic elections.”

For months now, current and former U.S. intelligence and security officials have warned that Russia is actively working to interfere in the 2020 elections, whether with disinformation campaigns or by targeting U.S. election infrastructure, such as voter databases.

“It wasn’t a single attempt. They’re doing it as we sit here,” former special counsel Robert Mueller, tasked with investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections, told lawmakers this past July. “And they expect to do it during the next campaign.”

Intelligence officials’ warnings

Mueller also echoed warnings from top intelligence officials that in 2020, Russia would not be alone.

“Many more countries are developing capabilities to replicate what the Russians have done,” he added.

Esper agreed.

“Our adversaries will continue to target our democratic processes,” he warned Thursday. “This is already happening in preparation for the 2020 elections.”

In addition to Russia, officials have said evidence shows Iran and China tried to meddle in the 2018 elections. And they expect the list to grow.

“2018 was maybe a playoff game; 2020 is the Super Bowl with election security,” Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said Thursday.

“State and local election officials are standing on the frontlines of a renewed conflict, defending our nation’s election systems against state and criminal actors,” he said. “I’m committed to ensuring that they do not stand alone.”

For state and local election officials, more help may soon be on the way.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday agreed to support legislation that would provide states with an additional $250 million for election security.

Congressional approval needed

The measure still needs approval from the full Senate and from the House of Representatives, as well as Trump’s signature, for the funds to be doled out. But while lawmakers and officials see McConnell’s support as a positive sign, other security officials worry it, by itself, will not be enough.

“I think (it’s) a great step forward. But what’s next?” Chris Krebs, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said to reporters.

“Because if it’s these inconsistent, mass injections of cash every 10 years or eight years, that creates some disruption,” he said. “The thing they (state officials) want more than anything with funding, whether it comes from their state or whether it comes through the federal government, is consistency.”

At least one key lawmaker believes the U.S. is at least on the right track.

“I’m quite confident in 2020, in terms of the election being legitimate and secure,” said Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

“Russia has always been trying to interfere. They always have, always will. Iran, China. We just have to be more discerning as consumers,” he said.

…

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met Thursday with President Donald Trump and other critics of the tech industry, the Senate’s most vocal detractor offered a challenge: Sell your WhatsApp and Instagram properties to prove you’re serious about protecting data privacy.

It may have been more than Zuckerberg expected from his private meeting with Sen. Josh Hawley, a conservative Republican from Missouri, in his Capitol Hill office. Zuckerberg left the hourlong meeting — one of several with lawmakers on Capitol Hill — without answering questions from a throng of reporters and photographers pursuing him down a hallway.

Hawley, though, had plenty to say. “The company talks a lot. I’d like to see some action,” he told reporters. “I will believe Facebook when I see some real action out of Facebook.”

Rather than moving users’ personal data from properties such as WhatsApp and Instagram to the core Facebook platform, the company should put a wall around the services or, better yet, sell them off, Hawley said he told Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg, who requested the meeting, “did not think that was a great idea,” he said.

Zuckerberg “had a good, constructive meeting with President Trump at the White House today,” a Facebook spokesman said. On Facebook and Twitter, Trump posted a photo with the caption, “Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook in the Oval Office today.”

Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of @Facebook in the Oval Office today. https://t.co/k5ofQREfOcpic.twitter.com/jNt93F2BsG

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2019

No details were given on the meeting, first reported by the Axios website.
 
Trump has persistently criticized social media companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and his platform of choice, Twitter, embracing conservative critics’ accusations that they censor religious, anti-abortion and politically conservative views. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the companies are “against me” and even suggested U.S. regulators should sue them on grounds of anti-conservative bias.  
 
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on Hawley’s remarks concerning his meeting with Zuckerberg.

The popular services WhatsApp and Instagram are among some 70 companies that Facebook has acquired over the past 15 years or so, giving it what critics say is massive market power that has allowed it to snuff out competition.

Zuckerberg’s discussion with Hawley touched on industry competition, data privacy legislation, election security and accusations by conservatives that Facebook and other social media giants are biased against right-leaning content.

During his visit, Zuckerberg also met with other senators including Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; Mike Lee, R-Utah, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee; and John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Tom Cotton, R-Ark. He also declined to answer reporters’ questions when he left Lee’s office earlier in the afternoon.

Lee’s office said the two discussed bias against conservatives on Facebook’s platform, regulation of online services, enforcement of antitrust laws in the tech industry and data privacy issues.

Congress has been debating a privacy law that could sharply rein in the ability of companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple to collect and make money off users’ personal data. A national law, which would be the first of its kind in the U.S., could allow people to see or prohibit use of their data.

‘New rules’ needed

Acting preemptively, Zuckerberg last spring called for tighter regulations to protect consumers’ data, control harmful online content, and ensure election integrity and data portability. The internet “needs new rules,” he said.

It was Zuckerberg’s first public visit to Washington since he testified before Congress last spring about privacy, election interference and other issues.

Facebook, a social media giant based in Menlo Park, California, with nearly 2.5 billion users, is under heavy scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators following a series of privacy scandals and amid accusations of abuse of its market power to squash competition.

The Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee are all conducting antitrust investigations of the big tech companies, and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general has opened a competition probe specifically of Facebook.

At Facebook’s request, Warner helped organize a dinner meeting in Washington on Wednesday night for Zuckerberg and a group of senators.

Warner told The Associated Press he wanted Zuckerberg to hear his Senate colleagues’ “enormous concerns about privacy and about protecting the integrity of our political system.”

Their message for the Facebook chief was “self-regulation is not going to be the answer,” Warner said. “I think Zuckerberg understood that.”

Warner and Hawley have proposed legislation that would force the tech giants to tell users what data they’re collecting and how much it’s worth. The proposal goes to the heart of Big Tech’s hugely profitable business model of commerce in users’ personal data. The companies gather vast data on what users read and like, and leverage it to help advertisers target their messages to individuals they want to reach.

The tech companies view with particular alarm a separate legislative proposal from Hawley that would require them to prove to regulators that they’re not using political bias to filter content. Failing to secure a bias-free audit from the government would mean a social media platform loses its long-held immunity from legal action.

…

With world leaders about to gather in New York for a U.N. Climate Action Summit next week, millions of young people from Australia to Iceland will take off from school or work on Friday to demand urgent measures to stop environmental catastrophe. 

Protests, inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 16, are planned in 150 countries. The aim is for students and others from around the world to speak in one voice about the impending effects of climate change on the planet. 

“Soon the sun will rise on Friday the 20th of September 2019. Good luck Australia, The Philippines, Japan and all the Pacific Islands. You go first!” Thunberg posted Thursday on Instagram. 

Solo start

Thunberg has galvanized young people around the world since she started protesting alone with a sign outside the Swedish parliament building in August 2018. Over the past year, young people in other communities have staged scattered strikes in solidarity with her Fridays for Future movement. 

In conjunction with the U.N. summit this week, organizers on Friday will hold coordinated strikes around the world for a third time, with Thunberg spearheading a march and rally in New York, home of U.N. headquarters. 

In a show of support, New York City education officials will excuse the absences of any of its 1.1 million public school students who want to participate. 

Demonstrators will gather in Lower Manhattan at noon and march about a mile to Battery Park at the edge of the financial district for a rally featuring speeches and music. 

Thunberg, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in March, sailed to New York from England aboard a zero-carbon-emissions vessel to partake in the U.N. summit. 

It brings together world leaders to discuss climate change mitigation strategies, such as transitioning to renewable energy sources from fossil fuels. 

Effects being felt

Global warming caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels has already led to droughts and heat waves, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and floods, scientists say. 

Carbon emissions climbed to a record high last year, despite a warning from the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October that output of the gases must be slashed over the next 12 years to stabilize the climate. 

Organizers said the demonstrations would take different forms, but all aim to promote awareness of climate change and demand political action to curb contributing factors to climate change, namely carbon emissions. 

Demonstrators in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa, planned to dance on the beach in a celebratory pledge to protect their natural heritage. Protesters in Istanbul were heading to a public park for a climate festival with concerts and workshops scheduled throughout the day. 

On Wednesday, Thunberg appeared before several committees of the U.S. Congress to testify about the next generation’s view on climate change. In lieu of testimony, she submitted a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that urged rapid, unprecedented changes in the way people live to keep temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees C by 2030. 

“I want you to unite behind the science. And then I want you to take action,” she said. 

…

Christy Lee contributed to this report, which originated with VOA’s Korean Service.

WASHINGTON — Increased international cooperation is essential for curtailing the ship-to-ship transfers that Pyongyang continues to use to evade sanctions, said a former United Nations panel expert on North Korean sanctions enforcement.

“Every member state (of the United Nations) has one or two pieces of the puzzle,” said Neil Watts, a maritime expert who served as a member of the United Nations panel that monitors North Korea sanctions compliance from 2013 to 2018. “And if they all cooperate, they can put together the full picture.”

North Korea seemingly is receiving a steady supply of oil through illegal transshipments, said Watts, as indicated by fuel prices that he said have been stable for the last 18 months in North Korea.

Two essential tactics

Watts told VOA’s Korean Service Tuesday that two things are essential for going after Pyongyang’s illicit ship-to-ship transfers at sea: Identify key North Koreans driving illicit transshipping networks, and follow the money trails.

Watts said there are a handful of key North Korean individuals whom the country relies on to operate illicit networks for ship-to-ship transfers.

“It’s an activity that involves a number of characters. But you can be sure that there are only a few trusted individuals from (the) North Korean side that are making these arrangements with complicit actors.”

Then, Watts suggested following the money trail to disrupt North Korea’s networks that involve numerous front companies and banks in different countries that coordinate deceptive shipping practices to evade sanctions.

“One needs to find the money trails,” he said, “because it’s substantial amounts of money involved. They always make sure that the money is deposited beforehand. … The key is also to find which companies are involved so that you can identify the banks involved and thereby contact the banks to curtail the banks keeping the money for these North Korean entities that are used to pay for the transactions.”

Watts said this is possible only when U.N. member states investigate and share information among themselves and with the maritime and shipping industries.

“One can go a lot further in terms of cooperation between the member states and the maritime industry involving the brokers or the commodity brokers, the shipping industry,” he said.

According to Watts, North Korea operates its illegal networks across borders to make it difficult for authorities to track down foreign individuals and companies involved in ship-to-ship transfers. This setup also makes it difficult to find North Korean entities overseeing the activities designed to evade sanctions.

“The North Koreans, knowing full well that should they involve companies and entities that are in multiple jurisdictions, it makes it very hard to follow the trails back to these individuals that are driving it from the North Korean side,” he said.

Watts said North Korea uses ship-to-ship transfers as a primary method to evade sanctions and obtain fuel because it knows monitoring and interdicting illicit practices in international waters are difficult.

“International waters are often in disputed areas of jurisdiction, also, and they take advantage of that, as well,” he said.

North Korea uses several deceptive shipping practices such as removing a flag, name, and identification number of a vessel it uses. It also turns off the transponders, called an automatic identification system (AIS), that sends off its location and identification to nearby ports and ships.

“What has been done in the commercial sector is to get companies to include in contracts no switching off AIS as a clause to say that there’ll be severe penalties,” Watts said. “In the case of insurers,” he added, “they would lose the insurance.”

Illegal history

There is a history to North Korea’s use of illicit ship-to-ship transfers.

In 2017, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution banning sales of Pyongyang’s key export commodities, including coal and seafood, in order to cut off its foreign sources of income — money needed to support its nuclear weapons program. In the same year, the council also prohibited North Korea from importing more than 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum per year.

More recently, on Aug. 30, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted two Taiwanese-based individuals and two Taiwanese-based companies, and a Hong Kong-based company, for helping North Korea evade sanctions. It also listed a tanker suspected of transferring oil to North Korean ships and in connection to all three companies and two individuals. 

In its interim report released in August, the U.N. Panel of Experts said North Korea exceeded the cap on refined petroleum in the first four months of the year and continued to violate sanctions through illicit ship-to-ship transfers.

In June, the U.S. and dozens of other countries claimed North Korea violated a U.N. sanctions cap on fuel imports by using at least eight illegal ship-to-ship transfers and 72 illegal deliveries.

…

A quiet strip of land in northern Syria contains a volatile mix of troops from various nations and militias allied with some of those countries, but viewed as enemies by others.  In an attempt to keep this powder-keg from blowing up, the U.S. and Turkey brokered a deal last month to create a “safe zone” between Turkey and Kurdish areas. But Turkey now says the original deal still leaves it in danger, and analysts warn there is no long-term strategy to peaceful coexistence.  VOA’s Heather Murdock has this story from Manbij and al-Bab in Syria.

…

A new poll shows Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren surging into second place in the Democratic presidential race behind former Vice President Joe Biden.  The NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found Biden leading the Democratic field with 31% support, followed by Warren at 25% and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in third place with 14%. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has the latest on the Democratic primary race from Washington.

…

More than 150 world leaders are preparing to attend the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit in New York beginning Sept. 25, with the aim of agreeing on a new agenda to tackle global poverty. But a new report warns that African children are being left further and further behind and will make up more than half of the world’s poor by 2030. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the report authors are critical of both African governments and the international community for failing to adequately tackle the problem.
 

…

The American Dream is many things to many people. For the Savchuk family who came to the U.S. from Ukraine more than 15 years ago, achieving their dream meant opening a small business and making a decent living. VOA’s Iryna Matviichuk met with the family and saw their dream come true.
 

…

Israelis went to the polls again this week, but unofficial results show another deadlock. Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party nor challenger Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party can form a governing coalition. Many in Israel say the two large parties must unite despite their differences. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem.
 

…

President Donald Trump has named Robert C. O’Brien as his new National Security Adviser, replacing John Bolton who was fired last week.

“I am pleased to announce that I will name Robert C. O’Brien, currently serving as the very successful Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department, as our new National Security Advisor. I have worked long & hard with Robert. He will do a great job!,” Trump said on Twitter Wednesday.

I am pleased to announce that I will name Robert C. O’Brien, currently serving as the very successful Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department, as our new National Security Advisor. I have worked long & hard with Robert. He will do a great job!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2019

Trump had said Bolton had been a “disaster” on North Korea policy, “out of line” on Venezuela, and did not get along with important administration officials.

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Spain’s acting prime minister asked voters Wednesday for an even bigger victory for his Socialist party after his failure to form a government triggered a new election in November.

Pedro Sánchez told opposition parties in parliament that “when we will be forced back to the polls, I hope that the Spanish people give the Socialist Party an even bigger majority so that you … cannot block the formation of a government that Spain needs.”

He spoke a day after King Felipe VI announced that there was no viable candidate who could win parliament’s endorsement before a Sept. 23 deadline.

The Nov. 10 election will be Spain’s fourth in four years.

Spain to Hold Snap Election on Nov. 10 After Party Talks Fail

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez acted after King Felipe VI said there were no viable candidates to lead a new government

Sánchez’s Socialists won the April 28 election, but fell short of a majority and he was unable to win the support of any major rival parties. The far-left United We Can party both refused to enter into a coalition government or to endorse his formation of a single-party government. The center-right Citizens party also wouldn’t negotiate until a last-minute effort that flopped.

Sánchez’s rivals criticized his unwillingness to win them over.

Popular Party leader Pablo Casado, the conservative opposition leader, said that Sánchez “wanted new elections from the start, but you have spent five months playing with the Spanish people.”

Early polls show the Socialists again winning the most votes, but still coming nowhere near the outright majority of 176 seats. Now they have 123 deputies in the 350-member lower chamber.

That means it is very likely the parties will have to change tact and find a way to strike a deal to get a government in place after the new vote.

Spain’s caretaker government has limited powers and can’t propose laws to the parliament.

The upcoming political campaign will likely coincide with a highly-anticipated verdict from the Supreme Court for a rebellion case against 12 of the leaders of Catalonia’s 2017 secession attempt. A guilty verdict would likely spark protests from separatists in northeastern Catalonia.

Spain is also facing a slowing economy and, like the rest of Europe, the likelihood of further economic troubles caused by the planned exit of Britain from the European Union scheduled for Oct. 31.

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Iran has been suspended from international judo competitions because it boycotts bouts with Israeli athletes.

Less than a month after world champion Saeid Mollaei walked off the Iranian team in protest at the boycott policy, the International Judo Federation said Wednesday that Iran is suspended ahead of a full hearing.

Iran’s judo federation is accused of discriminating against Israeli athletes and breaking rules over manipulating competition results.

“The IJF Executive Committee considered that such a conduct is intolerable,” the federation said.

Mollaei has said he was repeatedly ordered by Iranian officials to lose matches or withdraw from competitions, including last month’s world championships, so as not to face Israelis. He is currently in hiding in Germany.

Iran does not recognize Israel as a country, and Iranian sports teams have for several decades had a policy of not competing against Israelis.

It’s not yet clear if the IJF will seek to stop Iran competing in the 2020 Olympic judo events. Meanwhile, the IJF is exploring ways to allow Mollaei to compete on the International Olympic Committee’s team of refugees.

The IOC has signaled a harder line on boycotts in recent years.

In June, IOC president Thomas Bach criticized governments who “clearly abuse sport for their political purposes,” noting a case in May of a Tunisian court blocking four Israelis from competing at the taekwondo junior world championships. 

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It’s a common sight in Los Angeles. Thousands of people living in tents on sidewalks, sometimes with trash piled outside their makeshift shelters, conditions that breed typhus and other diseases. 

Analysts say the problem is complex, has been decades in the making and that a response requires coordination at many levels of government. President Donald Trump and his White House Council of Economic Advisers have recently weighed in, and Trump, on a flight to California for political fundraisers on Tuesday, said California’s largest cities are destroying themselves through an inadequate response to the problem. On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom and local officials asked Trump for help in providing emergency rent vouchers.

Homelessness has risen 12% in Los Angeles since 2018, despite a healthy economy that some critics say has left too many behind. Nearly 60,000 people were living without shelter in the most recent count of the country’s homeless residents in January.

“What’s unusual now is that you had a massive surge of jobs and wealth back into the cities after this long trend of suburbanization,” said Kevin Klowden, executive director of the Milken Institute’s Center for Regional Economics and California Center. He says sprawling commuter cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco viewed their downtown regions as business hubs, not residential ones. That pushed housing prices up and drove workers ever further from their jobs, while cities failed to create incentives for building new housing.

The result in Los Angeles, Klowden says, are emergent shantytowns in the form of tent cities.

For many residents, sudden unemployment or major health problems, sometimes compounded by drug and alcohol addiction, can leave people with few options.

“As soon as something catastrophic happens, then they’re liable to be pushed over the edge,” said John Maceri, CEO of The People Concern, a nonprofit social service agency. 

That happened to Robert Venegas, 58, who fell on hard times after the death of his wife and spent two years on the streets.

“I was living in a tent, wherever I could lay my head,” he recalled.

He is now staying in a 45-bed shelter called El Puente, one of a series of shelters being established throughout the city. This one near L.A.’s historic center overlooks a busy freeway that carries commuters to and from the suburbs.

Last year, Los Angeles moved more than 21,000 people from the streets and into permanent housing financed by two measures approved by city and county voters.

“The fact that they can put their head down at night and be able to sleep and feel that they’re safe and secure where they are, versus having to be up all night worrying about whether they’re going to be attacked on the streets,” that makes a big difference, said Daniel Xavier, who manages the El Puente housing facility where Venegas was staying. 

Housing backlog

Many homeless people like Venegas are awaiting permanent housing.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a public agency set up by the city and county, is tasked with tackling the problem. The organization has a backlog of tens of thousands of people “ready to be housed,” lacking only housing units, said executive director Peter Lynn.

Lynn said Los Angeles is not the most expensive city in the United States, but it has the biggest gap between incomes and cost of living, and is “the least affordable housing market in the United States.” The root cause? “We have under built housing for decades,” said Lynn.

One reason is the aversion of Californians to high-density housing. But most agree that such attitudes will have to change, since there is limited space for sprawling, single-level homes close to the city center.

New York, a city of high-rise apartments, has done better with its homeless than Los Angeles or San Francisco, said Klowden, who noted that a harsher winter climate is part of the reason.

“When you know that people are going to die on the streets because they’re going to freeze, you’re incentivized to act,” he said. In Los Angeles, “people have been able to push the problem down the road for a long time.”

Homelessness in Los Angeles is reaching crisis proportions, however, and “we need to really look at all the tools in the toolbox and find ways to streamline housing production,” Maceri said. 

Experts agree that getting people off the streets requires changes in policy at every level of government, and creative thinking.

The Trump administration is weighing in. The White House Council of Economic Advisers has prepared a report that blames the housing crisis in California — where nearly half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless live — on overregulation of the housing market, including zoning regulations, rent controls, historical preservation or environmental mandates. 

In a Sept. 10 letter to Trump, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti cited other causes of homelessness: “An ever-higher cost of living, a national economy that has hollowed out our middle-class and federal government cuts to vital housing funds and social services.”   

“We hope,” Garcetti added, “the federal government can be part of the solution.”

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South Korea has followed through with a pledge to remove Japan from a preferred list of nations that enjoy fast track trade status, the latest chapter in an escalating diplomatic dispute tied to Japan’s 20th century occupation of the Korean peninsula.

Tokyo’s removal from a so-called “white list” of nations enjoying minimal trade restrictions means South Korean companies would have to wait as many as 15 days to win approval to export sensitive materials to Japan, compared to five days under the fast track status.  

Wednesday’s action comes just weeks after Tokyo removed South Korea from its “white list” of trusted trade partners.  The decision restricts exports of hi-tech materials to South Korea that are used to produce semiconductors and displays in smartphones and other electronics that serve as the backbone of South Korea’s export-driven economy.

Seoul has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over a separate move by Japan to tighten export controls on those materials.

Tokyo’s decision to rescind Seoul’s fast track trade status are widely seen as retaliation for recent court rulings in South Korea ordering Japanese companies to compensate Koreans who were forced to work in Japanese plants du. The companies have not complied with the rulings, leading some victims to begin the legal process to seize or liquidate the companies’ assets in Korea.

South Koreans are still bitter over Japan’s brutal military rule of the Korean peninsula that lasted from 1910 until 1945, when Japan surrendered to Allied forces to end World War II.  Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were subjected to numerous atrocities, including the so-called “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels.

The issue of compensation for the victims has been an escalating source of friction between Japan and South Korea. Tokyo says the reparations issue was resolved with a 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral relations between the nations.  Tokyo has complained that subsequent South Korean governments have not accepted further Japanese apologies and attempts to make amends.  

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The crowds of 10,000-plus that Elizabeth Warren has attracted lately in places like Seattle, Minneapolis and Manhattan don’t happen by accident.

They are the result of the careful collection of information on would-be supporters and a multi-step process to turn that data into rally attendees who often become worth far more to the campaign than simply making for impressive television crowd shots.

There’s a science to the art of campaign crowd building. And few places is it on better display than in the well-honed system employed by the Democratic senator from Massachusetts.

Warren’s growing rallies have coincided with her rise in Democratic presidential primary polls.

President Donald Trump also attracted huge crowds in 2016. But the ability to stage a massive rally doesn’t always translate to Election Day wins.

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Two Dutch tourists who wanted to take video of Area 51 have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespass and illegal parking following their arrests at the secure U.S. government site in Nevada.

A judge on Monday sentenced Govert Sweep and Ties Granzier to three days in the Nye County jail and fined them $2,280 apiece.

They also surrendered computer and camera equipment and an aerial drone.

In a Nye County sheriff’s office video news release, Sweep and Granzier say they’ll return to the Netherlands after their expected release Thursday.

They were arrested Sept. 10 in a car inside the Nevada National Security Site near Mercury.

That’s more than 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) from Area 51, the focus of events this weekend inspired by a hoax Facebook post inviting people to “see them aliens.”

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The United States filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who in 2013 leaked secret documents about U.S. telephone and Internet surveillance, saying his new book violates non-disclosure agreements.

The Justice Department said Snowden published his memoir, “Permanent Record,” without submitting it to intelligence agencies for review, adding that speeches given by Snowden also violated nondisclosure agreements.

The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names the “corporate entities” behind the book’s publication as nominal defendants.

Is NSA Leaker Edward Snowden a Traitor?

US experts are split on whether NSA contractor Edward Snowden, now a political exile in Russia, is a traitor, a whistleblower or a defector

A spokesman for Snowden could not immediately be reached, and book publisher Macmillan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Snowden has lived in Russia since he revealed details of U.S. intelligence agencies’ secret surveillance programs.

Though Snowden is viewed by some as a hero, U.S. authorities want him to stand in a criminal trial over his disclosures of classified information.

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