U.S. President Donald Trump’s attended two fundraisers this week, raking in millions of dollars for the Trump 2020 and House Republican campaigns. The events, both held at Trump’s own properties in Washington and Chicago are drawing continued scrutiny and charges of ethics violations that the president brushes aside. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.

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Chile canceled the hosting of two important international meetings in the capital, Santiago, because of ongoing protests across the South American country. Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera said Wednesday his country will not host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in November or the COP25 environmental summit in December, as his government has to deal with the unprecedented unrest that has left about 20 people dead and led to the resignation of eight cabinet ministers. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

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Officials in Pakistan say at least 65 people have been killed and dozens more injured after fire engulfed a passenger train near Pakistan’s Rahimyar Khan city.

Local television footage showed flames pouring out of the train’s carriages and people could be heard crying.

Railway authorities are probing the cause. Initial reports say the fire was caused when a gas cylinder in one of the wagons exploded. Army helicopters are helping in rescue efforts. 

Train accidents are common in Pakistan, where the railways have seen decades of decline because of corruption, mismanagement and lack of investment. They often take place at the unmanned crossings, which frequently lack barriers and sometimes signals.

In July, at least 23 people were killed in the same district when a passenger train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into a goods train that had stopped at a crossing.

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The Washington Nationals defeated the Houston Astros 6-2 Wednesday in the deciding seventh game of the World Series to claim their first Major League Baseball championship in franchise history.

Washington had to rely on what had become a defining factor of their playoff run, staging a late comeback after falling behind early in the game.

The Nationals played in five deciding games in October and at one point trailed in all five. Even making the playoffs seemed like a distant goal in May when the team was struggling with a 19-31 record.

‘We stayed in the fight’

But Manager Dave Martinez, who faced numerous calls for him to be fired, preached resiliency and his motto that to turn things around the team needed only to win that day’s game.

“Guess what, we stayed in the fight,” Martinez said Wednesday, echoing what had become a team slogan. “We won the fight!”

A second-inning home run by Astros first basemen Yuli Gurriel put the Nationals and ace starting pitcher Max Scherzer in a 1-0 hole.

Scherzer was pitching days after being scratched from a planned start in Game 5 of the series thanks to a neck injury. He and the Nationals fell behind 2-0 in the fifth inning as Houston shortstop Carlos Correa singled home Gurriel.

Up to that point, Astros starting pitcher Zack Greinke had been moving methodically through the Washington lineup, allowing only a single by Nationals left fielder Juan Soto in the second inning. Things changed in the seventh inning.

Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon sent a one-out Greinke pitch into the left field stands. Soto came to the plate next and reached on a walk, prompting Astros Manager A.J. Hinch to end Greinke’s night and put the game in the hands of relief pitcher Will Harris.

No relief

The first batter Harris faced was Washington designated hitter Howie Kendrick, already a star of the playoffs for hitting a grand slam in the deciding game of the first round that pushed the Nationals past their painful history of never winning a playoff series.

Kendrick smacked the second pitch from Harris down the right field line where it slammed into the foul pole for a home run that put the Nationals ahead 3-2.

A Soto single in the eighth inning widened the lead to 4-2, and right fielder Adam Eaton gave the Nationals more cushion in the top of the ninth with a single that scored two more runs.

Nationals pitcher Patrick Corbin allowed just two hits in three innings of work, while reliever Daniel Hudson tossed a perfect ninth inning as the Astros failed in their quest to turn their 107-win regular season into a reclamation of the World Series crown they won in 2017.

“Let’s be honest, there’s 28 other teams that would love to have our misery today,” Hinch said after the loss. “We play to get here. We play to have an opportunity to win it all. And I just told our team, it’s hard to put into words and remember all the good that happened because right now we feel as bad as you can possibly feel.”

A game like the season

“The way this game went is the way this whole season went,” said Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who was the team’s first draft pick after it relocated from Montreal to Washington in 2005. “What a story. What a fun year, man.”

The most valuable player of the World Series was Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg. He won Game 1 and Game 6 of the series while giving up just two runs and striking out seven batters in each contest.

Strasburg called the experience of winning a championship “surreal.”

“To be able to do it with this group of guys is something special. We didn’t quit.”

The series made history in an odd way with the visiting team winning each of the seven games. Washington won games one, two, six and seven in Houston, while Houston won games three, four and five in Washington.

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A prolific fundraiser charged with funneling illegal foreign campaign contributions to American political candidates surrendered to authorities in Los Angeles on Wednesday and was released on $3 million bond.

The court appearance came about a week after prosecutors announced charges against Imaad Zuberi, a venture capitalist who raised millions of dollars for both Democratic and Republican political candidates and committees, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump.

Zuberi has agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion, violating campaign finance laws and concealing his work as a foreign agent as he lobbied high-level U.S. government officials. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

Zuberi’s defense attorney declined to comment.

Zuberi, 49, is accused of soliciting donations from foreign nationals and companies and giving the money to several political campaigns, violating a federal law that forbids foreign contributions. He claimed he could use his influence to change foreign policy and create business opportunities for clients and himself.

Prosecutors have not alleged any campaign that received money from Zuberi was aware of his scheme or that any foreign nationals were aware of wrongdoing, and they did not identify the campaigns or foreign nationals in court papers.

But The Associated Press reported this week that a Saudi tycoon and his business associate sent hundreds of thousands of dollars through Zuberi to help pay for President Barack Obama’s second inaugural celebration.

Zuberi signed a plea agreement admitting he received $850,000 from Sheikh Mohammed Al Rahbani but delivered just $97,500 of that money to the Obama inaugural committee, skimming the rest for himself.

Rahbani is not named in the plea agreement, but The AP identified him in part by matching the timing and amounts of donations mentioned in the court filing to publicly available campaign finance records.

Rahbani initially declined to comment. But his attorney sent a letter to The AP on Wednesday saying that Rahbani and his wife, Kate Rahbani, had been unwitting victims of Zuberi’s crimes. The attorney, Martin Auerbach, suggested Rahbani’s name had been attached to political contributions without his consent.

“They have fully cooperated with the government in its investigation of Zuberi and have not been charged with any wrongdoing,” Auerbach wrote in the letter, referring to Rahbani and his wife.

Auerbach also said Kate Rahbani, an American citizen, made the donations to Obama’s inauguration and not her husband.

That account differed from charges outlined in Zuberi’s charging documents, which say the money Zuberi used to pay Obama’s inaugural committee was wired to him by Mohammed Al Rahbani and an associate through a company based in Saudi Arabia and another based in Kuwait. Prosecutors also say in the court filings that Zuberi spoke with Mohammed Al Rahbani about donating additional money to the inaugural fund in exchange for appearing in a photograph with Obama at an event.

Zuberi also admitted violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by submitting false statements in which he concealed a multi-million-dollar contract he signed in 2014 with the Sri Lankan government to help improve that country’s image in the United States.

Prosecutors said he directed millions of dollars from that deal to himself and his wife for personal purposes, shortchanging lobbyists, public relations and law firms, and certain subcontractors who were part of the lobbying effort.

Prosecutors also recently charged a former college classmate and business associate of Zuberi’s accused of participating in the Sri Lankan scheme. Mark Adam Skarulis was charged in September with one misdemeanor count of failing to file a tax return.

A message was sent to Skarulis’ defense attorney seeking comment.

Zuberi’s donations have also been separately scrutinized by federal prosecutors in New York after he gave $900,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee. That donation was not part of his federal criminal case in Los Angeles.

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In Myanmar’s Kachin State, eight years of conflict and displacement has caused some civilians to turn to drugs as authorities struggle to control and rehabilitate heroin and amphetamine addicts, both in the refugee camps and cities across the state. Users and officials tell of the struggles – both on and off the battlefield. Steve Sandford filed this report for VOA

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A respected British think tank slammed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal on Wednesday, concluding that the economy would be 3.5% smaller compared with staying in the European Union.

The study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research says the agreement would deliver a 70 billion-pound ($90 billion) blow to the U.K. Researchers said that the outlook is clouded by political and economic uncertainty.

“We would not expect economic activity to be boosted by the approval of the government’s proposed Brexit deal,” the group said.

The researchers based their prediction on the assumption that the U.K. would leave the bloc with a free trade agreement with the EU after a transition lasting until 2021 while negotiating new deals with other nations. It said that higher “barriers to goods and services, trade and restrictions to migration,” would force the economy to slow.

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UK’s Party Leaders Brace for Brexit Election

The House of Commons on Tuesday approved an early election in hopes of breaking the deadlock over Britain’s departure from the European Union

As politicians squabble over how and when Britain will leave the EU, Brexit is reshaping the economy. Initially planned for March, Brexit was pushed back to Halloween and now is not likely to happen before January. Companies are meanwhile shifting investments, creating new supply chains and stockpiling goods to mitigate any damage that would occur from leaving the EU, with or without a deal.

The NIESR estimated that the economy was 2.5 % smaller than it would have been had Britain not voted in 2016 to leave the European Union.

The British government says it plans a different scenario than the one considered by the think tank.

“We are aiming to negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union, which is more ambitious than the standard free trade deal that NIESR has based its findings on,” the Treasury department said in a statement.

The research suggested a no-deal Brexit would cause an even greater loss to the economy, with a 5.6% blow to GDP.

Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said the figures “come as no surprise”.

“The Tories’ obsession with Brexit at any cost puts our future prosperity at risk,” he said. “It is unconscionable that any government would voluntarily adopt a policy that would slow economic growth for years to come.”

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President Donald Trump’s new national security advisor will represent the United States at the East Asia Summit, the White House said Tuesday, the lowest-level official to lead the Washington delegation since it was first invited to the regional forum.

With Trump embroiled in an impeachment inquiry, the muted presence at the November 3-4 summit in Bangkok is sure to renew charges that the United States is not focused on Asia at a time that China’s clout is growing.

The White House said that Robert O’Brien, who took over the position in September from the hawkish John Bolton, would lead a U.S. delegation that will include Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who will also travel separately to Indonesia and Vietnam.

Despite Trump’s non-attendance, he is expected to go the following week to a separate summit of the Pacific Rim-wide APEC bloc in Santiago, Chile.

The East Asia Summit concept was promoted for years by Malaysia’s veteran Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an outspoken proponent of the continent’s future who envisioned an eventual bloc akin to the European Union.

But the United States was controversially excluded from the inaugural summit in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, drawing widespread commentary in Asia that Washington was too preoccupied with the Middle East.

After President Barack Obama vowed to pivot US attention toward Asia, the United States — as well as Russia — were invited as full participants in the summits starting in 2011.

Obama attended each year except 2013, when he was fighting congressional Republicans over a government shutdown and sent secretary of state John Kerry instead.

Trump flew to the Philippines for his first East Asia Summit in 2017 but, with the session running late, he left early and ended a 12-day trip to Asia, with then secretary of state Rex Tillerson taking his place.

Last year, Vice President Mike Pence attended the summit in Singapore, where he described China’s militarization of the dispute-rife South China Sea as “illegal and dangerous” and vowed to stand by US allies in the region.

Trump has said that he plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to seek headway in a trade war at the November 16-17 APEC summit in Chile, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has also confirmed his attendance.

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Indonesia is about the closest thing left to a liberal democracy in Southeast Asia, so analysts had high hopes that President Joko Widodo could promote civil rights and transparency, while steering an open economy to more global trade. As the president enters his second term this month, however, those expectations are coming back down to earth.

Although Indonesia distinguishes itself with a relatively free press and big emerging market, it appears to be backtracking in examples like corruption, economic protectionism, and instability in the Papua region marked by separatism and ethnic tensions. In an analysis of the next term of the president known as Jokowi, investment research firm IHS Markit predicted Indonesia’s unfulfilled economic reforms would lead to gross domestic product growth of 5 percent, lower than the 7 percent government goal.

Corruption is a good example, given the high-profile change to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in September that led to protests across the country of 260 million people. Previously the commission was already seen as more show than substance, a nominal way for Jakarta to claim it was fighting corruption. But the September change took the teeth out of the commission even further, reducing the amount of time it can investigate criminals, and requiring it to seek approvals from the president, which weakens its independence.

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Joko Widodo Re-Elected Indonesian President

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, has been re-elected with 55.50% of the vote, defeating former army general Prabowo Subianto. The victory was confirmed by the General Elections Commission (KPU). “The number of valid votes for candidate No. 1, Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin, is 85,607,362 votes. The number of valid votes for candidate No.

‘Soft’ on Corruption

“There are signs that the government is going soft on its commitment to clamp down on corruption after parliament approved changes to how the country’s anti-corruption body (KPK) is governed,” senior Asia economist Gareth Leather wrote in a Capital Economics analysis. “We are concerned that the move will weaken the KPK’s powers to investigate new corruption allegations.”

He added, “Indonesia is rated as one of the most corrupt countries in the region and the high level of corruption remains a major deterrent to foreign businesses.”

Backtracking on corruption is all the more stark because Indonesia has been a “beacon of progress” among Southeast Asian democracies, according to the Lowy Institute. Elsewhere in the region are fewer signs of open societies: military rule in Myanmar and Thailand, one party rule in Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, and Vietnam, monarchism in Brunei, and authoritarian populism in the Philippines. The closest runner up is Malaysia, where democracy appeared to decline until the ruling party was surprisingly beaten in 2018 elections.

Even though the April election that returned Jokowi to power in Indonesia was free and fair, it involved curbing Islamic extremism in the Muslim-majority country, which is a slippery slope that could lead to curbing free speech more generally.

“The Jokowi government’s decision to take a tougher line against extremism is welcome, but he needs to ensure that tactics used do not feed a new narrative of repression,” Nava Nuraniyah, Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict analyst in Jakarta, said.

She further argued Jokowi could have dealt with extremists by emphasizing that all citizens are equal, including minority Christians and Buddhists, rather than emphasizing his own Islamic piety.

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Joko Widodo Inaugurated as Jakarta’s 7th President

In Indonesia Monday, a former furniture entrepreneur turned wildly popular politician, Joko Widodo, was officially sworn in as the country’s seventh president. There are huge expectations and challenges ahead for Widodo, who will now lead the world’s

Economy

Besides risks from the China-U.S. trade war, Indonesia faces economic risks in the areas of education, protectionism, and infrastructure. One has only to look at the subway proposal in Jakarta, long discussed but yet to appear, for an example. Infrastructure spending has fallen after a period of investment, and the island nation’s logistics sector sits behind those of Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam in World Bank lists.

Protectionism is evident in Indonesia’s willingness to block commodities exports, and poor test performance suggests the young generation is not as equipped for the future as it could be.

“The two key economic challenges facing President Joko Widodo in his second term are boosting GDP growth and reducing Indonesia’s external vulnerabilities,” Leather said. “We don’t think he will succeed in either.”

Still Indonesia has the biggest economy in Southeast Asia and thus a big customer base that appeals to domestic and foreign business. It is also a population full of people free to engage in critical public discourse, which cannot be said of the whole region. The question is whether the people and the economy live up to their potential.

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn were set to trade barbs over Brexit and public spending Wednesday when they face off in Parliament for the last time before a Dec. 12 general election.

The House of Commons on Tuesday approved an early election in hopes of breaking the deadlock over Britain’s departure from the European Union. While Johnson’s Conservative Party has a wide lead in opinion polls, analysts say the election is unpredictable because Brexit cuts across traditional party loyalties.

Johnson and Corbyn will trade carefully crafted quips when they face off in their regularly scheduled question-and-answer session. This will be the last episode of Prime Minister’s Questions before Parliament is suspended for the election.

Johnson has told Conservative lawmakers this will be a “tough election.”

After three years of inconclusive political wrangling over Brexit, British voters are weary and the results of an election are hard to predict.

The House of Commons voted 438-20 on Tuesday night, with dozens of lawmakers abstaining, for a bill authorizing an election on Dec. 12. It will become law once it is approved Wednesday by the unelected House of Lords, which doesn’t have the power to overrule the elected Commons.

The looming vote comes two and a half years before the next scheduled election, due in 2022, and will be the country’s first December election since 1923.

Meanwhile, the Brexit conundrum remains unsolved, and the clock is ticking down to the new deadline of Jan. 31.

“To my British friends,” European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted Tuesday.   
“The EU27 has formally adopted the extension. It may be the last one. Please make the best use of this time.”

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Concert promoters in the U.S. are stepping back from plans to scan festivalgoers with facial recognition technology, after musicians and others gave it some serious side-eye.

Although it remains entirely possible that music venues will eventually take a second look at the controversial technology.

Live-entertainment giants AEG Presents and Live Nation both recently disavowed any plans to use facial recognition at music festivals, despite earlier indications to the contrary. Their public pronouncements have led a group of musicians to declare victory after a months-long campaign to halt the technology’s use at live shows.

Advances in computer vision have enabled businesses to install cameras that can recognize individuals by their face or other biometric characteristics. Venue operators have talked about using the technology at gateways to secure entry for select groups or to offer perks for repeat customers.

Privacy advocates worry that such uses might also pave the way for greater intrusions, such as scanning audience members in real time to analyze their behavior.

Both concert organizations seemed to be edging toward remembering more faces. In May 2018, for instance, Live Nation Entertainment subsidiary Ticketmaster announced it was partnering with and investing in Texas facial recognition startup Blink Identity, saying in a note to shareholders that the technology will enable music fans to associate their digital ticket with their image and “then just walk into the show.”

AEG, which operates the Coachella festival in southern California and other major events, updated its online privacy policy earlier this year with language stating that it may collect facial images at its events and venues for “access control,” creating aggregate data or for “personalization” — a term commonly used by retailers trying to tailor advertising or promotions based to a specific customer’s behavior.

Now, however, both organizations have done an about-face. AEG’s chief operating officer for festivals, Melissa Ormond, emailed activists earlier this month to say: “AEG festivals do not use facial recognition technology and do not have plans to implement.” AEG confirmed that statement this week but declined further comment.

Live Nation said in a statement that “we do not currently have plans to deploy facial recognition technology at our clients’ venues.” The company insisted that any future use would be “strictly opt-in,” so that non-consenting fans won’t have to worry about potentially facing the music.

Facial recognition isn’t seen in many musical venues. The biggest location known to employ it is New York City’s Madison Square Garden, which confirmed this week that facial recognition is one of the security measures it uses “to ensure the safety of everyone” in the arena. It declined to say what it looks at and why. The New York Times first reported its use last year.

While the music industry paused, Major League Baseball stole a base by rolling out biometric ticketing in the U.S., usually involving fingerprints or iris scans to get into ballparks. Authorities in some parts of Europe have bounced around the idea of using either facial or voice recognition to keep tabs on unruly soccer fans, such as those participating in racist chants. Police agencies in China have used facial recognition at concerts featuring pop singer Jacky Cheung to identify and arrest people wanted as criminal suspects.

American music event promoters this fall have been pressured to disclose their facial recognition plans by digital rights group Fight for the Future, which asked dozens of festival organizers to pledge not to use a technology it describes as invasive and racially biased.

Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello co-authored an opinion column in BuzzFeed last week that described the pledge as the “first major blow to the spread of commercial facial recognition in the United States.”

The CEO of Blink Identity says opposition to its Ticketmaster partnership is misguided.

“They’re talking about mass surveillance,” said Mary Haskett, who co-founded the Austin, Texas startup. “We’re against mass surveillance…. Nobody’s talking about doing what they’re protesting against.”

Haskett said Blink’s system allows concertgoers to opt in by taking selfies with their phones, which the company transforms into mathematical representations and deletes. The system might offer access to a shorter line or a VIP section.

But protesting musicians fear their fans’ mugshots could still end up in the hands of law enforcement or immigration authorities.

“Of course it’s going to be used by security,” said Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, a guitarist for Rhode Island punk band Downtown Boys, which played Coachella in 2017. “Of course it’s going to be used by law enforcement.”

Punk rockers aren’t the only ones fixing the technology with a death stare. A June survey by the Pew Research Center found that while people are generally accepting of facial recognition used by police, only 36% said they trust tech companies to deploy it responsibly. Just 18% trust advertisers.

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says this week’s inaugural meeting of a committee tasked with drafting a new Syrian constitution presents a “unique opportunity” for peace.

The U.N. chief said Tuesday that he expects the 150-member committee to work “in good faith.”

Representatives from the Syrian government, opposition and civil society are to begin meeting Wednesday in Geneva.
 
Repeated U.N. efforts to host talks on ending Syria’s eight-year civil war have largely failed.

Guterres stressed that “meaningful engagement” by committee members must be accompanied by a cessation of hostilities across the country. He says that would facilitate “a broader political process.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has all but won the war militarily with the help of Russia. Syria’s last rebel stronghold is in the northwestern province of Idlib.
 

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A top U.S. Border Patrol official has a warning: The crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is not over.

Even though crossings have been down over the past few months and news of custody deaths and teeming facilities full of children and families has faded from front pages and talking points of politicians, the number of migrants coming over border is still high. And resources are still stretched.

“It is kind of a new norm. We’re at risk at any time,” if some recent deterrent efforts are blocked by the courts, like a policy forcing asylum seekers to wait out their claims in Mexico, Brian Hastings, chief of law enforcement operations at Border Patrol said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We will go back, mark the words, we will go back to the crisis level that we had before.”

Immigration has been a top issue since President Donald Trump took office almost three years ago, with Democrats heavily critical of his administration on border conditions. But Washington is now dominated by talk of impeachment and immigration seems somewhat less pressing, with monthly apprehension numbers declining and Mexico and other nations enhancing cooperation with the U.S. on immigration issues.

Still, Trump has not forgotten an issue that was key to his 2016 victory, pointing to it often at public events and at rallies. And as he ramps up his campaign heading into 2020, he’s likely to invoke it often as a measure of his success, telling his supporters that construction is happening on the long-stalled wall he promised along the southern border and that far fewer people are being apprehended crossing the border illegally — if current numbers hold, that is.

Over the budget year that ended Sept. 30, there were 859,510 apprehensions by Border Patrol, plus over 110,000 more encounters of people who tried to enter legally but were deemed inadmissible. There were nearly 1 million crossings from the early 2000s, but those were mostly single men from Mexico who were easily returned, not families from Central America who require much more care.

While the numbers surged, Homeland Security agents and officers were overwhelmed by the number of families crossing the border as the numbers continued to rise. Families with small children require much more care.

Border officers pleaded for help but it wasn’t until over the summer, when reports of squalid conditions and surging numbers of detainees and children dying were published that Congress authorized additional funding to increase capacity. That funding expired at the end of the fiscal year.

There were more than 200 large groups of more than 100 migrants dropped off by smugglers in remote areas — something that can shut down an entire station for the day for processing — and there were at least 140,000 people who evaded capture.

Previously, 2014 was considered a crisis year, when the Obama administration saw a crush of unaccompanied children at the border. The overall apprehensions by Border Patrol were 479,371 — there were 372,000 more in 2019.

Border agents saw more families crossing the border in the month of May this year than the entire budget year of 2014. In 2014, there were about 68,000 families for the entire budget year compared to 84,000 in May 2019 alone.    

There were more than 4,900 people rescued including a dramatic increase in river rescues — 742 from 86 the year before.

“I am incredibly proud of the agents,” Hastings said. “They have been vilified, but they deserve to be thanked because we have never, ever dealt with anything like this before.”

Hastings said the so-called remain in Mexico program that is expanding in parts of California and Texas, plus a new rule barring asylum to those who pass through a third country, and crackdowns by Mexico at its own southern border have helped. More than 55,000 people have been turned back , and officials say many have gone home.

The program won’t be extended into the Arizona border right now, Hastings said, because officials are focused on increasing the number of people returned in the areas where it is already in place. And he’s seen Mexico crack down before, but “we’ve never seen them sustain for that long.”

Still, Hastings has said the number of immigration officials reassigned to the border has gone down, as more agents and officers go back to their regular jobs.  

The Border Patrol is looking to create a civilian workforce to help agents with some non-law enforcement duties, he said.

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Ninety years ago, on Oct. 29, 1929, the U.S. stock market plummeted nearly 13%. Wall Street investors panicked and unloaded their stock. The unprecedented financial crash became known as Black Tuesday.

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Russia’s defense minister said Tuesday that Syrian Kurdish fighters have completed their withdrawal from areas along the Syrian border, in line with a recent Russia-Turkey deal. Sergei Shoigu said Russian and Syrian troops have moved into the border zone following the Kurdish withdrawal.
 
Separately, a Russian military statement said an explosive device went off near Russian armored vehicles near the Darbasiyah border checkpoint, but there were no injuries or damage. 
 
Last week’s Russia-Turkey deal to divide control of northeast Syria has halted the Turkish invasion of the area. Ankara aimed to drive out Syrian Kurdish forces there. 
 
The Kurdish-led forces had been U.S. allies during a five-year campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria. But U.S. forces withdrew from the area, allowing the Turkish offensive. The Kurds have since turned to Russia and the Syrian government in Damascus for protection.
 
Moscow and Ankara have agreed that Turkey gets to retain control over the areas it seized when it launched its offensive on Oct. 9. Russian and Syrian troops will control the rest of the frontier. 
 
Russia and Turkey are set to conduct joint patrols of areas east and west of the Turkish-held parts of the border area.
 
Later Tuesday, Turkey’s communications director Fahrettin Altun tweeted that his country’s forces would verify whether the Syrian Kurdish fighters had withdrawn once those joint patrols begin. 
 
Turkey’s Defense Ministry didn’t immediately say if the Kurds have met the deadline. It said Russian and Turkish military officials completed a second day of talks about implementing last week’s deal struck by Moscow and Ankara to divide control of northeast Syria, but didn’t provide further details.
 
The Syrian Kurdish fighters had until 3 p.m. GMT to pull back to positions about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Turkish border. Ankara has threatened to resume its offensive if the Kurdish militias did not retreat.

…

Senior Islamic State leaders in Syria are coming under fire, part of what appears to be an urgent campaign to gut the terror group’s brain trust.

The U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces — credited with playing a key role in taking out IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and IS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir — said Wednesday it had carried out a series of raids aimed at getting the terror group’s key players dead or alive.

“Another successful raid targeting & arresting senior ISIS members,” SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali tweeted late Monday, using an acronym for the terror group which is also known as IS or by its Arabic acronym, Daesh.  

Another successful raid targeting&arresting senior ISIS members.

— Mustafa Bali (@mustefabali) October 28, 2019

Word of ongoing operations against the terror group came shortly after a senior State Department official credited the SDF with playing a “key role” in enabling the U.S. raid on Baghdadi’s compound in Bashira, Syria, which led to the IS leader’s death.

The official also confirmed SDF claims that its forces had killed the IS spokesman in a separate operation Sunday in the town of Jarablus, near the Syrian border with Turkey.

Pentagon officials denied any involvement in the strike, in which a second IS fighter was killed and a third was captured, though the State Department said U.S. assets were involved.

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IS Leader Dead, Trump Announces

Leader of Islamic State said to have blown himself up during raid led by US special forces

Earlier Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper lauded the U.S. raid that killed Baghdadi as a “devastating blow for the remnants of ISIS” and promised that the U.S. would continue to be in close contact with the SDF.

“Baghdadi’s death will not rid the world of terrorism or end the ongoing conflict in Syria,” Esper said while briefing reporters. “But it will certainly send a message to those who would question America’s resolve.”

U.S., SDF relations

Relations between the U.S. and the mainly Kurdish SDF have been strained since U.S. President Donald Trump ordered U.S. Special Forces to withdraw from parts of northeastern Syria earlier this month. Once the U.S. troops began to vacate key outposts near the Syrian-Turkish border, Turkey launched an assault targeting the Kurds, many of whom it views as terrorists with links to groups inside Turkey.

But SDF officials Monday said that cooperation with the U.S. in the weeks and months leading up to the raid on Baghdadi’s compound in Idlib province had been intense, though the Turkish incursion caused the operation to be delayed by more than a month.

“Since 15 May, we have been working together with the CIA to track al-Baghdadi and monitor him closely,” senior SDF adviser Polat Can said on Twitter.

Can said the SDF had been tracking the IS leader for months, watching him as he moved from Dashisha, in eastern Syria, to Deir El-Zor, before finally making a move to the compound near the Turkish border where he met his end.

“Our own source, who had been able to reach al-Baghdadi, brought al Baghdadi’s underwear to conduct a DNA test and make sure [100%] that the person in question was al-Baghdadi himself,” Can said of the access the SDF spy was able to get. “Our intelligence source was involved in sending coordinates, directing the airdrop, participating in and making the operation a success until the last minute.”

A U.S. official confirmed to VOA that Baghdadi, who died after detonating a suicide vest when he was cornered in a tunnel under the compound, has been buried out at sea.

Evidence collected

In the meantime, U.S. officials are starting to sift through material and other evidence collected at the compound before it was destroyed in an airstrike.

“There was material taken away. I don’t want to say exactly what or how much,” General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters.  

Milley also confirmed two IS members, both men, were taken alive.

“They’re in our custody,” he said.

Milley said the U.S. has both photos and video of the Baghdadi raid, and that some of them could be declassified and released to the public in the coming days.

Trump said Sunday that Baghdadi was “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” to his death.  

Milley said he had not been given that information but that the president had spoken directly with members of the assault team.

U.S. troops

For now, Milley and Esper said the U.S. is repositioning troops and equipment to further secure the oil fields near Deir el-Zor, once controlled by IS, to make sure the group’s remaining terror cells are not able to target the facilities and profit from the oil.

“That will continue until we believe we have sufficient capability,” Esper said, adding the U.S. would also be ready to defend its forces in the area against the Syrian regime or Russian forces also operating in the region.

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What impact will Baghdadi’s death have on the region?

US President Donald Trump announced Sunday that a US-led military operation in Syria had killed Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. International Edition takes a look at what impact his death may have on the region and the global fight on terrorism. Plus, the latest on the impeachment inquiry, protests in Hong Kong, and Brexit.

“We want to make sure SDF does have access to the resources in order to guard the prisons, in order to arm their own troops, in order to assist us with the defeat ISIS mission,” Esper said.

During a visit to Chicago for a police chiefs convention Monday, Trump said the oil fields in Syria were worth $45 million a month in revenue, and the U.S. plans to keep them.

U.S. officials, though, were unable to explain how that would work.

“We’re just beginning to look at specifics of this,” the senior State Department official said.

The president Monday also celebrated the death of the IS leader, calling Baghdadi, “a sick and depraved man and now he’s dead.”

“He’s dead, he’s dead as a doornail, and he didn’t die bravely I can tell you that,” Trump said.

Steve Herman and Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
 

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Student protesters honked car horns and blared loud music in the streets of Baghdad on Monday night, appearing to defy the army and ignore an overnight curfew.

Iraqi authorities had ordered people to stay off the streets between midnight and 6 a.m. after another day of fierce anti-government demonstrations.

At least three more people were killed and more than 100 hurt Monday in clashes between marchers and police, who responded with tear gas.

Parliament’s approval of a bill to cancel privileges and bonuses for senior politicians, including the president, prime minister and Cabinet ministers, did little to calm the marchers.

Students and other protesters are angry at alleged corruption, a slow economy and poor government services, despite Iraq’s oil wealth.

Students are boycotting classes and demanding the government resign.

The latest wave of violent protests in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities has killed at least 72 people since Friday. This is on top of the nearly 150 people killed during marches earlier this month.
 

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Pakistan has reassured the United States of its “steadfast” support to the peace and reconciliation process in war-shattered Afghanistan, stressing the importance for all parties to the conflict to take “practical” steps to reduce hostilities.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s office said in a statement issued late Monday that he made the remarks in a meeting with visiting U.S. chief negotiator for Afghan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad.

The U.S. envoy visited Islamabad a day after briefing leaders in Kabul on his renewed Afghan peace-building efforts. Khalilzad traveled to Afghanistan for the first time since President Donald Trump abruptly ended talks with Taliban insurgents last month.

“As a sincere facilitator and a friend, Pakistan remains ready to do everything possible in its capacity, as part of a shared responsibility, for (an) early conclusion of a peace deal,” Khan said.

The yearlong U.S.-Taliban dialogue, hosted by Qatar, had brought the two adversaries close to concluding a peace agreement to end America’s longest war before Trump abruptly ended the process. He cited a series of insurgent attacks in Kabul that killed, among others, a U.S. soldier.

Pakistan takes credit for arranging the U.S.-Taliban talks by persuading the insurgent group to come to the negotiating table.

“Achieving sustainable peace and security and ensuring long-term development, progress and prosperity in Afghanistan and the region was in Pakistan’s best national interest,” Monday’s statement quoted Khan as saying.

Khalilzad’s visit comes amid a new international diplomatic push by key regional players, including Russia, China and Pakistan, to help restart the stalled U.S.-Taliban talks and conclude the peace deal to end the Afghan war, which completed 18 years this month.

On Friday, Khalilzad visited Moscow for a four-party meeting with counterparts from Russia, China and Pakistan to review efforts the countries are jointly making to promote a negotiated settlement to the war.

A post-meeting statement said participants stressed the need for all parties to the Afghan conflict to immediately reduce violence to “create an environment conducive” for peace negotiations.

It noted Russia, China and Pakistan expressed their support for “the earliest resumption of (the) negotiation process and reaching an agreement” between the U.S. and the Taliban, saying it will pave the way for launching intra-Afghan talks.

In early October, Islamabad hosted informal talks between Khalilzad and Taliban negotiators. While the negotiating sides did not publicly discuss or even confirm the interaction, Pakistani officials said they had facilitated the meetings to help resurrect the U.S.-Taliban dialogue.

Afghan leaders allege Pakistan shelters Taliban leaders and fighters, enabling them to sustain and expand insurgent activities in Afghanistan.

Islamabad rejects the charges and does not rule out the possibility of insurgents using areas in Pakistan hosting nearly 3 million Afghan refugees as hiding place.

The two countries share a nearly 2,600-kilometer porous border, though Pakistan says its border management plan has secured most of the boundary over the past two years through fencing and establishing new outposts.

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The full House of Representatives will vote this week on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, addressing the White House argument that the probe has been illegitimate.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote for Thursday, saying in a letter to fellow representatives that she wants to “eliminate any doubt” about the process.

Pelosi says the impeachment inquiry resolution will “affirm the ongoing and existing investigation … establish the procedures for hearings that are open to the American people … outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee … and sets forth due process rights for the president and his counsel.”

Trump and his Republican supporters have called the impeachment probe illegitimate because it is being held behind closed doors and the full House never voted for it. Pelosi says that argument “has no merit.”

There is no law saying the entire House has to approve an investigation and the majority party in control — currently the Democrats — set out the rules for an impeachment process.

Kupperman lawsuit

Meanwhile Monday, a former White House national security aide balked at testifying before the House committees.

Former Deputy National Security Adviser Charles Kupperman listened in on the July 25 call in which Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for “a favor.” Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate alleged Ukrainian meddling on behalf of Democrats in the 2016 U.S. election and allegations of corruption by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian natural gas company.

When the White House ordered Kupperman to ignore the House subpoena, Kupperman filed a lawsuit Friday asking a judge to decide whose demand he should honor — the congressional subpoena or the White House.

House Democrats sent Kupperman’s lawyer, Charles Cooper, a letter over the weekend contending that the lawsuit lacked merit and had been coordinated with the White House. Cooper said the lawsuit had not been “even discussed” with the White House.

“It would not be appropriate for a private citizen like Dr. Kupperman to unilaterally resolve this momentous constitutional dispute between the two political branches of our government,” Cooper responded.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff calls White House efforts to stop Kupperman’s testimony another example of Trump’s obstruction of justice and another possible reason to draw up articles of impeachment.

Phone call

Democrats are investigating whether Trump withheld badly needed aid to Ukraine in exchange for Zelinskiy’s public promise to investigate Democrats and the Bidens.

Trump insists there was no quid pro quo between him and Ukraine and has called his telephone call with Zelenskiy “perfect.”

But U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor testified last week the release of $391 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine was directly linked to its willingness to open the U.S.-related political investigations Trump wanted.

Trump alleges that when Biden was U.S. vice president, he threatened to hold up loan guarantees to Ukraine unless a prosecutor stopped a corruption investigation into the gas company where Hunter Biden worked.

No evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens has surfaced, and the allegations of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was based on a debunked conspiracy theory.
 

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The gunman who allegedly killed five people in the office of the Capital Gazette newspaper last year has pleaded guilty but not criminally responsible.

James Ramos, who prosecutors say had a long-standing grudge against the Maryland newspaper, was set to go on trial later this week.

He had earlier pleaded not guilty and not criminally responsible. If Judge Laura Ripken accepts Ramos’s new plea, the court will likely forgo a trial on whether he actually murdered his victims and move straight to whether he was responsible for his actions.

Ramos is accused of bursting into the Gazette’s building in June 2018 and killing four reporters and an office assistant.

Prosecutors say Ramos had lost a defamation suit against the newspaper when it published a story about him pleading guilty to harassing a former high school classmate.

The state planned to show surveillance video at his criminal trial of what the prosecutors say was Ramos walking through the newsroom “hunting” for victims.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom says there are hopes that by later Monday the near historic winds that are driving a huge wildfire in the northern part of the state will “substantially settle down” as some 3,000 people work to put out the blaze.

“We’re not out of the woods, but we are leaning in the right direction,” Newsom said at a late Sunday briefing.

The western U.S. state is commonly hit by numerous wildfires at this time of year with the combination of low humidity and strong winds combining to create favorable conditions for fire growth.

Firefighters had said the Kincade Fire, named for a local road where the flames are believed to have started in Sonoma County, was at 10% containment, but as of late Sunday that had dropped to 5% with the fire at about 22,000 hectares in size.

Cal Fire said the blaze had already destroyed about 100 structures.

California State Senator Mike McGuire said 4,600 people have gone to shelters in Sonoma County.

Statewide, about 180,000 people have evacuated their homes to seek safety from wildfires.  

Newsom declared a state of emergency Sunday and said there is “no question” the evacuations have saved lives.

“Go means go,” he said, encouraging people to heed any evacuation orders.

In Southern California, fire officials said a much smaller wildfire in Santa Clarita near Los Angeles was 70% contained, but not before it destroyed several dozen buildings.

The California utility company Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to nearly 1 million homes and businesses across Northern California, some with little notice, as part of a strategy to try to prevent surges from downed power lines sparking more fires.

Businesses are angry that the power cuts have cost them tens of thousands of dollars, and residents bitterly complain about the inconvenience of going days without electricity, especially those who need power for life-saving medical devices.

California authorities blame PG&E lines for sparking last year’s wildfires that killed 85 people and destroyed entire towns. The utility, facing billions of dollars in lawsuits, was forced to declare bankruptcy earlier this year.

Governor Newsom, who had criticized the utilities, said the state will spend $75 million to help residents and businesses deal with the power cuts.  He said the state has a lot of work to do toward putting electrical wires underground and to manage forests in order to prevent both wildfire damage and the need to shut off the power.

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Negotiations on a sweeping 16-nation free trade deal and a code of conduct for the hotly contested South China Sea are expected to take center stage at a summit of Asian leaders in Bangkok next month.

The leaders of all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are due to attend the bloc’s regular year-end summit on Nov. 2-4, along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva are also expected.

Meetings related to the summit begin Thursday.

RCEP a big deal

As this year’s chair of ASEAN, Thailand is hoping to end its run with negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) all but done. In the works since 2012, the deal is seen by some as China’s retort to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiations for which excluded China and fell apart when the US pulled out.

Taking in all 10 ASEAN countries and six others — Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea — it would cover 45 percent of the world’s population and a third of global GDP.

With India and China still at loggerheads over market access, “signing of the RCEP deal seems unlikely” at the summit, said Peter Mumford, head of Southeast Asia coverage for political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

“But ASEAN hopes to at least be able to announce that substantial progress has been made, to ensure momentum is sustained,” he added.

Prapat Thepchatree, who heads the ASEAN Studies Center at Thammasat University, said Thailand was keen to show progress under its watch, especially in the face of the rising tide of protectionism, not least from the US-China trade war.

Once in place, the RCEP will have “a big impact in terms of financial terms and also in terms of psychological terms. It will give a big push … for all regional countries in this part of the world to hope that we still have a chance to support a liberal economic order, ” he said.

With specific tariff negotiations on 80 percent of goods and services complete, and on most others nearly so, the countries could come very close to wrapping up a deal this year, said Piti Srisangnam, director of academic affairs for the ASEAN Studies Center at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.

Order in the South China Sea

At its last leader’s summit in June, ASEAN said it also hoped to finish the year with the negotiating draft of a code of conduct for the South China Sea ready for a first reading. The code would set the rules for settling disputes in the busy sea lane, where China has competing claims with several bloc members to teeming fishing grounds and a seabed potentially rich in oil and gas.

Piti said he was hopeful the bloc would announce that the draft was ready for a first reading during the summit, adding that China has raised few complaints with the document of late.

“I am expecting…good news,” he said. “There are some good signals from both [sides].”

Independence from both China and the US

At the last summit, the bloc also adopted the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, a policy plan that aims to give its members a lead role in tying the Indian and Pacific oceans together while resisting the pull of China and the US to fall wholly into either’s orbit.

“I think this document will put big powers in a difficult position to reject it, and in practice … they will have to accept it as a regional principle, and that will [allow] ASEAN to play an important role,” Prapat said. “For the November summit, the task is for ASEAN to convince other big powers to agree to accept this document.”

As part of the balancing act, he said ASEAN will use the summit to try to further link its infrastructure plans with China’s Belt and Road Initiative while urging the US, Japan and other powers as well to invest in more projects across the bloc. Thailand has used its latest term as bloc chair to push for connecting the region digitally as well, he added.

Will President Trump attend?

It remains to be seen whether they will get the chance to make their case to US President Donald Trump himself. Neither the US Embassy in Bangkok nor the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is organizing the summit, would comment on whether he would attend.

Should Trump choose to stay away, Prapat said it would further embolden China to assert its will over the region.

While his absence has already been factored into expectations, Mumford said, it could still “reinforce the view of some countries in the region that this US administration is less engaged” in Southeast Asia.

Piti said the US president may have a strong bearing on the summit either way — by spurring on those who do attend to see the RCEP through.

“If they conclude the RCEP by this summit, they should thank Donald Trump … because of his trade war policy,” he said.

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