Conservative President Mauricio Macri conceded defeat in Argentina’s election Sunday night, paving the way for the country’s Peronist center-left to return to power under Alberto Fernandez as frustrated voters rejected the incumbent’s handling of a bruising economic crisis that has sunk many into poverty.

The result would mark a dramatic return to high office of former President Cristina Fernandez, Alberto Fernandez’s vice presidential running mate, former boss and what critics say might be the power behind his throne.

Macri told supports at his headquarters that he had called Alberto Fernandez to congratulate him and invited him for a breakfast chat Monday at the Pink Presidential Palace.

“We need an orderly transition that will bring tranquility to all Argentines, because the most important thing is the well-being of all Argentines,” Macri said.

Authorities said Fernandez has 47.83% of the votes compared to 40.66% for Macri, with 91.21% percent of the votes counted. He needs 45% support, or 40% support with a 10 percentage point lead, over the nearest rival to avoid a runoff vote on Nov. 24.

Macri was elected president in 2015 promising to jumpstart the country’s economy. Argentines rejected at the time a successor chosen by ex-president Fernandez, who along with her late husband dominated Argentina’s political scene for 12 years and rewrote its social contract. But the divisive former leader, who embodies Argentina’s enduring cycle of hope and despair, appears back.

Thousands of the two Fernandezes supporters crowded outside their campaign headquarters in a jubilant celebration waving sky-blue and white Argentine flags.

“I’m so happy. We were waiting for this change for a long time. We’re tired of everything that has been happening,” said supporter Juan Jose De Antonio, 46. “Some of us live a different reality from those suffering hunger, but when you have a friend who lost a job, a neighbor who can’t make ends meet, it hits you.”

Alberto Fernandez greeted sympathizers who gathered outside the gate of his apartment chanting: “Alberto presidente!”

Sunday’s largely peaceful election was dominated by concerns over rising poverty, a sharp depreciation of the currency and one of the world’s highest inflation rates. Voters appear to have rejected austerity measures that Macri insisted were needed to revive Argentina’s struggling economy. Many Argentines have taken to the streets frustrated with cuts to rises in fuel and transportation costs.

The result would mark a triumphant comeback for Cristina Fernandez and a shift leftward for South America, which has seen conservative governments elected in Brazil, Colombia and Chile in recent years. She was considered part of the “pink tide” of leftist governments that arose in the region in the 1990s and 2000s.

Now a left-leaning government appears set to govern Argentina, and governments in Chile, Peru and Ecuador fueled by discontent over corruption, inequality and slowing growth.

“We Argentines deserve a better country, with work, where we can live peacefully, above all,” said Antonella Bruna, 32, as she voted at the medical school of the National University of Rosario, about 290 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires.

Macri retains wide support among the key farming sector in one of the world’s top suppliers of grains. But overall frustration over the economy has eroded the popularity of the pro-business former mayor of Buenos Aires. It has also propelled the candidacy of Alberto Fernandez, whose surge has sent jitters in the financial markets over a possible return to interventionist polices of Cristina Fernandez’s 2007-2015 administration.

Macri’s camp has tried to capitalize on that unease, portraying her as a puppet master waiting in the wings. But the presidential candidate has dismissed those fears and voters gave him a decisive victory over Macri in August primaries, which are a barometer of support for candidates ahead of the presidential election.

Fernandez served as chief of staff from 2003 to 2007 for Cristina Fernandez’s predecessor and late husband, Nestor Kirchner. He remained in the position during part of her term as president but left after a conflict with farmers in 2008.

Peronism is a broad but splintered political movement in the South American country of 44 million people.

On the election trail, Fernandez has criticized Macri’s decision to seek a record $56 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, a deeply unpopular institution in Argentina that is blamed for creating the conditions that led to the country’s worst economic meltdown in 2001.

Macri is credited with returning Argentina to international global markets following a break after the 2001 crisis and with helping strike a free trade deal between South America’s Mercosur bloc and the European Union amid global trade tensions and rising protectionism. But he failed to deliver on promises to jumpstart the economy of the recession-hit country, while Argentines continue to lose purchasing power to an inflation rate of more than 55 percent and about a third have been plunged under the poverty line.

On the campaign trail, Macri has pleaded for more time to reverse fortunes and reminds voters of the corruption cases facing Cristina Fernandez, who has denied any wrongdoing and remains a powerful if divisive figure in Argentina.

“It’s important so we don’t go back to the time of the Kirchners, when there was so much robbery, so much embezzlement. That wouldn’t be good for the country,” said Bernarda Nidia Guichandut, who helped her elderly parents into a car to go to vote. “Macri is honest. He’s made mistakes, he’s backtracked, but he’s said: “Fine, I was wrong.”

For the most part, the election atmosphere was calm and turnout large, though the Buenos Aires Province police department said more than 1,000 people were evacuated following 11 reports of bomb threats to schools that were being used as polling stations. No explosives were found.

Argentines are also choosing 130 lower house seats and 24 senators in Congress, as well as regional mayors, governors for three provinces and the head of government for the Argentine capital.

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Hundreds of policemen from Haiti’s National Police Force, PNH, took to the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince Sunday, dressed in civilian clothes to protest against what they say are deplorable work conditions.

The police officers, who are demanding officials allow them to form a union, complain they have not been paid for months, while being expected to risk their lives to maintain law and order.  This was the first time law enforcement officers have taken to the streets since the nationwide anti-government protests began last summer.

“They are holding 6 months (of) salary they owe us, that’s not good, it’s not logical,” a policeman told VOA Creole. “When we show up somewhere and say we are police, if we don’t have a decent car to ride in they don’t even believe us – they take us for criminals because we aren’t getting paid so we can’t take care of ourselves.”

Another policeman draped in a Haitian flag and wearing a straw hat with Haiti printed in blue and red letters on it told VOA Creole they are defending rights guaranteed under the nation’s constitution.

“The constitution says we have the right to form a union, to defend our rights,” he said. “We want to thank the civilians, our wives, friends and the people of Haiti who are out here with us protesting today. We also send a warning to the police officials to say that if they think they can fire us and continue mistreating us they are wrong. If that happens the entire country will be turned upside down.”

Haiti’s National Police force has been plagued by allegations of corruption and human rights violations. Protesters often allege that men in police uniforms driving unmarked cars have been firing on them with live ammunition.  The police claim to only be using rubber bullets during the protests.  But the accusation was backed by opposition lawmakers and journalists covering the protests who witnessed the protesters’ injuries.  This, in spite of the fact that the United States has spent millions of dollars to help train the force.  PNH Officials say the force that exists today is a work in progress and far more professional, but problems persist.

 This weekend, the PNH intelligence chief Frantz Georges was fired by police chief Norvil Rameau after an investigation into an incident where an officer under his supervision wound up dead, with his body thrown into the street, according to the Miami Herald.

Jacqueline Charles on Twitter

“Another difficult day of protests in #Haiti with even police officers demonstrating. “When was the last time you heard the police protesting?” a human rights activist said to me.”

Another difficult day of protests in #Haiti with even police officers demonstrating. “When was the last time you heard the police protesting?” a human rights activist said to me.

— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) October 27, 2019

Support from lawmakers, opposition leaders

Senator Patrice Dumont, a member of parliament who is well-respected by colleagues and citizens alike for being a no-nonsense guy who shuns corruption, joined the policemen in the streets.

“I’m out here to show support for the police and to say that they should have access to services that are on par with the service they provide to society,” the senator told VOA Creole.  “For example, after having served for years in the police force they should have certain social services available to them such as housing, health care and insurance.”  Dumont said policemen should be paid immediately by the government when funds become available.

Opposition leader Rene Civil of the Altenativ Konsansyel pou Refondasyon Leta party (Consensual Alternative for the Refoundation of the State), also joined the policemen in the streets.

“I understand why they are protesting, they are young men and women who, after finishing school, dedicated their lives to serving the nation and they are treated like worthless individuals,” Civil told VOA Creole.

One of the policemen said they will not return to work until their demands are met.

“If they don’t respond tonight, tomorrow morning we will remain arms crossed, we will not go to work, we will not take orders (from higher ups). That’s all I have to say,” the officer, wearing a black cap with POLICE in white printed on the front, told VOA Creole.

Cape Haitian protest

In Cape Haitian, hundreds of policemen chanted slogans and held up pink posters that echoed the demands of their colleagues in Port-au-Prince for a union, insurance and better work conditions. They marched to the police headquarters and stood in front of the gates chanting.

In Cape Haitian, northern #Haiti policemen are in the streets, just like in Port au Prince, to demand better work conditions and a union to protect their rights. ?Philippe Augustin @VOAKreyol#PNHpic.twitter.com/LmzFTSGQLV

— Sandra Lemaire (@SandraDVOA) October 27, 2019

Simultaneous anti-government protest

Meanwhile back in the capital, Protestant pastor Prophete Makenson was also in the streets with his followers after church services demanding the president step down.

“I’m just asking for a resignation, that’s why I’m in the street today,” the pastor told VOA Creole. “I’m 33 years old, like many young men out in the streets, we can’t (afford to) eat, we can’t (afford to) drink.”  

Protestant Pastor Prophete Makenson Dorilas is back in the streets protesting today. He says his simple demand is: resign – aimed at @moisejovenel@VOAKreyol Matiado Vilme talked to him. #Haitipic.twitter.com/GlccZYLvDr

— Sandra Lemaire (@SandraDVOA) October 27, 2019

Protestants joined thousands of anti-government protests for the first time last Sunday when they marched to the affluent suburb of Petionville.

Businesses targeted

The anti-government protest took a violent turn in the afternoon, undeterred by police who were busy protesting as well on the other side of town.  Some protesters successfully set fire to business establishments and attempted to burn down the Canadian Embassy.  They ran away when the embassy alarm sounded, alerting authorities. No damage was reported.

But in the Delmas neighborhood, the power generator at Banj, a multi-use complex that houses several tech startups was set ablaze.

#Haiti protesters in a separate demonstration against the government set fire to @banjHT power generator. This, in addition to last month’s looting of the multi-use complex housing several startups in Port au Prince. @marcalainbpic.twitter.com/QqrjIeNa3Q

— Sandra Lemaire (@SandraDVOA) October 27, 2019

Owner Marc Allain Boucicault tweeted an SOS to the local fire department to rush to the scene to extinguish the blaze, which endangered the building itself. Boucicault later tweeted that the fire had been put out but the generator was destroyed. The Banj building remained intact, he said.  Last month, protesters looted the business, taking equipment, furniture and everything else they could get their hands on, incurring thousands of dollars in losses.

Protesters also targeted the Coin restaurant on the Delmas road, setting fire to the building.  In the affluent suburb of Petionville, protesters set fire to a car parked at the Ponp Sol Sent Terez gas station.

The protests were initially sparked by a fuel hike in July 2018, and outrage over a corruption report that implicated the president’s businesses. Double-digit inflation, unemployment and the president’s seeming incapability to put order to the chaos that has engulfed the nation have also roiled the nation. The weekly demonstrations have paralyzed the country, shuttering businesses and schools.  The U.S. and Canada have published advisories discouraging their citizens from traveling to Haiti.

Late Thursday, the U. S. Embassy in Haiti issued a statement late urging Haiti’s leaders and stakeholders to enter into dialogue to try to resolve the crisis, but the opposition, anti-corruption activists and most protesters rebuffed the call saying the international community has no business meddling in the country’s affairs. 

pic.twitter.com/Pryu3MxBje

— U.S. Embassy Haiti (@USEmbassyHaiti) October 24, 2019

For now, President Jovenel Moise shows no signs of conceding to protesters’ demands to resign, so the opposition and anti-corruption activists have called for a new series of protests to keep up the pressure.

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Joe Biden called it “improper” for President Donald Trump for having his daughter and son-in-law hold positions in the White House, suggesting in a CBS interview Sunday that Jared Kushner is not qualified to weigh in on the complex affairs assigned by his father-in-law.

That assessment, which the Democratic presidential hopeful offered in a wide-ranging “60 Minutes” interview, ratchets up the rhetoric between Trump and Biden over each other’s adult children and family business affairs.

Biden told CBS that he doesn’t like “going after” politicians’ children, but he said none of his children would hold White House posts, even as he continued to defend his son, Hunter, against Trump’s charges that the Biden’s are corrupt because of the younger Biden’s international business affairs while his father was vice president.

“You should make it clear to the American public that everything you’re doing is for them,” Biden said, according to a CBS transcript, when he was asked about Ivanka Trump and Kushner, her husband, in White House posts with significant policy portfolios.

“Their actions speak for themselves,” Biden said of the Trump family. “I can just tell you this, that if I’m president get elected president my children are not gonna have offices in the White House. My children are not gonna sit in on Cabinet meetings.”

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Trump: White House Chief of Staff to Decide Fate of Kushner Security Clearance

It will be up to the White House chief of staff to decide whether the U.S.

Asked specifically whether he thinks Kushner should be tasked with negotiating Middle East peace agreements, Biden laughed. “No, I don’t,” he said. “What credentials does he bring to that?”

Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine and China remains an emphasis of Trump’s broadsides against Biden, a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. The younger Biden took a post on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm after his father became the Obama administration’s point man on U.S.-Ukraine relations.

Trump’s focus on finding information about the Biden’s Ukraine connections is now at the heart of a House impeachment inquiry against the president. Ukrainian investigators have found no legal wrongdoing by either Biden.

Noting that, the former vice president blasted social media giant Facebook for allowing the Trump campaign to distribute online ads framing the Bidens as corrupt.

“You know, I’m glad they brought the Russians down,” Biden said, noting Facebook’s recent decision to shut down accounts that were distributing misinformation, including about Biden. But, the former vice president asked, “Why don’t you bring down the lies that Trump is telling and everybody knows are lies?”

Hunter Biden in a recent interview said the only thing his father said to him at the time he took the post at Burisma was, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

The elder Biden told CBS he never got into any details over the firm, which had been the focus on Ukrainian corruption inquiries.

“What I meant by that is I hope you’ve thought this through. I hope you know exactly what you’re doing here,” the elder Biden said. “That’s all I meant. Nothing more than that because I’ve never discussed my business or their business, my sons’ or daughter’s. And I’ve never discussed them because they know where I have to do my job and that’s it and they have to make their own judgments.”

And turning the issue back on the president, Biden repeated a line he’s started using on the campaign trail, urging Trump to release his tax returns. “Mr. President … let’s see how straight you are, okay old buddy?” Biden said. “I put out 21 years of mine. You wanna deal with corruption? Start to act like it. Release your tax returns or shut up.”

Trump’s attacks have not displaced Biden as a duel Democratic front-runner alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren. But it has nonetheless raised new questions about Biden’s argument that he’d be the best Democrat to take on the Republican president in a general election. And the Biden attack ads Trump and Republicans have financed in early nominating states, combined with Biden’s own lagging fundraising, have led some of his wealthy supporters to openly discuss the possibility of launching an independent political action committee.

Biden’s CBS interview was taped before his recent decision to reverse his previous opposition to such a Super PAC, a move that Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders have indirectly criticized. Biden did address his campaign’s cash balance being dwarfed by Warren and Sanders, saying he’s “not worried” about raising enough money.

As to just how he can withstand Sanders’ and Warren’s grassroots fundraising juggernauts, he replied, “I just flat beat them.”

 

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Tens of thousands of people are marching in Barcelona to protest the separatist movement in the northeastern Catalonia region that has produced Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Barcelona’s police say 80,000 people have rallied Sunday on one of the city’s main streets, with many carrying Spanish and Catalan flags.

One poster read in English: “We are Catalonians too, stop this madness!!”

The rally in favor of Spanish unity comes after several days of protests – some of which have spiraled into violent clashes with police – by Catalan separatists. They are angered by a Supreme Court ruling that sentenced nine of separatist leaders to prison for a failed 2017 secession attempt.

Polls say the 7.5 million residents of the wealthy Catalonia region are roughly evenly divided on the secession question.

 

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Pakistan’s ailing former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was jailed on money-laundering and corruption charges, has remained in a government hospital where he was taken last week after suffering a heart attack.

Maryam Aurangzeb, a spokesman for the ex-premier’s Muslim League party, says Sunday that Sharif’s health condition won’t allow for him to be moved to another hospital.

Mahmood Ayaz, the hospital’s top official, said its medical board hasn’t approved moving Sharif and he himself hasn’t requested it.

Islamabad’s High Court Saturday granted temporary freedom to Sharif until another two-judge panel decides Tuesday whether Sharif’s seven-year sentence on a corruption conviction should be suspended due to his illness.

Sharif served three times as prime minister. Supreme Court removed him from office in 2017 on corruption allegations.

 

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Thousands of supporters of an ultra-religious party are gathering in Karachi to start a large anti-government march on Pakistan’s capital farther north.

Mufti Abrar Ahmed, spokesman for the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, says its leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman will lead the protesters’ caravan setting off later on Sunday.

The beginning of the JUI protest also marks the anniversary of the start of the conflict over Kashmir, a province both India and Pakistan claim. Separate, anti-India protests are planned across Pakistan.

Ahmed said supporters from Karachi and surrounding areas will travel in buses and vans toward the capital. He said the caravan plans to reach Islamabad on Oct. 31st, to protest Prime Minister Imran Khan’s “illegitimate” government which the Islamist party says came to power through the army’s support.

 

 

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Pope Francis has thanked Amazon regional bishops for their “candor” at a meeting which called for ordaining married priests and other changes to help the Catholic church’s far-flung flock in that part of South America. 
 
In his homily Sunday at a Mass to conclude weeks of discussions at the Vatican on the needs of the Amazon’s faithful, Francis didn’t mention the bishops’ vote to press the Vatican to allow married men to become priests in special circumstances. 
 
A day earlier, Francis told bishops he would draw his conclusions in a document he hoped to write by year’s end.
 
Allowing married men to be ordained in remote Amazon areas that are facing severe shortage of priests would chip away at the Catholic Church’s nearly millennium-old teaching upholding priestly celibacy.

 

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An Afghan politician confirms that U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is in Afghanistan’s capital for his first visit since talks between the U.S. and Taliban collapsed last month. 
 
Sayed Hamid Gailani, leader of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, posted on his Twitter account late Saturday that he met with Khalilzad and his team in Kabul to discuss the country’s recent presidential elections and peace efforts.
 
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Afghan official also confirmed Sunday that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had met with Khalilzad.
 
He said that the meeting took place at the presidential palace on Saturday.
 
Khalilzad’s visit to Kabul follows a meeting in Moscow he held with representatives of China, Russia and Pakistan, over restarting peace talks to end Afghanistan’s 18-year-old war.

 

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The Democratic-led impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump resumed with testimony from a senior State Department official on Saturday, a day after a judge buoyed the probe by dismissing a central Republican objection. 
 
Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, was due to meet with the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees behind closed doors at the U.S. Capitol. 
 
Lawmakers and staff were holding the first weekend deposition of the investigation, after Reeker’s testimony was postponed because of memorial events this week for Representative Elijah Cummings, who had been Oversight Committee chairman and played a leading role in the impeachment inquiry. 

Inquiry ruled valid
 
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell rejected the claim that the impeachment process was illegitimate, as he ordered the Republican Trump administration to give the House Judiciary Committee secret material from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s reporting on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. 
 
Howell said the House did not have to approve a resolution formally initiating the effort for the impeachment inquiry to be valid, something Republicans have been insisting is the case. 

Reeker, 54, is a career diplomat whose current portfolio includes Ukraine, the country central to the investigation of Trump. Reeker has held his position on an acting basis since March 18. 
 
The impeachment inquiry has underscored what current and former U.S. officials describe as a campaign by Trump against career diplomats. Several have already met with congressional investigators. 
 
Investigators were expected to ask Reeker about issues including Trump’s abrupt dismissal of Marie Yovanovitch in May as ambassador to Ukraine. According to emails given to congressional committees this month, Reeker was among diplomats who sought to intervene when Trump supporters accused Yovanovitch of being disloyal to the president.  

Another career diplomat involved in those communications, George Kent, testified last week that he was told to “lie low” on Ukraine and instead defer to three of Trump’s political appointees. Yovanovitch has also testified, accusing the Trump administration of recalling her based on false claims and of eviscerating the State Department. 
 
Focus on Ukraine 
 
At the heart of the impeachment inquiry is a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic contender to face Trump in the 2020 election, and his son Hunter, who had been a director of a Ukrainian energy company. 
 
The Trump administration was withholding $391 million in security assistance for Ukraine when the call took place, and investigators are looking into whether Trump improperly tied the release of the aid to getting Ukraine’s help in probing the Bidens. 
 
Trump denies wrongdoing and, backed by his fellow Republicans in Congress, insists he is being treated unfairly. The administration has refused to hand over documents requested by the congressional committees and has sought to prevent current and former officials from giving interviews. 
 
The committees have scheduled several depositions next week, following Reeker’s appearance on Saturday, all behind closed doors. 
 
For Monday, they have called Charles Kupperman, a former deputy national security adviser, and on Tuesday, lawmakers expect Alexander Vindman, the White House National Security Council’s (NSC) top expert on Ukraine. 

Court guidance
 
Kupperman on Friday filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to determine whether he could testify. His lawyer Charles Cooper said the judicial branch needed to weigh in on whether the president could block Kupperman and other White House officials from complying with congressional subpoenas. 
 
Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security, is scheduled to appear on Wednesday, and Tim Morrison, a top NSC Russia and Europe adviser, is scheduled for Thursday. 
 
Democratic members of the three committees said they felt they had gathered a great deal of evidence and did not expect this phase of the investigation to last many more weeks, before public hearings. 
 
“We’ve heard a lot of compelling testimony. We feel like we know a lot of what’s happened,” New Jersey Representative Tom Malinowski, told reporters at the House this week. 

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Nearly 50 people have died in renewed anti-government protests across Iraq, officials said Saturday, with clashes breaking out as demonstrators turned their fury against government and paramilitary offices.

The death toll from protests this month has climbed to 205, including dozens who were killed as they torched government buildings or offices belonging to factions of Hashed al-Shaabi force over the past two days.

The demonstrations first erupted on Oct. 1, with protesters railing against government corruption and unemployment, while a second wave broke out late Thursday.

This latest round of demonstrations has been notably violent, with 48 people killed in as many hours.

Three protesters were killed in the capital Baghdad on Saturday, with medics and officials reporting trauma wounds sustained by tear gas canisters lobbed at demonstrators.  

But the majority of victims have been in the Shi’ite-majority south, where protesters torched dozens of provincial government buildings, party offices and Hashed centers.

On Saturday, three people were shot dead while setting fire to a local official’s home, a police source told AFP.

The previous night, 12 protesters died in Diwaniyah while setting fire to the headquarters of the powerful Badr organization.

Top Hashed commanders have threatened “revenge” after their offices were attacked, and denounced those they said aimed at sowing “discord and chaos” in the country.

In a bid to contain the violence security forces have announced curfews across most of Iraq’s southern provinces — but brief protests nevertheless took place in Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah, Babylon and Najaf.

In the southern port city of Basra, protesters failed to come out in large numbers after security forces strictly enforced a curfew.

Fears of ‘armed spoilers’

The Hashed was founded in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group but its factions have since been ordered to incorporate into the state security services.

“Public anger is directed at them in addition to governorate councils, for they were the obvious face of ‘the regime’,” wrote Harith Hasan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center.

But the attacks could also hint at political rivalries between the Hashed and populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has thrown his weight behind the demonstrations.

“The Sadrists, especially in their traditional strongholds such as Missan, saw this an opportunity to act against competing militias,” such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Badr, and Kataeb Hezbollah, Hasan said on Twitter.

The United Nations on Saturday said it was “tragic” to see renewed violence but also warned against “armed spoilers”.

“Armed entities sabotaging the peaceful demonstrations, eroding the government’s credibility and ability to act, cannot be tolerated,” said the UN top official in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

Protesters gathered in Baghdad’s emblematic Tahrir (Liberation) Square on Saturday morning despite efforts by riot police to clear them with tear gas.

“It’s enough — theft, looting, gangs, mafias, deep state, whatever. Get out! Let us see a (functioning) state,” said one protester, referring to perceived cronyism and corruption in the country.

“We don’t want anything, just let us live,” he added as puffs of smoke from tear gas rose behind him.

‘It’s enough!’

Oil-rich Iraq is OPEC’s second-highest producer — but one in five people live below the poverty line and youth unemployment sits at 25 percent, according to the World Bank.

About 60 percent of Iraq’s 40-million-strong population is under the age of 25.

The staggering rates of joblessness and allegations of corruption sparked the widespread protests on October 1 and the government has struggled to quell public anger by proposing reforms.

Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi has suggested a laundry list of measures, including hiring drives, increased pensions and a cabinet reshuffle.

New education and health ministers were approved by parliament in a session earlier this month, the only time it was able to meet since protests began.

But a scheduled meeting of parliament on Saturday to discuss the renewed protests failed to take due to a lack of quorum.

Protesters so far have seemed unimpressed by the government’s efforts.

“They told young people: ‘go home, we’ll give you pensions and come up with a solution’. They tricked us,” said one of the rare woman protesters on Saturday, her young son at her side.

They have even directed some of their anger at Sadr and country’s top Shi’ite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is deeply revered among most Iraqis,

“Sadr, Sistani — this is a shame,” a protester in Tahrir said on Saturday.

“We were hit! It’s enough,” he said, waving a tear gas canister fired earlier by security forces.

 

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California officials warned on Saturday that “historic and extreme” wind conditions were set to fan raging wildfires in the north of the state as millions of residents face power cuts.

Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency as the so-called Kincade Fire spread to 23,700 acres (9,591 hectares) after breaking out on Wednesday in the Sonoma wine region.

The blaze, which is burning in remote steep terrain, has destroyed about 50 structures and forced the evacuation of the small community of Geyserville and of nearby vineyard operations.

“This is definitely an event that we’re calling historic and extreme,” David King, meteorologist for the U.S. National Weather Service, told Saturday’s Los Angeles Times.

“What’s making this event really substantial… is the amount of time that these winds are going to remain.”

Hot, intense winds are expected to pick up on Saturday and last into Monday.

The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., said it expected to cut off power to 850,000 customers — a precautionary shutdown that local media say would affect about two million people.

“The weather event could be the most powerful in California in decades,” PG&E said, with dry northeast winds forecast to gust up to 70 miles per hour (112 kilometers per hour).

“PG&E will need to turn off power for safety several hours before the potentially damaging winds arrive,” it added.

“Winds of this magnitude pose a higher risk of damage and sparks on the electric system and rapid wildfire spread.”

About 1,300 firefighters battled the Kincade Fire, which is only five percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Protection.

‘Don’t know what to do’

“I can’t explain it,” 70-year-old Tina Tavares, who was evacuated from her Geyserville home, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“It’s like you’re in a bad earthquake, the ground is opening up… and you’re seeing it and don’t know what to do.”

PG&E has come under fierce scrutiny after it reported that even though power had already been shut down to nearly 28,000 customers in Sonoma County this week, some high-voltage transmission lines were still operating when the fire broke out.

The same type of lines was responsible for California’s deadliest wildfire ever — last year’s Camp Fire, which killed 86 people.

PG&E, which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, has been blamed for several other fires in the state in recent years.

Governor Newsom hit out at the company on Friday, saying it had put “profits over the people of California for too long.”

He said it was “infuriating beyond words” that a state such as California had to endure blackouts.

“It’s about dog-eat-dog capitalism meeting climate change,” he said, referring to PG&E. “It’s a story about greed, and they need to be held accountable.”

Further south in California, tens of thousands of residents near Santa Clarita, just north of Los Angeles, evacuated their homes this week as the so-called Tick Fire scorched over 4,000 acres.

The blaze forced the shutdown of all schools in the area as well as a major freeway, creating traffic chaos for commuters.

Some 1,325 firefighters backed by air tankers and helicopters battled the flames close to densely packed communities, with 10,000 structures at threat, officials said.

Six homes were destroyed, though the number was expected to rise.

Wildfires also erupted over the border in Mexico’s Baja California state, where local civil protection authorities said on Friday that three people had been killed and over 150 homes destroyed.

The state’s director of civil protection, Antonio Rosquillas, said that the municipality of Tecate, bordering the United States, was worst hit.

 

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday his nation’s military would “clear terrorists” from its border in northern Syria if the Kurdish YPG militia does not leave by the deadline agreed upon by Turkey and Russia earlier this week.

The deadline of 1500 GMT Tuesday was determined in a deal agreed upon by Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea report of Sochi. Russia said its military police and Syrian border guards would “facilitate the removal” of the Kurds from within 30 kilometers of the border.

Ankara contends the YPG is a terrorist group and has been vehemently critical of U.S. backing of the militia, which was instrumental under the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the fight against Islamic State. Erdogan also admonished the international security to get behind Turkey’s initiative to establish a “safe zone” for the more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees now residing in Turkey.

The Turkish leader threatened that “if there is no support for the projects we are developing for between 1 and 2 million in the first stage for their return, we will have no option but to open our doors, and let them go to Europe.”

The United States, meanwhile, will bolster its forces currently protecting oil fields and facilities in eastern Syria from the Islamic State terror group, even as most of its troops are being pulled from the country.

“We are now taking some actions; I’m not going to get into the details, to strengthen our position at Deir el-Zour, to ensure we can deny ISIS access to the oil fields,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Friday, using an acronym for the group. He spoke following a series of meetings with NATO allies in Brussels.

“We want to make sure that they don’t have access to the resources that may allow them to strike within the region, to strike Europe, to strike the United States,” he said. “It will include some mechanized forces.”

The U.S. had been keeping about 1,000 special forces in northeastern Syria, working extensively with the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, as part of the U.S.-led effort to deal a lasting defeat to IS.

Since the liberation of the last scrap of IS-held territory in March, the U.S. and SDF had focused on clearing out remaining IS sleeper cells and on preventing an insurgency; but, earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces just ahead of an incursion by Turkey aimed at clearing the border region of Kurdish fighters, whom Ankara views as terrorists.

“Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then…COMING HOME!” Trump said in a series of tweets Friday, barely half an hour before Esper spoke.

“When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!”

….USA has gained Trillions of Dollars in wealth since November 2016. All others way down. Our power is Economic before having to use our newly rebuilt Military, a much better alternative. Oil is secured. Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019

….COMING HOME! We were supposed to be there for 30 days – That was 10 years ago. When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019

The statements Friday reflect the mixed messaging on U.S. intentions regarding Syria that has been coming from Washington this week.

On Wednesday, while hailing the success of a U.S.-brokered deal to stop the fighting between Turkey, a NATO ally, and the Kurdish forces which had been aiding the U.S. in the fight against IS, Trump said that the U.S. was “getting out.”

“Let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand,” he said, adding later that the U.S. would secure the oil fields before “deciding what we are going to do with it in the future.”

In a series of tweets Thursday, Trump emphasized the importance he placed on the oil fields.

“We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!” Trump tweeted, adding, “Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!”

The Oil Fields discussed in my speech on Turkey/Kurds yesterday were held by ISIS until the United States took them over with the help of the Kurds. We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2019

I really enjoyed my conversation with General @MazloumAbdi. He appreciates what we have done, and I appreciate what the Kurds have done. Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2019

A U.S. defense official late Thursday confirmed the U.S. was working to reinforce the position of U.S. troops still in Syria and was doing so “in coordination with our SDF [Syrian Democratic Force] partners, in northeast Syria.”

Many Kurdish leaders have criticized the U.S., some accusing Washington of betraying them by allowing Turkish forces to move against them. But despite the hard feelings, SDF Commander Gen. Mazloum Abdi has indicated he is open to continuing to work with the U.S. and U.S. forces in the region.

Asked about the U.S. strategy in Syria, Esper told reporters Friday it has been consistent.

“It’s always been about defeating the ISIS coalition,” he said. “The specific measures we are taking with regard to the reduction of oilfields is to deny ISIS access to those resources.”

The defense secretary went on to say, “If ISIS has access to the resources and therefore the means to procure arms or to buy fighters or whatever else they do then that means it makes it more difficult to defeat ISIS.”

Islamic State took control of the eastern Syrian oil fields in 2014 and held on to them until the U.S.-led coalition captured them in 2016.  In the interim, analysts estimate the terror group pocketed a total of about $750 million from sales.

There have been concerns that the Turkish military incursion into northeastern Syria has helped strengthen IS by giving some of the terror group’s captured fighters a chance to escape from a series of more than 30 makeshift prisons guarded by the SDF.

 

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The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPP, the United States signed with 11 other countries in 2016 would have given American farmers more places to market their crops and reduced tariffs on U.S. goods.

The United States failed to ratify the pact in the waning months of the Obama administration, and Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency pledging to withdraw from the accord, arguing it would cost U.S. manufacturing jobs. Trump kept his promise soon after taking office.

Kirkwood, Illinois, farmer Wendell Shauman, who has extensively traveled to China and other parts of the world where U.S. crops are marketed, supported Trump in 2016 — despite wanting the TPP agreement.

“Any time you back out on a trade deal, that’s not a precedent I like to see set,” Shauman told VOA in an interview in January 2017.

Trade policies

Under President Trump, the United States not only withdrew from the TPP, it also dismantled the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA.

A replacement — the United States, Mexico Canada Trade Agreement, or USMCA — is under review in the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to wage a trade war with one of its biggest crop buyers, China, which imposed tariffs on U.S. corn and soybeans in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.

Today, as Shauman heads to his cornfields to harvest much later than usual thanks to extremely wet weather during the planting season, he contemplates how current trade policy might drain his profits. But he still supports President Trump.

“From what I hear on the other side, I’d be happy to support what he’s doing versus what they are proposing,” Shauman told VOA during a break in harvesting his corn. Much of his ire is directed at the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Harry Truman talked about the do-nothing Congress. Well, we’ve got another do-nothing Congress. Anything Trump wants to do, they are against,” Shauman said.

Success on the international trade front is a top issue for U.S. farmers, and many want Congress to pass the USMCA soon.

This segment of the American landscape largely supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, but continues to face difficult economic conditions amid increased costs to operate farms and decreasing profits for their crops.

Fearing a Democratic president

While an uncertain trade environment lingers ahead of casting ballots in 2020, Shauman also worries a Democratic president may impose restrictive environmental regulations to the detriment of his farm operations.

He’s not alone.

“I was excited to see a Republican take back the White House,” Elkhart, Illinois, pork farmer Thomas Titus told VOA. “I love the stance that we are taking.”

So does Jim Raben, who farms corn and soybeans in Ridgeway, a town in southern Illinois. “I think he’s doing what is right,” he told VOA at the 2019 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois.

“I think the majority of our people are by far supportive of the president,” says Illinois Farm Bureau’s Mark Gebhards, who points out that Trump has been able to blunt the impact of tariffs through payments to farmers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Market Facilitation Program.” This year it cost taxpayers about $16 billion, on top of roughly $15 billion in 2018.

“We’ve said all along we want trade, not aid,” he told VOA. “We don’t want to have to live on hoping that we get another round of market facilitation payments. We really need to find a final way forward — not only the tariffs with China, the UMSCA, Japan, the EU, all these other issues that are out there.”

Little understanding of agriculture

Yet the lack of substantial trade progress during Trump’s first term causes concern among some of his supporters.

“I really feel like he doesn’t understand what happens out here in these flyover states [in the middle of the country],” says Colona, Illinois, farmer Megan Dwyer. “He’s walking a very thin line in what is happening in the ag[riculture] sector.”

Dwyer says the Trump administration’s waivers for oil refineries to use corn-based ethanol, the president’s tweeting, and his mixed results on trade could affect her vote.

“Some of his comments recently around ag are frustrating to me,” she said.

Amid an ongoing impeachment inquiry in the U.S. Congress, a straw poll conducted by Farm Journal Pulse in September showed 76% of 1,138 farmers polled support Trump in 2020, down from 79% in July.

“I think there’s a lot of people who are disappointed,” Shauman said. “But it comes down to the choice they give us, and right now most farmers … I don’t think he’s going to lose many.”

 

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Prominent activist Jawar Mohammed does not rule out challenging his erstwhile ally, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in next year’s election, he told Reuters on Friday, after days of demonstrations by his supporters resulted in dozens of deaths.

Jawar’s ability to organize street protests helped propel Abiy to power last year, ushering in sweeping political and economic reforms. Abiy won the Nobel peace prize this month for his regional peacemaking achievements.

But this week, Jawar’s supporters demonstrated against Abiy after Jawar said police had surrounded his home and tried to withdraw his government security detail.

Late on Friday, the police commissioner for Oromiya told Reuters that 67 were people killed in the region in the two days of protests this week, a dramatic jump in the number of deaths from earlier reports.

Sixty-two of the dead were protesters while five were police officers, Oromiya regional police commissioner Kefyalew Tefera said by phone. Thirteen died from bullet wounds and the rest from injuries caused by stones, he said.

On Thursday, authorities and hospital officials had reported that protests in the capital and other cities resulted in 16 deaths and dozens of wounded. It was not immediately clear how many of the 16 were included in the tally of 67 reported in Oromiya.

The violence underscored the dilemma facing Abiy, who must retain support in Ethiopia’s ethnically based, federal system but not be seen to favor one group.

But kingmakers like media mogul Jawar are flexing their muscles. Like Abiy, Jawar comes from the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest. His supporters have stopped believing in Abiy’s promises of reform, he said, accusing Abiy of centralizing power, silencing dissent, and jailing political prisoners – like his predecessors.

Amnesty International says that, since Abiy took office, there have been several waves of mass arrests of people in Oromiya perceived to be opposed to the government. Detainees were not charged or taken to court, Amnesty’s Ethiopia researcher Fisseha Tekle said.

“The majority of people believe the transition is off track and we are backsliding towards an authoritarian system,” Jawar said, sitting in his heavily guarded home-office in the center of the capital, Addis Ababa. “The ruling party and its ideology will be challenged seriously not only in the election but also prior to the elections.”

The prime minister’s spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment. Abiy has not commented on this week’s violence.

On Friday afternoon, the defense ministry said the army had been deployed to seven cities where there had been protests this week. The forces have been deployed “to calm the situation in collaboration with elders and regional security officers,” Major General Mohammed Tessema told a press conference in Addis Ababa.

Strident Parties

The four ethnically based parties in the coalition that has ruled Ethiopia since 1991 are facing increasing competition from new, more strident parties demanding greater power and resources for their own regions.

“For a prime minister whose popular legitimacy relies on his openness, recent protests in Oromiya could be politically suicidal,” said Mehari Taddele Maru, an Addis Ababa-based political analyst. “It signals a significant loss of a populist power base that propelled him to power.”

If next year’s elections are fair – as Abiy has promised they will be – they will test whether the young prime minister can hold together his fractious nation of 100 million people and continue to open up its state-owned economy, or whether decades of state repression have driven Ethiopians into the arms of the political competition.

Jawar said he hadn’t decided who else he would support in next year’s polls, or whether he would run himself. His Twitter feed has been teasing the possibility last weekend: “The story about me running for office is just speculation. I am running to lose weight.”

He refused to be drawn on Friday, telling Reuters: “I don’t exclude anything.”

His remarks were his strongest criticism yet of Abiy, with whom he was photographed frequently last year, but the split follows pointed remarks by Abiy to parliament on Tuesday.

Abiy said, without naming anyone, “Media owners who don’t have Ethiopian passports are playing both ways … If this is going to undermine the peace and existence of Ethiopia … we will take measures.”

The comments were widely seen as a dig at Jawar, who is Ethiopian-born but has a U.S. passport and returned from exile last year.

Abiy didn’t create Ethiopia’s ethnic divisions, but he must address them, said Abel Wabella, a former political prisoner who is now editor of the Amharic-language newspaper Addis Zeybe.

Jawar is “testing the waters,” he said. “Ethnic federalism creates monsters … if Abiy fails to dismantle the power groups based on ethnicity, and to address the structural problems we have as a nation, we will end up in civil war.”

 

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Bolivians blocked streets in La Paz on Friday demanding an audit of a controversial election count that handed President Evo Morales a outright win and with it a fourth consecutive term that would extend his rule to nearly two decades.

Morales, 59, who swept to power in 2006 as the country’s first indigenous leader, claimed victory in the Sunday vote and railed against the opposition who he accused of leading a coup d’etat with foreign backing.

Anti-government protests had begun on Sunday, when an official vote count was suspended for almost a day. A confident Morales said then his socialist party MAS would get an outright win, despite an official rapid count data showing the left-wing leader heading to a second round against rival Carlos Mesa.

The final official count showed Morales with an over 10-point over Mesa on Thursday night, which meant he would avoid a risky second round head-to-head – even as the election monitors, the opposition and foreign governments criticized the count.

On Friday, roads in the north and south of La Paz were blocked by protesters, with normally busy streets empty of cars.

In the morning, there were few signs of violence, as people marched with banners saying “No to dictatorship.”

The official election observer, the Organization of American States, has already called for a second round despite Morales’ 10-point win, while the United States, European Union, Brazil and others adding their voice.

In the region, left-leaning governments in Mexico and Venezuela have backed Morales, a former union leader for coca farmers who has overseen steady growth and relative stability in one of South America’s poorest countries.

“There has to be a second round,” Marco Antonio Fuentes, a departmental official in La Paz, said Friday. “The electoral arbitrator is unfortunately not reliable,” referring to the vote count halt that saw one senior electoral official resign.

Mesa, a former president who leads the Citizen Community party, has claimed to have evidence of electoral fraud. “The government is despising the popular vote,” he told local television channel Unitel on Friday.

The vote count, with 99.99% of the votes counted, showed Morales with 47.07% of the vote to Mesa’s 36.51%.

Officials and diplomats raised concerns the conflict could hit Bolivia’s ties with global trade partners and an economy that is already straining under declining gas exports.

Jaime Duran, a fiscal and budgetary deputy minister, said in comments to the Red Uno channel that the conflict in recent days “will undoubtedly” have an effect on the economy, though reassured there no issues with supplies of fuel and food.

 

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The family of Ali Wezir is in agony in Syria’s Kurdish town of Hasakah after hearing that Wezir has set himself on fire outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland to protest a Turkish incursion in northeast Syria. VOA’s Zana Omar reports.
 

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Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have issued three more subpoenas to U.S. officials as part of their impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

The House committees leading the impeachment investigation demanded to hear testimony from Ulrich Brechbuhl, a key aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well as two officials in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget: acting Director Russell Vought and Associate Director for National Security Programs Michael Duffey. 

House Democrats are probing Trump’s efforts to seek Ukraine’s help to investigate a political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. A whistleblower report that launched the impeachment investigation said Brechbuhl listened in on a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Trump pressed for the investigation, using U.S. aid to Ukraine as leverage.

The Trump administration has sought to block administration officials from appearing before lawmakers conducting the impeachment inquiry.

Also Friday, a U.S. judge granted a request by House Democrats to access information blacked out of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

The ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington was a victory for House Democrats, who had been seeking the redacted documents as part of their impeachment investigation.

Earlier this week, Republican lawmakers barged into a closed-door impeachment proceeding, delaying testimony for five hours. 

Republicans demanded the release of transcripts of testimony from multiple diplomatic and national security officials, many of whom provided information about the pressure Trump exerted on Ukraine to open investigations into the Bidens. 

The White House said Trump was “very supportive” of the Republican lawmakers’ actions. 

Trump has denied there was a quid pro quo in his overtures to Ukraine and described his July call to the Ukrainian president as “perfect.”  

Last week, the president’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters that attaching strings to U.S. aid — a quid pro quo — was nothing new and that the news media should “get over it.” 

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California has said impeachment inquiry transcripts eventually will be released, while officials say public impeachment hearings could start as soon as mid-November. 

If the House votes to impeach Trump, he would face a trial in the Republican-led Senate, where it remains unlikely that a two-thirds majority would vote to convict Trump and remove him from office. 

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A Kurdish family in Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakah is anguished by news that 31-year-old Ali Wezir set himself on fire Wednesday outside a United Nations building in Geneva, Switzerland.

Wezir, a Syrian Kurdish refugee residing in Germany, suffered burns on 80% of his body after setting himself on fire at the headquarters of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

His family says it was an act of self-immolation to draw global attention to Turkish attacks on the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

“I spoke to him two days before his action, and he kept saying he wanted to come back [home],” his sister, Mehbuba, told VOA.

“Since the day Turkey attacked, he was not eating nor sleeping. He became very thin because he was worried. He was saying he would come back. He could not bear sitting there and watch Turkey attack his country,” Mehbuba said, adding that her family learned of Wezir’s act through a Facebook post.

Silvain Guillaume-Gentil, a Geneva police spokesperson, told reporters that Wezir was airlifted to a hospital in Lausanne once the flames were extinguished.

“Given his state, it was impossible to ask him about his motive, but we imagine that it was the political situation,” Reuters quoted Guillaume-Gentil as saying.

Expected to survive

Wezir’s family said he is expected to survive the severe burns but will remain in critical condition for 72 hours.

Wezir’s brother Dilawer told VOA that Wezir was particularly disturbed by the graphic images on social media showing children who had suffered burns, allegedly resulting from Turkey’s bombing campaign in northeast Syria.

The U.N.’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) earlier this week said it was investigating allegations Turkey has used phosphorus bombs, which Ankara denies.

“My brother showed everyone how Kurdish kids in Ras al-Ayn are being burned by phosphorus chemical weapons. He set himself on fire to break the silence on the Kurds being killed,” Dilawer Wezir told VOA. 

Referring to thousands of fighters from the Kurdish-led SDF group who lost their lives in the war against Islamic State (IS), Dilawer Wezir said many Kurds feel betrayed.

“When we say 11,000 martyrs and 25,000 wounded who sacrificed against IS, it was not just for Kurdistan. It was for the entire world, because if it wasn’t for this force, IS would have gone into Europe and destroyed there, too,” he said.

Turkey’s military incursion

Turkey’s military and its allied Syrian militia on October 9 started a military incursion into northeast Syria, targeting the SDF after U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw most U.S. troops from the country.

The U.N. estimates hundreds were killed and nearly 180,000 people were displaced before the U.S. and Turkey negotiated a cease-fire agreement was negotiated last week.

Turkish officials said their goal is to pursue a Kurdish armed group known as the Peoples’ Protection Units, or the YPG, which Ankara views as a terrorist organization.

The United States, however, has considered the YPG an ally in the fight to remove IS from a wide area of Syrian territory, including the IS self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa.
 

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Botswana’s chief justice says President Mokgweetsi Masisi will remain in office after his ruling party won enough parliament seats in this week’s election. 

The final results are not yet complete, but Chief Justice Terence Rannowane said Friday the ruling Botswana Democratic Party has won the needed 29 seats in the National Assembly.

The long-peaceful southern African nation had faced its tightest election in history after former President Ian Khama broke away and announced his support for an opposition coalition instead.

Many had wondered whether the ruling party would be toppled for the first time since independence in 1966.

But opposition coalition Umbrella for Democratic Change was well behind with a dozen seats as counting neared an end. 

Observers said Wednesday’s election went smoothly in one of Africa’s most stable countries.

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The power of music and art to influence generations is well documented, and that’s sometimes why authoritarian regimes tend to silence artists. The brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia is no different and a huge percentage of Cambodia’s musicians and artists were killed during the Pol Pot Regime. But some remember, and their tales can now be heard. VOA’s Chetra Chap reports.

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Climate change continues leaving its mark on the world’s oceans.  Water levels are rising along with temperatures.  Warmer waters supercharge some marine life’s reproduction rates, putting other species’ very survival at risk. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us under the sea.

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In international diplomacy, sports can sometimes act to bridge bitter divides between longstanding rivals. A similar unifying force could be at work, at least temporarily, in America’s politically polarized capital city. VOA’s Brian Padden reports, Democrats and Republicans are coming together to support the Washington Nationals baseball team playing in Major League Baseball’s World Series.

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