Four drug companies reached a last-minute legal settlement over their role in the opioid addiction epidemic, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and McKesson Corp and Israel-based drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd will announce the settlement on Monday, according to the report.

It was unclear if the fifth defendant, pharmacy chain operator Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, had reached a settlement with the two Ohio counties that were the plaintiffs in the trial set to begin Monday morning.

…

A senior Israeli official attended a maritime security conference in Bahrain on Monday in another sign of Gulf Arab nations and Israel transcending longtime enmities to focus on a perceived common threat from Iran.

Israel, which regards Sunni Muslim Gulf states as natural allies against Shi’ite Muslim Iran, has formal diplomatic relations with only two Arab states, neighboring Egypt and Jordan, established in 1979 and 1994 respectively.

The maritime workshop being held in Manama stems from a Middle East conference held in Warsaw in February that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the time called a “historical turning point” for an alliance against Tehran.

The United States is trying to build a global maritime coalition to secure vital trade channels following attacks on tankers in Gulf waters in May and June that Washington has blamed on Iran, a charge Tehran denies.

Tensions have risen since President Donald Trump last year withdrew the United States from a 2015 deal between world powers and Iran under which it agreed to curbs on its disputed nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.

Washington has since reimposed a panoply of sanctions meant to strangle Iran’s vital oil exports, and Tehran in turn has scaled back on commitments under the deal to restrict its uranium enrichment program.

“Aviation and maritime security are at top of the policy agenda in the region,” Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa told the opening of the Maritime and Aviation Security Working Group.

Israeli Foreign Ministry official Dana Benvenisti, head of its counter-terrorism department, attended the Manama gathering in a rare visit by an Israeli official to Bahrain.

In April a group of Israeli businessmen and government officials canceled a planned visit to an economic conference in Manama due to what organizers said were “security concerns”, following a social media campaign by Bahraini opponents of the visit.

In June, Bahrain hosted a “Peace to Prosperity” workshop meant to encourage investment in the Palestinian Territories as the first part of a broader White House political plan to end the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last year Oman hosted Netanyahu on a surprise trip, the first time an Israeli leader had visited the sultanate in 22 years. An Israeli cabinet minister subsequently visited the United Arab Emirates.

…

Sudanese activists are calling for mass protests in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the country to demand the disbanding of former President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party.
 
The Sudanese Professionals’ Association, which spearheaded the uprising against Bashir’s rule, says Monday’s protests will also renew demands to step up an independent investigation into the deadly break-up of protests in June.
 
The SPA has called for the appointment of regional governors and the make-up of the legislative body, which was part of an August power-sharing agreement between the pro-democracy protesters and the country’s powerful military.
 
The transitional government has previously said it would postpone appointing the governors and the legislative body till achieving peace with the country’s rebel groups. It began talks with the rebels earlier this month.

…

The Duke and the Duchess of Sussex said in a joint interview with ITV news filmed during their tour in Africa earlier this month and aired Sunday, that they would not let British tabloids destroy their life.

Prince Harry told ITV that most of what is published in the British tabloids is not true, adding “I will not be bullied into playing a game that killed my mum.” Harry said the memory of Princess Diana’s death was “still incredibly raw every single day and that is not me being paranoid…”

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Prince Harry Walks Through Angola Mine Field, Echoing Diana

The southern African nation hopes to be land mine-free by 2025, a goal of scores of countries around the world

The former U.S. television star Meghan Markle said that while her friends were happy for her when she met Harry, her British friends warned her not to marry Harry “because the British tabloids will destroy your life.”

Speaking of how she can cope with such intense scrutiny, Meghan replied: “In all honesty I have said for a long time to H – that is what I call him – it’s not enough to just survive something, that’s not the point of life. You have got to thrive.”

Earlier this month the couple sued British tabloid The Mail on Sunday for invasion of privacy, claiming it illegally published a letter she wrote to her father.

At the time, Harry said the treatment of Meghan was reminiscent of the tabloid’s approach to his mother.

…

Egypt will push Ethiopia this week to agree to an external mediator to help resolve a deepening dispute over a giant hydropower dam being built on Ethiopia’s Blue Nile, officials said on Sunday.‮‮ ‬‬

Egypt sees the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as an existential risk, fearing it will threaten scarce water supplies in Egypt and power generation at its own dam in Aswan. ‮‮ ‬‬

Cairo says it has exhausted efforts to reach an agreement on the conditions for operating GERD and filling the reservoir behind it, after years of three-party talks with Ethiopia and Sudan.

Ethiopia has denied that three-way talks are stalled, accusing Egypt of trying to sidestep the process.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi is expected to raise the demand for a mediator when he meets Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during a Russian-African summit in Russia this week.

“We’re hoping this meeting might produce an agreement on the participation of a fourth party,” an Egyptian foreign ministry official told journalists at a briefing. “We’re hopeful to reach a formula in the next few weeks.”

Egyptian officials said they had suggested the World Bank as a fourth party mediator, but were also open to the role being filled by a country with technical experience on water sharing issues such as the United States, or the European Union.

Recent proposals put forward by Egypt for a flexible reservoir-filling process and a guaranteed annual flow of 40 billion cubic meters were rejected by Ethiopia.

The latest rounds of talks in Cairo and Khartoum over the past two months ended in acrimony. “The gap is getting wider,” the Egyptian foreign ministry official said.

Egypt draws almost all of its fresh water supplies from the Nile, and is faced with worsening water scarcity for its population of nearly 100 million. It says it is working to reduce the amount of water used in agriculture.

Hydrologists consider a country to be facing water scarcity if supplies drop below 1,000 cubic meters per person per year.

Egypt currently has around 570 cubic meters per person per year, a figure that is expected to drop to 500 cubic meters by 2025, without taking into account any reduction in supply caused by GERD, Egyptian officials said.

…

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and three others injured in the state of Georgia Sunday in an accident involving the armored combat vehicle they were in, the military said in a statement.

The army provided no details on the nature of the accident, which is under investigation, except to say it occurred during an exercise at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

“Six soldiers were involved, with three pronounced deceased on site, and three more evacuated to Winn Army Community Hospital where they are being treated and evaluated for their injuries,” an army statement said.

Major General Tony Aguto, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, called it a “heartbreaking day.”

The soldiers, who were in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, were from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.

…

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday defended his claim that President Donald Trump did not withhold nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in order to get Kyiv to undertake investigations of Democratic rivals and the 2016 election.

Mulvaney told reporters last week there was such a” quid pro quo” by Trump, but hours later walked back the statement and continued to advance his revised version of White House policy discussions in an interview on the “Fox News Sunday” talk show.

“There were two reasons we held up the aid,” Mulvaney said. “The first one was the rampant corruption in Ukraine. It’s so bad in Ukraine that in 2014 Congress passed a law … requiring us to make sure that [the fight against] corruption was moving in the right direction. So corruption’s a big deal. Everybody knows it.”

He added, “The president was also concerned about whether other nations, specifically European nations, were helping with foreign aid to Ukraine.”

Mulvaney also mentioned during his White House news conference last Thursday that Trump wanted to know whether Ukraine had possession of a computer server used at the Democratic National Committee in 2016 as it supported former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her unsuccessful campaign against Trump for the White House. The whereabouts of the computer is part of a debunked theory that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 election, and not Russia, as the U.S. intelligence community concluded.

But Mulvaney said Sunday his mention of Trump’s concerns about the computer “wasn’t connected to the aid,” although last week had said, “That’s why we held up the money.”

“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” Mulvaney had said at the White House.

On Sunday, he said, “I never said there’s a quid pro quo because there isn’t.”

Trump, while initially blocking the aid to Ukraine, eventually released the money to Kyiv.

“The aid flowed,” Mulvaney said Sunday. “Once we were able to satisfy ourselves that corruption, that they were doing better with it…” and other countries’ aid to Ukraine had increased, “the money flowed.” During the news conference last week, Mulvaney added a third condition, whether Ukraine was assisting a U.S. Justice Department probe of the origins of 2016 election investigations that eventually implicated Russia’s interference to help Trump win.

Trump’s interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy are at the center of the impeachment inquiry Democrats in the House of Representatives have opened against Trump.

The inquiry was touched off when an intelligence community whistleblower expressed concern about Trump’s July 25 telephone call with Zelenskiy, with a White House-released transcript of the call showing Trump urging the Ukrainian leader to open a corruption investigation into one of his key 2020 election rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as a probe of his son Hunter Biden’s lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

Both Bidens have denied any wrongdoing, although the younger Biden, 49, said last week he used “poor judgment” in agreeing to work for the Ukrainian company because of the political fallout for his father.

Trump has alleged that when Joe Biden was U.S. vice president, he threatened to withhold loan guarantees to Ukraine unless an earlier corruption probe into the gas company was stopped.

No evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens has surfaced. But reaching out to a foreign government to dig up dirt on a rival is considered to be interference in a presidential election.

Trump has described his call with Zelenskiy as “perfect” and accuses the Democratic-led House of a witch hunt.

 A House vote for Trump’s impeachment in the coming weeks is a possibility, although his conviction after a trial in the Republican-majority Senate and removal from office remains unlikely.

Trump donor Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, told impeachment investigators last week that Trump ordered him and other diplomats to work with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to pressure Ukraine into investigations that could help Trump politically.

Those investigations would include the 2016 election and the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden worked.

Sondland told the investigators he was disappointed that Trump directed diplomats to work with Giuliani on Ukraine matters.

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

He said the diplomats who worked with Giuliani did not know “until much later” that Giuliani would push for a probe of Biden “or to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly, in the president’s 2020 re-election campaign.”

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

…

Influential Iraqi Shi’ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has given his supporters the green light to resume anti-government protests, after the movement was interrupted following a deadly crackdown.

Protests shook Iraq for six days from October 1, with young Iraqis denouncing corruption and demanding jobs and services before calling for the downfall of the government.

The protests — notable for their spontaneity — were violently suppressed, with official counts reporting 110 people killed and 6,000 wounded, most of them demonstrators.

Calls have been made on social media for fresh rallies on Friday, the anniversary of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi’s government taking office.

“It’s your right to participate in protests on October 25,” Sadr told his followers in a Facebook post on Saturday evening.

Protesters have opposed any appropriation of their leaderless movement and the firebrand cleric was restrained on Sunday in comparison to his previous exhortations for “million-man marches”.  

He qualified his support by adding: “Those who don’t want to take part in this revolution can choose another via the ballot box in internationally supervised elections and without the current politicians,” he said.

His statement echoed another he made during protests at the start of the month, in which he called on the government — of which his bloc is a part — to resign and hold early elections “under U.N. supervision”.

In his latest message, Sadr called on his supporters to protest peacefully.

“They expect you to be armed,” he said, alluding to authorities blaming “saboteurs” for infiltrating protests. “But I don’t think you will be.”

Sadr’s influence was on display Saturday during the Shi’ite Arbaeen pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad.

Thousands of his supporters heeded his call to dress in white shrouds and chanted, “Baghdad free, out with the corrupt!”

October 25 will also mark the deadline issued by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spiritual leader for Iraq’s Shi’ite majority, for the government to respond to protester demands.

…

Tens of thousands of Lebanese protesters of all ages gathered Sunday in major cities and towns nationwide, with each hour bringing hundreds more people to the streets for the largest anti-government protests yet in four days of demonstrations.

Protesters danced and sang in the streets, some waving Lebanese flags and chanting “the people want to bring down the regime.” In the morning, young men and women carried blue bags and cleaned the streets of the capital, Beirut, picking up trash left behind by the previous night’s protests.

The spontaneous mass demonstrations are Lebanon’s largest in five years, spreading beyond Beirut. They are building on long-simmering anger at a ruling class that has divvied up power among themselves and amassed wealth for decades but has done little to fix a crumbling economy and dilapidated infrastructure.

The unrest erupted after the government proposed new taxes, part of stringent austerity measures amid a growing economic crisis. The protests have brought people from across the sectarian and religious lines that define the country.

“People cannot take it anymore,” said Nader Fares, a protester in central Beirut who said he’s unemployed. “There are no good schools, no electricity and no water.”

Politicians are now racing against time to put forward an economic rescue plan that they hope will help calm the public.

On Saturday night, a Lebanese Christian leader asked his four ministers in the Cabinet to resign. Samir Geagea, who heads the right-wing Lebanese Forces Party, said he no longer believes the current national unity government headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri can steer the country out of the deepening economic crisis.

In a speech Friday night, Hariri had given his partners in the government a 72-hour ultimatum to come up with convincing solutions to the economic crisis. A day later, Hariri said he was meeting Cabinet ministers to “reach what serves the Lebanese.”

On Sunday, Hariri continued his meetings to finish suggestions to revive the country’s crumbling economy, which has been suffering from high unemployment, little growth and one of the highest debts ratios in the world standing at 150% of the gross domestic products.

Many of the protesters have already said they don’t trust the current government’s reforms, and are calling on the 30-member Cabinet to resign and be replaced by a smaller one made up of technocrats instead of members of political groups.

“I hope the government will resign and I think we are ready and the whole country is ready for something else at last,” said real estate agent Fabian Ziayde.

Since Saturday, the protests have been mostly peaceful with many protesters bringing their children with them to the gatherings.

But some demonstrators went on a rampage Friday night, smashing shop windows and bank exteriors in Beirut’s glitzy downtown. Security forces eventually responded by firing tear gas and water cannons. Dozens were arrested.

…

The mayor of riot-stricken Barcelona pleaded Saturday for calm after violent protests by Catalan separatists rocked Spain’s second largest city for a fifth consecutive night.

“This cannot continue. Barcelona does not deserve it,” Mayor Ada Colau told reporters, adding that Friday’s violence was the worst so far.

Protesters clashed with police again later Saturday despite efforts by some citizens to mediate by gathering between the two sides. There was also a skirmish between separatist supporters and police in a square in Spain’s capital, Madrid. Authorities are bracing for more protests in the coming days.

Supreme Court verdict

Radical separatists have fought with police every night in Barcelona and other Catalan cities following huge peaceful protests by people angered by Monday’s Supreme Court verdict that sentenced nine separatist leaders to prison for their roles in a failed 2017 secession attempt.

More than 500,000 people gathered in downtown Barcelona Friday in a massive show of support for the secession movement that is backed by roughly half of the wealthy northeastern region’s 5.5 million voters.

Before night fell, several hundred masked youths had surrounded the headquarters of the National Police and started a street battle that raged into the night in Barcelona, a popular tourist destination.

“The images of organized violence during the night in Barcelona have overshadowed the half a million people who demonstrated in a peaceful and civic manner to show they rejected the verdict,” said Catalan interior chief Miquel Buch, who oversees the regional police.

Rioters have burned hundreds of trash bins and hurled gasoline bombs, chunks of pavement, acid and firecrackers, among other objects, at police. They have used nails to puncture the tires of police vans and fireworks to hit one police helicopter, without doing it serious damage.

Residents, tourists flee

Outnumbered officers in riot gear from both Catalonia’s regional police and Spain’s national police have used batons, rubber and foam bullets, tear gas and water cannon to battle back.

Residents and tourists have run for cover.

“It has been quite scary,” said Deepa Khumar, a doctor from Toronto visiting for a medical conference. “This place, it looks like a war zone.”

Authorities say more than 500 people have been hurt this week, including protesters and police. Eighteen people remained hospitalized, at least one in very serious condition. Police have made more than 150 arrests.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that 101 police officers were injured Friday and that 264 police vehicles have been severely damaged in the week’s riots.

‘We feel so anguished’

A small group of supporters of Spanish unity approached the police headquarters that has been the focus of separatists’ rage to give officers flowers and gifts Saturday.

“We feel so anguished,” said 54-year-old economist María Jesús Cortés. “There used to be a nice atmosphere here in Barcelona. Everybody with their own ideas, and that was it. We used to live in peace.”

Minister Grande-Marlaska asked Catalonia’s regional president to explicitly condemn the escalating violence and express his support for law enforcement officials.

“We have gone five days in which there has not been a firm condemnation of violence” by Catalan leader Quim Torra, Grande-Marlaska said.

Torra has called on protesters to respect the nonviolent tenets of the separatist movement that has surged over the past decade.

But Saturday Torra and his vice president, Pere Aragonès, used a televised address mostly to criticize the Supreme Court verdict. Aragonès also insinuated that the national police, whom are controlled by Madrid, had acted too aggressively with protesters.

Torra demanded to meet Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to push his agenda for secession and freedom for the prisoners.

“We ask once again the acting Spanish PM to set the date and time to sit with us at a negotiating table,” Torra said. “Today this is more necessary than ever before.”

The prime minister’s office responded that “the government of Spain has always been in favor of dialogue, but within the confines of the law.”
 

…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Syrian government forces to move out of areas near the Turkish border so he can resettle up to 2 million refugees there, his spokesman told The Associated Press on Saturday. The request will top Erdogan’s talks next week with Syria’s ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Arrangements along the Syrian-Turkish border were thrown into disarray after the U.S. pulled its troops out of the area, opening the door to Turkey’s invasion aiming to drive out Kurdish-led fighters it considers terrorists. 

Abandoned by their American allies, the Kurds — with Russia’s mediation — invited Damascus to send troops into northeastern Syria as protection from Turkish forces. That has complicated Turkey’s plan to create a “safe zone” along the border, where it can resettle Syrian refugees now in Turkey. Most of those refugees fled Syria’s government. 

Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said Ankara does not want either Syrian forces or Kurdish fighters in the border area because refugees would not go back to areas under their control. 

Turkey has said it wants to oversee that area. 

“This is one of the topics that we will discuss with the Russians, because, again, we are not going to force any refugees to go to anywhere they don’t want to go,” he said. “We want to create conditions that will be suitable for them to return where they will feel safe.” 

Turkey has taken in about 3.6 million Syrians fleeing the conflict in their homeland but now wants most of them to return. So far, very few have returned to an enclave Turkey already took over and has controlled since 2017. 

Under an agreement made by the U.S. and Turkey on Thursday, a five-day cease-fire has been in place. Turkey expects the Kurdish fighters to pull back from a border area. 

Agreement on pullback

A senior Syrian Kurdish official acknowledged for the first time that the Kurdish-led forces agreed to the pullback, stating that his forces would move 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the border. 

Redur Khalil, a senior Syrian Democratic Forces official, told the AP that the withdrawal would take place once Turkey allowed the Kurdish-led force to evacuate its fighters and civilians from Ras al-Ayn, a border town under siege by Turkish-backed forces. He said that the Kurdish-led force was preparing to conduct that evacuation Sunday, if there were no further delays. 

Khalil said Kurdish-led fighters would pull back from a 120-kilometer (75-mile) stretch along the border from Ras al-Ayn to Tal Abyad, moving past the international highway. 

“We are only committed to the U.S. version, not the Turkish one,” Khalil said. 

A previous agreement between the U.S. and Turkey over a “safe zone” along the Syria-Turkish border floundered over the diverging definitions of the area. 

Erdogan has said the Kurdish fighters must withdraw from a far larger length of the border, from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border — more than 440 kilometers (260 miles) — or else the Turkish offensive will resume Tuesday. 

But U.S. officials say the agreement pertains to the smaller section between the two towns. Kalin confirmed that is the area affected by the pause in fighting, but said Turkey still wanted the larger zone. 

Sticking point

Two days into the cease-fire, the border town of Ras al-Ayn has been the sticking point in moving forward. 

“We hope that as of tonight or tomorrow, they will stick to this agreement and leave the area,” Kalin said. 

The Kurdish official meanwhile said his force had negotiated with the Americans the details of its pullback from the border, starting with the Ras al-Ayn evacuation. But he said the evacuation stalled for 48 hours because Turkish-backed forces continued their siege of the town. 

A partial evacuation took place Saturday. Medical convoys were let into part of the town still in Kurdish hands, evacuating 30 wounded and four bodies from a hospital. Khalil said the plan to complete the evacuation from Ras al-Ayn was now set for Sunday. 

Turkish officials denied violating the cease-fire or impeding the fighters’ withdrawal, blaming the continued violence on the Kurds. 

If Kurdish fighters then pull back from the 120-kilometer border area, it is uncertain what the arrangement would be along the rest of the northeastern border, most of which remains solely in the hands of Kurdish-led fighters. 

Last week, Syrian forces began deploying into Kurdish areas, moving only into one location directly on the border, the town of Kobani, and a few positions further south. 

Khalil said the Syrian government and its ally Russia did not want to deploy more extensively in the area, apparently to avoid frictions with Turkey. 

“We noticed there was no desire [from the Russians and Syria] to have the Syrian military on the dividing line between us and the Turks except in Kobani,” he said. 

The border town of Kobani also stands between Turkish-controlled Syrian territories to the west and Kurdish-held eastern Syria. 

Khalil said it was not clear what would happen after his forces’ withdrawal and the end of the five-day cease-fire. 

“The deal essentially is handing Syrian land to a foreign country. This is not good. It is bad for us,” he said. “We have nothing to win. The only win is the international sympathy.” 

…

Yazidi families would not feel safe returning to their homes in Iraq until Islamic State militants accused of atrocities against the religious minority face justice, according to a doctor awarded Saturday for his work with Yazidi women and children.

Mirza Dinnayi, a Yazidi activist named the winner of the Aurora humanitarian prize for helping 1,000 Yazidi women and children seek medical treatment in Europe, said prosecutions were key to help the “completely traumatized” community.

“Yazidis need to trust the authorities in Iraq in order to establish peace and make a process of reconciliation and transitional justice. This has not happened,” Dinnayi said.

UN declares genocide

Islamic State rampaged through the Yazidi religious community’s heartland in Sinjar, northern Iraq, in 2014, slaughtering thousands of people, in what the United Nations has called a genocide.

About 7,000 women and children were kidnapped to become sex slaves or fighters. Almost 3,000 of them remain unaccounted for, according to community leaders.

The jihadist group was driven out of the region in 2017, but many Yazidi still live in camps, afraid to return.

Some militants have faced trial in Iraq but on charges of belonging to a terrorist group rather than for alleged war crimes and genocide — something that has fueled a sense of distrust in authorities among the Yazidi community, Dinnayi said.

“The recognition of genocide is the first step in order to satisfy the victims,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview from Armenia where the award ceremony was held.

The problem was exacerbated by Iraqi laws allowing rapists to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims and the lack of a specific crime for sexual slavery, Dinnayi said.

Fears of IS escape

The 46-year-old added he was also concerned that a recent Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces in neighboring Syria could further hamper efforts to see justice done, by providing militants jailed there with a “big opportunity” to escape.

Kurdish officials have said almost 800 Islamic State-affiliated foreigners, many of them women and children, escaped from a camp after the Turkish incursion began last week.

There are also fears that jihadists held in jails in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria could flee.

Prize money goes to aid groups

Dinnayi, who lives in Germany, was awarded the $1 million prize for his work helping more than 1,000 Yazidi women and children seek medical treatment in Europe.

The prize money would go to his organization, Air Bridge Iraq, and two other aid groups helping people who suffered at the hands of Islamic State militants, he said.

The Aurora prize runner-ups were Zannah Mustapha, a lawyer who set up a school for children affected by violence in northeastern Nigeria, and Yemeni lawyer Huda Al-Sarari, who investigated human rights abuses in the war-torn country.

The annual Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity was founded by Armenia-based 100 LIVES, a global initiative that commemorates a 1915 massacre in which up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Muslims.

…

Swiss voters elect their parliament this weekend, a challenge for the populist right that has been dominant until now and an opportunity for green parties as environmental concerns have swept up much of Europe this year. 

Political analyst Pascal Sciarini of the University of Geneva cited a “great unknown” in the vote: Will young Swiss who have poured into the streets to lament global warming also turn up at the ballot boxes? 

Voters are electing the 200-member National Council, parliament’s lower house, and the 46-member Council of States, the upper house, to four-year terms. Recent polls suggest two groups, the Greens and the Liberal Greens, stand to gain seats. 

Balloting ends at midday Sunday. Most voters in Switzerland cast their ballots by mail, avoiding a stop at polling stations. 

It’s an important electoral date for Switzerland, a rich country of 8.2 million where power-sharing and embedded checks and balances make for a stable political landscape, except when it’s occasionally shaken up by referendums. 

This year has been more dynamic than many: Students and others have marched on public offices repeatedly to echo concerns across Europe about climate change, and the first major women’s protest in Switzerland since 1991 drew tens of thousands to demand fairer pay, more equality and an end to sexual harassment and violence. Swiss media report a record number of women are standing for election this year. 

Environmental issues resonate here: A group called Glacier Monitoring Switzerland says the Alpine country has lost 15 percent of its glacier volume over the last decade, and warns that all Swiss glaciers could disappear by 2100 if warming continues. 

Immigration, EU

Worries about women’s rights and the environment are a far cry from the last election, when immigration and relations with the European Union were the main concerns and fanned gains for the populist, right-wing Swiss People’s Party that today holds the most seats in parliament. 

“There are two main stakes for this election: how significant will the predicted advance of the Greens be,” said Sciarini, “and how much will the [Swiss People’s Party] lose. That could signal losses for the right generally, and lead to more leftist policies.” 

The legislature picks the seven members of Switzerland’s executive branch: The Federal Council. The Swiss presidency rotates every year among those seven members, who make decisions by consensus — part of the Swiss “magic formula” of democracy that requires different political factions to cooperate, and govern from the middle ground. 

Greens don’t have any seats in the council now. The People’s Party, the Social Democrats, and center-right Liberal party each have two, and the Christian Democrats have one. But big electoral successes could boost the Greens’ argument that they would deserve one, too. 

…

Zana Omar reports for VOA from Qamishli that the International Red Cross and the Red Crescent traveled to Ras al-Ayn to extract the wounded civilians from the hospital there that had been under siege from the Turkish incursion into the region — both before and after the cease-fire.

…

Around 20 South Korean protesters broke into the residential compound of the U.S. ambassador to South Korea Friday, prompting U.S. officials to call for tighter security measures around diplomatic missions here.

Video of the break-in posted online shows a group of young, chanting protesters using ladders to scale the stone wall surrounding Ambassador Harry Harris’ house, which is in a central area of Seoul. 

A South Korean police official told Reuters that 19 students were taken to a police station for questioning.

After scaling the compound walls, the intruders attempted to forcibly enter the ambassador’s residence, but were detained by Seoul police, according to a statement by the U.S. Embassy issued Saturday.

Some of the protesters carried signs calling for Harris to leave Korea and characterized U.S. troops as an occupying force.

Pockets of anti-US sentiment

Although polls show South Koreans overwhelmingly support the alliance with Washington, pockets of anti-U.S. sentiment remain.

In 2015, a knife-wielding South Korean man with a history of militant Korean nationalism ambushed then-U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert outside a building in downtown Seoul. Lippert sustained cuts to his arm and face.

More sporadic, minor disturbances have occurred since then.

“We note with strong concern that this is the second instance of illegal entry into the ambassador’s residential compound in 14 months,” a U.S. embassy official in Seoul said Saturday. “We urge the Republic of Korea to strengthen its efforts to protect all diplomatic missions to the ROK.”

Seoul’s foreign ministry said attacks on diplomatic facilities will not be tolerated, adding it will take “all appropriate measures” to prevent further incidents. Seoul police said they will increase security around the U.S. Embassy, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Cost-sharing talks

The break-in comes at a particularly tense moment for U.S.-South Korea relations. The two countries next week will begin a second round of contentious negotiations over how to split the cost of the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

President Donald Trump has long complained that U.S. allies, and South Korea in particular, are not paying their “fair share” for the cost of U.S. troops.

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Trump Says South Korea to Pay ‘Substantially More’ for US Troops

Seoul hasn’t confirmed Trump’s announcement

In an apparent hardball negotiating tactic, Trump in August said South Korea agreed to pay “substantially more” for protection from North Korea. Seoul shot back, saying cost-sharing talks haven’t even begun.

South Korean reports say U.S. negotiators are demanding a fivefold increase in how much South Korea pays for U.S. troops. Harris appeared to indirectly confirm that figure in an interview last week.

He told the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper that from the U.S. perspective, South Korea could be seen as having funded only one-fifth of the total defense cost, and that as the world’s 12th-largest economy South Korea should take on a larger share.

South Korean officials have reportedly rejected the demand, saying they are prepared to engage in “reasonable” negotiations before the current cost-sharing agreement expires at the end of the year.

Anti-US displays rare

Over the past decade, overt displays of anti-U.S. sentiment have become less common in Seoul than in previous decades.

According to a 2018 Pew Research poll, 80% of South Koreans have a favorable view of the United States. That same poll, however, suggested just 44% of South Koreans have confidence in Trump.

Historically, conservatives have been the most reliably pro-U.S. contingent in South Korea. Recently, though, there has been a small backlash against Trump among conservatives, many of whom are already skeptical of Trump’s outreach to North Korea.

The situation has been exacerbated by Trump’s comments on cost-sharing negotiations. Trump reportedly recently used an Asian accent to mock South Korea’s president over the issue. Earlier this year, Trump said a certain country, widely seen as South Korea, was “rich as hell and probably doesn’t like us too much.”

The Pentagon says roughly 28,000 troops are in South Korea to help deter North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

South Korea rejects Trump’s notion that it doesn’t contribute enough toward the cost of the U.S. troops, insisting it pays almost half of the total cost of $2 billion. That doesn’t include the expense of rent-free land for U.S. military bases, Seoul says.

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Chile’s president declared a state of emergency in Santiago Friday night and gave the military responsibility for security after a day of violent protests over increases in the price of metro tickets.

“I have declared a state of emergency and, to that end, I have appointed Major General Javier Iturriaga del Campo as head of national defense, in accordance with the provisions of our state of emergency legislation,” President Sebastian Pinera said.

Throughout Friday, protestors clashed with riot police in several parts of the city and the subway system was shut after attacks on several stations.

Violent clashes escalated as night fell, and the ENEL power company building and a Banco Chile branch, both in the city center, were set on fire and several metro stations hit with Molotov cocktails.

The unrest started as a fare-dodging protest against the hike in metro ticket prices, which increased from 800 to 830 peso ($1.17) for peak hour travel, following a 20 peso rise in January.

Attacks on metro stations forced the closure of the entire subway system, which is the key form of public transport in the congested and polluted capital, carrying 3 million passengers a day.

“The entire network is closed due to riots and destruction that prevent the minimum security conditions for passengers and workers,” the metro operator said on Twitter, after attacks against nearly all the 164 stations where many gates and turnstiles were destroyed.

The Santiago Metro, at 140 kilometers (90 miles) the largest and most modern in South America, is expected to remain closed this weekend and could reopen gradually next week.

Closure of the metro forced many Santiago residents to walk home, sometimes long distances, resulting in scenes of chaos.

Protesters erected barricades in various parts of the city and clashed with police, who used water cannon and tear gas in the most violent street battle seen in the Chilean capital for a long time.

Pinera slammed the protesters as criminals. 

“This desire to break everything is not a protest, it’s criminal,” he said in a radio interview. 

On Thursday, 133 people had been arrested for causing damage to metro stations, estimated at up to 500 million pesos ($700,000).
 

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Seasonal rains are bringing relief from a toxic haze that had blanketed Malaysia and Singapore. The air pollution disrupted the lives of millions of people and concerns remain about whether the problem will keep happening. Dave Grunebaum has the story from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
 

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Seasonal rains have brought relief from the haze that blanketed much of Malaysia and Singapore.

The toxic air disrupted life for tens of millions of people.

Face masks were in common usage as people tried to protect themselves. Many Malaysian schools closed for days because the air was so hazardous.

Much of the smog stemmed from Indonesia, where fires were set to clear land for palm oil plantations, as well as pulp and paper. Some of the plantations are owned by Malaysian companies.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has a haze agreement to try to combat the issue, but it seems to have done little so far.

“The ASEAN trans-boundary haze agreement has largely been a case of being like a paper tiger,” said Nithi Nesadurai, president of the Environmental Protection Society Malaysia, a nongovernment organization. “It’s something there on paper, but really has very little effect.”

The haze happens almost every year, although health advocates say the pollution was worse this year compared with any since 2015. Local doctors reported a surge in illnesses.

Dr. Jessreen Kaur of Kuala Lumpur says she prescribed antibiotics and antihistamines to many patients.

“There are a lot of upper respiratory tract infections coming from the haze.” Kaur said. “More people are getting infected tonsils, infections of the pharynx and also lung infections.”

ASEAN ministers have talked about closer cooperation on the issue. In Malaysia, discussions are underway about drafting a law that would punish Malaysian companies that start fires in a foreign country.

“It enables the Malaysian government to take action against a Malaysian company which is causing pollution on foreign soil,” Nesadurai said. “This will be a means of deterrence, especially if one of them gets punished.”

Nesadurai adds that more needs to happen at the grassroots level. Environmental groups like his are calling for federal and local governments, as well as the companies that own the plantations, to partner with local communities to try to prevent the fires from happening in the first place.

“The most effective action can take place if the stakeholders work together,” Nesadurai said.

The Global Environment Center, a nongovernment organization, has worked in several communities in Malaysia and Indonesia. It connects with plantation owners and people who live near the plantations. It teaches techniques to help prevent fires and also provides firefighting equipment, as well as training, to help locals contain a land fire until professional firefighters arrive.

“This community approach makes a difference,” said Adelaine Tan, coordinator of outreach and partnership programs, at the Global Environment Center. “But we have a limited budget, so we can’t reach everywhere it’s needed.”

Malaysians can breathe easier for now, but concerns linger that this problem could ignite again next year.

“Something needs to be done,” said Manisa McCalman of Kuala Lumpur. “Whenever we have this problem, you don’t want to even go outside.”

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is battling to persuade lawmakers to back the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement he signed with the European Union ahead of a special session in the British Parliament scheduled for Saturday. The vote on the deal is set to go to the wire. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Brussels, Europe is doing all it can to try to get the deal passed.

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

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

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

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

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

The Pakistani government has not yet responded to CPJ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 The world’s first female spacewalking team made history high above Earth on Friday, floating out of the International Space Station to fix a broken part of the power network.
 
As NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir emerged one by one, it marked the first time in a half-century of spacewalking that a woman floated out without a male crewmate.

LIVE NOW: Tune in to watch the first #AllWomanSpacewalk in human history! ??‍?

Starting at approximately 7:50am ET, @Astro_Christina & @Astro_Jessica venture into the vacuum of space to replace a failed power controller. Watch: https://t.co/2SIb9YXlRh

— NASA (@NASA) October 18, 2019

 
America’s first female spacewalker from 35 years ago, Kathy Sullivan, was delighted. She said It’s good to finally have enough women in the astronaut corps and trained for spacewalking for this to happen.

NASA leaders – along with women and others around the world – cheered Koch and Meir on. At the same time, many noted that this will hopefully become routine in the future.
 
“We’ve got qualified women running the control, running space centers, commanding the station, commanding spaceships and doing spacewalks,” Sullivan told The Associated Press earlier this week. “And golly, gee whiz, every now and then there’s more than one woman in the same place.”
 
Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a three-time spacewalker who watched from Mission Control, added: “Hopefully, this will now be considered normal.”
 

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine watched the big event unfold from NASA headquarters in Washington.
 
“We have the right people doing the right job at the right time,”he said. “They are an inspiration to people all over the world including me. And we’re very excited to get this mission underway.”
 
NASA originally wanted to conduct an all-female spacewalk last spring, but did not have enough medium-size suits ready to go. Koch and Meir were supposed to install more new batteries in a spacewalk next week, but had to venture out three days earlier to deal with an equipment failure that occurred over the weekend. They need to replace an old battery charger for one of the three new batteries that was installed last week by Koch and Andrew Morgan.
 
“Jessica and Christina, we are so proud of you. You’re going to do great today,” Morgan radioed from inside as the women exited the hatch.
 
Meir, making her spacewalking debut, became the 228th person in the world to conduct a spacewalk and the 15th woman.
 
It was the fourth spacewalk for Koch, who is seven months into an 11-month mission that will be the longest ever by a woman.

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When the U.S. Congress seeks to condemn the actions of a president, a cabinet member, a lawmaker or a judge, lawmakers can vote on a motion to “censure” the individual.

Censure is a formal reprimand less severe than removing an official from their job. It requires a simple majority vote in either chamber of Congress, instead of the two-thirds majority required to remove a lawmaker from office.

What is the censure process?

The Constitution gives each house of Congress the ability to punish its members for disorderly behavior or criminal misconduct through a reprimand, censure or expulsion.  

A reprimand is the least severe punishment of the three, sometimes given privately.

Censure is a public condemnation that can result in lawmakers losing any committee chairs they may hold. Censures and reprimands are imposed in the House and Senate by a simple majority of members.

Expulsion requires a two-thirds majority and results in a member leaving office. Removing the president is a separate process that starts with impeachment in the House before moving to a trial in the Senate.

Members of the House or Senate introduce the resolution of censure, explaining why an individual merits the punishment, before voting on the resolution. Censured House members must stand in the well of the chamber while the Speaker or presiding officer reads the resolution aloud.

How often is censure used?

Since 1789, the Senate has censured at least nine of its members. Throughout its history, the House has censured 23 of its members.

Why do lawmakers sometimes favor censure over more serious punishments?

Censure is a less severe option than impeachment because it does not trigger the removal of the official.

What happens to censured politicians?

While censured members usually can hang onto their jobs through the remainder of their term, they typically are stripped of their committee assignments by the leadership and are shunned or scorned by their legislative colleagues. Some simply resign from Congress.

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