Connie Kim in Washington contributed to this report.

When North Korea walked away recently from its first working-level nuclear talks with the United States in months, its negotiators cited what they referred to as U.S. inflexibility and hostile policies.

In some ways, it was a classic North Korean negotiating tactic: citing long-standing complaints about Washington as justification to yet again leave nuclear negotiations.

But the move also shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be emboldened to hold out for a better deal, believing his counterparts in the U.S. and South Korea have been weakened amid domestic political scandals, some analysts say.

In the U.S., President Donald Trump faces a fast-expanding impeachment inquiry related to his attempts to get foreign governments to investigate political opponents, including former Vice President Joe Biden. Most opinion polls show the Democratic front-runner with a substantial lead over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

In South Korea, President Moon Jae-in is dealing with his lowest approval ratings ever, amid a slowing economy and a corruption scandal surrounding his new justice minister. Moon’s signature policy — engagement with North Korea — has also stalled, with Pyongyang recently labeling him a “meddlesome mediator.”

It’s not clear whether Trump and Moon’s domestic problems will necessarily prompt either leader to change his approach toward North Korea; but, the scandals could change North Korea’s calculus, making a nuclear deal more difficult, according to observers.

“I think they have good reasons to take a maximalist position,” says Chun Yung-woo, a former South Korean national security adviser. “I don’t blame Kim Jong Un for having high expectations.”

Confident Kim

Among the possible reasons for Kim’s confidence: He may believe the political calendar works in his favor, and that even the status quo brings important benefits.

Trump, who has suggested he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his outreach to Kim, is entering the final year of his first term as president, having made virtually no progress on getting rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

Over the past several months, Trump has made several moves that suggest he is more eager to reach a deal, including firing National Security Adviser John Bolton, who disagreed with the North Korea talks, and speaking of the need for a “new method” to the nuclear negotiations.

Trump has also consistently downplayed the importance of North Korea’s 11 rounds of missile tests since May, including a recent firing of a medium-range ballistic missile designed to be launched from a submarine.

The U.S. president maintains that the missile tests are not long-range and therefore not a threat to the United States, even though they violate United Nations Security Council resolutions.

More leverage

By continuing medium- and short-range missile tests, Kim may be attempting to effectively erode the U.N. resolutions. And by dangling the possibility of bigger, more provocative tests, Kim appears to be attempting to gain additional leverage over Trump at a politically sensitive moment.

“(Kim) believes that he can influence Trump’s electoral chances,” says Chun. “Whether that’s true or not, that’s how he might believe he has the upper hand.”

Kim in April 2018 announced a moratorium on intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear tests, saying the country no longer needs such tests after having completed the production of nuclear weapons.

Although North Korea’s decision to pause those tests was self-imposed and never formalized in a written agreement, Trump later claimed credit for the change in Kim’s behavior.

With talks now stalled and a U.S. election approaching, Kim has begun routinely issuing threats to resume nuclear or ICBM tests.

“The moment Trump took credit for what Kim Jong Un did voluntarily, he gave power to Kim Jong Un to deny Trump’s self-claimed achievements,” Chun says. “Trump made himself a political hostage of North Korea.”

Kim overconfident?

But if Kim does believe he controls Trump’s reelection chances, the North Korean leader may be mistaken.

Foreign policy is rarely the deciding factor in a U.S. presidential election, and even if North Korea did resume nuclear or ICBM tests, Trump may be able to succeed in convincing the public of the need to return to a “tougher” approach, says Bong Young-shik of Seoul’s Yonsei University.

“If the North Korean nuclear threats get exacerbated, it may enhance popular support for the incumbent president, thanks to the increased sense of crisis,” says Bong.

The Trump impeachment threat, too, may not help give Kim what he desires. Even if Trump did give North Korea a favorable deal, there’s no guarantee his eventual successor would uphold it, many observers point out.

“It’s going to be very difficult, I think, for the North Koreans to be relying on anything that this administration commits to,” says Susan Thornton, who served as a senior U.S. diplomat in East Asia until 2018.

It will be “very erratic” for North Korea to deal with the Trump administration in the near term, Thornton told VOA’s Korean service.

Moon’s problems at home

How South Korea’s domestic politics may impact the North Korea negotiations is also unclear.

In some ways, Moon’s position is relatively stable; he does not leave office until 2022 and has no possibility of reelection.

But with the North Korea talks stalled and South Korea’s economic growth slowing, Moon’s approval ratings have fallen into the low 40s. By comparison, Moon’s approval ratings were roughly twice that high during his first year as president.

While Moon remains more popular than many of his predecessors at this point in his presidency, he faces a growing wave of conservative opposition protests against his justice minister, Cho Kuk, who has been embroiled in fraud and corruption allegations.

So far the protests have been accompanied by mass demonstrations of support for Moon, and the situation has not prompted any major changes in his North Korea strategy, according to Jeffrey Robertson, who specializes in South Korean diplomacy at Yonsei University.

“There are much more significant hurdles to Moon’s plans, including other actors, such as the U.S. and North Korea itself,” Robertson says.

North Korea has explicitly rejected South Korea’s role as mediator, saying it no longer needs Seoul in order to meet with Washington.  

Despite the breakdown in talks, Seoul has attempted to portray the North Korea talks in a positive light, saying there is still momentum for denuclearization.

The U.S. State Department, too, has said the latest working-level talks were “good.”

The only party that seems to disagree is North Korea.

After walking out of the most recent talks, North Korea’s foreign ministry reiterated its end of year deadline, saying it will not engage in “sickening” negotiations unless the U.S. changes its unspecified “hostile policy.”
 

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As coal companies are shutting down in Gillette, Wyoming, workers in the coal industry have lost their jobs.  We talk to some of the people most affected by all the coal plants shutting down.  

Reporter/Camera:  Steve Baragona

…

We go to Kemmerer, Wyoming to find out how residents are handling the move away from coal, and hear from economist Robert Godby who offers an explanation as to why the state has been so slow to transition to coal alternatives.

Reporter/Camera: Steve Baragona

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President Donald Trump meets with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at the White House Friday, amid anticipation of at least a partial trade deal between both countries.

“We had a very very good negotiation with China,” Trump said after a day of talks between Liu and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Thursday.

These were the first senior-level trade talks between the United States and China since July.

In the three months since, China and the United States continued their tit-for-tat tariffs on billions of dollars of goods that help make up the backbones of both economies. The United States has also imposed visa restriction and other penalties against China over its alleged harsh treatment of Muslim minorities.

Trump said U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports have helped slow down the Chinese economy and said Beijing is eager to make a deal.

Liu declined to make any comment to reporters Thursday. But the official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying, “The Chinese side came with great sincerity, willing to cooperate with the U.S. on the trade balance, market access and investor protection.”

The United States has long accused China of such violations as intellectual property theft, demanding U.S. companies that plan to do business there turn over trade secrets, and currency manipulation that makes Chinese goods cheaper on world markets than U.S. products.

China has said U.S. protectionist trade policies are aimed at stifling its economic growth.

While no one is expecting Trump and Liu to announce a comprehensive trade deal that addresses everyone’s concerns, spokesman Doug Barry of the U.S.-China Business Council tells VOA that even a small deal on intellectual property and farm purchases is a lot more than what most trade skeptics have been expecting.

“What was surprising is that the two sides have at least, for the moment anyway, put aside some of the more difficult issues and seem to be focusing on a short-term win. And if they’re successful, one would hope then that some confidence will be restored on both sides and there will be an opportunity to deal with some of the more vexatious issues in the future,” he said.

The issues Barry calls vexatious include China’s human rights record, U.S. support for the Hong Kong protesters, and the newest controversy — remarks by a U.S. basketball team executive that also supports the protesters.

…

Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, two foreign-born associates of U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, were charged Thursday with conspiring to influence U.S. politics with illegal campaign contributions.

Prosecutors identified two other men, Andrey Kukushkin and David Correia, as conspirators in an alleged scheme that aimed to funnel $1 million in donations to politicians and political candidates in Nevada, New York and other states to benefit a planned marijuana business funded by an unnamed Russian businessman.

John Dowd, the lawyer for Parnas and Fruman, declined to comment on the charges. Parnas and Fruman made their initial court appearance in Alexandria, Virginia, with another court date set for next Thursday.

Details emerged about their backgrounds Thursday:  

Lev Parnas

Parnas, 47, who was born in Ukraine, is a businessman who divides his time between Florida and New York City.

He has garnered attention by becoming a mega-donor to Republican Party politicians. In May 2018, Parnas posted pictures on Facebook of himself and Fruman with Trump in the White House and with the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. at a breakfast in Beverly Hills, California.

Parnas told NPR last month that he was “good friends” with Giuliani and that they played golf together.

Parnas helped introduce Giuliani into top Ukrainian political circles as part of Giuliani’s effort to push an investigation of Joe Biden, Trump’s political rival, and his son Hunter, according to widespread media accounts.

Parnas told Reuters in an interview last month any violations of U.S. Federal Election Commission rules were unwitting and a “clerical thing” because he was not an experienced political donor.

Igor Fruman 

Fruman, 53, who is originally from Belarus, is a real estate investor who also runs a U.S. import-export business.

Like Parnas, he has donated widely to pro-Trump politicians and has helped Giuliani with his efforts in Ukraine to discredit the Biden family.

Andrey Kukushkin 

Kukushkin, 46, is a Ukraine native now living in San Francisco and a veteran of the cannabis business.

He was a vice president of a Russian hedge fund, Renaissance Investment Management, before getting into the business of growing and selling marijuana in the United States, according to news reports, legal records and corporate records. One report in Forbes Russia said Kukushkin started with investments in dispensaries in California and Nevada, and quoted him as saying he now made $60 million in revenue annually.

Kukushkin made an initial court appearance in San Francisco on Thursday. His bail hearing will continue Friday.

David Correia

Correia, 44, is the only one of the four defendants born in the United States. He is a businessman and a longtime associate of Parnas. Fraud Guarantee, a Florida-based fraud protection company, lists the two men as co-founders. Correia and Parnas also worked together on a failed moviemaking venture that ended in litigation, according to U.S. media reports.   

…

U.S. special forces in Syria are on alert, worried Turkey’s military campaign against the Kurds in northeastern Syria will give fighters loyal to the Islamic State terror group the chance they need to ignite a more intense and deadly insurgency.

The U.S. forces, pulled back from the Syrian-Turkish border at the direction of U.S. President Donald Trump, are not thought to be in danger as a result of Ankara’s offensive, which is focusing for now on Kurdish fighters, many of whom partnered with the U.S. in the fight against IS under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“We remain vigilant against potential attacks from ISIS,” according to a U.S. official, using an acronym for the terror group.

Concerns about IS

The official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive situation on the ground, warned that U.S. forces are concerned IS will try to exploit the current fighting and might even put Americans in the crosshairs now that they are no longer working with their former Kurdish allies.

“Our troops in Syria are focused on force protection,” the official added.

Such fears have long been bubbling in the background but have become increasingly prominent since the White House announced late Sunday it was pulling U.S. forces from the border region, essentially allowing Turkey to move ahead with plans for an incursion.

“Any unilateral action in northeastern Syria was of grave concern,” a U.S. defense official said Thursday. “One of the reasons is that it could create scenes that ISIS could exploit.”

Of particular concern are about 11,000 IS prisoners held in more than 30 makeshift prisons across northeastern Syria, guarded by forces loyal to the SDF.

Another 73,000 IS family members are being held in displaced persons camps also under SDF protection, like al Hol, which have seen periodic violence and attempted escapes.

Officials with the Kurdish-led autonomous government in the northeast have warned it may be a matter of time before it has to pull the guards and let prisoners and their relatives go free.

“Either we have to guard the camps or we have to defend ourselves and go to the border. We don’t have any option,” Sinam Mohamad, the Syrian Democratic Council’s U.S. representative said during a news conference Thursday in Washington.

Some prison guards removed

Mohamad said that already some of the SDF troops guarding the prisons and camps have been moved to the border in an effort to repel Turkish forces.

Other Kurdish officials say the situation has become even more dangerous, alleging Turkish forces have targeted SDF forces assigned to guard IS prisoners.

“One of the prisons in which the ISIS prisoners are kept, under the control of SDF forces, was bombed by Turkish war planes,” Syrian Democratic Council Executive Co-chair Ilham Ahmed told members of the European Parliament in Brussels Thursday. “And probably some of the ISIS members have escaped.”

A social media post by SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali late Wednesday, identified the target as the al-Chirkin prison, calling it, “The place where the most dangerous jihadists are held.”

Vicinity of al-Chirkin prison hosting Daesh prisoners was shelled by Turkish army. The place where the most dangerous jihadists are held in.

— Mustafa Bali (@mustefabali) October 9, 2019

U.S. officials Thursday could not confirm any jailbreaks and said SDF troops charged with keeping the IS fighters behind bars had stayed at their posts.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also rejected the need for any concerns.

IS “will not be able to establish a presence in the region,” he said Thursday. “We will keep in prison those who need to be kept in prison and we will send back those who are accepted by the countries of which they are citizens.”

SDF-run prisons

Senior U.S. officials say few, if any, of the SDF-run prisons are in areas in which Turkey has said it will operate, impacting about 1,300 to 1,500 IS detainees, at most.

“We have received high level commitments from the Turks that if they take over an area where there are such detention facilities, they will assume responsibility,” a senior State Department official said late Thursday. But when asked how that would work, the official cautioned, “There have not been detailed discussions.”

To help minimize any potential problems, U.S. forces have coordinated with Turkey on its air campaign, trying to make sure the SDF-run prisons, as well as the displaced person camps, are not targeted, a second U.S. defense official told VOA.

The official emphasized, though, that Turkey has been cut off from air-based intelligence and is not permitted to fly with U.S. aircraft operating in the area.

Still, Washington remains wary that the fallout from the Turkish incursion, and the benefit to IS, could still be substantial.

For months, U.S. and Western intelligence officials have warned an IS resurgence in Syria, thanks to well-positioned sleeper cells and the terror group’s substantial resources, was near.

Now there are fears Turkey’s military incursion will hasten the process.

“The Kurds have very little interest in expending resources on keeping ISIS fighters in camps when they’re being attacked by Turkey,” said Katherine Zimmerman, a project manager with the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.

“I think that we’re going to see a surge of recruits back into the Islamic State and a quick spike back into an active insurgency inside of eastern Syria,” she said.

…

Sixteen-year old Faithwins Iwuh — who is sometimes referred to as Nigeria’s Greta Thunberg — wants Nigeria to contribute to the global fight against climate change.

To achieve this, she started planting trees around her school and neighborhood, and recycles used plastic bags into shower caps.

Iwuh says she has been concerned about the effects of poor environmental practices for years.

“I started having this guilt anytime I see someone throw something out the window or I see people dispose wrongly,” she said. “I felt as if they were harming me and when I began to think about it, in a certain way they were harming me because it’s my future. If I do not take care of it now, I may not have a generation.”

An estimated 4 million students worldwide have taken part in the “Fridays for Future” movement, launched by Thunberg in Sweden in August 2018.

In recent months, hundreds of schoolchildren in NIgeria joined the movement. Two weeks ago, 300 students from 10 schools walked out of classes to protest in Abuja.

Fanny Nyalander, the Swedish ambassador to Nigeria, calls the action “inspiring.”

“I think it’s fantastic to see the young generation taking responsibilities and asking for climate action to be taken [seriously] — because it is their future and their future planet that is endangered,” she said. “So it is incredible and very inspiring to see that young people of Nigeria are standing up and asking for actions to be taken.”

Iwuh, however, is concerned that awareness of environmental threats in Nigeria remains low.

“Not very many people know about this,” she said. “Only a handful know about this problem. I’m lucky to be one of the few that know about this and I’m trying my best to sell the idea to the world that it needs to save it from ending.”

Nigeria is the biggest importer of fossil fuel-powered generators in Africa, and therefore one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

Environmental experts like David Michael say climate change has serious consequences in Nigeria.

“Unfortunately, we in Africa contribute very little to the course of climate change, less than 3 percent, but we’re the most vulnerable continent,” he said. “And, of course, in Nigeria here the effects are everywhere — the desertification up north, sea rise down south, in the middle belt, the crisis between farmers and herders.”

At a summit last December, Nigeria was one of 195 countries and territories that agreed to take steps to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In real-world politics, that pledge is more likely to be fulfilled if more schoolchildren like Iwuh demand immediate action toward that goal.
 

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The Trump administration Thursday proposed a rewrite of rules for dealing with lead pipes contaminating drinking water, but critics say the changes appear to give water systems decades more time to replace pipes leaching dangerous amounts of toxic lead.

Contrary to regulatory rollbacks in many other environmental areas, the administration has called dealing with lead contamination in drinking water a priority. Communities and families in Flint, Michigan, Newark, New Jersey, and elsewhere have had to grapple with high levels of lead in tap water and with regulatory failures dealing with the health threat.

Lead in drinking water has been linked to developmental delays in children and can damage the brain, red blood cells and kidneys. It is most often caused by lead service lines — pipes connecting a home to a water main — or lead fixtures in a home or school.

At a news conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced changes that include requiring water systems to test lead levels in water at schools and child care facilities.

But Wheeler disappointed conservation groups by declining to lower the level of lead contamination in drinking water systems that triggers cleanup action. And another change lowered the amount of lead pipe that water systems have to replace each year once the threshold is hit, cutting it from 7% a year to 3% a year.

That, according to Eric Olson at the Natural Resources Defense Council conservation group, would give water utilities about 20 more years to fully replace all the lead pipes in a contaminated system.

Wheeler said a series of other, smaller changes in the new proposals would offset that. Overall, he argued, the rule changes, if the White House ultimately adopts them, would mean leaking old lead pipes are “replaced at a much faster rate than ever before.”

Betsy Southerland, a senior EPA water official under the Obama administration, said the new proposals largely miss the opportunity to boost the urgency of the country’s rules, issued in 1991, for cleaning up lead in water systems. Asked her overall impression, she said, “I would say disappointing.”

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VOA’s Victoria Macchi contributed to this report.

The Trump administration is touting a drop in enforcement actions along the U.S.-Mexico border for a fourth straight month as proof it is successfully reducing illegal immigration into the United States.

“This administration’s strategies have brought about results — dramatic results,” Acting Customs and Border Protection [CBP] Commissioner Mark Morgan said at the White House Tuesday. 

The agency reported intercepting 52,546 people at the southwest border in September, including unauthorized crossings as well as those deemed inadmissible at legal border crossings. That constituted a 63% reduction from the 144,255 people apprehended or turned back in May, the highest monthly total of the 2019 fiscal year, which ended last month.

Declining numbers coincided with the Trump administration’s implementation of policies restricting access to asylum that have prompted outcries from human rights advocates.

Earlier this year, the administration began forcing asylum-seekers and other migrants to await their U.S. immigration court dates in Mexico. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, more than 50,000 individuals have been returned across the border.

US Government’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Plan Sparks Tension and Confusion

Teaser Description

Migrants fleeing poverty and the threat of violence have found themselves caught up in fast-shifting US immigration and asylum laws

Meanwhile, the administration has forged agreements designating El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as asylum destinations, while stipulating that non-Mexicans must seek asylum in a third country they transited en route to the U.S. border before filing a claim in the United States.

Morgan said the policies were needed to curtail “numbers [of border arrivals] that no immigration system in the world is designed to handle, including ours.”

Immigrant rights advocates, however, see a humanitarian disaster in the making.

“The new asylum rule is sufficient to stop almost everyone,” said Helena Olea, an international human rights lawyer and adviser to Alianza Americas, a network of Latin American and Caribbean immigrant organizations in the United States. 

Of concern, she said, are the “extremely weak asylum procedures” in Central American countries, “because no one is seeking protection in countries from which everyone is fleeing.”

Families, mostly from Central America, but increasingly from outside the Americas, accounted for most of the spike in arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year.

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At US-Mexico Border, Africans Join Diversifying Migrant Community

While the overwhelming majority of these families continue to be from Mexico and the Northern Triangle, a small but growing proportion are from countries outside the Americas, nearly twice as much as two years ago

CBP has not released a detailed breakdown of data for September. It is unclear what proportion of those encountered by the agency last month were families, unaccompanied children, or adults traveling alone.

The drop in arrivals coincided with the hottest months at the U.S.-Mexico border. Immigration experts say the numbers could rise again as temperatures moderate.

Immigration advocates say factors compelling people to flee their home countries continue unabated.

“People may continue trying to cross,” Alianza Americas’ Olea said. “They may fail, but that doesn’t mean they won’t continue attempting to come to the U.S.”

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California power company Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) cut power Wednesday to millions of Californians due to high winds that could down power lines sparking wildfires.

Utilities companies have warned for months that cutoffs were possible, but the power cut seems to have caught many by surprise.  

Twitter was buzzing with comments about the outage from consumers in the Northern California area. Many posted angry tweets about the power company’s website, serving Northern and Central California, being down and making updates on the cuts inaccessible.

While many East Coast residents have learned to cope with power outages from hurricanes, weather-related outages are a relatively new phenomenon in California.

Where are the outages?

PG&E began shutting off power Wednesday morning. Nearly 500,000 homes and businesses in Northern California were without power and by midday it expanded to parts of the Bay Area, including San Jose and Santa Cruz.

Farther south, where Santa Ana winds weren’t expected until early Thursday, Southern California Edison said it might cut power to more than 170,000 customers. It included more than 50,000 in northern Los Angeles County and nearly 20,449 in Ventura County.

San Diego Gas & Electric also said it could cut power to nearly 30,000.

The reason for power cuts

Power lines were to blame for setting off fires nearly a year ago in Northern California that killed 86 people and burned 62 hectares. The town of Paradise was so devastated by the January fire that, by mid-July, only 2,034 residents — of nearly 27,000 before the fire — were living in the city.

PG&E filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after the utility was found liable for igniting multiple fires. In September, PG&E reached an $11 billion settlement in those claims. A third group of claims is still working its way through state and federal courts.

To avoid more legal fights, PG&E and other utilities companies decided to cut power during high-wind episodes. Based on conditions, power cuts could last up to six days.

Gas-powered generators are flying off the shelves at stores, and electricians are busy installing backup power to businesses that knew blackouts could be coming.

Southern California Edison warned that generators need to be placed outdoors and rigged to individual appliances with a heavy-duty extension cord. Connecting generators directly to household circuits can create danger for the utility’s repair crews, they said.

Many schools and universities were closing due the power outages. People were filling their gas tanks in case gas stations lost power. There were also long lines reported at grocery stores ahead of the shutdowns.

Hospitals remained open, using backup generators. But some, like the San Ramon Regional Medical Center, were weighing whether to divert ambulances to other hospitals not affected by outages.

Solar power

Almost all home solar systems are tied into the local power company’s power grid, so the customer can feed solar back into the system and get paid for the electricity their solar panels produce.

But these systems are turned off when utility power is out. That is to keep electrical workers who are working on the grids safe because power flowing into the system could kill them.

This leaves many homes using solar power without electricity. But residents who have a home battery attached to their energy systems are in luck. The solar energy powers the home during the day, and any excess energy is used to charge the battery. The battery can then be used at night or when the grid goes down.

The same is true for electric cars. If the cars have a solar panel with a battery, they will likely have a range of between 160 to 400 kilometers between charges. So if they’re fully charged, they can often outlast power outages.

Climate change, years of drought, and the construction of houses and communities in wildland areas have all contributed to the spate of intense and deadly fires in California in recent years, experts say.

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A woman who worked at NBC News claimed that Matt Lauer raped her at a hotel while on assignment for the Sochi Olympics, an encounter the former “Today” show host claimed was consensual.

The claim outlined by Brooke Nevils in Ronan Farrow’s book, “Catch and Kill,” puts a name and details behind the event that led to Lauer’s firing by NBC in 2017. It also provoked the first public response from Lauer, who said in a defiant and graphic letter made public by his lawyer that “my silence was a mistake.”

Variety first reported Nevils’ charges after obtaining a copy of Farrow’s book. The Associated Press typically does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault, unless they step forward publicly as Nevils has done.

Nevils, who was working for Meredith Vieira in Sochi, met her for drinks one night and Lauer joined them. Nevils said she had six shots of vodka and wound up going to Lauer’s room.

“It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” Nevils told Farrow, according to Variety. 

In his letter, Lauer admitted to his extramarital affair with Nevils. He said on that night in Sochi that they consensually performed a variety of sexual acts.

“She was a fully enthusiastic and willing partner,” he wrote. “At no time did she behave in a way that made it appear she was incapable of consent. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do.”

Lauer’s defense of his behavior extends beyond his relationship with Nevils. He said he has “never assaulted anyone or forced anyone to have sex. Period.”

He also acknowledges other extramarital encounters, and criticized the women involved for having “abandoned shared responsibility” for the affairs to shield themselves from blame behind false allegations.

“They have avoided having to look at a boyfriend, a husband or a child in the eye and say, `I cheated,”‘ Lauer said. “And I will no longer provide them the shelter of my silence.”

Lauer said the night in Sochi was the first of several sexual encounters he had with Nevils over several months, including one in his dressing room at NBC, which “showed terrible judgment on my part.”

Nevils’ lawyer did not immediately return a message for comment on Lauer’s letter Wednesday.

Eleanor McManus, who co-founded the group Press Forward to support victims of sexual abuse in the news industry, said Lauer’s letter was “unbelievable.

“Lauer’s statement demonstrates not only his lack of remorse, but his lack of understanding of sexual harassment and the (hash)MeToo movement,” said McManus, who said she was harassed by journalist Mark Halperin (who lost jobs at NBC and elsewhere because of these and other accusations). “Nowhere in his letter does Lauer acknowledge the power he yielded as a celebrity and the star of NBC’s highest-rated show. The two people in that hotel room in Sochi did not have equal power.”

Farrow’s publisher, Little, Brown & Co., said that the book has been fact-checked and incorporates the responses of individuals and institutions that were included. When it is published, “readers will understand the full context and impact of Farrow’s work, and the bravery of the sources who entrusted him with their stories.”

NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack sent a memo to his staff on Wednesday, saying that any suggestion that NBC knew of Lauer’s conduct prior to the night before he was fired for “inappropriate sexual conduct” was wrong. There were no claims or allegations of improper conduct by Lauer prior to that, he said, although settlements were reached with two women regarding Lauer after he was fired.

“Matt Lauer’s conduct was appalling, horrific and reprehensible, as we said at the time,” NBC News said in a statement Wednesday.

“That’s why he was fired within 24 hours of us first learning of the complaint. Our hearts break again for our colleague.”

Nevils’ story was reported Wednesday on the show Lauer hosted for two decades. His former co-host, Savannah Guthrie, called it shocking and appalling.

“We’re disturbed to our core,” Guthrie said.

Lauer said in his letter that he ended the affair poorly and understands how that must have made Nevils feel.

He said that he hadn’t responded publicly before to allegations in order to spare his family pain, but that now he has their support to address them publicly.

“Anyone who knows me will tell you I am a very private person,” Lauer wrote. “I had no desire to write this, but I had no choice.”

…

The United States has taken custody of two Islamic State prisoners accused of taking part in beheading American journalists in 2014, The Washington Post reports.

The two men were taken from a Kurdish-run prison in northern Syria, where Kurdish forces can no longer guarantee they can keep detaining the prisoners after the Turkish military incursion.

The Post said the two are Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh. They were allegedly part of a quartet of British-born Islamic militants who their hostages dubbed “The Beatles.”

One U.S. official told the Post the two have been taken to Iraq, while another simply said they are in U.S. military custody but would not say where they are.

“The Beatles” were led by an IS militant named Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed “Jihadi John.”

Emwazi beheaded American journalist James Foley, Israeli American journalist Steven Sotloff and U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig before a TV camera in 2014.

“The Beatles” are also suspected of murdering other Western hostages.

Emwazi was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2015. A fourth “Beatle” is in a Turkish prison.

Kurdish forces captured Kotey and Elsheikh, who have dened taking part in the executions. They told The Washington Post in a prison interview last year that their role was to carry out ransom negotiations.

If the two are brought to the United States for trial, they could be charged as conspirators in hostage-taking resulting in death — a charge that carries a possible death sentence, according to the Post.

President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday the United States has moved what he calls some of the “most dangerous” IS prisoners from Kurdish custody to “different locations where it’s secure.”

But some critics of Trump’s decision to pull U.S. forces out of northern Syria, which has led to a Turkish offensive against the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), could allow thousands of imprisoned IS fighters to flee

“This is like a victory for the ISIS fighters. I think it’s just appalling,” James Foley’s mother, Diane, said, using an acronym for the militant group. “It’s an abdication of our responsibility to ensure safety for our own citizens and allies.”

Trump said the U.S. has tried but failed to convince such European countries as Britain, France and Germany to take back their citizens who joined IS as foreign fighters and have since been captured.

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Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Wednesday announced a cabinet reshuffle, declared three days of national mourning and said those who shot protesters would be punished as he sought to quell anti-government unrest that has roiled Iraq for days.

Authorities fear that violence, which has killed more than 110 people, mostly protesters angry at government corruption, could spiral, leading war-weary Iraq towards more civil strife.

Protests erupted in Baghdad last week and soon spread to southern cities. Abdul Mahdi’s government has sought to address demonstrators’ grievances.

However, a package of reforms announced by the government — including more job opportunities, subsidies and housing — is unlikely to satisfy Iraqis; nor is a cabinet reshuffle, likely to feature many of the same faces despised by protesters as an out-of-touch political elite.

“We will ask parliament to vote tomorrow on changes to ministries,” Abdul Mahdi said at a news conference, adding that the government would be referring the names of hundreds of corrupt officials to the judiciary for investigation.

Abdul Mahdi’s government will seek to weather the storm, however, backed by powerful Iran-aligned armed groups and political factions determined to preserve the status quo.

Internet blackout

Authorities have used an internet blackout, arrests of protesters and targeting of reporters to try to stem further unrest.

At least 110 people have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded in the capital and the south, since the security forces started cracking down on demonstrators. Reuters journalists have witnessed protesters killed and wounded by shots fired by snipers from rooftops into the crowd.

Abdul Mahdi said that the government did not give orders to shoot.

“We gave clear orders not to use live fire but there were still victims of shooting,” Abdul Mahdi said, adding that it was wrong to damage the country.

Crackdown continues 

Much of the unrest has been at night, but on Wednesday morning there were no reports of serious violence overnight.

Authorities on Wednesday reopened the road leading to Baghdad’s Tayaran Square, scene of bloody protests in recent days.

However, the security forces pressed on with their crackdown, arresting protesters after nightfall on Tuesday in eastern and northwestern parts of Baghdad, police sources told Reuters.

Police carried recent photographs of protesters to identify and arrest them, the sources said.

Iraq’s semi-official High Commission for Human Rights also said about 500 people had been released from the 800 detained last week.

Intermittent access to internet returned on Wednesday morning, and protesters continued to upload video and photos from the demonstrations. The government shut down coverage almost immediately as protests began, according to an order by the prime minister seen by Reuters.

Media offices attacked

The offices of local and international media were attacked last week, and journalists have said they were warned not to cover the protests. With the internet down, there was little coverage of the protests on television.

Ministers met provincial governors, to address grievances across the country, which include crumbling infrastructure, toxic water and high unemployment. But proposed reforms, some of which have been recycled from a package of proposed reforms after protests in 2015, are unlikely to ease public anger.

The unrest shattered nearly two years of relative stability in Iraq, since the defeat of Islamic State in 2017.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the recent violence and urged Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to exercise maximum restraint and address protesters’ grievances, the U.S. State Department said.  

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Apple became the latest company targeted for Chinese pressure over protests in Hong Kong when the ruling Communist Party’s main newspaper criticized the tech giant Wednesday for a smartphone app that allows activists to report police movements.

HKmap.live, designed by an outside supplier and available on Apple Inc.’s online store, “facilitates illegal behavior,” People’s Daily said in a commentary.

“Is Apple guiding Hong Kong thugs?” the newspaper said.

Beijing has pressed companies including Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways to take the government’s side against the protests, which are in their fourth month.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

HKmap.live allows users to report police locations, use of tear gas and other details that are added to a regularly updated map. A version is also available for smartphones that use the Android operating system.

Asked whether the Chinese government had asked Apple to remove the HKmap.live from its online store, a foreign ministry spokesman said he had no information about that.

“What I can tell you is that these radical, violent crimes in Hong Kong have seriously challenged the legal system and social order in Hong Kong, threatened the safety of Hong Kong residents’ lives and property, and undermined the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong,” said the spokesman, Geng Shuang.

“Anyone who has a conscience and justice should resist and oppose instead of supporting and indulging those actions,” Geng said at a regular news briefing.

The demonstrations began over a proposed extradition law and expanded to include other grievances and demands for greater democracy.

Criticism of Apple followed government attacks starting last weekend on the National Basketball Association over a comment by the general manager of the Houston Rockets in support of the protesters. China’s state TV has canceled broadcasts of NBA games.

“Apple jumped into this on its own and mixed together business with politics and commercial activity with illegal activities,” People’s Daily said.

The newspaper warned Apple might be damaging its reputation with Chinese consumers.

Brands targeted in the past by Beijing have been subjected to campaigns by the entirely state-controlled press to drive away consumers or disruptive investigations by tax and other regulators.

“This recklessness will cause much trouble for Apple,” People’s Daily said. “Apple needs to think deeply.”

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Drea Pizziconi premiered her song “Let Her Dance” with Grammy-nominated artist Maimouna Yussef and Dap-Kings Horns at CAMFED’s Anniversary Gala supporting female education in Africa. She is launching a new imitative called Girls First Finance (GFF). Her current single “This Land” premiered in the Jazz Times on the 4 of July, as a soulful reflection of injustice in America.

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Chinese state media slammed the NBA for an “about-face” Tuesday after the body said it would not apologize for a tweet by the Houston Rockets General Manager supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

The US league has drawn fire for from Chinese broadcasters, sponsors and social media after Daryl Morey tweeted a message Friday saying, “Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”

After the NBA called Morey’s tweet “inappropriate” in a statement on Chinese social media platform Weibo, league commissioner Adam Silver insisted at a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that the league would not apologize and would “support freedom of expression”.

In an editorial, the state-run China Daily accused the NBA of a U-turn and said Silver’s remarks showed the league’s earlier “honey-mouthed” statements had been “nothing but an attempt to prevent the hemorrhaging of profits made in China.”

It added “Silver’s about face, which will definitely give a shot to the arms of the rioters in Hong Kong, shows his organization is willing to be another handy tool for US interference in the special administrative region.”

Beijing has often accused foreign forces of fueling the unrest in Hong Kong.

An editorial in the nationalistic Global Times also blasted the NBA for bowing to “political correctness in the US”, saying there was now “little room for reconciliation” as the issue had escalated into a clash of values between China and the US.

Silver “will only offend more people no matter what he tries to say,” the tabloid said.

The NBA commissioner said he hoped to discuss the situation with Chinese officials in Shanghai, where the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers are set to play an exhibition game on Thursday.

But a day after the NBA cancelled a Nets publicity event in the city, NBA representatives told AFP that it had scrapped a similar public event involving the Lakers on Wednesday.

Separate training sessions by the teams on Wednesday that media had been invited to were also abruptly declared closed.

Crews at Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz arena, where the Nets and Lakers were to tip-off, were seen Wednesday morning removing the logos of the NBA, Nets, Lakers, and corporate sponsors from lampposts and walls in the area.

Speculation has grown in the US that the games themselves, another is to be held in the southern city of Shenzhen on Saturday, could be cancelled.

The NBA has built a lucrative Chinese fan base in recent years thanks in part to the popularity of former Rockets center Yao Ming.

But after Morey’s tweet, state broadcaster CCTV and Chinese internet company Tencent both suspended broadcasts of Rockets games and two preseason NBA games in China.

The Chinese Basketball Association, which Yao now heads, has also cut off ties with the Rockets.

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A spree of attacks and threats against media outlets in Iraq has alarmed the United Nations, journalists and monitors, who demand the government prevent the “silencing” of journalists covering mass protests.

Raids over the weekend carried out by unidentified gunmen have added to concerns for freedom of expression that were first flagged when authorities implemented a near-total internet blackout after anti-government protests erupted last week in the capital and the country’s south.

On Saturday evening, the Baghdad bureaus of Kurdistan-based NRT TV, Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and local Al-Dijla channel were raided by masked men, the stations said.

NRT TV said the gunmen damaged equipment, which temporarily put the channel off the air, seized employees’ phones and attacked local police.

Security camera footage aired by Al-Arabiya showed around a dozen men in tactical gear and helmets entering the bureau, ripping screens off walls and rummaging through drawers.

Al-Arabiya said it had received “assurances” from Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi’s office that the incident would be investigated.

President Barham Saleh condemned the attacks as “unacceptable.”

The U.N.’s top official in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said she was “shocked at the vandalism [and] intimidation”.

“Government efforts [are] required to protect journalists. Free media is the best safeguard of a strong democracy,” she said.

A security source told AFP that another local channel, Al-Nahrein, had also been raided and its equipment damaged, and that Hona Baghdad [This is Baghdad] and Al-Rasheed had received threats.

“We received direct threats over our coverage of the protests,” said a journalist at Al-Rasheed, which has closely covered protests and accused security forces of indiscriminate violence.

“They told us: ‘Either you change your editorial line or you’ll have the same fate as NRT and the rest.’ So we preferred to cut our distribution,” the reporter added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bid to ‘terrorize’ media

Throughout the week, bloggers and activists across the south also reported receiving text messages and phone calls threatening them and their families over their coverage.

“Coverage of demonstrations is very difficult and different from the usual coverage of events because the crackdown on protesters automatically affects the journalists,” Dijlah TV’s Mazen Alwan told Iraq’s National Union of Journalists.

Various media outlets also took confidential measures to ensure the safety of their teams.

Iraq is ranked 156th out of 180 countries on the 2019 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The media watchdog accused security forces of “disproportionate and unwarranted restriction of the right to inform”.

“Instead of banning all journalistic activities, the security forces and local authorities have a duty to guarantee the safety of journalists so that they can do their reporting,” said Sabrina Bennoui, RSF’s Middle East desk head.

Iraq’s judiciary on Monday discussed legal action against those who attacked media stations as well as protesters.

Ziad al-Ajili, head of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, said it was the first time he had witnessed such an attempt to “terrorize” media outlets.

“This is an organized, pre-planned operation to silence media. This is the fundamental way to oppress protesters,” he told AFP.

“We expect more attacks,” he warned.

Demonstrations first broke out last Tuesday in Iraq’s capital and some southern cities, mostly attended by young protesters angry at mass corruption and unemployment.

News of gathering places for protests spread online.

The following day, authorities began restricting access to social media sites including Facebook and Instagram before completely shutting off the internet in all of Iraq, except the north.

Protesters say the aim was to block them from spreading footage of the violence by security forces dealing with demonstrations.

…

 People in Southeast Asia spend the most time in the world accessing the internet through mobile devices, according to a new study conducted in part by Google, which reported that the region’s internet economy has moved past the $100 billion mark this year. 

Southeast Asia Leads the World in Mobile Internet Use

Thais use mobile internet more than five hours a day, compared with more than four hours in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, and three hours as the global average, according to the joint report released last week. That means “users in the region continue to be the most engaged in the world, spending significantly more time on the mobile internet than their global peers,” the report said. Google has been doing the report on Southeast Asia’s internet economy for years with Temasek, the sovereign wealth fund of the Singapore government. This year a management consulting firm, Bain & Company, joined as a third co-author of the report.

“The region’s internet economy continues to surpass all previous growth expectations, hitting another milestone this year: $100 billion,” the report said. The authors wrote they “are constantly surprised by how fast the internet economy is growing.”

Report Highlights Internet Use

The report highlights both the highs and the lows of the internet economy in Southeast Asia, from how quickly it has spread past big cities, to the challenges, such as the need to train people in new skills and provide efficient logistics. 

The report, titled “e-Conomy SEA 2019 — Swipe up and to the right: Southeast Asia’s $100 billion internet economy,” focuses on five sectors that explain the growth story:

1. Online travel;

2. Online media, such as ads and streaming; 

3. Ride hailing;

4. Online shopping; and

5. Digital financial services.

With data showing more than 90 percent of Southeast Asians get online primarily through smartphones, the report is a reminder of how the internet caught on differently here than in other parts of the world. While people in developed countries were introduced to the internet mostly through desktop and laptop computers, most people in Southeast Asia leapfrogged that step and went straight to mobile devices. Some will go their entire online lives without ever having touched a traditional computer. 

Internet Use May Lead a More Even Economy

Just as many early users in the 1990s first envisioned the internet as a great equalizer, so there are signs that the spread of the internet could lead to a more even distribution of economic benefits in Southeast Asia. The “e-Conomy” report predicted a closing of the gap between rural areas and megacities of 10 million people plus, referred to as metros. 

“As we see internet companies focus more on acquiring new users outside the metros, growth in the non-metro areas is expected to pick up,” the report said. “In fact, the internet economy in areas beyond the metros is projected to grow fourfold between 2019 and 2025, twice as fast as in metro areas.”

For instance rural Southeast Asians may live in areas where it is not profitable for banks to set up branches, but they can access financial services through smartphones.

Promoters in government and business have started to sell Southeast Asia as a single economy, bigger than the individual economies. The “e-Conomy” report predicted the 10 countries in the region will be the fourth biggest economic bloc in the world by 2030. 

The Region is getting attention

The region’s unicorns — startups worth at least $1 billion — and tech growth are attracting attention. Japan’s billionaire tech investor Masayoshi Son, for instance, told Nikkei newspaper he used to envy U.S. and Chinese competitors but now sees Southeast Asia as a competitive motivator.

“[T]here are many companies from smaller economies like Southeast Asia that have the fire and are growing rapidly,” he said this month. “Japanese entrepreneurs, myself included, cannot make excuses.”

The “e-Conomy” report does not focus on many of the downsides of the internet economy, such as young Southeast Asians so addicted to online gaming their parents unplug internet routers at night, or the plastic waste that is exploding as more people order coffee or clothing online to be delivered. The internet is a story of growth, and growing pains too.

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The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a bipartisan report that calls on the U.S. government and private industry to prevent social media sites from being used to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, as they were in 2016.

The report, released Tuesday after more than two years of investigating foreign electoral meddling, found the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency “sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin.”

The finding is consistent with evidence uncovered by the U.S. intelligence community after the 2016 election in which Trump defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The report also said interference is likely to occur before the November 2020 elections.

The bipartisan group of Senators who prepared the report recommends the Trump administration form an interagency task force to monitor social media platforms for signs of foreign interference next year.

“The Federal government, civil society, and the private sector, including social media and technology companies, each have an important role to play in deterring and defending against foreign influence operations that target the United States,” committee members said.

The report concluded that Russian influencers targeted African-Americans more than any other group in 2016 in a campaign to fuel domestic tensions and strengthen the election prospects of Trump.

The preparation of the report, titled “Russia’s Use of Social Media,” was led by Republican committee Chairman Robert Burr and Democratic vice chairman Mark Warner.

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U.S. gymnastics star Simone Biles clinched a record-extending 15th world championship gold medal Tuesday as the Americans won the women’s team title in Stuttgart.

Biles, 22, collected her 21st medal at the championships to become the most decorated women’s gymnast, taking her one clear of Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina.

She also moved to within two medals of the all-time record held by Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus, a men’s gymnastics star in the 1990s.

It was a fourth team title for Biles in an event the Americans have dominated for the last eight years.

They claimed gold with a tally of 172.330, well ahead of the Russians who took silver with 166.529, while bronze went to Italy on 164.796.

Biles played a key role in a commanding performance by the U.S., earning the most points in three of the four disciplines — the vault, balance beam and floor.

She earned a loud cheer for landing the “Biles II” skill — a triple-twisting double back on the floor — keeping her pre-championship promise to perform it in “every competition” in Stuttgart.

Her huge tally of 15.333 led a U.S. clean sweep in the floor exercises alongside teammates Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee, to hand the Americans gold.

Biles is expected to add more medals to her dazzling tally as the favorite in the women’s all-around final Thursday and this weekend’s apparatus finals.
 

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The Supreme Court says police investigated two suspicious packages found near the court just before the justices were to hear arguments over LGBT rights.

Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg says the packages were found Tuesday near an intersection between the court, the Capitol and the Library of Congress.

Police cleared the plaza and the sidewalk in front of the court, which had been filling with people ahead of the high-profile arguments.

The building remained open and was not evacuated, Capitol Police said. The incident was resolved around 10 a.m., police said.
 

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The International Organization for Migration reports fatalities from a shipwreck Monday off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa has pushed the migrant death toll on the Mediterranean Sea this year to 1071.

The boat, which capsized seven miles from the coast of Lampedusa, reportedly departed from Tunisia with between 50 and 55 people aboard.  Some of the 22 survivors of the accident testified passengers included 15 Tunisians, as well as West African migrants.

Authorities say the Italian Coast Guard has recovered 13 bodies, all of them women, who came from Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Guinea.  International Organization for Migration spokesman Joel Millman says 17 migrants remain missing, including more women and at least two children.  He says the missing are believed to be nationals of Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Guinea Conakry and Tunisia.

“IOM’s Missing Migrants Project reported Monday that these deaths bring to 15,750 the total number of dead, on this particular central Mediterranean route since 1 January 2014.  This is approximately 10 times the total lost on the Mediterranean’s eastern corridor linking the Middle East to Greece, and almost the same multiple of all deaths on the western route linking North Africa to Spain,” Millman said.  

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Greece Transfers 570 Migrants from Overcrowded Camp

Authorities say move is part of plan to reduce overcrowding at Lesbos’ Moria migrant camp, where about 13,000 people live in a space designed for 3,000

Weather conditions reportedly were bad when the overloaded vessel, an unseaworthy wooden boat, set sail from Tunisia.  U.N. refugee agency spokesman Charlie Yaxley said this tragic loss of life was predictable.  He said, once again, people anxious to reach Europe put their lives in the hands of smugglers and traffickers, whose only interest is to make money.

“We cannot continue to allow these criminals to act with impunity and to allow them to prey on people’s misery and desperation by taking peoples’ services under these false promises,” he said.  

Yaxley said the UNHCR is calling for a redoubling of efforts to identify those individuals responsible for this carnage and hold them accountable for their actions.

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