Three anti-government protesters were shot dead and at least 58 others were wounded in Baghdad and southern Iraq on Saturday, security and medical officials said, as Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi formally submitted his resignation to parliament. 

Lawmakers were expected to either vote or accept outright Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation letter in a parliamentary session Sunday, two members of parliament said. 

The prime minister announced Friday that he would hand parliament his resignation amid mounting pressure from mass anti-government protests, a day after more than 40 demonstrators were killed by security forces in Baghdad and southern Iraq. The announcement also came after Iraq’s top Shiite cleric withdrew his support for the government in a weekly sermon. 

The formal resignation came after an emergency cabinet session earlier in which ministers approved the document and the resignation of key staffers, including Abdul-Mahdi’s chief of staff. 

Caretaker cabinet

In a pre-recorded speech, Abdul-Mahdi addressed Iraqis, saying that following parliament’s recognition of his stepping down, the cabinet would be demoted to caretaker status, unable to pass new laws and make key decisions. 

Existing laws do not provide clear procedures for members of parliament to recognize Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation, Iraqi officials and experts said. Cabinet bylaws allow the prime minister to tender his resignation to the president, but there is no specific law that dictates the course of action should this be tasked to parliament. 

“There is a black hole in the constitution. It says nothing about resignation,” said lawmaker Mohamed al-Daraji. 

There are two main laws that could direct parliament’s course of action, he added: Either they vote Abdul-Mahdi out in a vote of no-confidence, per Article 61 of the constitution, or resort to Article 81, reserved for times of crisis when there is a vacancy in the premiership, shifting those duties temporarily to the president. 

“My understanding is this will be taken care of per Article 61,” he said.

A vote of no confidence would demote Abdul-Mahdi’s cabinet to caretaker status for 30 days, in which parliament’s largest political bloc would have to propose a new candidate. 

This is where the real problem comes in, experts and officials said. 

Product of alliance

Abdul-Mahdi’s nomination as prime minister was the product of a provisional alliance between parliament’s two main blocs — Sairoon, led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Fatah, which includes leaders associated with the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units headed by Hadi al-Amiri. 

In the May 2018 election, neither coalition won a commanding plurality that would have enabled it to name the premier alone. To avoid political crisis, Sairoon and Fatah forged a precarious union. 

“Now we are back to the question of who is the largest bloc that can name the next prime minister,” said one official close to the State of Law party, led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. “If they don’t come to an agreement before the 30-day deadline, then we might have to go to the Supreme Court.” 

Officials traded theories as to why Abdul-Mahdi chose to tender his resignation through parliament, with some speculating it was to buy more time or avoid the risk of a vacuum should the post remain empty. 
 Abdul-Mahdi had alluded to the challenges faced by political parties to find consensus candidates, saying in earlier statements he would step down once an alternative candidate was found. 

In his speech, addressing these speculations, Abdul-Mahdi said he was acting on the advice of Iraq’s chief Supreme Court judge. 

“The perspective I received from the chief of the federal Supreme Court is that the resignation should be submitted to those who voted the government in,” he said. 

Low expectations

Abdul-Mahdi listed his government’s accomplishments, saying it had come to power during difficult times. “Not many people were optimistic that this government would move forward,” he said. 

The government, he said, had managed to push through important job-creating projects, improve electricity generation and strengthen ties with neighboring countries. 

“But unfortunately, these events took place,” he said, referring to the mass protest movement that engulfed Iraq on October 1. “We need to be fair to our people and listen to them, where we made mistakes, where we did not make up for the mistakes of previous governments.” 

At least 400 people have died since the leaderless uprising shook Iraq, with thousands of Iraqis taking to the streets in Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite southern part of the country. They have decried corruption, poor services and a lack of jobs, and they have called for an end to the post-2003 political system. 

Security forces have used live fire, tear gas and sound bombs to disperse crowds, leading to heavy casualties. 

Three protesters were killed and 24 wounded in the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq on Saturday as security forces used live rounds to disperse them from a key mosque, security and hospital officials said. 

Bridge battles

In Baghdad, at least 11 protesters were wounded near the strategic Ahrar Bridge when security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas to prevent demonstrators from removing barricades. The protesters are occupying part of three strategic bridges — Ahrar, Sink and Jumhuriya — in a standoff with security forces. All three lead to the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government. 

In the southern city of Nasiriyah, security forces used live fire and tear gas to repel protesters on two main bridges, the Zaitoun and the Nasr, which lead to the city center. Heavy fighting has taken place in Nasiriyah in recent days, with at least 31 protesters killed. 

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Abdul-Mahdi referred to the rising death toll in his speech. 

“We did our best to stop the bloodshed, and at the time we made brave decisions to stop using live ammunition, but unfortunately when clashes happen there will be consequences,” he said. 

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Apple says it will reevaluate how it identifies “disputed borders” after receiving criticism for displaying Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia on maps and weather apps for Russian users. 
 
Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told Reuters on Friday that the U.S. technology giant was “taking a deeper look at how we handle disputed borders.” 
 
Muller said Apple made the change for Russian users because of a new law that went into effect inside Russia and that it had not made any changes to its maps outside the country. 

Review of law
 
“We review international law as well as relevant U.S. and other domestic laws before making a determination in labeling on our maps and make changes if required by law,” she told Reuters. 
 
Muller added that Apple “may make changes in the future as a result” of its reevaluation of the policy, without being specific. 
 
Russian and Ukrainian embassies in the United States did not immediately return requests for comment. 
 
When using the apps from the United States, Ukraine, and in parts of Europe, no international borders are shown around the peninsula. 
 
After the reports surfaced of the appearance of Crimea as part of Russia, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told RFE/RL that it had sent a letter to Apple explaining the situation in Crimea and demanding that it correct the peninsula’s designation. 
 
It also said on Twitter that “let’s all remind Apple that #CrimeaIsUkraine and it is under Russian occupation — not its sovereignty.” 
 
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystayko tweeted, “Apple, please, please, stick to high-tech and entertainment. Global politics is not your strong side.” 

Applause from Russia
 
Vasily Piskarev, who chairs the Russian State Duma’s Committee on Security and Corruption Control, welcomed Apple’s move, saying, “They have brought [their services] in line with Russian law.” 
 
“The error with displaying Crimean cities on the weather app has been eliminated,” Piskarev told reporters. 
 
Competitor Google Maps has designated Crimea differently over the years depending on the user’s location, listing it as Russian for Russian users and Ukrainian for most others. 
 
“We make every effort to objectively depict the disputed regions, and where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders,” a Google spokesperson told Tech Crunch magazine. 

Troops entered in 2014
 
Russia took control of Crimea in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. 
 
Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. 
 
The international community does not recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, and the United States and European Union have slapped sanctions on Russia over its actions against Ukraine. 
 
Reuters and the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service contributed to this report. 

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Schools and universities have been shut in parts of Iran, including the capital, Tehran, because of high levels of pollution, state media reported Saturday. 
 
The decision was announced late Friday by Deputy Governor Mohammad Taghizadeh, after a meeting of an emergency committee for air pollution. 
 
“Due to increased air pollution, kindergartens, preschools and schools, universities, and higher education institutes of Tehran province will be closed,” Taghizadeh was quoted by official government news agency IRNA as saying. 
 
Schools in the capital will also be closed Sunday, Taghizadeh said. 
 
“Having examined the index of pollutants in Tehran … it was decided for all schools to be closed tomorrow in Tehran province, except for the counties of Firuzkuh, Damavand and Pardis,” he said. 
 
The young, elderly and people with respiratory illnesses were warned to stay indoors, and all sports activities were suspended Saturday. 
 
Tehran has suffered from dangerous levels of pollution and smog since mid-November. 
 
Schools were also closed in the northern province of Alborz and in the central province of Esfahan, IRNA reported, citing officials. 
 
Other areas where schools were shut included the northeastern city of Mashhad, the northwestern city of Orumiyeh and Qom, south of Tehran. 

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Southern Africa is having one of the worst droughts in years with more than 40 million people expected to face food insecurity because of livestock and crop losses. Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe have declared this year’s drought an emergency. As Mqondisi Dube reports from Botswana’s village of Gamodubu, drought is so frequent that the government plans to stop calling it an emergency and instead make drought a part of the national budget.
 

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They left Vietnam carrying dreams of small fortunes and the heavy burden of family expectations.

But they died in a box, and came home in coffins.

For the 39 migrants who set off from one of the poorest parts of their Southeast Asian country in search of work in Britain, the promise of riches outweighed the risks of the perilous journey through Latvian forests and Belgian streets, to the oxygen-starved truck container in which they met their fate.

The bodies were discovered in late October, in the back of a refrigerated lorry, just outside London.

On Saturday, the last bodies were repatriated to Vietnam.

Here are the stories of three of the victims.

The lost boy

Teenager Nguyen Huy Hung had longed to see his parents, both of whom had left Vietnam to find work in Britain’s nail salons.

“It should have been a family reunion,” said a neighbor who declined to be identified. “His parents reached Britain safely and smoothly. They’d already paid smugglers to arrange his trip. “He was too young to suffer from tragedy.”

Hung was one of two 15-year-old victims. Raised in a small fishing village in Ha Tinh province, rooms in the family home had been rented out because most of his family, apart from Hung’s grandparents, had relocated overseas for work.

Hung flew from Hanoi to Russia on Aug. 26, his sister, who works in South Korea, said in a Facebook post days after news of the incident emerged.

By Oct. 6, he was in France, she wrote, but they lost contact Oct. 21, two days before the container was found.

The family had paid 10,000 pounds ($12,900) to get him to Europe, his sister told Reuters. They were to pay more money to people smugglers in Vietnam once he reached Britain, she added.

Hung’s body was repatriated Saturday.

But with no documentation and their hopes of being reunited with their son in Britain shattered, Hung’s parents will miss his funeral.

The carpenter

Rudimentary dumbbells made from rusted iron and mossy lumps of concrete are some of the few objects Nguyen Dinh Gia has to remind him of his son.

Luong was an honest boy, Gia said. At 20, Luong didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, and he had never had a girlfriend.

Luong loved sports, and his ramshackle weights. In October 2017, he left Ha Tinh province and found work in a nearby province as a carpenter, a skill he learned from his brother.

“He didn’t try to get into university,” Gia said. “Not many children around here do.”

From there, Luong traveled to Hanoi where he boarded a flight to Russia.

He stayed there until April 2018, when he drifted to Ukraine where he spent his nights with other migrants in a warehouse. He would contact his father sometimes, Gia said.

“I felt comfortable knowing he was safe, living there,” Gia added.

Weeks later, Luong left for Germany. He moved by road, but he walked for seven hours too.

“It was a one-day journey and everyone with him was Vietnamese,” Gia said.

There, Luong begged his father to pay for him to go to France, where he stayed until this October, when he decided to join friends working in Britain.

“I tried to persuade him not to go,” Gia said. “I told him the money he had earned in France was huge for the family.”

Gia had paid $18,000 to people smugglers to get his son that far. A few days before he boarded the doomed truck, Luong called home.

Gia said he was in good spirits.

Luong’s body was repatriated Wednesday and he was buried Thursday.

“After waiting for so many days, my son has finally arrived,” Gia said.

The dreamer

Bui Thi Nhung had been dreaming of Europe.

She hoped to be reunited with her boyfriend, in Britain.

Her Facebook posts in the days before she died showed her in Brussels, where she drank bubble tea on the steps of the old stock exchange.

Like the other two, she flew from Vietnam to Russia, then crossed into Latvia. From there she moved to Lithuania, then Poland, Germany, and Belgium, friends and neighbors told Reuters.

It wasn’t her first attempt.

“My life is full of ups and downs. I want to fly to Europe, but I can’t,” she wrote, four months earlier. 

“I don’t want to stay home, marry young and live penniless,” Nhung told friends who had suggested she stay in Vietnam and raise cattle instead. “I’ll try my luck next time.”

According to her friends, Nhung first wanted to find work in Germany, and spent a year in Vietnam learning to paint nails. “A girl has to have a job otherwise no one will marry her,” she wrote.

On her third try, Nhung finally made it to Europe. The trip ended in disaster.

“I’m about to start a new journey,” Nhung wrote to friends a few days before they lost contact with her.

Nhung’s friends have memorialized her Facebook page to keep her stories alive. Many of her friends are scattered overseas, working in Europe’s nail bars.

“Please don’t blame us,” one of her friends told Reuters. “Don’t blame the 39 victims in the back of the truck.”

Nhung made her final journey home on Saturday.

She was 19 years old.

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An approaching typhoon is threatening to complicate the hosting by the Philippines of the largest biennial games in Southeast Asia, already marred by logistical foul-ups that the president vowed to investigate.

President Rodrigo Duterte is set to welcome Saturday the first few thousand athletes, coaches and sports officials from the region in an opening ceremony to be lit by digital fireworks after nightfall in a huge indoor arena in Bocaue town north of Manila. The expected VIPs include Brunei leader Hassanal Bolkiah, whose son is a player on the sultanate’s polo team.

More than 8,000 athletes and officials were expected to fly in for the games, which began in 1959 in the Thai capital of Bangkok with just a dozen sports. In the Philippines, 56 sports will be featured in 529 events, the largest number in the 11-nation competition so far, which will be held in more than 40 venues including in the traffic-choked capital of Manila.

About 27,000 police have been deployed to secure the 11-day games.

Typhoon Kammuri

A slow-moving typhoon was bearing down in the Pacific and forecasters expect it to blow into the main northern Luzon island early next week. The main sporting venues in Clark and Subic, former U.S. military bases turned into popular leisure and commercial hubs north and northwest of Manila, are in or near Typhoon Kammuri’s path.

Kammuri was packing sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 170 kph (106 mph) as of late Friday but could still strengthen, forecasters said. The prospect of it becoming a super typhoon was unlikely but cannot be ruled out.

“The contingency plan involves delay of the competition, the cancellation of competition,” Ramon Suzara, executive director of the organizing committee, said in a news conference. Indoor competitions could proceed in bad weather if power is not lost but the entry of spectators may be restricted, he said.

Terrible traffic, unfinished facilities

The threat posed by the typhoon comes after widely publicized complaints of athletes who flew in early for training and preliminary matches over long hours of waiting for shuttles at Manila’s airport, getting stuck in the chaotic traffic, food and hotel accommodation issues and unfinished facilities in the city.

An early football match between the men’s teams of Malaysia and Myanmar proceeded despite the absence of a functioning scoreboard at Manila’s Rizal Stadium, which opened in the 1930s but has undergone renovations, according to an Associated Press photographer who covered the match.

Thailand’s football team, which was pressed for time to train and could not afford to plod through Manila’s traffic jams to a stadium, trained on the streets one night instead, its coach was quoted in local news reports as saying.

Duterte and his close political ally, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, who heads the organizing committee, separately apologized for the troubles.

Funding criticized, inquiry promised

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief who supports Duterte’s anti-crime campaign, questioned the transfer of a huge amount of government funds to the organizing committee, which is a private foundation, comparing it to a past corruption scandal where state funds were funneled to nongovernment groups before allegedly being pocketed by some lawmakers.

Suzara denied there was any irregularity, saying government auditors scrutinized how money was spent. He blamed the monthslong delay in the passage earlier this year of the national budget for failure to complete the construction and renovation of some sports facilities on time.

Opposition Sen. Franklin Drilon questioned the propriety of spending about 50 million pesos (nearly $1 million) for the construction of a tower with a cauldron, which would be lit in flames during the games, saying the money for such extravagance could have been used to build classrooms for impoverished children.

“I ignore them because my stomach is titanium,” Suzara told the AP in an interview, explaining how he has endured criticism to focus on preparations.

Cayetano said certain groups opposed to Duterte were trying to sabotage the Philippines’ hosting of the games. He did not elaborate.

Duterte pledged to investigate the mess and Cayetano expressed readiness to face a Senate investigation after the games.

“There was a lot of money poured into this activity and I suppose that with that kind of money, you can run things smoothly,” Duterte said. But he admonished critics: “Do not create a firestorm now because we are in the thick of preparation. … I assure you I will investigate.”

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Supporters cheered late Friday as once-powerful opposition leader and two-time Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori left the prison where she had been held while being investigated for alleged corruption. Peru’s Constitutional Tribunal approved her release.

Smiling broadly, the daughter of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori walked out of the women’s prison in the Lima district of Chorrillos and was handed a bouquet of roses by her husband, Mark Villanella, who had been on a hunger strike demanding her release.

Keiko Fujimori called her 13-month prison stay the “most painful time of my life, so the first thing I want to do now that I am on the street is thank God for giving me the strength to resist.”

Odebrecht accusations

She was freed by the Constitutional Tribunal in 4-3 vote earlier this week. The magistrates noted the decision on a habeas corpus request does not constitute a judgment on her guilt or innocence with regards to accusations she accepted money from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Fujimori could still be returned to a cell.

Dozens of riot police were present in case of protests by opponents who have called her release another blow for entrenched impunity for the corrupt in the South American country. But most of the people outside the prison were her supporters.

“The Constitutional Tribunal has corrected a great damage done to us in a process filled with abuses and arbitrariness,” Fujimori said.

Changed political landscape

The 44-year-old, who was jailed in October 2018, faces a radically different political landscape outside of prison.

Her Popular Force party held a majority in congress until September, when President Martin Vizcarra dissolved the legislature in a popular move he described as necessary to uproot corruption. The conservative Popular Force will participate in January legislative elections, but Fujimori is not expected to be a candidate and analysts predict that her party could fare poorly in the voting.

As party leader, Fujimori helped fuel the impeachment of former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for lying about his ties with Odebrecht. But now Fujimori herself has been ensnared by a corruption scandal that has toppled political and businesses leaders around Latin America.

Corruption allegations have hit all of Peru’s presidents between 2001 and 2016.

Prosecutors accuse Fujimori of laundering $1.2 million provided by Odebrecht for her 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns. They opened an investigation into the campaigns after seeing a note written by Marcelo Odebrecht, head of the Brazilian mega-company, on his cellphone that said: “increase Keiko to 500 and pay a visit.”

Fujimori denies the accusations and says prosecutors and Peru’s election body have received Popular Force’s accounting books for inspection.

Striking downfall

Her jailing capped a striking downfall for a politician who went from presidential daughter, to powerful opposition leader, to within a hair’s breadth of the presidency.

Fujimori’s father, a strongman who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, remains a polarizing figure. Some Peruvians praise him for defeating Maoist Shining Path guerrillas and resurrecting a devastated economy, while others detest him for human rights violations. He is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption.

She tried to follow in her father’s presidential footsteps and forge a gentler, kinder version of the movement known as “Fujimorismo.”

She finished second in the 2011 election and five years later lost in a razor-thin vote, coming within less than half a percentage point of defeating Kuczynski.

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Six European nations say they will join a fledgling financial system to bypass U.S. sanctions against Iran, challenging U.S. President Donald Trump days before he meets leaders of some of those nations in London.

In a joint statement Friday, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden said they are in the process of become shareholders of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). Britain, France and Germany launched INSTEX in January to enable companies to trade with Iran without using U.S. dollars or going through U.S. banks, thereby shielding such companies from U.S. sanctions.

Trump has been toughening U.S. sanctions against Iran since November 2018 as part of a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Tehran to reach a new deal to stop its perceived malign behaviors. Earlier last year, he pulled the U.S. out of a 2015 deal in which world powers eased sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on the Iranian nuclear program. Trump said that deal was not tough enough on Tehran.

EU commitments

The Trump administration has warned other nations not to engage in various transactions with Iran or face secondary U.S. sanctions. But the 28-member European Union has pledged to do what is necessary to uphold its nuclear deal commitments, seeing the deal as a major contributor to global nonproliferation and Mideast stability.

In their joint statement, the six European nations said: “In light of the continuous European support for the agreement and the ongoing efforts to implement the economic part of it and to facilitate legitimate trade between Europe and Iran, we are now in the process of becoming shareholders of INSTEX, subject to completion of national procedures.”

The statement did not clarify what those procedures are, or how long the six nations will take to complete them.

Britain, France and Germany have said INSTEX initially will facilitate trade with Iran in humanitarian goods, such as food, medicine and medical devices that the U.S. has declared to be exempt from its sanctions.

The three nations also have said they eventually will expand INSTEX to cover other types of trade, raising the possibility that such transactions will defy U.S. sanctions. But there have been no announcements of any companies using INSTEX to engage in humanitarian or other trade with Iran since its January launch.

In an interview with the Al Arabiya network earlier this month, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook reiterated that Washington opposes the use of INSTEX for any “sanctionable activity” and has expressed that view to Britain, France and Germany. He also reiterated his skepticism that Iran will create its own INSTEX counterpart that meets international standards against money laundering and terrorism financing.

Counterpart mechanism

Iran has said it created the counterpart mechanism in April, calling it the Special Trade and Finance Instrument (STFI). But European officials have not acknowledged the establishment of any Iranian counterpart mechanism that satisfies their financial transparency requirements.

Four of the nations that agreed to join INSTEX, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, are NATO allies of Washington, as are Britain, France and Germany. Trump is to meet the leaders of those seven nations at a NATO summit in London, Dec. 2-4.

The White House has said the summit will focus on the alliance’s “unprecedented progress on burden-sharing” in defense spending and the “need … to ensure its readiness for the threats of tomorrow … and those posed by terrorism.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a VOA Persian request for comment on the decision by six more European nations, four of them NATO members, to join a financial channel that has drawn U.S. warnings against using it for sanctionable transactions.

Iran nuclear deal critic Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, dismissed the latest European announcement about INSTEX as a symbolic act with little consequence.

“As long as the Trump administration is willing to enforce U.S. sanctions, very few companies will risk punishment to process transactions through INSTEX. President Trump should make this clear when he meets his NATO counterparts in the coming days,” Dubowitz said in an email to VOA Persian. “To reinforce this message, the Treasury Department should sanction the Iranian INSTEX counterpart STFI, which is linked to several sanctioned entities.”

An FDD policy brief published in May said all of STFI’s shareholders are Iranian banks or controlled by Iranian banks that have been sanctioned by Washington for illicit activities.

Dismissive of INSTEX

Iranian officials also have been dismissive of INSTEX, complaining that its European creators have been too slow to get companies to start using it. They also have threatened to continue violating more provisions of the 2015 nuclear deal unless European powers provide Tehran with adequate economic compensation for the U.S. sanctions.

Iran has seen its currency slump and its unemployment and inflation soar under the strain of sanctions and rampant government corruption and mismanagement.

Iran so far has committed four violations of its 2015 commitments regarding the amount and quality of nuclear materials it can stockpile and produce at certain sites. The steps have slightly reduced the time it would take for Iran to accumulate enough material to make a nuclear bomb, a breakout period that was meant to be at least one year under the deal. Western powers accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge it denies.

Importante décision aujourd’hui de six pays européens de rejoindre INSTEX. Engagement fort des Européens pour soutenir le #JCPOA et l’autonomie d’action européenne. Nous attendons de l’#Iran qu’il revienne dans le cadre de cet accord. https://t.co/AQJpg6JCE8

— Jean-Yves Le Drian (@JY_LeDrian) November 29, 2019

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in welcoming the decision by the six other European nations to join INSTEX, echoed their call for Iran to reverse its violations of the nuclear deal in a Friday tweet. But neither he nor the other nations set a deadline for Iran to return to full compliance or warned what would happen if Tehran ignored that call.

A Nov. 24 article by Iran’s state-approved Mehr news agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Gholamreza Ansari as saying that “despite heavy pressure and sanctions,” Iran’s trade volume with Europe in the first nine months of 2019 reached $3.8 billion, of which $3.3 billion was European exports to Iran.

Taken together, the European Union and Switzerland export over three times more medicine to Iran than China, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, UAE, and United States combined. Europe is an irreplaceable trade partner for Iran and that’s why efforts like INSTEX are so important. pic.twitter.com/fjm8Q1QMM1

— Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (@yarbatman) November 29, 2019

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the “Bourse & Bazaar” media company that supports business diplomacy between Europe and Iran, tweeted that European medicine exports are a significant part of that ongoing trade.

“Europe is an irreplaceable trade partner for Iran and that’s why efforts like INSTEX are so important,” he said.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

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Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi announced his resignation on Friday after the country’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric called for lawmakers to reconsider their support for a government rocked by weeks of deadly anti-establishment unrest.

“In response to this call, and in order to facilitate it as quickly as possible, I will present to parliament a demand (to accept) my resignation from the leadership of the current government,” a statement signed by Abdul Mahdi said.

The statement did not say when he would resign. Parliament is to convene an emergency session on Sunday to discuss the crisis.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani earlier urged parliament to considering withdrawing its support for Abdul Mahdi’s government to stem spiraling violence.

Security forces meanwhile shot dead at least three people in the southern city of Nassiriya as clashes continued.

Iraqi forces have killed nearly 400 mostly young, unarmed demonstrators people since mass anti-government protests broke out on Oct. 1. More than a dozen members of the security forces have also died in clashes.

The burning of Iran’s consulate in the holy city of Najaf on Wednesday escalated violence and drew a brutal response from security forces who shot dead more than 60 people nationwide on Thursday.

The unrest is Iraq’s biggest crisis for years. It pits protesters from Shi’ite heartlands in Baghdad and the south against a corrupt Shi’ite-dominated ruling elite seen as pawns of Iran.

‘Chaos and infighting’

Iraq’s current political class is drawn mainly from powerful Shi’ite politicians, clerics and paramilitary leaders including many who lived in exile before a U.S.-led invasion overthrew Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Sistani, who only weighs in on politics in times of crisis and wields huge influence over public opinion, on Friday warned against an explosion of civil strife and tyranny. He urged government forces to stop killing protests and protesters themselves to reject all violence.

The government “appears to have been unable to deal with the events of the past two months … parliament, from which the current government emerged, must reconsider its choices and do what’s in the interest of Iraq,” a representative of Sistani said in a televised sermon.

Protesters “must not allow peaceful demonstrations to be turned into attacks on property or people,” he said.

Wednesday’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Najaf set off a sharp escalation of violence.

On Thursday, security forces shot dead 46 people in another southern city, Nassiriya, 18 in Najaf and four in Baghdad bringing the death toll from weeks of unrest to at least 417, most of them unarmed protesters, according to a Reuters tally from medical and police sources.

Clashes between protesters and security forces broke out early on Friday in Nassiriya killing three people and wounding several others, hospital sources said.

Iraq’s “enemies and their apparatuses are trying to sow chaos and infighting to return the country to the age of dictatorship … everyone must work together to thwart that opportunity,” Sistani said, without elaborating.

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As he prepared to announce his candidacy for president on Sunday, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a page from an old political playbook.

Appearing in a black church in the city’s Brooklyn borough last week, the multibillionaire media mogul apologized for long pushing a now-defunct policing tactic that had disproportionately targeted African American and Hispanic residents.

Known as “stop and frisk,” the controversial policy, imposed between 2003 and 2013, allowed New York City police to stop, temporarily detain, and search anyone suspected of carrying weapons and other contraband. 

“I was wrong,” Bloomberg declared to the congregation. To those who had been wronged by the policy, he said, “I apologize.” 

Criminal justice policy records

Bloomberg is the latest Democratic candidate forced to reckon with a criminal justice policy record that critics view as too punitive to minorities.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has been criticized for backing a 1994 crime bill that helped trigger a federal prison population explosion, while South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has faced questions over policing tactics in his hometown.

Others, including Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, have had to justify their law enforcement policies as a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and a California prosecutor, respectively. 

That Democrats are under scrutiny over criminal justice issues is unusual. Historically, Democratic presidential candidates ran on platforms of civil rights and criminal justice reform while Republicans campaigned as tough law-and-order candidates, according to criminal justice experts.     

But as the 2020 campaign enters the crucial primary phase, Democratic candidates are being forced to disavow criminal justice policies they once championed, while Republican President Donald Trump — who hardly discussed criminal justice in 2016 — is touting himself as a leading reform candidate.

Trump says he can make that claim because he signed into law a sweeping piece of legislation known as the First Step Act last December. The legislation, which has released or reduced the prison sentences of thousands of inmates convicted of drug offenses, has earned Trump praise from many African Americans. 

“It’s sort of a switch in what people thought was the standard left-right divide,” said Noah Weinrich of Heritage Action for America, a conservative grassroots organization.

So what happened?

The short answer is the country has changed. The 1994 Crime Bill now under attack from liberals and African Americans was enacted during the Clinton administration, near the height of a violent crime epidemic in the country when heavy-handed policies enjoyed broad public support.

But as crime has steadily declined over the past two decades to historically low levels, support for those measures has eroded and politicians on both sides of the aisle have increasingly embraced overhaul proposals.

Behind the 1994 Crime Bill

Biden helped craft the legislation when he was a U.S. senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and now is taking heat for the legislation’s more onerous side effects.   

“Today, crime and murder rates are at historic lows and American communities are safer than they have been in generations,” said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, acting director of the Justice Program at New York University’s Brennan Center. “That’s significant because that allows the bipartisan conversations about how to best reduce the number of people who have been incarcerated.” 

To be sure, criminal justice reform is not among the most pressing concerns for voters who care more about issues such as health care, immigration and jobs, according to polling.

But public support for measures, such as eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, has been on an upswing in recent years. That has prompted not only the large field of Democratic candidates but also the Republican president to campaign on criminal justice issues. Today, instead of incarceration, politicians increasingly talk about rehabilitation and redemption.

“Now we’re at a point in the country where we’re looking at our criminal justice system and saying maybe sentencing is what we need to think about and how do we best get our nonviolent criminals back into being productive members of society,” veteran Republican strategist David Avella said.

Last December, growing bipartisanship for criminal justice reform culminated in the enactment of the First Step Act.

Considered the most sweeping overhaul in a generation, the First Step Act allows for the early release of some nonviolent offenders, while providing inmates with in-prison job training to ease their reintegration into society and reduce recidivism rates. To date, more than 3,000 prisoners have been released and nearly 1,700 others have received sentence reductions under the program.

“Last year we brought the whole country together to achieve a truly momentous milestone,” Trump said last month at the historically black Benedict College in South Carolina, where he received an award for signing into law the First Step Act. “They said it couldn’t be done.”

Trump was an unlikely champion of the bill. When he first ran for president in 2016, he was seen as an obstacle to reform.

While his platform was notably silent on the issue, he consistently pushed for tough-on-crime policies over the decades, advocating lengthy sentences for violent offenders and effusing about New York City’s stop-and-frisk policies. 

Then, after he was elected in 2016, Trump appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior White House adviser. Given a broad policy platform, Kushner zeroed in on an issue that he said was very close to his heart: prison reform.

Kushner’s father imprisoned

His father, real estate developer Charles Kushner, spent 14 months in a federal prison in the 2000s for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Jared Kushner later called his father’s incarceration “obviously unjust.”

“When I had my personal experience, I wish that there was somebody who was in my office in the White House, who cared about this issue as much as I do, and if they’d been focused on it in making a difference, perhaps that would have made an impact on a lot of people who I came to meet and care about,” he told CNN’s Van Jones, a prominent African American advocate of the First Step Act, last year.  

Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy organization that lobbied for the legislation, said Kushner played an indispensable role in championing the bill and that Trump deserves credit for signing it into law.

“No one would have thought four years ago or three years ago that President Trump would have signed a law like that,” Ring said. “Everyone would have been skeptical that he would have supported any reform. So because he did it, I see no reason not to celebrate that.”

But Democratic candidates were in no mood to celebrate Trump’s action. They have denounced other Trump administration policy decisions that they say have set back years of progress on criminal justice. These include the Justice Department’s recent decision to resume federal executions.

“I find it hypocritical of him to tout whatever advances have been made in the First Step Act given his history,” Democratic candidate Harris said at the Bipartisan Justice Center event after Trump received the award.  

Harris, who had initially opposed the First Step Act for not going far enough to address criminal justice reform before voting for it, has faced criticism for not embracing criminal justice reform when she was San Francisco’s top prosecutor and later California’s attorney general.

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For medieval history buffs, the Czech town of Kutna Hora has two great attractions: St. Barbara’s Church, often called a cathedral because of its grandeur, and the Sedlec Ossuary, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints outside the town. St. Barbara’s is one of the best examples of Gothic architecture in central Europe and is a UNESCO world heritage site. But visitors are more attracted to the ossuary, a chapel containing bones of more than 40,000 people, arranged in decorative patterns. Those decorations are now being dismantled so that the centuries-old bones can be cleaned while the church undergoes a renovation. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports how it is done.
 

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The Taliban said Friday they were ready to restart peace talks with the United States, a day after President Donald Trump made a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and said he believed the radical group would agree to a cease-fire.

Trump’s Thanksgiving Day visit was his first to Afghanistan since becoming president and came a week after a prisoner swap between Washington and Kabul that has raised hopes for a long elusive peace deal to end the 18-year war.

“The Taliban wants to make a deal and we are meeting with them,” Trump told reporters after arriving in Afghanistan Thursday.

“We say it has to be a cease-fire and they didn’t want to do a cease-fire and now they want to do a cease-fire, I believe. It will probably work out that way,” he said.

Meetings with US officials

Taliban leaders have told Reuters that the group has been holding meetings with senior U.S. officials in Doha since last weekend, adding they could soon resume formal peace talks.

On Friday, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the hardline Islamist insurgent group, said they were “ready to restart the talks” that collapsed after Trump had called them off earlier this year.

“Our stance is still the same. If peace talks start, it will be resumed from the stage where it had stopped,” Mujahid told Reuters.

Trump canceled peace negotiations in September after the militant group claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.

“We are hoping that Trump’s visit to Afghanistan will prove that he is serious to start talks again. We don’t think he has not much of a choice,” said a senior Taliban commander on conditions of anonymity.

US troops in Afghanistan

There are currently about 13,000 U.S. forces as well as thousands of other NATO troops in Afghanistan, 18 years after an invasion by a U.S.-led coalition following the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the United States.

About 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed in the course of the Afghan conflict.

A draft accord agreed in September would have thousands of American troops withdrawn in exchange for guarantees that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States or its allies.

Still, many U.S. officials doubt the Taliban could be relied upon to prevent al-Qaida from again plotting attacks against the United States from Afghan soil.
 

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In a British election dominated by Brexit, young voters who had no say in the country’s decision to leave the European Union could hold the key to victory. That is, if they can be bothered to vote.

It has long been a truth in British politics that young people vote in lower numbers than older ones. In the last election in 2017, just more than half of under-35s voted, compared to more than 70% of those older than 60.

But that may be changing. According to official figures, 3.85 million people registered to vote between the day the election was called on Oct. 29 and Tuesday’s registration deadline _ two-thirds of them under 35. The number of new registrations is almost a third higher than in 2017.

Amy Heley of Vote for your Future, a group working to increase youth participation, says the figure is “really encouraging, and shows that politics has been so high profile recently that it is encouraging more young people to vote.”

New voters are unimpressed

That doesn’t mean, however, that young voters like what they see. Many appear unimpressed with the choice between Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, the main opposition Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and a handful of smaller parties.

“I think they’re all unlikeable,” said Callum Nelson, a 21-year-old law student attending a question session with local candidates at his London college. “I’m tempted to exercise my right to spoil my ballot.”

About 46 million people are eligible to vote in the Dec. 12 election to fill all 650 seats in the House of Commons, including hundreds of thousands who were too young to take part in the U.K.’s 2016 Brexit referendum. Britain’s voting age is 18, although Labour and other parties, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and environmentalist Greens, want it lowered to 16.

The current election campaign is a product of that 2016 vote, in which Britons decided by 52%-48% to leave the European Union after more than four decades of membership.

More than three years on, the country remains an EU member. Johnson pushed for the December election, which is taking place more than two years early, in hopes of winning a majority and breaking Britain’s political impasse over Brexit. He says that if the Conservatives win a majority, he will get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.

Labour says it will negotiate a new Brexit deal, then give voters a choice between leaving on those terms and remaining in the bloc. It also has a radical domestic agenda, promising to nationalize key industries and utilities, hike the minimum wage and give free internet access to all.

While most opinion polls give Johnson’s Conservatives a substantial lead overall, the surge in new young voters is good news for Labour, which is seeking to defy the odds and win a general election for the first time since 2005.

Young voters are more likely than their older compatriots to oppose Brexit, which will end Britons’ right to work and live in 27 other European nations and will have a major — though as yet unknown — economic impact.

Other issues

Matt Walsh, a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Cardiff, said young voters also strongly back abolition of tuition fees and stronger action against climate change, both policies “at the center of the offer that the Labour Party is putting forward to young people.”

Labour’s strategy “is to try and grab those missing voters, get them registered and get them to vote and support Labour policies,” he said.

Labour is spending more than its main rival on social media ads, churning out a stream of memes and messages on Facebook and Instagram. It is also outspending the Conservatives on Snapchat, whose users tend to be younger than those on the other networks. Twitter has banned all political advertising.

Labour also pushed to get young people to register to vote before the Nov. 26 deadline, spreading the message through tweets from celebrity supporters, including grime artist Stormzy. Corbyn posted a link to the government’s voter registration website 26 times on Twitter and 31 times on Facebook in the month before the deadline. Johnson, in contrast, didn’t post the link or the word “register” at all on Twitter, and just once on Facebook.

While some analysts are forecasting an electoral “youthquake,” others are cautious. This is a rare winter election, and turnout could suffer if Dec. 12 is a wet, cold day. It’s also difficult to know how much the voters’ decision will be motivated by Brexit and how much by domestic issues.

“At this point, I’m kind of sick of Brexit,” said Susie Chilver, a first-year politics student at the University of Bristol, in southwest England. “So, the things that are swaying it for me are things like social housing, and things like health care, more about social issues than foreign policy.”

Konstantinos Matakos, senior lecturer in the department of political economy at King’s College London, said there is an assumption that young voters are “leaning more Labour.” But he says their geographical spread, and whether they show up on polling day, will ultimately determine their impact on the outcome.

“It’s not a straightforward assumption to say that this surge in the registration rates will undoubtedly benefit Labour in terms of gaining electoral seats,” he said.

Some young voters agree that Labour shouldn’t take their support for granted.

“People think that students will definitely vote for Labour,” said Molly Jones, a 19-year-old student at London’s Westminster Kingsway College. “But a lot of them who I’ve spoken to, it’s not like that. They will vote for the Liberal Democrats, or the Greens, or even the Conservatives.

“All the parties are just a mess at the moment, and all the leaders are terrible,” she said. “It makes it really hard to vote for someone — you just hold your nose and vote.”
 

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President Donald Trump is making a surprise visit to Afghanistan to spend time with U.S. troops on Thanksgiving.

Trump says US and Taliban have been engaged in ongoing talks, says he believes Taliban open to ceasefire.

Trump arrived at Bagram Air Field shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time and spent more than two-and-a-half hours on the ground. Reporters were under strict instructions to keep the trip a secret to ensure his safety.
       
The visit comes more than two months after Trump abruptly broke off peace talks with the Taliban after a bombing in Kabul killed 12 people, including an American soldier.
       
And it comes at a pivotal moment in Trump’s presidency, with the impeachment inquiry moving quickly.
       
The president and first lady made a similar trip last year to Iraq on Christmas night -their first to an active conflict zone.
       
Vice President Mike Pence also visited troops in Iraq this week.

 

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Dozens of French activists blocked an Amazon warehouse south of Paris in a Black Friday-inspired protest, amid increased opposition to the post-Thanksgiving sales phenomenon that has seen a group of French lawmakers push to ban it altogether.

Protesters from climate group Amis de la terre (Friends of the Earth) spread hay and old refrigerators and microwaves on the driveway leading to the warehouse in Bretigny-sur-Orge on Thursday. They held signs in front of the gates reading “Amazon: For the climate, for jobs, stop expansion, stop over-production!”

The activists were later dislodged by police.

More demonstrations are expected as Black Friday looms into view. French climate groups are planning “Block Friday” demonstrations Friday.

Their objections are garnering some support within France’s National Assembly. Some French lawmakers want to ban Black Friday, which has morphed into a global phenomenon even though it stems from a specifically U.S. holiday: Thanksgiving Thursday.

A French legislative committee passed an amendment Monday that proposes prohibiting Black Friday since it causes “resource waste” and “overconsumption.”

The amendment, which was put forward by France’s former environment minister, Delphine Batho, will be debated next month. France’s e-commerce union has condemned it.

On Europe 1 radio Thursday, France’s ecological transition minister, Elisabeth Borne, criticized Black Friday for creating “traffic jams, pollution, and gas emissions.”

She added that she would support Black Friday if it helped small French businesses, but said it mostly benefits large online retailers.

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When AIDS was first identified, more than 40 years ago, it was considered a death sentence. Since then, it has become a chronic but treatable disease. The yearly World AIDS Day observance is a way to make people realize AIDS is still with us and, despite advances, the epidemic isn’t over. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports

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Festive floats and giant balloons are on the move in New York City for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual, nationally-televised spectacle. Blustery weather had threatened to ground the balloons, a crowd favorite not permitted to fly in strong winds.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio drew cheers from the crowd when he declared the balloons “are going to fly” even if a “little lower.” Handlers are keeping the massive inflatables only a couple meters above them.

In the past, strong winds have caused some helium-inflated characters to detach from tethers, leading to injuries.

This year’s parade, the 93rd sponsored by American retail department store Macy’s, includes a canine cartoon character, Snoopy, as an astronaut.

The event features about 8,000 marchers, two dozen floats and many marching bands — ending with an appearance by Santa Claus.

Among the performers scheduled for this year are singers Celine Dion, Ciara, Kelly Rowland and Idina Menzel.

For many Americans, the holiday to give thanks also marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

 

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When opposition leader Keiko Fujimori leaves prison, her supporters will applaud her freedom and her detractors will lament what they consider more impunity for the corrupt, but the reality is the future is far from clear for the woman who twice almost won Peru’s presidency.

The Constitutional Tribunal narrowly approved a habeas corpus request to free Fujimori from detention while she is investigated for alleged corruption. But the magistrates noted the 4-3 decision does not constitute a judgment on her guilt or innocence with regards to accusations she accepted money from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

The daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori — who herself was jailed in October 2018 — could be returned to a cell.

“Although the Constitutional Tribunal has freed her for a strictly procedural matter, it has not absolved her of any of the charges, and it also did not dismiss the new charges made by the Public Ministry,” political analyst Iván García Mayer said.

It is unclear when Fujimori will be freed, but authorities said after Monday’s court ruling that it could happen later in the week.

The 44-year-old will leave prison to a changed political landscape, facing the tough task of rebuilding her political party and career, both of which have been eroded by scandals. Her Popular Force party held a majority in congress until September, when President Martín Vizcarra dissolved the legislature in a popular move he described as necessary to uproot corruption.

The conservative Popular Force will participate in January legislative elections, but Fujimori is not expected to be a candidate and some expect the party to fade in the vote.

As leader of Popular Force, Fujimori managed to undermine the government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, fueling the impeachment of the now imprisoned ex-president for lying about his ties with Odebrecht.

But now Fujimori herself has been ensnared by a corruption scandal that has toppled political and businesses leaders around Latin America.

In 2016, Odebrecht recognized in a plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department that it paid some $800 million in bribes to officials throughout the region. The bribes included some $29 million in Peru for public works contracts during the administrations of President Alejandro Toledo and two of his successors. Corruption allegations have hit all of Peru’s presidents between 2001 and 2016.

Prosecutors accuse Fujimori of laundering $1.2 million provided by Odebrecht for her 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns. They opened an investigation into the campaigns after seeing a note written by Marcelo Odebrecht, head of the Brazilian mega-company, on his cellphone that said: “increase Keiko to 500 and pay a visit.”

Fujimori denies the accusations against her and says prosecutors and Peru’s election body have received Popular Force’s accounting books for inspection.

Her jailing capped a striking downfall for a politician who went from first lady at age 19, to powerful opposition leader, to within a hair’s breadth of the presidency.

Hundreds of mostly young people protested Monday’s ruling freeing her, calling it another demonstration of impunity for the corrupt.

But Fujimori’s supporters have painted “Free Keiko” signs around Lima. Her husband, Mark Villanella, had been on a more than week-long hunger strike outside the jail holding Fujimori.

Fujimori’s father, a strongman who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, remains a polarizing figure. Some Peruvians praise him for defeating Maoist Shining Path guerrillas and resurrecting a devastated economy, while others detest him for human rights violations. He is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption.

Keiko Fujimori assumed the role of first lady following the traumatic divorce of her father and Susana Higuchi.

She graduated in business administration from Boston University in 1997 and returned to the United States in 2000 to obtain a master’s degree in business from Columbia University.

She tried to follow in her father’s presidential footsteps and forge a gentler, kinder version of the movement known as “Fujimorismo.”

She finished second in the 2011 election and five years later lost in a razor-thin vote, coming within less than half a percentage point of defeating Kuczynski.

Now, emerging into a new Peru with a dissolved congress and widespread dislike for political elites, Fujimori faces a tough situation, analysts say.

She “is in a very bad position; it will be very difficult for her to recover because the immense majority believe she really committed acts of corruption,” said analyst and sociologist Fernando Rospigliosi.

“She is not going to recover in the medium term,” he said.

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Marko Kepi, an Albanian-American activist, is heading a fundraising campaign to aid victims of Wednesday’s earthquake.

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Albanian Defense Minister Olta Xhacka becomes emotional while reading names of victims of the strongest earthquake to hit Albania in more than three decades.

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law congressional legislation backing protesters in Hong Kong despite angry objections from Beijing, with which he is seeking a deal to end a damaging trade war.

The new legislation, approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate and by all but one lawmaker in the House of Representatives last week, requires the State Department to certify, at least annually, that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify favorable U.S. trading terms that have helped it maintain its position as a world financial center. It also threatens sanctions for human rights violations.

Congress passed a second bill — which Trump also signed — banning the export to the Hong Kong police of crowd-control munitions, such as teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and stun guns.

“I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China, and the people of Hong Kong. They are being enacted in the hope that Leaders and Representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences leading to long term peace and prosperity for all,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump had been vague about whether he would sign or veto the legislation, while trying strike a deal with China on trade that he has made a top priority ahead of his 2020 re-election bid.

China has denounced the legislation as gross interference in its affairs and a violation of international law.

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The U.S. Navy announced Wednesday that it would scrap plans to carry out reviews of three Navy SEALs that could have led to their ouster from the elite force, after President Donald Trump’s extraordinary intervention in a related case. 

“I have determined that any failures in conduct, performance, judgment or professionalism exhibited by these officers be addressed through other administrative measures as appropriate,” acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said in a statement. 

The decision followed Trump’s order on Sunday that Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher keep his status as a Navy SEAL, even after he was convicted of battlefield misconduct. The review of the three other SEALs was connected to the Gallagher case. 

Critics say the actions undermine military justice and send a message that battlefield atrocities will be tolerated. Trump’s former Navy secretary, Richard Spencer, who was fired on Sunday over the case, has spoken out against the president on the issue. 

“The president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices,” Spencer wrote in a piece published Wednesday by The Washington Post.

Trump: I’m defending fighters

Trump has argued that the Navy mishandled Gallagher’s case and has said that he is defending America’s combat fighters from unfair and unfounded prosecution. 

The now-terminated reviews of the three remaining SEALs — Lieutenant Jacob Portier, Lieutenant Commander Robert Breisch and Lieutenant Thomas MacNeil — had received far less attention than the Gallagher case. 

A military jury in July convicted Gallagher of illegally posing for pictures with the corpse of an Islamic State fighter while deployed to Iraq in 2017, but acquitted him of murder in the detainee’s death. Gallagher also was cleared of charges of attempted murder in the wounding of two civilians, a schoolgirl and an elderly man, shot from a sniper’s perch. 

Portier, Breisch and MacNeil were under scrutiny in the Gallagher affair as his superiors. 

Modly said his decision to scrap the reviews should not be interpreted as a diminishment of the SEAL ethos, which he quoted. It says the elite fighters serve with honor “on and off the battlefield.” 

“The United States Navy, and the Naval Special Warfare Community specifically, have dangerous and important work to do,” he said in his statement. “In my judgment, neither deserves the continued distraction and negative attention that recent events have evoked.” 

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