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.

…

your ads here!

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.
 

…

your ads here!

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.
 

…

your ads here!

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.”
 

…

your ads here!

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.

 

…

your ads here!

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.

…

your ads here!

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

…

your ads here!

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.

 

…

your ads here!

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.

…

your ads here!

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

…

your ads here!

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

…

your ads here!

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.

…

your ads here!

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.” 

…

your ads here!

Colombians unhappy with President Ivan Duque’s response to nearly a week of boisterous protests over everything from job losses to shark hunting took to the streets again Wednesday in a continuing tide of unrest.

The daily protests jolting the South American country proclaim a wide array of complaints but echo one refrain: an opposition to a government that many believe only looks after the most privileged citizens.

“We feel defenseless to everything,” Lucy Rosales, 60, a pensioner in Bogota. “We don’t feel like we have a voice that represents us. It’s many things that they allowed to accumulate.”

Several thousand people blew whistles and waving their nation’s flag as they marched through the streets of the capital around mid-afternoon, while indigenous activists blocked part of a major highway in southwest Colombia.

The new demonstration came a day after Duque’s attempt to quell the discontent by holding talks with a protest steering group hit a snag: Members of the National Strike Committee refused to join broader talks the president has called with all social sectors, fearing their demands would be diluted.

“The government has not been able to learn from the Chilean and Ecuadorian experiences,” said Jorge Restrepo, an economics professor, referring to recent mass demonstrations in both of those countries. “It has made very many mistakes.”

The steering committee presented a 13-point list of demands Tuesday that asks Duque to withdraw or refrain from tax, labor and pension law changes that are either before the legislature or rumored to be in development. The labor and student leaders also want Duque to review free-trade agreements, eliminate a police unit accused in the death of an 18-year-old student protester and fully implement the nation’s historic peace accord with leftist rebels.

Organizers dismissed Duque’s calls to join his “National Conversation” that would run through March — an initiative that appears to take a page from French President Emmanuel Macron, who opened a “Great National Debate” to involve citizens in drafting reforms after months of angry protests in that country.

“It’s a monologue between the government and its allies,” said Diogenes Orjuela, president of the Central Workers Union, one of the main forces behind the National Strike Committee.

It remains unclear to what extent the Strike Committee represents protesters in what has become a largely citizen-driven outpouring of discontent. An invitation to gather in a park or bang pots and pans quickly goes viral on WhatsApp and soon hundreds fill neighborhoods with the angry sound of clanging metal and chants like “Get out Duque!”

“We’re tired,” Ana Maria Moya, a student, said. “We’re saying, ‘No more.’”

Though the National Strike Committee drew an estimated 250,000 people to the streets last Thursday, far fewer protesters were heeding their call for a new strike on Wednesday. Protesters filled the storied Plaza Bolivar but life continued as normal in much of the rest of the capital.

Various leaders have tried to capitalize on the momentum, but none yet has emerged as the unequivocal voice of the protesters.

“There is a contest over the ownership of the protesters,” Restrepo said. “I see students get out in the streets because they need more social mobility, higher levels of income, more opportunities at least in employment. But then the ones that claim they represent those students in the streets are the unions.”

Colombia is widely considered in need of labor and pension reform. Few retirees currently have access to pensions, with the lowest-income earners the least likely to get one. Labor laws make it difficult to hire new employees. Even as the nation’s economy grows at a healthy 3.3%, unemployment has risen to nearly 11%.

“I would characterize the demands of the National Strike Committee as highly conservative, regressive and counter-reformist demands,” Restrepo said.

Orjuela, a former schoolteacher who participated in Colombia’s last major strike, in 1977, said protest organizers would be willing to support a pension reform as long as it involves a state and not a private-run system.

Even as they parse out the details, the committee’s general message decrying Duque has resonated widely, tapping into the myriad frustrations of Colombians.

For some it is big-picture issues like not fully implementing peace accords, endemic corruption and persistent economic inequality. For others it is small indignities, like relatively pricey public transportation that is also slow and overcrowded.

One unexpected sight in the protests has been that of giant plastic sharks hoisted by at least one protester denouncing a government decision allowing a certain amount of shark fishing.

“It’s like all the groups are feeding off each other,” said Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, a human rights advocate with the Washington Office on Latin America.

Few expected that such a mixed bag of motivations could generate a prolonged protest and it remained unclear how long it might drag on. Thus far, four people have died, hundreds have been injured and tens of millions of dollars have been lost from businesses shuttering during demonstrations.The patience of some Colombians is beginning to wear thin.

Julio Contreras, a deliveryman who was tear gassed while trying to get 20 kilos (44 pounds) of chicken to restaurants, said he is ready for the protests to be done.

“They’re not letting us work,” he said. “The students should be in the universities and not affecting us.”

…

your ads here!

U.S. prosecutors have arrested a Hawaii man they accuse of sending hundreds of unwanted service providers and others to a Utah home, including plumbers and prostitutes.

Loren Okamura was arrested Friday in Hawaii following his indictment last month on charges of cyberstalking, interstate threats and transporting people for prostitution, court documents show.

Okamura, 44, targeted a father and her adult daughter, sending the woman threatening messages and posting her picture and address online, authorities said. One posting said the homeowner wanted drugs and prostitutes at the house in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood in a Salt Lake City suburb.

The Gilmore family was “tormented” during the year-plus that the “extreme cyberstalking” endured, U.S. Attorney John Huber said Tuesday at a news conference.

Investigators had been focused on Okamura as the suspect since January when the Gilmores were granted a protective injunction in Utah. It took investigators time to gather enough evidence to charge Okamura because of his use of encryption and apps that made him appear anonymous, Huber said.

“For all the good that technology offers us in our modern lifestyles, there is also a darker, seedier side to it,” Huber said. “That’s what you have here.”

Huber declined to disclose the relationship between the victim and Okamura, but said it was not random. He noted that most stalkers had a previous intimate relationship with their victims and said, “those dynamics are present in this case.”

A sealed indictment was issued on Oct. 2, but Okamura wasn’t arrested until Friday as police struggled to find him because he doesn’t have a permanent address or job and is “savvy” with technology he used to mask his phone’s location.

A team of Utah officers flew to Honolulu and teamed with FBI agents on a 15-hour search Friday for Okamura that ended when they arrested him without incident at a supermarket, said Sgt. Jeff Plank of the Utah Department of Public Safety, who was assigned to the FBI’s cybercrime task force.

Okamura’s federal public defender, Sharron Rancourt, didn’t immediately return a phone message and emails seeking comment.

Okamura is scheduled to be in court in Hawaii on Wednesday for a detention hearing.

Prosecutors say Okamura’s online stalking began sometime in 2018 and led as many as 500 unwanted people to go to the house, according to Gilmore. Okamura sent food deliveries, repair services, tow trucks, locksmiths, plumbers and prostitutes to “harass and intimidate” the family, costing the service providers thousands of dollars in lost business, according to the charging documents.

Utah police went to the North Salt Lake house more than 80 times over a four-month period from November 2018 to February 2019. The activities affected the entire neighborhood, prosecutors say.

Okamura sent the woman extensive and repeated texts and voicemails.

In May, the woman received a threatening email telling her she should “sleep with one eye open and keep looking over her shoulder.” The email told her, “You should just kill yourself and do your family a favor,” charging documents show.

Prosecutors say they have records from Okamura’s cellphone and Apple ID to support the charges. His arrest was first reported by Hawaii News Now.

Walt Gilmore didn’t immediately return messages Tuesday. 

…

your ads here!

Pennsylvania enacted legislation Tuesday to give future victims of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits and to end time limits for police to file criminal charges.

Gov. Tom Wolf signed new laws he said will help repair “faults in our justice system that prevent frightened, abused children from seeking justice when they grow into courageous adults.”

The legislative package was based on recommendations in last year’s landmark grand jury report about the cover-up of hundreds of cases of child sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses over much of the 20th century.

However, Republicans with majority control of the state Senate blocked the two-year window, which was a top priority of victim advocates, victims and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

They all want the state to temporarily lift time limits that currently bar now-adult victims of child sexual abuse from suing their perpetrators and institutions that may have helped hide it.

About two dozen states have changed their laws on statutes of limitations this year, according to Child USA, a Philadelphia-based think tank that advocates for child protection.

Wolf, a Democrat, signed bills to invalidate secrecy agreements that keep child sexual abuse victims from talking to investigators, and to increase and clarify penalties for people who are required to report suspected child abuse but fail to do so.

Wolf signed the bills at Muhlenberg High School in Reading, the home district of state Democratic Rep. Mark Rozzi, a champion of the legislation and who has spoken publicly about being raped as a 13-year-old boy by a Roman Catholic priest.

“We know our work is not done today, it’s going to continue,” Rozzi said.

The grand jury report prompted a lengthy battle in the Legislature that pitted victims and their advocates who sought the two-year window to file claims over past abuse against top Senate Republicans, who argued it would be unconstitutional and instead offered the slower alternative of amending the state constitution.

The multi-year amendment process has begun, but the bill must again pass both the House and Senate in the 2021-22 legislative session before voters will decide its fate.

Shapiro, a Democrat, said the eliminated time limits means prosecutors could file charges against only two priests after the report was issued. Shapiro said that if the new legislation had applied, some 100 priests could have been charged.

Wolf and Shapiro urged lawmakers to take up the two-year window for lawsuits rather than wait for the constitutional amendment process to play out.

“By waiting, we are robbing the very victims who made this day possible, we are robbing them of the only closure before them,” Shapiro said. “Think about the many Pennsylvanians who have a story to tell about sexual abuse. Why should anyone who’s been a victim of sexual abuse or its cover-up be made to suffer while others get three or four more years of a free pass?”

The main bill in the legislative package ends any statute of limitations, in future cases, for criminal prosecution of major child sexual abuse crimes. Current law limits it to the victim’s 50th birthday.

Victims would have until they turn 55 to sue, compared to age 30 in current law. Young adults ages 18-23 would have until age 30 to sue, where existing law gives them just two years.

Police could file criminal charges up to 20 years after the crime when young adults 18-23 years old are the victims, as opposed to 12 years after the crime for victims over 17 in current law.

Other state have previously amended their laws.

In New Jersey, lawmakers expanded the civil statute of limitations from two years to seven years. The bill opened a two-year window, which starts on Dec. 1, to victims who were previously barred by the statute of limitations. It also allows victims to seek damages from institutions.

New York raised the victim’s age for which prosecutors can seek a felony indictment from 23 to 28. The law also gave anyone a year starting in August to file child sex abuse lawsuits against individuals and institutions, and civil lawsuits going forward can be filed until the victim is 55, up from 23.

…

your ads here!

Donald Trump on Tuesday followed a White House Thanksgiving tradition by pardoning “Butter,” the turkey, and his alternate, “Bread.” The president also honored his own tradition of cracking jokes while granting clemency to the poultry. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.

…

your ads here!

Rescuers were pulling survivors and dead bodies from piles of rubble in Albania on Tuesday after a 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck the country’s coastal area. The U.S. Geological survey placed the quake’s epicenter about 30 kilometers north of the capital Tirana and at a depth of about 20 kilometers. The earthquake was followed by about 100 aftershocks, including three with preliminary magnitudes of about 5. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the death toll is rising.

…

your ads here!

WHITE HOUSE — President Donald Trump on Tuesday honored another White House tradition where he granted a pardon to “Butter,” the turkey, and his alternate, “Bread,” in the Rose Garden, ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.  

Honoring his own tradition of cracking jokes while granting clemency to poultry, Trump said, “I expect this pardon will be a very popular one with the media. After all, turkeys are closely related to vultures.”

The turkeys have been “raised to remain calm under any condition, which will be very important because they’ve already received subpoenas to appear in Adam Schiff’s basement on Thursday,” Trump said, referring to impeachment hearings.

“Bread and Butter, I should note that unlike previous witnesses, you and I have actually met,” the president said in another jab to Democrats and their impeachment inquiry.

The president made a similar subpoena joke during last year’s turkey pardon, saying, “Even though Peas and Carrots have received a presidential pardon, I have warned them that House Democrats are likely to issue them both subpoenas.”

Trump has made political jokes during all of his Thanksgiving turkey pardons since coming to office. In his first turkey pardon in 2017, Trump joked that he has been “very active in overturning” executive actions taken by his predecessor Barack Obama, but would not subject the birds to it.

“I have been informed by the White House counsel’s office that Tater and Tot’s pardons cannot, under any circumstances, be revoked,” Trump said. “So, Tater and Tot, you can rest easy.”

Matthew Costello, assistant director of the David M. Rubinstein National Center for White House History, said that in these events presidents get to lighten up and show “who they are as a person.”

Costello recalled how President Obama used to make what his daughters call “bad dad jokes” during these ceremonies, while Trump is more focused on how he’s covered in the press. “I think he sees it as an opportunity then to sort of tease and make fun of some of those things,” added Costello.

As far as Bread and Butter are concerned, both birds got to stay at a luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., prior to the pardoning, and will spend the rest of their lives at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Turkey tradition

Turkeys are a staple main dish for the American Thanksgiving holiday, which falls on the last Thursday of November. According to the White House Historical Association, pardoning them became a presidential tradition since George H. W. Bush in 1989 but the custom has earlier roots.

“A White House reporter in 1865 published a report about President Lincoln pardoning a turkey that he grew fond of,” said Costello. However, that turkey was headed to become Christmas dinner, not Thanksgiving.

The first turkey pardon on record was in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy received a turkey as a gift for Thanksgiving dinner but decided to let it live on Nov. 19. Three days later, the president was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan deflected questions about the Iran-Contra scandal and whether he would pardon the actors involved, Oliver North and John Poindexter.

“If they’d given me a different answer on Charlie and his future, I would have pardoned him,” Reagan said, referring to the bird.

Before its pardoning, turkeys have been sent as gifts to American presidents from as early as the 1870s, said Costello. In the early 1920s, there had been such a huge poultry influx that President Calvin Coolidge discouraged Americans from sending them. He received not only turkeys for dinner, but quail, ducks, geese, rabbits, deer, even a raccoon, which became a Coolidge family pet named Rebecca.

In recent years, the White House has turned the pardon to be a social media event and encouraged people to participate, including voting on the name via the online poll.

After pardoning the turkeys, Trump and first lady Melania Trump departed the White House to spend Thanksgiving holidays at his Florida golf resort, Mar-a-Lago.
 

…

your ads here!

This week on Healthy Living, we discuss access to safe abortionsin Africa and the impact of new U.S. restrictions on funding for abortions. Wakikona Rose, Senior Program Officer with the Center for Health, Human Rights, and Development joins the show from Kampala for more on this topic. Also, some tips on quitting smoking, how doctors in the DRC are taking steps to address sleeping sickness, and how researchers may have discovered a way to address antibiotic resistance. These topics and more on this episode of Healthy Living.

…

your ads here!

Ukraine’s president says he has discussed a new contract for natural gas supplies from Russia during a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he discussed the gas deal with Putin during Monday’s phone call. Zelenskiy said Tuesday that the deal is a priority for Ukraine and important for Europe’s energy security.

Talks on a replacing a contract expiring this year have dragged, raising fears of disruptions of Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine.

Price and debt disputes led to disruptions of Russian gas deliveries to European customers during the winters of 2006 and 2009.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have remained badly strained since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
 

…

your ads here!

Russia’s foreign minister is warning Syria’s Kurds that relying on U.S. support “won’t bring them any good.”

Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday accused Syria’s Kurds of failing to abide by a Russia-Turkey deal that halted a Turkish offensive into Syria.

He says the Kurds are trying to stay allied with the U.S., and avoid engaging in dialogue with the Syrian government.

U.S. and Kurdish-led forces fought the Islamic State group for years. Washington’s support allowed the Kurds to set up an independent government in eastern Syria.

But American troops pulled out of most of the country in October, paving the way for Turkey’s offensive against the Kurds. Russia, which backs the Syrian government, helped broker a cease-fire.

Lavrov dismissed the Kurdish claims of Turkey’s violations of the cease-fire.

 

 

…

your ads here!