Vietnam Friday announced its first arrests in a suspected cross-border trafficking case in Essex, England, where authorities found the bodies of 39 Vietnamese they believe suffocated to death in a refrigerated truck.

Police in Ha Tinh province said they arrested and charged two suspects after 10 local families reported fearing their family members were among the 39 victims. The case has reached the highest levels of government, with both the British and Vietnamese prime ministers ordering investigations. The probes have expanded to include transit countries China, Ireland, and Belgium, where officials say the driver of the truck said he’d been transporting cookies and biscuits.

“The Ha Tinh Police have gathered the forces and means to clearly investigate the legal violations of individuals and organizations involved,” a post on the police website said Saturday. They did not name the suspects but said they detained others for questioning too.

 The suspects were charged with “organizing and brokering for other people to flee abroad or stay abroad illegally.” British police have also arrested or charged at least five people on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people.

Journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai, the author of the book “Chinese Whispers: The Story Behind Britain’s Hidden Army of Labour,” wrote in the Guardian Wednesday that it is not constructive to merely focus on crime or “evil human traffickers.” She argued the 39 found last month were not hapless victims lured into trafficking, but workers “fighting for a future for their families.”

“In reality, the Vietnamese young men and women who choose to travel on these dangerous routes only do so when they cannot come to Britain in formal ways,” she wrote.

Pai said there “will be more deaths in lorries unless Britain changes” its anti-migrant policies.
“Let our fellow human beings have the opportunity to live and work in the open,” she wrote.

Separately, police in another Vietnamese province, Nghe An, said last week they arrested four people suspected of involvement in a trafficking ring, local media reported. It is unclear if that network was at all involved with the Vietnamese migrants found in Essex, but the truck deaths have increased the attention and urgency around existing investigations.

For the Essex Police, the truck deaths reportedly mark the biggest investigation they have conducted into mass casualties.

Although Vietnam has greatly decreased poverty since the end of the U.S.-Vietnam war, some still find they can earn more money to support their families by going overseas.

Among Asian migrants, Vietnamese pay the highest costs to brokers, and the number of migrants is rising, according to the International Labor Organization in Vietnam. It recommends that governments collaborate to ensure safe channels for migration, so people don’t have to resort to brokers. Migrants are still going through irregular channels because globalization has created more jobs in more places; however, while globalization has fostered the flow of companies and capital across borders, it has not done so for workers, pushing them toward trafficking.

“With collaboration and cooperation, labor migration can be a positive development force, and risks to the safety of migrant workers can be reduced,” Chang-Hee Lee, the ILO country director in Hanoi, said Tuesday.

…

The U.S. government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co.’s $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, according to two people familiar with the matter. 
 
While the $1 billion acquisition was completed two years ago, U.S. lawmakers have been calling in recent weeks for a national security probe into TikTok, concerned the Chinese company may be censoring politically sensitive content, and raising questions about how it stores personal data. 
 
TikTok has been growing more popular among U.S. teenagers at a time of growing tensions between the United States and China over trade and technology transfers. About 60% of TikTok’s 26.5 million monthly active users in the United States are between the ages of 16 and 24, the company said earlier this year. 
 
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews deals by foreign acquirers for potential national security risks, has started to review the Musical.ly deal, the sources said. TikTok did not seek clearance from CFIUS when it acquired Musical.ly, they added, which gives the U.S. security panel scope to investigate it now. 

CFIUS, TikTok confer

CFIUS is in talks with TikTok about measures it could take to avoid divesting the Musical.ly assets it acquired, the sources said. Details of those talks, referred to by CFIUS as mitigation, could not be learned. The specific concerns that CFIUS has could also not be learned. 
 
The sources requested anonymity because CFIUS reviews are confidential. 
 
“While we cannot comment on ongoing regulatory processes, TikTok has made clear that we have no higher priority than earning the trust of users and regulators in the U.S. Part of that effort includes working with Congress and we are committed to doing so,” a TikTok spokesperson said.  

ByteDance did not immediately reply to a request for comment. 
 
The U.S. Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.   

Last week, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, asked for a national security probe. They said they were concerned about the video-sharing platform’s collection of user data, and whether China censors content seen by U.S. users. They also suggested TikTok could be targeted by foreign influence campaigns. 
 
“With over 110 million downloads in the U.S. alone, TikTok is a potential counterintelligence threat we cannot ignore,” Schumer and Cotton wrote to Joseph Macguire, acting director of national intelligence. 
 
TikTok allows users to create and share short videos with special effects. The company has said U.S. user data is stored in the United States, but the senators noted that ByteDance is governed by Chinese laws. 
 
TikTok also says China does not have jurisdiction over content of the app, which does not operate in China and is not influenced by any foreign government. 
 
Last month, Musical.ly founder Alex Zhu, who heads the TikTok team, started to report directly to ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming, one of the sources said. He previously reported to Zhang Nan, the head of ByteDance’s Douyin, a Chinese short video app. 
 
It was not clear whether this move, which separates TikTok organizationally from ByteDance’s other holdings, was related to the company’s discussions with CFIUS over mitigation.  

In October, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, asked CFIUS to review ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly. He cited questions about why TikTok had “only had a few videos of the Hong Kong protests that have been dominating international headlines for months.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose product competes with TikTok, particularly for younger users, has also criticized the app over censorship concerns. 
 
The United States has been increasingly scrutinizing app developers over the safety of personal data they handle, especially if some of it involves U.S. military or intelligence personnel. 
 
Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd. said in May that it would seek to sell its popular gay dating app Grindr after it was approached by CFIUS with national security concerns. 
 
Last year, CFIUS forced China’s Ant Financial to scrap plans to buy MoneyGram International Inc. over concerns about the safety of data that could be used to identify U.S. citizens. 

The panel also compelled Oceanwide Holdings and Genworth Financial Inc. to work through a U.S. third party data administrator to ensure the Chinese company could not access the insurer’s  U.S. customers’ personal private data. 
 
ByteDance’s rise 
 
ByteDance is one of China’s fastest-growing startups. It owns the country’s leading news aggregator, Jinri Toutiao, as well as TikTok, which has attracted celebrities like Ariana Grande and Katy Perry. 

ByteDance counts Japanese technology giant SoftBank, venture firm Sequoia Capital and big private-equity firms such as KKR, General Atlantic and Hillhouse Capital Group as backers. 

Analysts have called ByteDance a strong threat to other Chinese tech industry firms, including social media and gaming giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. and search engine leader Baidu Inc. 

Globally, ByteDance’s apps have 1.5 billion monthly active users and 700 million daily active users, the company said in July. 
 
The seven-year-old Chinese startup posted better-than-expected revenue for the first half of 2019 at over $7 billion, and was valued at $78 billion late last year, sources have told Reuters. 

…

An aid group estimates that more than 1 million people in East Africa are affected by flooding after higher-than-normal rainfall.

Parts of the region are bracing for a tropical storm that could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.

The International Rescue Committee on Friday said many people had been reeling from an earlier period of severe drought.

The rains in parts of Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya are expected for another four to six weeks.

South Sudan’s president earlier this week declared a state of emergency in 27 counties because of the flooding. 
 
Experts say the floods are a worrying sign of how climate change is affecting already vulnerable communities. 
 

…

Experts warn that climate change is speeding up melting on Earth’s frozen peaks, threatening the planet’s long-term water supply. 

The more than 150 global mountain experts attending the first High Mountain Summit warn time is running out for the world’s glaciers. They say climate change is causing temperatures to rise in Earth’s frozen zones, leading to a rapid melting on vital peaks.

For example, scientists say Swiss glaciers have lost 10 percent of their volume in the past five years. The disappearance of hundreds of small glaciers in the Alps was dramatized when hundreds of mourners recently attended what was dubbed a “funeral” to mark the loss of Switzerland’s Pizol glacier.

The World Meteorological Organization reports international observers show an acceleration in the retreat of 31 major glaciers in the past two decades. They include mountains in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush regions and Tibetan Plateau in Asia.  

Summit co-chair, Canadian John Pomeroy, a water resources and climate change expert, said the loss of water resources in mountain ranges around the world is devastating the communities in those areas.  He said it also is destabilizing vast populations downstream.

“Around half of humanity relies upon water and rivers that originate in the high mountains. And, so this is used for irrigation. It is used for power production, hydroelectricity. It is used for our urban and community water supplies and it provides essential water for ecosystems from the mountaintop down to the sea.”  

Pomeroy added the rapidly melting mountain glaciers are contributing to rising sea levels. He notes cities along the ocean such as Miami, Venice and Jakarta already are in big trouble.  

“For the high mountain communities or valleys in north India, Pakistan, central Asia, their irrigation is the only source of water for agriculture that is currently provided by ice melt from glaciers,” Pomeroy said. “And the glaciers are retreating … In the Western U.S., 90 percent of the water supplies are from the high mountains and they drive the economy.”  

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which measures the impact of global warming, predicts snow cover, glaciers and permafrost will continue to decline in almost all regions throughout this century.

The summit is calling for urgent action to support more sustainable development in both high-mountain areas and downstream. That will involve disaster risk reduction measures, better early warning systems, climate change adaptation and investment in infrastructure to make communities safer.
 

…

The United Nations global climate meeting next month will take place in Madrid rather than Chile, which had to bow out as host on short notice, officials said Friday. 

U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa said representatives of the body that organizes the annual conference had accepted Spain’s offer to host it in the country’s capital Dec. 2-13. 

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced Wednesday that he was canceling plans to host the meeting, as well as a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, to focus on restoring security in his country following weeks of protests in which at least a dozen people have died. 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s office offered Thursday to step in, sending delegates from around the world scrambling to change their travel plans. 

Sanchez, who is facing a national election Nov. 10, celebrated Friday’s decision. 

“Excellent news: Madrid will host the global climate meeting from Dec. 2-13. Spain is already at work to guarantee its staging of COP25. Our government firmly keeps its commitment to lasting progress and a just ecological transition,” Sanchez wrote on Twitter. 

Among those who were planning to attend the conference in Chile was Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, whose climate protests have helped inspire tens of thousands of mostly young people to take to the streets demanding greater efforts from world leaders. 

The teenager made a high-profile crossing from England to New York by sailboat earlier this year and planned to travel overland to Santiago to speak at the meeting. Thunberg refuses to fly because of aviation’s big carbon footprint. 

A little help?

After the move to Madrid was confirmed Friday, Thunberg appealed for help. 

“It turns out I’ve traveled half around the world, the wrong way,” she tweeted. 

“Now I need to find a way to cross the Atlantic in November. … If anyone could help me find transport I would be so grateful,” she added. 

Thunberg voiced regret about not being able to visit Central and South America as planned, saying she had been looking forward to doing so. 

“But this is of course not about me, my experiences or where I wish to travel. We’re in a climate and ecological emergency,” she said. 

The scale of the Madrid conference wasn’t immediately clear. More than 20,000 people attended last year’s climate conference in Katowice, Poland. 

The 25th Conference of the Parties, or COP25, is meant to work out some of the remaining unresolved issues on the rules that countries must follow in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

The meetings have also become a venue for countries to announce new initiatives to respond to global warming. 

…

The Washington Nationals will not have to travel far, or wait all that long, to visit the White House, as the World Series champions have a get-together planned with President Donald Trump on Monday.

Typically, teams wait until the following season when they are in Baltimore or Washington to visit the White House, but the logistics were not all that difficult for a team that plays a mere three miles away. A ceremony on the South Lawn is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. EST.

The White House visit will come after a parade to honor the champions on Saturday. The Nationals completed the seven-game World Series with a victory Wednesday at Houston. 

The road team won every game, the first time that has happened in World Series history.

Trump attended Game 5 of the series on Sunday at Nationals Park, with boos filling the ballpark when he was shown on the video board.

 Trump has also met with the 2017 champion Houston Astros and the 2018 champion Boston Red Sox, although a number of Red Sox players skipped that visit, including manager Alex Cora.

…

As hot, dry Santa Ana winds whipped up wildfires in Southern California this week, 300 unlikely heroes were being credited with helping save the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

Three hundred goats, that is.

That’s because in May, 300 goats were brought to the library to eat all the brush around the complex.

“We actually worked with the Ventura County Fire Department in May and they bring out hundreds of goats to our property,” Melissa Giller, a spokeswoman for the library, told ABC. “The goats eat all of the brush around the entire property, creating a fire perimeter.

“The firefighters on the property said that the fire break really helped them, because as the fire was coming up that one hill, all the brush has been cleared, basically,” she said.

The caprine contractors are part of an 800-head herd from 805 Goats, a Southern California company that offers a “sustainable, ecologically friendly” way to reduce fire danger and manage lands.

Scott Morris, the owner, said he charges $1,000 per acre of land to allow the goats to graze.

Vincent van Goat, Selena Goatmez, Goatzart and Nibbles were among the goats in the herd brought in to clear about 13 acres at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Morris said goats, which have voracious appetites, prefer to graze on weeds over grass. As for how it works: The goats are brought to the property and turned loose.

The company’s website said, “Goats will consume the noxious weed vegetation first, consisting of eating all the flower heads and leaves, with only bare stock remaining. With the elimination of the flower heads, the natural progression of the cycle is stopped immediately.”

Morris said his year-old company is busy with clients that include cities, homeowners associations and golf courses.

…

TC Energy’s Keystone pipeline has leaked an estimated 383,000 gallons (1.4 million liters) of oil in northeastern North Dakota, marking the second significant spill in two years along the line that carries Canadian tar sands oil through seven states, regulators said Thursday.

Crews on Tuesday shut down the pipeline after the leak was discovered, said Karl Rockeman, North Dakota’s water quality division director. It remained closed Thursday.

The Calgary, Alberta-based company formerly known as TransCanada said in a statement that the leak affected about 22,500 square feet (2090 sq. meters) of land near Edinburg, in Walsh County.

The company and regulators said the cause was being investigated.

“Our emergency response team contained the impacted area and oil has not migrated beyond the immediately affected area,” the company said in a statement.

TC Energy said the area affected by the spill is less than the size of a football field and that the amount of oil released — 9,120 barrels — would approximately half fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.  

North Dakota regulators were notified late Tuesday of the leak. Rockeman said some wetlands were affected, but not any sources of drinking water.

Regulators have been at the site since Wednesday afternoon monitoring the spill and cleanup, he said.

Crude began flowing through the $5.2 billion pipeline in 2011. It’s designed to carry crude oil across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri on the way to refineries in Patoka, Illinois and Cushing, Oklahoma.

It can handle about 23 million gallons daily.

The pipeline spill and shutdown comes as the company seeks to build the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline has drawn opposition from people who fear it will harm the environment.

President Donald Trump issued a federal permit for the expansion project in 2017, after it had been rejected by the Obama administration.Together, the massive Keystone and Keystone XL network would be about five times the length of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

The original Keystone has experienced problems with spills in the past, including one in 2011 of more than 14,000 gallons (53,000 liters) of oil in southeastern North Dakota, near the South Dakota border. That leak was blamed on valve failure at a pumping station.

Another leak in 2016 prompted a weeklong shutdown of the pipeline. The company estimated that just under 17,000 gallons (64,350 liters) of oil spilled onto private land during that leak. Federal regulators said an “anomaly” on a weld on the pipeline was to blame. No waterways or aquifers were affected.

In 2017, the pipeline leaked an estimated 407,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of oil onto farmland in northeastern South Dakota, in a rural area near the North Dakota border. The company had originally put the spill at about 210,000 gallons (795,000 liters).

Federal regulators said at the time that the Keystone leak was the seventh-largest onshore oil or petroleum product spill since 2010. Federal investigators said the pipeline was likely damaged during installation during 2008 and may have occurred when a vehicle drove over the pipe, causing it to weaken over time.

North Dakota’s biggest spill , and one of the largest onshore spills in U.S. history, came in 2013, when 840,000 gallons (3.1 million liters) spilled from a Tesoro pipeline in the northwestern part of the state. The company spent five years and nearly $100 million cleaning it up.

The Sierra Club said the latest spill was an example of why the Keystone XL should not be built.

“We don’t yet know the extent of the damage from this latest tar sands spill, but what we do know is that this is not the first time this pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last.”

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took to Twitter on Thursday to condemn the pipeline and Trump for supporting the extension of it.

Sanders said he would shut down the existing pipeline if elected.

…

On Aug. 25, 1989, an 8-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis wrote in her journal that it was “the most best day” because scientists had “found a Jean for Cistik fibrosis.”  

On Thursday, the current head of the National Institutes of Health — who was a member of one of the teams that found the gene — wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine that a triple-drug therapy has been found to be highly effective in treating the life-threatening disorder.

“We hoped that the gene discovery would someday lead to effective treatments for children and adults with cystic fibrosis,” Francis Collins wrote. “Now, 30 years later, that time has come.”

The drug, called Trikafta, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last week.

Some 30,000 Americans have been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, which causes thick mucus buildup in the patient’s organs, affecting respiration and digestion. While other drugs have helped lengthen patients’ lives, those born with the disease are expected to live only into their 40s.

Past treatments helped only a small percentage of patients, but Trikafta targets Phe508del, the most common mutation of the cystic fibrosis gene. Collins said this means 90% of those suffering from cystic fibrosis — including Jenny, the 8-year-old journal writer — will be helped by the therapy.

Now 38, Jenny McGlincy told The Washington Post that she cried when she read the drug had been approved.

“To think of my lung function improving or my digestion increasing, or even adding a few years to my life that I could spend with my daughter. … Now that it’s available, I’m a little like, ‘Is this really happening?’ ” she told the Post.

 Model of collaboration

Cystic fibrosis research has set a standard of how the collaboration between nonprofits and pharmaceutical firms can help develop treatments. Collins points out that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, frustrated that gene treatments were slow to be found, decided to invest directly in a small company called Aurora Biosciences, which is now Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the developer of Trikafta.

That collaboration, “now spanning more than two decades, can be seen as an important model for other rare genetic diseases,” Collins wrote.

After the discovery of the gene, Collins wrote a song, “Dare to Dream.”  

“The lyrics expressed hope that the gene discovery would lead to effective treatments for cystic fibrosis — that someday we would see ‘all our brothers and sisters breathing free.’ It is profoundly gratifying to see that this dream is coming true,” he said.

…

The deaths of 39 migrants in the back of a refrigerated truck near London last week has focused a spotlight on the lives of those who risk everything to earn a better living in Britain.

Many of the victims are believed to have traveled from Vietnam. Tamsin Barber, an expert on the Vietnamese diaspora in Britain at Oxford Brookes University, says many migrants are willing to take huge risks.

“They’re doing that because they know that when they get to the UK, the likelihood is that they’re going to be able to find work in the cannabis industry, where they might be able to earn large amounts of money in a short period of time, paying back their debts, the debts to the smugglers, and then eventually being able to pay send remittances back to their family,” Barber said.

Cannabis and nail salons

As well as the illegal cannabis industry, many Vietnamese work in nail and beauty salons, which have boomed on British high streets in recent years. Others work in the restaurant trade or as cleaners, while some are drawn into prostitution.

Once here, many migrants are effectively trapped, said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch.

“When they get to the UK, the debt bondage, that huge debt, $30,000 to $40,000, is taken from their wages,” Robertson said. “If they don’t behave or if they don’t follow instructions, there could also be ramifications for their families back in Vietnam from those people-smuggling gangs.”

Robertson said some migrants endure slavelike conditions.

“They’re scared to death that if they are reported or somehow seek out the authorities because they are being abused so badly, that all that happens is they’ll be arrested and sent back to Vietnam, still owing a large debt,” he said.

Entire family benefits

Despite the risks, sending a family member overseas is often a joint decision, Barber said.

“The methods that families might use to raise this sort of money might be selling land, it might be remortgaging their houses, it might be borrowing money from money lenders at very high interest rates,” Barber said.

If successful, the profits can transform communities back home. In Do Thanh, 250 kilometers south of Hanoi, rundown shacks are being replaced with luxury villas. Local resident Nguyen Van Thuy, a metalworker who has remained in the village, says it has changed beyond recognition.

“Originally, the entirety of Do Thanh commune was just farmers working in the fields,” Van Thuy said, “but then some people went overseas to work where they got rich. That’s why many people rushed to go, both flying there legally and using illegal ‘underground’ routes.”

Road to tragedy

That illegal route ended in tragedy last week for 39 migrants crossing the English Channel to Britain. It appears they suffocated in the back of a sealed refrigerated truck.

Nguyen Thanh Le fears his son Hung was among them. The family spoke to VOA Vietnamese this week, after being asked by authorities to provide their son’s photograph and their DNA samples for identification.

Hung last talked to his family Oct. 21, two days before the truck was found with the bodies inside, 30 kilometers east of London. The father said he borrowed more than 400 million dong (US $17,000) from the bank to send his son abroad. He still owes a quarter of that money.

“He wanted to go to England to work in a nail spa,” said Le, saying his son promised to “send money home” from his work in the UK.

Hung, 33, left Vietnam less than a year ago, heading to Russia first and then to France.

“Since my wife and I are both sick, Hung wanted to go to work abroad to get better income to help us, and also to look for a chance to get a better life for himself,” Le said. “He got a degree in music but wasn’t able to find a job.”

Hung graduated from the respected Hue Conservatory University but wanted to go abroad to earn more money. 

“In France, Hung worked as a dishwasher in restaurants,” his father told VOA Vietnamese. “But he got back pain after a while doing the work. Hung told me he wanted to go to England as friends told him that working in a nail spa is more comfortable and he may get better pay.”

Le says he wanted his son to stay home and get married, but Hung was determined to go abroad.

It’s a common story, said Barber of Oxford Brookes University.

“They’re taking these dangerous routes and it’s likely they’re still going to continue to come because there’s so much to be gained from their migration here to the UK.”

Barber says the latest tragedy may put off some migrants from taking risky journeys in the short term.

However, as long as there are no legal routes to Britain for low-skilled migrants and the market for cheap, black-market labor remains high, the demand for illegal people-smugglers will continue to grow.

…

The Nationals’ World Series victory Wednesday night has brought together fans in a city deeply divided by the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Washington Nationals defeated the Houston Astros 6-2 on Wednesday in the seventh game of Major League Baseball’s World Series, earning the team’s first championship win in franchise history.

Politics have previously divided fans at D.C.’s Nationals Park, where the team plays its home games. Last Sunday, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and other prominent Republicans attended the fifth game of the series. The president’s group was loudly booed by members of the audience, many jeering “lock him up.”  

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Ballpark Boos a Rarity for Shielded US President

Donald Trump showered with jeers, boos and chants when he attended a World Series game, a rare moment of in-your-face disapproval for a president whose White House takes extraordinary steps to shield him from protests

But sporting events also provide an opportunity to bring people together, as famously happened during the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, when a public encounter between two pingpong players from China and the U.S. was seen as signaling the thawing of U.S.-Chinese relations during the Cold War.

For D.C. residents, the Nationals’ World Series victory became a moment of unity for the city.

“The impeachment is definitely divisive,” said resident Ore Fashola. “The Nationals’ win in the World Series … is a very big cohesive moment.”

Despite the win, D.C. residents said the good news was only temporary.

“On Saturday, everybody will be together for the parade and for one day only, and then it will go back to business as normal,” said resident Daniel Dowhan. While Wednesday’s win was big, it was too small for people to overcome their differences and be “friends,” he added.

Fashola said she thought the win would be a “short-term” unifier. “I think that [impeachment is] more a long-term focus.”

Some Washingtonians, however, had trouble taking even a short break from the impeachment inquiry on the day of the World Series win.

“I’m following and looking forward to seeing a better change,” said one resident, Penelope, when asked about the inquiry.

The House voted Thursday to authorize a public impeachment inquiry targeting Trump for allegedly pushing Ukraine to investigate his political opponents.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s attended two fundraisers this week, raking in millions of dollars for the Trump 2020 and House Republican campaigns. The events, both held at Trump’s own properties in Washington and Chicago are drawing continued scrutiny and charges of ethics violations that the president brushes aside. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.

…

Chile canceled the hosting of two important international meetings in the capital, Santiago, because of ongoing protests across the South American country. Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera said Wednesday his country will not host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in November or the COP25 environmental summit in December, as his government has to deal with the unprecedented unrest that has left about 20 people dead and led to the resignation of eight cabinet ministers. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

…

Officials in Pakistan say at least 65 people have been killed and dozens more injured after fire engulfed a passenger train near Pakistan’s Rahimyar Khan city.

Local television footage showed flames pouring out of the train’s carriages and people could be heard crying.

Railway authorities are probing the cause. Initial reports say the fire was caused when a gas cylinder in one of the wagons exploded. Army helicopters are helping in rescue efforts. 

Train accidents are common in Pakistan, where the railways have seen decades of decline because of corruption, mismanagement and lack of investment. They often take place at the unmanned crossings, which frequently lack barriers and sometimes signals.

In July, at least 23 people were killed in the same district when a passenger train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into a goods train that had stopped at a crossing.

…

The Washington Nationals defeated the Houston Astros 6-2 Wednesday in the deciding seventh game of the World Series to claim their first Major League Baseball championship in franchise history.

Washington had to rely on what had become a defining factor of their playoff run, staging a late comeback after falling behind early in the game.

The Nationals played in five deciding games in October and at one point trailed in all five. Even making the playoffs seemed like a distant goal in May when the team was struggling with a 19-31 record.

‘We stayed in the fight’

But Manager Dave Martinez, who faced numerous calls for him to be fired, preached resiliency and his motto that to turn things around the team needed only to win that day’s game.

“Guess what, we stayed in the fight,” Martinez said Wednesday, echoing what had become a team slogan. “We won the fight!”

A second-inning home run by Astros first basemen Yuli Gurriel put the Nationals and ace starting pitcher Max Scherzer in a 1-0 hole.

Scherzer was pitching days after being scratched from a planned start in Game 5 of the series thanks to a neck injury. He and the Nationals fell behind 2-0 in the fifth inning as Houston shortstop Carlos Correa singled home Gurriel.

Up to that point, Astros starting pitcher Zack Greinke had been moving methodically through the Washington lineup, allowing only a single by Nationals left fielder Juan Soto in the second inning. Things changed in the seventh inning.

Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon sent a one-out Greinke pitch into the left field stands. Soto came to the plate next and reached on a walk, prompting Astros Manager A.J. Hinch to end Greinke’s night and put the game in the hands of relief pitcher Will Harris.

No relief

The first batter Harris faced was Washington designated hitter Howie Kendrick, already a star of the playoffs for hitting a grand slam in the deciding game of the first round that pushed the Nationals past their painful history of never winning a playoff series.

Kendrick smacked the second pitch from Harris down the right field line where it slammed into the foul pole for a home run that put the Nationals ahead 3-2.

A Soto single in the eighth inning widened the lead to 4-2, and right fielder Adam Eaton gave the Nationals more cushion in the top of the ninth with a single that scored two more runs.

Nationals pitcher Patrick Corbin allowed just two hits in three innings of work, while reliever Daniel Hudson tossed a perfect ninth inning as the Astros failed in their quest to turn their 107-win regular season into a reclamation of the World Series crown they won in 2017.

“Let’s be honest, there’s 28 other teams that would love to have our misery today,” Hinch said after the loss. “We play to get here. We play to have an opportunity to win it all. And I just told our team, it’s hard to put into words and remember all the good that happened because right now we feel as bad as you can possibly feel.”

A game like the season

“The way this game went is the way this whole season went,” said Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who was the team’s first draft pick after it relocated from Montreal to Washington in 2005. “What a story. What a fun year, man.”

The most valuable player of the World Series was Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg. He won Game 1 and Game 6 of the series while giving up just two runs and striking out seven batters in each contest.

Strasburg called the experience of winning a championship “surreal.”

“To be able to do it with this group of guys is something special. We didn’t quit.”

The series made history in an odd way with the visiting team winning each of the seven games. Washington won games one, two, six and seven in Houston, while Houston won games three, four and five in Washington.

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A prolific fundraiser charged with funneling illegal foreign campaign contributions to American political candidates surrendered to authorities in Los Angeles on Wednesday and was released on $3 million bond.

The court appearance came about a week after prosecutors announced charges against Imaad Zuberi, a venture capitalist who raised millions of dollars for both Democratic and Republican political candidates and committees, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump.

Zuberi has agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion, violating campaign finance laws and concealing his work as a foreign agent as he lobbied high-level U.S. government officials. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

Zuberi’s defense attorney declined to comment.

Zuberi, 49, is accused of soliciting donations from foreign nationals and companies and giving the money to several political campaigns, violating a federal law that forbids foreign contributions. He claimed he could use his influence to change foreign policy and create business opportunities for clients and himself.

Prosecutors have not alleged any campaign that received money from Zuberi was aware of his scheme or that any foreign nationals were aware of wrongdoing, and they did not identify the campaigns or foreign nationals in court papers.

But The Associated Press reported this week that a Saudi tycoon and his business associate sent hundreds of thousands of dollars through Zuberi to help pay for President Barack Obama’s second inaugural celebration.

Zuberi signed a plea agreement admitting he received $850,000 from Sheikh Mohammed Al Rahbani but delivered just $97,500 of that money to the Obama inaugural committee, skimming the rest for himself.

Rahbani is not named in the plea agreement, but The AP identified him in part by matching the timing and amounts of donations mentioned in the court filing to publicly available campaign finance records.

Rahbani initially declined to comment. But his attorney sent a letter to The AP on Wednesday saying that Rahbani and his wife, Kate Rahbani, had been unwitting victims of Zuberi’s crimes. The attorney, Martin Auerbach, suggested Rahbani’s name had been attached to political contributions without his consent.

“They have fully cooperated with the government in its investigation of Zuberi and have not been charged with any wrongdoing,” Auerbach wrote in the letter, referring to Rahbani and his wife.

Auerbach also said Kate Rahbani, an American citizen, made the donations to Obama’s inauguration and not her husband.

That account differed from charges outlined in Zuberi’s charging documents, which say the money Zuberi used to pay Obama’s inaugural committee was wired to him by Mohammed Al Rahbani and an associate through a company based in Saudi Arabia and another based in Kuwait. Prosecutors also say in the court filings that Zuberi spoke with Mohammed Al Rahbani about donating additional money to the inaugural fund in exchange for appearing in a photograph with Obama at an event.

Zuberi also admitted violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by submitting false statements in which he concealed a multi-million-dollar contract he signed in 2014 with the Sri Lankan government to help improve that country’s image in the United States.

Prosecutors said he directed millions of dollars from that deal to himself and his wife for personal purposes, shortchanging lobbyists, public relations and law firms, and certain subcontractors who were part of the lobbying effort.

Prosecutors also recently charged a former college classmate and business associate of Zuberi’s accused of participating in the Sri Lankan scheme. Mark Adam Skarulis was charged in September with one misdemeanor count of failing to file a tax return.

A message was sent to Skarulis’ defense attorney seeking comment.

Zuberi’s donations have also been separately scrutinized by federal prosecutors in New York after he gave $900,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee. That donation was not part of his federal criminal case in Los Angeles.

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In Myanmar’s Kachin State, eight years of conflict and displacement has caused some civilians to turn to drugs as authorities struggle to control and rehabilitate heroin and amphetamine addicts, both in the refugee camps and cities across the state. Users and officials tell of the struggles – both on and off the battlefield. Steve Sandford filed this report for VOA

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A respected British think tank slammed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal on Wednesday, concluding that the economy would be 3.5% smaller compared with staying in the European Union.

The study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research says the agreement would deliver a 70 billion-pound ($90 billion) blow to the U.K. Researchers said that the outlook is clouded by political and economic uncertainty.

“We would not expect economic activity to be boosted by the approval of the government’s proposed Brexit deal,” the group said.

The researchers based their prediction on the assumption that the U.K. would leave the bloc with a free trade agreement with the EU after a transition lasting until 2021 while negotiating new deals with other nations. It said that higher “barriers to goods and services, trade and restrictions to migration,” would force the economy to slow.

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UK’s Party Leaders Brace for Brexit Election

The House of Commons on Tuesday approved an early election in hopes of breaking the deadlock over Britain’s departure from the European Union

As politicians squabble over how and when Britain will leave the EU, Brexit is reshaping the economy. Initially planned for March, Brexit was pushed back to Halloween and now is not likely to happen before January. Companies are meanwhile shifting investments, creating new supply chains and stockpiling goods to mitigate any damage that would occur from leaving the EU, with or without a deal.

The NIESR estimated that the economy was 2.5 % smaller than it would have been had Britain not voted in 2016 to leave the European Union.

The British government says it plans a different scenario than the one considered by the think tank.

“We are aiming to negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union, which is more ambitious than the standard free trade deal that NIESR has based its findings on,” the Treasury department said in a statement.

The research suggested a no-deal Brexit would cause an even greater loss to the economy, with a 5.6% blow to GDP.

Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said the figures “come as no surprise”.

“The Tories’ obsession with Brexit at any cost puts our future prosperity at risk,” he said. “It is unconscionable that any government would voluntarily adopt a policy that would slow economic growth for years to come.”

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President Donald Trump’s new national security advisor will represent the United States at the East Asia Summit, the White House said Tuesday, the lowest-level official to lead the Washington delegation since it was first invited to the regional forum.

With Trump embroiled in an impeachment inquiry, the muted presence at the November 3-4 summit in Bangkok is sure to renew charges that the United States is not focused on Asia at a time that China’s clout is growing.

The White House said that Robert O’Brien, who took over the position in September from the hawkish John Bolton, would lead a U.S. delegation that will include Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who will also travel separately to Indonesia and Vietnam.

Despite Trump’s non-attendance, he is expected to go the following week to a separate summit of the Pacific Rim-wide APEC bloc in Santiago, Chile.

The East Asia Summit concept was promoted for years by Malaysia’s veteran Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an outspoken proponent of the continent’s future who envisioned an eventual bloc akin to the European Union.

But the United States was controversially excluded from the inaugural summit in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, drawing widespread commentary in Asia that Washington was too preoccupied with the Middle East.

After President Barack Obama vowed to pivot US attention toward Asia, the United States — as well as Russia — were invited as full participants in the summits starting in 2011.

Obama attended each year except 2013, when he was fighting congressional Republicans over a government shutdown and sent secretary of state John Kerry instead.

Trump flew to the Philippines for his first East Asia Summit in 2017 but, with the session running late, he left early and ended a 12-day trip to Asia, with then secretary of state Rex Tillerson taking his place.

Last year, Vice President Mike Pence attended the summit in Singapore, where he described China’s militarization of the dispute-rife South China Sea as “illegal and dangerous” and vowed to stand by US allies in the region.

Trump has said that he plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to seek headway in a trade war at the November 16-17 APEC summit in Chile, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has also confirmed his attendance.

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Indonesia is about the closest thing left to a liberal democracy in Southeast Asia, so analysts had high hopes that President Joko Widodo could promote civil rights and transparency, while steering an open economy to more global trade. As the president enters his second term this month, however, those expectations are coming back down to earth.

Although Indonesia distinguishes itself with a relatively free press and big emerging market, it appears to be backtracking in examples like corruption, economic protectionism, and instability in the Papua region marked by separatism and ethnic tensions. In an analysis of the next term of the president known as Jokowi, investment research firm IHS Markit predicted Indonesia’s unfulfilled economic reforms would lead to gross domestic product growth of 5 percent, lower than the 7 percent government goal.

Corruption is a good example, given the high-profile change to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in September that led to protests across the country of 260 million people. Previously the commission was already seen as more show than substance, a nominal way for Jakarta to claim it was fighting corruption. But the September change took the teeth out of the commission even further, reducing the amount of time it can investigate criminals, and requiring it to seek approvals from the president, which weakens its independence.

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Joko Widodo Re-Elected Indonesian President

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, has been re-elected with 55.50% of the vote, defeating former army general Prabowo Subianto. The victory was confirmed by the General Elections Commission (KPU). “The number of valid votes for candidate No. 1, Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin, is 85,607,362 votes. The number of valid votes for candidate No.

‘Soft’ on Corruption

“There are signs that the government is going soft on its commitment to clamp down on corruption after parliament approved changes to how the country’s anti-corruption body (KPK) is governed,” senior Asia economist Gareth Leather wrote in a Capital Economics analysis. “We are concerned that the move will weaken the KPK’s powers to investigate new corruption allegations.”

He added, “Indonesia is rated as one of the most corrupt countries in the region and the high level of corruption remains a major deterrent to foreign businesses.”

Backtracking on corruption is all the more stark because Indonesia has been a “beacon of progress” among Southeast Asian democracies, according to the Lowy Institute. Elsewhere in the region are fewer signs of open societies: military rule in Myanmar and Thailand, one party rule in Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, and Vietnam, monarchism in Brunei, and authoritarian populism in the Philippines. The closest runner up is Malaysia, where democracy appeared to decline until the ruling party was surprisingly beaten in 2018 elections.

Even though the April election that returned Jokowi to power in Indonesia was free and fair, it involved curbing Islamic extremism in the Muslim-majority country, which is a slippery slope that could lead to curbing free speech more generally.

“The Jokowi government’s decision to take a tougher line against extremism is welcome, but he needs to ensure that tactics used do not feed a new narrative of repression,” Nava Nuraniyah, Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict analyst in Jakarta, said.

She further argued Jokowi could have dealt with extremists by emphasizing that all citizens are equal, including minority Christians and Buddhists, rather than emphasizing his own Islamic piety.

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Joko Widodo Inaugurated as Jakarta’s 7th President

In Indonesia Monday, a former furniture entrepreneur turned wildly popular politician, Joko Widodo, was officially sworn in as the country’s seventh president. There are huge expectations and challenges ahead for Widodo, who will now lead the world’s

Economy

Besides risks from the China-U.S. trade war, Indonesia faces economic risks in the areas of education, protectionism, and infrastructure. One has only to look at the subway proposal in Jakarta, long discussed but yet to appear, for an example. Infrastructure spending has fallen after a period of investment, and the island nation’s logistics sector sits behind those of Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam in World Bank lists.

Protectionism is evident in Indonesia’s willingness to block commodities exports, and poor test performance suggests the young generation is not as equipped for the future as it could be.

“The two key economic challenges facing President Joko Widodo in his second term are boosting GDP growth and reducing Indonesia’s external vulnerabilities,” Leather said. “We don’t think he will succeed in either.”

Still Indonesia has the biggest economy in Southeast Asia and thus a big customer base that appeals to domestic and foreign business. It is also a population full of people free to engage in critical public discourse, which cannot be said of the whole region. The question is whether the people and the economy live up to their potential.

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn were set to trade barbs over Brexit and public spending Wednesday when they face off in Parliament for the last time before a Dec. 12 general election.

The House of Commons on Tuesday approved an early election in hopes of breaking the deadlock over Britain’s departure from the European Union. While Johnson’s Conservative Party has a wide lead in opinion polls, analysts say the election is unpredictable because Brexit cuts across traditional party loyalties.

Johnson and Corbyn will trade carefully crafted quips when they face off in their regularly scheduled question-and-answer session. This will be the last episode of Prime Minister’s Questions before Parliament is suspended for the election.

Johnson has told Conservative lawmakers this will be a “tough election.”

After three years of inconclusive political wrangling over Brexit, British voters are weary and the results of an election are hard to predict.

The House of Commons voted 438-20 on Tuesday night, with dozens of lawmakers abstaining, for a bill authorizing an election on Dec. 12. It will become law once it is approved Wednesday by the unelected House of Lords, which doesn’t have the power to overrule the elected Commons.

The looming vote comes two and a half years before the next scheduled election, due in 2022, and will be the country’s first December election since 1923.

Meanwhile, the Brexit conundrum remains unsolved, and the clock is ticking down to the new deadline of Jan. 31.

“To my British friends,” European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted Tuesday.   
“The EU27 has formally adopted the extension. It may be the last one. Please make the best use of this time.”

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Concert promoters in the U.S. are stepping back from plans to scan festivalgoers with facial recognition technology, after musicians and others gave it some serious side-eye.

Although it remains entirely possible that music venues will eventually take a second look at the controversial technology.

Live-entertainment giants AEG Presents and Live Nation both recently disavowed any plans to use facial recognition at music festivals, despite earlier indications to the contrary. Their public pronouncements have led a group of musicians to declare victory after a months-long campaign to halt the technology’s use at live shows.

Advances in computer vision have enabled businesses to install cameras that can recognize individuals by their face or other biometric characteristics. Venue operators have talked about using the technology at gateways to secure entry for select groups or to offer perks for repeat customers.

Privacy advocates worry that such uses might also pave the way for greater intrusions, such as scanning audience members in real time to analyze their behavior.

Both concert organizations seemed to be edging toward remembering more faces. In May 2018, for instance, Live Nation Entertainment subsidiary Ticketmaster announced it was partnering with and investing in Texas facial recognition startup Blink Identity, saying in a note to shareholders that the technology will enable music fans to associate their digital ticket with their image and “then just walk into the show.”

AEG, which operates the Coachella festival in southern California and other major events, updated its online privacy policy earlier this year with language stating that it may collect facial images at its events and venues for “access control,” creating aggregate data or for “personalization” — a term commonly used by retailers trying to tailor advertising or promotions based to a specific customer’s behavior.

Now, however, both organizations have done an about-face. AEG’s chief operating officer for festivals, Melissa Ormond, emailed activists earlier this month to say: “AEG festivals do not use facial recognition technology and do not have plans to implement.” AEG confirmed that statement this week but declined further comment.

Live Nation said in a statement that “we do not currently have plans to deploy facial recognition technology at our clients’ venues.” The company insisted that any future use would be “strictly opt-in,” so that non-consenting fans won’t have to worry about potentially facing the music.

Facial recognition isn’t seen in many musical venues. The biggest location known to employ it is New York City’s Madison Square Garden, which confirmed this week that facial recognition is one of the security measures it uses “to ensure the safety of everyone” in the arena. It declined to say what it looks at and why. The New York Times first reported its use last year.

While the music industry paused, Major League Baseball stole a base by rolling out biometric ticketing in the U.S., usually involving fingerprints or iris scans to get into ballparks. Authorities in some parts of Europe have bounced around the idea of using either facial or voice recognition to keep tabs on unruly soccer fans, such as those participating in racist chants. Police agencies in China have used facial recognition at concerts featuring pop singer Jacky Cheung to identify and arrest people wanted as criminal suspects.

American music event promoters this fall have been pressured to disclose their facial recognition plans by digital rights group Fight for the Future, which asked dozens of festival organizers to pledge not to use a technology it describes as invasive and racially biased.

Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello co-authored an opinion column in BuzzFeed last week that described the pledge as the “first major blow to the spread of commercial facial recognition in the United States.”

The CEO of Blink Identity says opposition to its Ticketmaster partnership is misguided.

“They’re talking about mass surveillance,” said Mary Haskett, who co-founded the Austin, Texas startup. “We’re against mass surveillance…. Nobody’s talking about doing what they’re protesting against.”

Haskett said Blink’s system allows concertgoers to opt in by taking selfies with their phones, which the company transforms into mathematical representations and deletes. The system might offer access to a shorter line or a VIP section.

But protesting musicians fear their fans’ mugshots could still end up in the hands of law enforcement or immigration authorities.

“Of course it’s going to be used by security,” said Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, a guitarist for Rhode Island punk band Downtown Boys, which played Coachella in 2017. “Of course it’s going to be used by law enforcement.”

Punk rockers aren’t the only ones fixing the technology with a death stare. A June survey by the Pew Research Center found that while people are generally accepting of facial recognition used by police, only 36% said they trust tech companies to deploy it responsibly. Just 18% trust advertisers.

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