Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday his nation’s military would “clear terrorists” from its border in northern Syria if the Kurdish YPG militia does not leave by the deadline agreed upon by Turkey and Russia earlier this week.

The deadline of 1500 GMT Tuesday was determined in a deal agreed upon by Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea report of Sochi. Russia said its military police and Syrian border guards would “facilitate the removal” of the Kurds from within 30 kilometers of the border.

Ankara contends the YPG is a terrorist group and has been vehemently critical of U.S. backing of the militia, which was instrumental under the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the fight against Islamic State. Erdogan also admonished the international security to get behind Turkey’s initiative to establish a “safe zone” for the more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees now residing in Turkey.

The Turkish leader threatened that “if there is no support for the projects we are developing for between 1 and 2 million in the first stage for their return, we will have no option but to open our doors, and let them go to Europe.”

The United States, meanwhile, will bolster its forces currently protecting oil fields and facilities in eastern Syria from the Islamic State terror group, even as most of its troops are being pulled from the country.

“We are now taking some actions; I’m not going to get into the details, to strengthen our position at Deir el-Zour, to ensure we can deny ISIS access to the oil fields,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Friday, using an acronym for the group. He spoke following a series of meetings with NATO allies in Brussels.

“We want to make sure that they don’t have access to the resources that may allow them to strike within the region, to strike Europe, to strike the United States,” he said. “It will include some mechanized forces.”

The U.S. had been keeping about 1,000 special forces in northeastern Syria, working extensively with the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, as part of the U.S.-led effort to deal a lasting defeat to IS.

Since the liberation of the last scrap of IS-held territory in March, the U.S. and SDF had focused on clearing out remaining IS sleeper cells and on preventing an insurgency; but, earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces just ahead of an incursion by Turkey aimed at clearing the border region of Kurdish fighters, whom Ankara views as terrorists.

“Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then…COMING HOME!” Trump said in a series of tweets Friday, barely half an hour before Esper spoke.

“When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!”

….USA has gained Trillions of Dollars in wealth since November 2016. All others way down. Our power is Economic before having to use our newly rebuilt Military, a much better alternative. Oil is secured. Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019

….COMING HOME! We were supposed to be there for 30 days – That was 10 years ago. When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019

The statements Friday reflect the mixed messaging on U.S. intentions regarding Syria that has been coming from Washington this week.

On Wednesday, while hailing the success of a U.S.-brokered deal to stop the fighting between Turkey, a NATO ally, and the Kurdish forces which had been aiding the U.S. in the fight against IS, Trump said that the U.S. was “getting out.”

“Let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand,” he said, adding later that the U.S. would secure the oil fields before “deciding what we are going to do with it in the future.”

In a series of tweets Thursday, Trump emphasized the importance he placed on the oil fields.

“We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!” Trump tweeted, adding, “Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!”

The Oil Fields discussed in my speech on Turkey/Kurds yesterday were held by ISIS until the United States took them over with the help of the Kurds. We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2019

I really enjoyed my conversation with General @MazloumAbdi. He appreciates what we have done, and I appreciate what the Kurds have done. Perhaps it is time for the Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2019

A U.S. defense official late Thursday confirmed the U.S. was working to reinforce the position of U.S. troops still in Syria and was doing so “in coordination with our SDF [Syrian Democratic Force] partners, in northeast Syria.”

Many Kurdish leaders have criticized the U.S., some accusing Washington of betraying them by allowing Turkish forces to move against them. But despite the hard feelings, SDF Commander Gen. Mazloum Abdi has indicated he is open to continuing to work with the U.S. and U.S. forces in the region.

Asked about the U.S. strategy in Syria, Esper told reporters Friday it has been consistent.

“It’s always been about defeating the ISIS coalition,” he said. “The specific measures we are taking with regard to the reduction of oilfields is to deny ISIS access to those resources.”

The defense secretary went on to say, “If ISIS has access to the resources and therefore the means to procure arms or to buy fighters or whatever else they do then that means it makes it more difficult to defeat ISIS.”

Islamic State took control of the eastern Syrian oil fields in 2014 and held on to them until the U.S.-led coalition captured them in 2016.  In the interim, analysts estimate the terror group pocketed a total of about $750 million from sales.

There have been concerns that the Turkish military incursion into northeastern Syria has helped strengthen IS by giving some of the terror group’s captured fighters a chance to escape from a series of more than 30 makeshift prisons guarded by the SDF.

 

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The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPP, the United States signed with 11 other countries in 2016 would have given American farmers more places to market their crops and reduced tariffs on U.S. goods.

The United States failed to ratify the pact in the waning months of the Obama administration, and Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency pledging to withdraw from the accord, arguing it would cost U.S. manufacturing jobs. Trump kept his promise soon after taking office.

Kirkwood, Illinois, farmer Wendell Shauman, who has extensively traveled to China and other parts of the world where U.S. crops are marketed, supported Trump in 2016 — despite wanting the TPP agreement.

“Any time you back out on a trade deal, that’s not a precedent I like to see set,” Shauman told VOA in an interview in January 2017.

Trade policies

Under President Trump, the United States not only withdrew from the TPP, it also dismantled the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA.

A replacement — the United States, Mexico Canada Trade Agreement, or USMCA — is under review in the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to wage a trade war with one of its biggest crop buyers, China, which imposed tariffs on U.S. corn and soybeans in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.

Today, as Shauman heads to his cornfields to harvest much later than usual thanks to extremely wet weather during the planting season, he contemplates how current trade policy might drain his profits. But he still supports President Trump.

“From what I hear on the other side, I’d be happy to support what he’s doing versus what they are proposing,” Shauman told VOA during a break in harvesting his corn. Much of his ire is directed at the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Harry Truman talked about the do-nothing Congress. Well, we’ve got another do-nothing Congress. Anything Trump wants to do, they are against,” Shauman said.

Success on the international trade front is a top issue for U.S. farmers, and many want Congress to pass the USMCA soon.

This segment of the American landscape largely supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, but continues to face difficult economic conditions amid increased costs to operate farms and decreasing profits for their crops.

Fearing a Democratic president

While an uncertain trade environment lingers ahead of casting ballots in 2020, Shauman also worries a Democratic president may impose restrictive environmental regulations to the detriment of his farm operations.

He’s not alone.

“I was excited to see a Republican take back the White House,” Elkhart, Illinois, pork farmer Thomas Titus told VOA. “I love the stance that we are taking.”

So does Jim Raben, who farms corn and soybeans in Ridgeway, a town in southern Illinois. “I think he’s doing what is right,” he told VOA at the 2019 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois.

“I think the majority of our people are by far supportive of the president,” says Illinois Farm Bureau’s Mark Gebhards, who points out that Trump has been able to blunt the impact of tariffs through payments to farmers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Market Facilitation Program.” This year it cost taxpayers about $16 billion, on top of roughly $15 billion in 2018.

“We’ve said all along we want trade, not aid,” he told VOA. “We don’t want to have to live on hoping that we get another round of market facilitation payments. We really need to find a final way forward — not only the tariffs with China, the UMSCA, Japan, the EU, all these other issues that are out there.”

Little understanding of agriculture

Yet the lack of substantial trade progress during Trump’s first term causes concern among some of his supporters.

“I really feel like he doesn’t understand what happens out here in these flyover states [in the middle of the country],” says Colona, Illinois, farmer Megan Dwyer. “He’s walking a very thin line in what is happening in the ag[riculture] sector.”

Dwyer says the Trump administration’s waivers for oil refineries to use corn-based ethanol, the president’s tweeting, and his mixed results on trade could affect her vote.

“Some of his comments recently around ag are frustrating to me,” she said.

Amid an ongoing impeachment inquiry in the U.S. Congress, a straw poll conducted by Farm Journal Pulse in September showed 76% of 1,138 farmers polled support Trump in 2020, down from 79% in July.

“I think there’s a lot of people who are disappointed,” Shauman said. “But it comes down to the choice they give us, and right now most farmers … I don’t think he’s going to lose many.”

 

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Prominent activist Jawar Mohammed does not rule out challenging his erstwhile ally, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in next year’s election, he told Reuters on Friday, after days of demonstrations by his supporters resulted in dozens of deaths.

Jawar’s ability to organize street protests helped propel Abiy to power last year, ushering in sweeping political and economic reforms. Abiy won the Nobel peace prize this month for his regional peacemaking achievements.

But this week, Jawar’s supporters demonstrated against Abiy after Jawar said police had surrounded his home and tried to withdraw his government security detail.

Late on Friday, the police commissioner for Oromiya told Reuters that 67 were people killed in the region in the two days of protests this week, a dramatic jump in the number of deaths from earlier reports.

Sixty-two of the dead were protesters while five were police officers, Oromiya regional police commissioner Kefyalew Tefera said by phone. Thirteen died from bullet wounds and the rest from injuries caused by stones, he said.

On Thursday, authorities and hospital officials had reported that protests in the capital and other cities resulted in 16 deaths and dozens of wounded. It was not immediately clear how many of the 16 were included in the tally of 67 reported in Oromiya.

The violence underscored the dilemma facing Abiy, who must retain support in Ethiopia’s ethnically based, federal system but not be seen to favor one group.

But kingmakers like media mogul Jawar are flexing their muscles. Like Abiy, Jawar comes from the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest. His supporters have stopped believing in Abiy’s promises of reform, he said, accusing Abiy of centralizing power, silencing dissent, and jailing political prisoners – like his predecessors.

Amnesty International says that, since Abiy took office, there have been several waves of mass arrests of people in Oromiya perceived to be opposed to the government. Detainees were not charged or taken to court, Amnesty’s Ethiopia researcher Fisseha Tekle said.

“The majority of people believe the transition is off track and we are backsliding towards an authoritarian system,” Jawar said, sitting in his heavily guarded home-office in the center of the capital, Addis Ababa. “The ruling party and its ideology will be challenged seriously not only in the election but also prior to the elections.”

The prime minister’s spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment. Abiy has not commented on this week’s violence.

On Friday afternoon, the defense ministry said the army had been deployed to seven cities where there had been protests this week. The forces have been deployed “to calm the situation in collaboration with elders and regional security officers,” Major General Mohammed Tessema told a press conference in Addis Ababa.

Strident Parties

The four ethnically based parties in the coalition that has ruled Ethiopia since 1991 are facing increasing competition from new, more strident parties demanding greater power and resources for their own regions.

“For a prime minister whose popular legitimacy relies on his openness, recent protests in Oromiya could be politically suicidal,” said Mehari Taddele Maru, an Addis Ababa-based political analyst. “It signals a significant loss of a populist power base that propelled him to power.”

If next year’s elections are fair – as Abiy has promised they will be – they will test whether the young prime minister can hold together his fractious nation of 100 million people and continue to open up its state-owned economy, or whether decades of state repression have driven Ethiopians into the arms of the political competition.

Jawar said he hadn’t decided who else he would support in next year’s polls, or whether he would run himself. His Twitter feed has been teasing the possibility last weekend: “The story about me running for office is just speculation. I am running to lose weight.”

He refused to be drawn on Friday, telling Reuters: “I don’t exclude anything.”

His remarks were his strongest criticism yet of Abiy, with whom he was photographed frequently last year, but the split follows pointed remarks by Abiy to parliament on Tuesday.

Abiy said, without naming anyone, “Media owners who don’t have Ethiopian passports are playing both ways … If this is going to undermine the peace and existence of Ethiopia … we will take measures.”

The comments were widely seen as a dig at Jawar, who is Ethiopian-born but has a U.S. passport and returned from exile last year.

Abiy didn’t create Ethiopia’s ethnic divisions, but he must address them, said Abel Wabella, a former political prisoner who is now editor of the Amharic-language newspaper Addis Zeybe.

Jawar is “testing the waters,” he said. “Ethnic federalism creates monsters … if Abiy fails to dismantle the power groups based on ethnicity, and to address the structural problems we have as a nation, we will end up in civil war.”

 

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Bolivians blocked streets in La Paz on Friday demanding an audit of a controversial election count that handed President Evo Morales a outright win and with it a fourth consecutive term that would extend his rule to nearly two decades.

Morales, 59, who swept to power in 2006 as the country’s first indigenous leader, claimed victory in the Sunday vote and railed against the opposition who he accused of leading a coup d’etat with foreign backing.

Anti-government protests had begun on Sunday, when an official vote count was suspended for almost a day. A confident Morales said then his socialist party MAS would get an outright win, despite an official rapid count data showing the left-wing leader heading to a second round against rival Carlos Mesa.

The final official count showed Morales with an over 10-point over Mesa on Thursday night, which meant he would avoid a risky second round head-to-head – even as the election monitors, the opposition and foreign governments criticized the count.

On Friday, roads in the north and south of La Paz were blocked by protesters, with normally busy streets empty of cars.

In the morning, there were few signs of violence, as people marched with banners saying “No to dictatorship.”

The official election observer, the Organization of American States, has already called for a second round despite Morales’ 10-point win, while the United States, European Union, Brazil and others adding their voice.

In the region, left-leaning governments in Mexico and Venezuela have backed Morales, a former union leader for coca farmers who has overseen steady growth and relative stability in one of South America’s poorest countries.

“There has to be a second round,” Marco Antonio Fuentes, a departmental official in La Paz, said Friday. “The electoral arbitrator is unfortunately not reliable,” referring to the vote count halt that saw one senior electoral official resign.

Mesa, a former president who leads the Citizen Community party, has claimed to have evidence of electoral fraud. “The government is despising the popular vote,” he told local television channel Unitel on Friday.

The vote count, with 99.99% of the votes counted, showed Morales with 47.07% of the vote to Mesa’s 36.51%.

Officials and diplomats raised concerns the conflict could hit Bolivia’s ties with global trade partners and an economy that is already straining under declining gas exports.

Jaime Duran, a fiscal and budgetary deputy minister, said in comments to the Red Uno channel that the conflict in recent days “will undoubtedly” have an effect on the economy, though reassured there no issues with supplies of fuel and food.

 

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The family of Ali Wezir is in agony in Syria’s Kurdish town of Hasakah after hearing that Wezir has set himself on fire outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland to protest a Turkish incursion in northeast Syria. VOA’s Zana Omar reports.
 

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Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have issued three more subpoenas to U.S. officials as part of their impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

The House committees leading the impeachment investigation demanded to hear testimony from Ulrich Brechbuhl, a key aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well as two officials in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget: acting Director Russell Vought and Associate Director for National Security Programs Michael Duffey. 

House Democrats are probing Trump’s efforts to seek Ukraine’s help to investigate a political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. A whistleblower report that launched the impeachment investigation said Brechbuhl listened in on a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Trump pressed for the investigation, using U.S. aid to Ukraine as leverage.

The Trump administration has sought to block administration officials from appearing before lawmakers conducting the impeachment inquiry.

Also Friday, a U.S. judge granted a request by House Democrats to access information blacked out of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

The ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington was a victory for House Democrats, who had been seeking the redacted documents as part of their impeachment investigation.

Earlier this week, Republican lawmakers barged into a closed-door impeachment proceeding, delaying testimony for five hours. 

Republicans demanded the release of transcripts of testimony from multiple diplomatic and national security officials, many of whom provided information about the pressure Trump exerted on Ukraine to open investigations into the Bidens. 

The White House said Trump was “very supportive” of the Republican lawmakers’ actions. 

Trump has denied there was a quid pro quo in his overtures to Ukraine and described his July call to the Ukrainian president as “perfect.”  

Last week, the president’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters that attaching strings to U.S. aid — a quid pro quo — was nothing new and that the news media should “get over it.” 

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California has said impeachment inquiry transcripts eventually will be released, while officials say public impeachment hearings could start as soon as mid-November. 

If the House votes to impeach Trump, he would face a trial in the Republican-led Senate, where it remains unlikely that a two-thirds majority would vote to convict Trump and remove him from office. 

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A Kurdish family in Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakah is anguished by news that 31-year-old Ali Wezir set himself on fire Wednesday outside a United Nations building in Geneva, Switzerland.

Wezir, a Syrian Kurdish refugee residing in Germany, suffered burns on 80% of his body after setting himself on fire at the headquarters of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

His family says it was an act of self-immolation to draw global attention to Turkish attacks on the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

“I spoke to him two days before his action, and he kept saying he wanted to come back [home],” his sister, Mehbuba, told VOA.

“Since the day Turkey attacked, he was not eating nor sleeping. He became very thin because he was worried. He was saying he would come back. He could not bear sitting there and watch Turkey attack his country,” Mehbuba said, adding that her family learned of Wezir’s act through a Facebook post.

Silvain Guillaume-Gentil, a Geneva police spokesperson, told reporters that Wezir was airlifted to a hospital in Lausanne once the flames were extinguished.

“Given his state, it was impossible to ask him about his motive, but we imagine that it was the political situation,” Reuters quoted Guillaume-Gentil as saying.

Expected to survive

Wezir’s family said he is expected to survive the severe burns but will remain in critical condition for 72 hours.

Wezir’s brother Dilawer told VOA that Wezir was particularly disturbed by the graphic images on social media showing children who had suffered burns, allegedly resulting from Turkey’s bombing campaign in northeast Syria.

The U.N.’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) earlier this week said it was investigating allegations Turkey has used phosphorus bombs, which Ankara denies.

“My brother showed everyone how Kurdish kids in Ras al-Ayn are being burned by phosphorus chemical weapons. He set himself on fire to break the silence on the Kurds being killed,” Dilawer Wezir told VOA. 

Referring to thousands of fighters from the Kurdish-led SDF group who lost their lives in the war against Islamic State (IS), Dilawer Wezir said many Kurds feel betrayed.

“When we say 11,000 martyrs and 25,000 wounded who sacrificed against IS, it was not just for Kurdistan. It was for the entire world, because if it wasn’t for this force, IS would have gone into Europe and destroyed there, too,” he said.

Turkey’s military incursion

Turkey’s military and its allied Syrian militia on October 9 started a military incursion into northeast Syria, targeting the SDF after U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw most U.S. troops from the country.

The U.N. estimates hundreds were killed and nearly 180,000 people were displaced before the U.S. and Turkey negotiated a cease-fire agreement was negotiated last week.

Turkish officials said their goal is to pursue a Kurdish armed group known as the Peoples’ Protection Units, or the YPG, which Ankara views as a terrorist organization.

The United States, however, has considered the YPG an ally in the fight to remove IS from a wide area of Syrian territory, including the IS self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa.
 

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Botswana’s chief justice says President Mokgweetsi Masisi will remain in office after his ruling party won enough parliament seats in this week’s election. 

The final results are not yet complete, but Chief Justice Terence Rannowane said Friday the ruling Botswana Democratic Party has won the needed 29 seats in the National Assembly.

The long-peaceful southern African nation had faced its tightest election in history after former President Ian Khama broke away and announced his support for an opposition coalition instead.

Many had wondered whether the ruling party would be toppled for the first time since independence in 1966.

But opposition coalition Umbrella for Democratic Change was well behind with a dozen seats as counting neared an end. 

Observers said Wednesday’s election went smoothly in one of Africa’s most stable countries.

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The power of music and art to influence generations is well documented, and that’s sometimes why authoritarian regimes tend to silence artists. The brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia is no different and a huge percentage of Cambodia’s musicians and artists were killed during the Pol Pot Regime. But some remember, and their tales can now be heard. VOA’s Chetra Chap reports.

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Climate change continues leaving its mark on the world’s oceans.  Water levels are rising along with temperatures.  Warmer waters supercharge some marine life’s reproduction rates, putting other species’ very survival at risk. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us under the sea.

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In international diplomacy, sports can sometimes act to bridge bitter divides between longstanding rivals. A similar unifying force could be at work, at least temporarily, in America’s politically polarized capital city. VOA’s Brian Padden reports, Democrats and Republicans are coming together to support the Washington Nationals baseball team playing in Major League Baseball’s World Series.

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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence criticized American companies for selling out U.S. values to protect their access to China’s profitable markets.  In a speech on trade Thursday, Pence singled out Nike and the National Basketball Association (NBA) for ignoring the abuses of the Chinese Communist Party. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

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Journalists called Wednesday for a Palestinian court decision to close 59 websites and social media pages to be overturned, with activists saying it appeared to be aimed at silencing critics.

A Palestinian Authority (PA) court in the occupied West Bank on Monday ordered the sites, most of them Palestinian, blocked on the grounds they were threats to “national security and peace.”

International press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the order included news sites with millions of Facebook followers, such as the Quds Network.

A lawyer for the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Alaa Freijat, told AFP the court decision that came at the request of the attorney general had been appealed.

A suit had been filed challenging the constitutionality of a law allowing authorities to take such action if sites are viewed as threats to public order, national unity and social peace.

Mohammed al-Laham of the journalists’ union said that neither the PA’s information ministry nor the syndicate had been consulted in advance.

Dozens of journalists took part in a demonstration Wednesday, chanting, “Hands off of freedom of the press,” he said.

A PA spokesman, Ibrahim Melhem, backed the journalists, calling on “the relevant authorities and the attorney general to overturn the decision.”

Websites have been blocked via internet providers, said Ahmed Youssef, a journalist for one of the sites suspended, “Ultra Palestine.”

Sabrina Bennoui of RSF said in a statement that “blocking websites is clearly a violation of the right to news and information.”

“In so doing, the Palestinian Authority confirms its refusal to accept media pluralism and its desire to eliminate all opposition by making it invisible to the public.”
 

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Preliminary results show Mozambique’s president and ruling Frelimo party heading for overwhelming victories, as the opposition and some observers charge the elections were marked by intimidation, ballot stuffing and flawed vote-counting.

The opposition Renamo party has rejected the results of last week’s elections and called for the polls to be re-run.

Results from all Mozambique’s provinces, available Thursday but not yet ratified by the central electoral commission, show a landslide win for Frelimo, with the ruling party gaining an absolute majority in the elections for president, parliament and provincial representation.

President Filipe Nyusi appears to have garnered more than 70% of the votes and Frelimo also looks set to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament, which would allow it to change the constitution without needing support from the opposition.

 

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The American Express “Green Card” is turning 50, topping off half a century of being everywhere its card members wanted to be.
 
Launched in 1969, the Green Card gave travelers a sense of importance they didn’t feel carrying travelers’ cheques.
 
For many, it was their first AmEx card. Over time, however, the Green Card became neglected in favor of fancier siblings, the Gold and Platinum Cards.

Now, the Green Card is getting a much-needed revamp, with a new look and more travel benefits — and, yes, a higher annual fee, which rises to $150 from $95.

In probably the most radical change, the card will no longer be a charge card, but function more like a traditional credit card with the ability to revolve a balance and pay over time.

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Hong Kong’s 580,000 non-Chinese residents – many of whom have been here for generations – have so far played a very quiet role in the anti-government protests that have shaken this semiautonomous Chinese city. Slowly, they are making their feelings clear – many support the protests, but others say they are an inconvenience and want their adopted home to return to normal. Almost all say the actual demonstration line is one they will not cross, as they fear arrest – and therefore, deportation. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Hong Kong

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They pleaded ignorance, saying they’d not read the diplomat’s damning statement. They condemned the Democrats’ tactics as unfair. They complained that the allegations against President Donald Trump rested on second- or third-hand evidence.

Wednesday was a day of careful counterargument by congressional Republicans, the day after America’s top envoy in Ukraine gave House impeachment investigators an explosive, detailed roadmap of Trump’s drive to squeeze that country’s leaders for damaging information about his Democratic political rivals.

Most Republicans were still standing by Trump, but in delicately calibrated ways after Tuesday’s closed-door testimony by acting ambassador William Taylor.  And as lawmakers struggled to balance support for Trump with uncertainty over what might still emerge, some were willing to acknowledge the strains they were facing.

Asked if Taylor’s testimony was a rough day for the White House and Republicans, No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota said, “Probably one of many.”

“Obviously, we have a lot of incoming right now,” Thune said. “That’s the nature of the beast.”

White House officials, who have been treating unified Republican support for Trump as a given, have grown increasingly fearful of defections in a potential impeachment vote by the Democratic House and even in an eventual trial in the Republican Senate.

While officials don’t believe there will be enough votes to remove the president, as Democrats hope, the West Wing believes more must be done to shore up party support to avoid embarrassment and genuine political peril.

Some Trump allies also believe the White House must directly address the increasingly troubling revelations. They note that as more Trump appointees offer disparaging information to Congress, he will have increasing difficulty arguing simply that he is the target of a new “witch hunt.”

Several of these concerned supporters spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the growing private worries.

White House officials said they have added a regular call with select GOP lawmakers to discuss impeachment strategy, plus more meetings with Republicans at the White House and Camp David. They said communications teams from the White House and Congress coordinate three times a week with phone calls.

But there still are complaints from Capitol Hill about a lack of a sophisticated messaging strategy.

Two GOP aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal tactics, said White House coordination has been insufficient. They cited a lack of daily emails or White House briefings of reporters from which lawmakers could take a daily messaging cue.

Via tweet, Trump has asserted that witnesses haven’t said the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld, thus clearing him of accusations that he was insisting on a trade-off for political dirt.

“You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo,” he quoted Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, as telling Fox News.

However, The Associated Press and others have reported that Ukrainian leaders were indeed aware of the threat of losing aid that Ukraine needed to counter Russian military efforts. Closed-door testimony has shown that new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was worried that a White House meeting he desired with Trump was in jeopardy.

Trump lashed out Wednesday at critical members of his own party, tweeting, “Never Trumper Republicans” are “in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats.”

“They are human scum!” he fumed.

Reports of Taylor’s testimony led most newscasts, websites and newspapers late Tuesday and Wednesday. But underscoring the desire of Republicans to avoid focusing on the allegations about Trump’s actions, many asserted ignorance of what Taylor had said.

“I didn’t see it, I didn’t hear it and I’m not going to take a third-party description of it,” said Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho.

Taylor detailed conversations in which he said administration officials told him Trump was conditioning Ukrainian military aid and an Oval Office visit coveted by Zelenskiy on Ukraine probing Democrat Joe Biden and his son and allegations of interference in the 2016 election.

Taylor is a career diplomat who has served overseas for presidents of both parties. Under Trump, he was appointed to take charge of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv earlier this year after Trump had the ambassador removed.

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who challenged Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, called Taylor’s testimony “just very devastating.”

Kasich, also a nine-term congressman, said he has noticed “a couple cracks” in the Republican wall that’s stood up for Trump and against impeachment.

“There’s no surprise in the fact, in an era of tribalism, that there is sort of a solid wall, (a wall) that appears to be getting weaker, in a way,” he said. “This is serious stuff”

The GOP drew more attention to the secrecy Wednesday when around two dozen House Republicans not directly involved in the investigation barged into a deposition of a Defense Department official. The move delayed the day’s interview by five hours and drew a slap from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who called the tactic “nuts.”

Much of the House inquiry has so far unfolded behind the closed doors of secure offices in the Capitol Visitors Center. Alongside the Democrats, GOP members of the three House committees heading the investigation have been in the room as diplomats and other officials have testified. Democrats have said they expect to hold public hearings later in the process.

One administration official said Trump was aware of and encouraged the House effort to object to the secrecy of the impeachment proceedings Wednesday. That official was not authorized to discuss the issue by name and commented only on condition of anonymity.

In Taylor’s 15-page opening statement obtained by the AP and other news organizations, the diplomat named administration officials who he said told him Trump had demanded of the Ukrainians an investigation of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that once employed the son of former Vice President Biden. The elder Biden is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Trump also wanted Ukraine to probe a conspiracy theory about a Democratic computer server that was hacked during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has also complained repeatedly about the House process. He has used that argument to justify his order for administration officials not to comply with requests for documents and interviews.

ome continue to show up under House subpoena. Yet Trump’s officials, sticking to their guns, are counting on his complaints to resonate with voters next year.

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EU leaders are deciding on another extension to Brexit after lawmakers in Britain frustrated Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to leave the bloc by Oct. 31. After previously pledging to leave by that deadline, “do or die,” Johnson now seems determined to seek an election as soon as possible. But as Henry Ridgwell reports, it might not be that simple.

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The U.S. government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged Wednesday to jointly invest $200 million over the next four years to achieve affordable gene therapy-based cures for sickle cell disease (SCD) and HIV.

The administration of President Donald Trump announced earlier this year its intention to end the HIV epidemic over the next decade and has also identified SCD, which disproportionately affects people of African descent, as a condition requiring greater attention.

Gene therapy is a relatively new area of medicine designed to replace faulty genes in the body that are responsible for a disorder, and has been responsible for new treatments for blindness and certain types of leukemia.

But the treatments are complex and costly, ruling them out as an option for most of the world.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said the collaboration would focus therefore on “access, scalability and affordability” to make sure the eventual treatments are available globally.

The NIH and Gates Foundation aim to achieve clinical trials in the United States and countries in sub-Saharan Africa within the next seven to 10 years.

Sickle cell disease is a group of inherited red blood cell disorders characterized by the presence of an abnormal protein in the red blood cells, causing the feet and hands to swell, fatigue, jaundice, and episodic or chronic pain.

Over time the disease can harm a patients’ vital organs, bones, joints and skin and it is currently only curable via a blood and bone marrow transplant, available to only a tiny fraction of people who have the disease.

When it comes to HIV, antiretroviral therapy (ART) are now able to reduce patients’ viral load to the point that they are undetectable and cannot be further transmitted.

But “a major goal is to find a cure, whereby lifelong ART would not be required,” said the NIH’s Anthony Fauci.

Though SCD is a genetically inherited disease, and HIV is acquired from infection, gene-based treatments are said to hold promise for both, and “many of the technical challenges for gene-based cures are expected to be common to both diseases.”

The goal for SCD is to achieve a gene-based intervention that either corrects the gene mutation responsible or promotes fetal hemoglobin gene expression to achieve normal hemoglobin function.

For HIV, the proposed cure would involve targeting the reservoir of proviral DNA that lurks inside a small number of cells even after many years of ART.

The NIH said that approximately 95 percent of the 38 million people living with HIV globally are in the developing world, with 67 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, half of whom are living untreated. Around 1.1 million Americans are affected

SCD affects approximately 100,000 Americans, according to official figures. Fifteen million babies will be born with SCD globally over the next 30 years, with about 75 percent of those births occurring in sub-Saharan Africans, said the NIH.

 

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Heavy rains that pummeled the capital of Cairo and other parts of the country, causing massive traffic jams and flooding many key roads, left at least eight people dead, including four children, authorities said Wednesday.

People captured images of Tuesday’s downpours and flooding on their mobile phones, posting images on social media, including scenes of cars submerged by flood waters.

In one dramatic video, a man on a bulldozer pulls the lifeless body of a little girl out of the water in a flooded area in northern Sharqia Province as shouts and screams are heard in the background. Another video shows a policeman, steps away from the presidential palace in Cairo’s district of Heliopolis, wading into a flooded street to unclog a sewage drain.

Authorities closed schools and universities in the greater Cairo area Wednesday and companies saw only skeletal staff show up at work. Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly said  school closures were limited to the greater Cairo area, including Giza and Qalioubia, as more rainfall was expected in the next couple of days, according to the country’s weather service.

The mayhem raised questions about Cairo’s ability to deal with such heavy rains as the city’s infrastructure and sewage and drainage systems have suffered from years of poor maintenance.

People took to social media to criticize the government’s lack of preparedness. Cairo, a city of some 20 million people, has been left for decades in neglect and decay, particularly its overcrowded neighborhoods.

Hashtags like “(hash)Egypt is sinking” were trending on social media, attracting many videos and pictures of the most affected areas in Cairo and elsewhere.

Five deaths occurred in the Nile Delta provinces of Sharqia, Gharbia and Kafr el-Sheikh, according to the Interior Ministry. Three of the victims, including two children, were electrocuted. The other two victims died falling from the rooftops of their flooded homes.

Local authorities in northern Sinai also reported two deaths. Moataz Taher, head of the el-Hassana municipality, said in a statement that a 47-year-old farmer and his 13-year-old daughter died early Wednesday in the flooding.

In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the heavy rain caused a three-story building to collapse Wednesday, killing a 7-year-old child and injuring her 19-year-old brother, according to the city’s civil protection authority.

In Cairo, the eastern suburb of Nasr City was hit the hardest, but so was Heliopolis, located near Cairo’s international airport. The government said the two suburbs had received at least 650,000 cubic meters cubic feet of precipitation in just 90 minutes on Tuesday, overwhelming the city’s sewage and drain systems.

Trucks fanned out across Cairo to drain water from flooded areas. A key highway connecting Cairo to other provinces was closed, the state-run al-Ahram daily reported.

EgyptAir said it had delayed some fights on Tuesday because passengers were stuck on the roads and unable to get to the airport. A part of the old Cairo airport terminal which has been under renovation was also flooded, with footage on social media showing rainwater pouring into the hallway.

The Civil Aviation Ministry said that terminal was only being used by a private carrier for one or two flights a day and shared photos of it after it was cleaned up.

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Two small helicopters collided Wednesday over a ranch in South Texas, and two men were killed, authorities said. 

Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Nathan Brandley said the helicopters struck in midair near Hebbronville, a community about 160 miles (260 kilometers) south of San Antonio. 
 
Brandley said one helicopter was able to land but the other crashed after the collision, killing both people aboard. One was pronounced dead at the scene and the other was pronounced dead at a hospital. 
 
He said one of the two people in the other helicopter was injured. 
 
Brandley said he didn’t know the cause of the crash or the identities of those involved. 
 
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety board were investigating. The FAA said the helicopters were Robinson R22 aircraft.

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Israel’s former military chief Benny Gantz was tasked Wednesday with forming the next government, but he has few options after last month’s elections left him in a near tie with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu was given the first opportunity to form a government after assembling a large right-wing bloc but announced this week that he had failed to build a 61-seat majority. Gantz faces similarly steep odds, raising the possibility that Israel will hold a third election in less than a year.

President Reuven Rivlin formally granted the mandate to Gantz, who will have 28 days to form a coalition. It is the first time in over a decade that anyone besides Netanyahu has been given the task.

Gantz vowed to form a “functioning” unity government that would “strive for peace but know how to defeat every enemy.”

A lifelong military man, Gantz has presented himself as a practical leader who can bridge Israel’s many divisions and address the various security threats it faces. His low-key campaign was in sharp contrast to Netanyahu’s, which was marked by breathless announcements about a suspected Iranian nuclear site and plans to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.

Gantz also presents himself as a more trustworthy alternative to the scandal-plagued Netanyahu and may hope to evoke past generals who became statesmen, including Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon.

But he faces steep odds in every possible path to forming a government. He has been endorsed by just 54 lawmakers representing an array of parties that are unlikely to sit together in a coalition.

Both Gantz and Netanyahu say they favor a national unity government. Together, Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Blue and White control a solid 65-seat majority. But the two men are divided over who should lead any new government.

Netanyahu has insisted he head the government, at least for the first two years, and that it include his right-wing allies, conditions that Gantz has repeatedly rejected.

Netanyahu is likely to be indicted on corruption charges in the coming weeks, and Gantz has said Netanyahu should resolve his legal troubles before returning to the top post.

Blue and White nevertheless invited Likud negotiators to a meeting planned for Thursday.

Addressing Netanyahu on Wednesday, Gantz called him a “patriot” and said he hoped he could resolve his legal issues.

“It is clear to both of us that the elections outcome and the legal situation demand a change. Together with you and with the other good people at the Likud we must act with responsibility.”

One path for Gantz would be to try and break up Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance and recruit some of the smaller parties to his coalition. But that might be seen as a major betrayal by those parties’ voters.

Another option would be to form a minority government with Avigdor Lieberman, who emerged as kingmaker after his party won eight seats and has refused to endorse either Gantz or Netanyahu. Gantz might be able to convince the Arab Joint List, which won 13 seats, to support the coalition from the outside.

That would bring down Netanyahu but result in a highly unstable government. It’s also far from clear that Lieberman, a nationalist with a history of harsh rhetoric toward the Arab minority, would support such a scheme. No Arab party has ever sat in an Israeli government.

The political deadlock dates back to April, when Lieberman refused to join a right-wing coalition under Netanyahu, denying him a majority. In response, parliament voted to dissolve itself, leading to an unprecedented repeat election in September. A similar scenario could play out again.

The political deadlock has delayed the Trump administration’s release of its long-awaited peace plan. The Palestinians have already rejected the plan, accusing the administration of extreme and unfair bias toward Israel.

In giving Gantz the mandate, Rivlin once again implored Israel’s political leaders to come together, saying there is “no justification” to impose a third election on the country.

“If a government is formed, it is true that everyone will pay a price,” he said. “But if such a government is not formed, Israeli citizens will pay the heaviest price.”
 

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