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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Internet blackout

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

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

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

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

Crackdown continues 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Media offices attacked

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Barham Saleh condemned the attacks as “unacceptable.”

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

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

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

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

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

Bid to ‘terrorize’ media

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We expect more attacks,” he warned.

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

News of gathering places for protests spread online.

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

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

…

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

Southeast Asia Leads the World in Mobile Internet Use

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

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

Report Highlights Internet Use

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

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

1. Online travel;

2. Online media, such as ads and streaming; 

3. Ride hailing;

4. Online shopping; and

5. Digital financial services.

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

Internet Use May Lead a More Even Economy

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

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

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

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

The Region is getting attention

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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Greece Transfers 570 Migrants from Overcrowded Camp

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

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

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

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

…

Thousands of indigenous people converged on Ecuador’s capital on Tuesday as anti-government protests and clashes prompted the president to move his besieged administration out of Quito.   
 
The South American country of 17 million appeared to be at a dangerous impasse, paralyzed by a lack of public transport and blockaded roads that were taking a toll on an already vulnerable economy.
 
Violence, which began last week when President Lenin Moreno’s decision to cut subsidies led to a sharp increase in fuel price, has persisted for days. Several oil wells ceased production totaling 65,000 barrels daily because protesters seized installations, the energy ministry said.

On Monday, police abandoned an armored vehicle to protesters who set it on fire. Elsewhere, rioters smashed car windows, broke into shops and confronted security forces who fired tear gas to try to disperse swelling crowds.  

Some video footage has shown police beating protesters on the ground. Opponents have accused Moreno’s government of human rights abuses in its attempts to quell the disturbances.

Moreno said on national television late Monday that the government faces security threats and will operate from the port city of Guayaquil instead of Quito, the capital.

He said he was the target of a coup attempt, but would not back down from his decision to cut the subsidies.

Several military commanders in uniform stood behind Moreno during his address, underscoring the armed forces’ support.

Moreno said his leftist predecessor, Rafael Correa, is trying to destabilize Ecuador with the help of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Ecuador is among dozens of nations calling for Maduro’s ouster.
The Venezuelan government has not commented on Moreno’s allegation.
 
Correa and Moreno have traded allegations of corruption in recent months, and Correa says he and his allies are victims of political persecution.
 
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido echoed Moreno’s accusation, saying Maduro associates are trying to destabilize Ecuador.

Some 480 people have been arrested during the unrest. The government last week declared a state of emergency, allowing it to curb some civil liberties as it tries to restore order.

The disturbances have spread from transport workers to students to indigenous demonstrators, an ominous turn for the government. Indigenous protesters played a major role in the 2005 resignation of Ecuador’s president at the time, Lucio Gutierrez, though the military’s tacit approval was key to his removal.
 
The country’s biggest indigenous group, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, which also had mounted protests against Correa, said Moreno’s government had failed to address protesters’ concerns and the welfare of Ecuador’s “most vulnerable” people.
 
“Troops and police who approach indigenous territories will be detained and subjected to indigenous justice,” the group said in a statement.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday his administration’s proposal to boost the biofuels market next year would bring the amount of corn-based ethanol mixed into the nation’s fuel to about 16 billion gallons (60.6 billion liters).

“We’ve come to an agreement and its going to be, I guess, about, getting close to 16 billion … that’s a lot of gallons. So they should like me out in Iowa,” he told a news conference.

The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program currently requires refiners to blend 15 billion gallons of ethanol per year, but the corn lobby has said the Environmental Protection Agency’s use of waivers means the actual volumes blended are lower than that.

Trump’s EPA unveiled the plan here last week to boost U.S. biofuels consumption to help struggling farmers, but did not provide an exact figure. The plan cheered the agriculture industry but triggered a backlash from Big Oil, which views biofuels as competition.

The deal is widely seen as an attempt by Trump, who faces a re-election fight next year, to mend fences with the powerful corn lobby, which was outraged by the EPA’s decision in August to exempt 31 oil refineries from their obligations under the RFS. That freed the refineries from the requirement to blend biofuels or buy credits from those who do.

Biofuel companies, farmers and Midwest lawmakers complain such waivers undercut demand for corn, which is already slumping because of the U.S. trade war with China. Oil refiners say the waivers protect blue-collar jobs and have no real impact on ethanol use.

The RFS was intended to help farmers and cut U.S. reliance on foreign energy imports, but has become a constant source of conflict between the oil and corn industries – two crucial constituencies heading into next year’s election.

…

The Trump administration is putting 28 Chinese agencies and companies on what it calls its Entity List because of alleged human rights violations against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.

Groups on the list are forbidden from buying various high-tech parts and components from U.S. companies without U.S. government permission.

The Commerce Department says all those on the list — including the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region security bureau — have been accused of being part of the Chinese government’s campaign of repression, arbitrary mass arrests, and spying against Muslim minorities.

“The U.S. government and Department of Commerce cannot and will not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities within China,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said. “This action will ensure that our technologies, fostered in an environment of individual liberty and free enterprise, are not used to suppress defenseless minority populations.”

China denies any deliberate campaign to oppress Muslim minorities, saying it is targeting those it calls religious extremists.

It also dismisses reports of brutal prison camps for Uighurs, calling them education camps and training centers where there is no mistreatment.
 

…

Utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) said it may be forced to cut power to most of Northern California later this week in order to prevent wildfires.

Weather forecasters are predicting hot, dry offshore winds — known as Diablo winds — for the region Wednesday and Thursday. The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather warning.

The utility said power could be shutoff in as many as 29 counties in the Bay Area, the coastal areas and the northern Central Valley.

PG&E is exercising extreme caution after its power lines sparked a blaze that destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings, killed 85 people and ravaged the town of Paradise last year.

Last month, the company paid $11 billion to insurance companies for claims stemming from wildfires sparked by its equipment in 2017 and 2018, including the one in Paradise.
 

…

After helping to defeat the Islamic State in Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were put in charge of guarding Islamic State fighters — many of them foreigners to Syria — and their wives and children, with tens of thousands of fighters, women and children stuck in prisons or camps across northeastern Syria, U.S. officials said.

For months, the U.S. has been urging countries, especially its Western allies, to take back and prosecute citizens who left to fight with IS, also known as ISIS or Daesh. They have also called up upon them to repatriate family members who traveled to or were born into the terror group’s self-declared caliphate.  But those calls have largely gone unheeded.

President Donald Trump’s announcement Monday of a U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria, paving the way for a Turkish military operation against a Kurdish militia in the area, leaves unanswered what will happen to those imprisoned fighters and their families.

Here are the numbers of fighters and their family members believed held in northeastern Syria:

11,000: Total estimated fighters in Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) custody, in more than 30 makeshift prisons, such as converted schools and hospitals, per U.S. officials.

More than 2,000: Total estimated foreign fighters in SDF custody, according to the U.S.

More than 2,200: Total estimated foreign fighters in SDF custody, according to the Syrian Democratic Council.

73,000: Total estimated IS relatives/family members in displaced person camps, per U.S. officials.

About 100,000: Total estimated number of displaced people in camps across northeastern Syria, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

…

With U.S. troops pulling out from the Syria-Turkey border following U.S. President Donald Trump’s Sunday announcement, Kurdish officials and experts say that Syrian Kurdish forces could turn to other powers for protection against a possible Turkish incursion into northeast Syria.

The United States and the international coalition to defeat the Islamic State (IS) terror group have been the leading backers of Kurdish forces, but there are other options for local forces if the U.S chose to halt its support, a local Kurdish official said.

“While the U.S. has had a major role in the fight against terrorism in Syria in recent years, we as Kurds always maintained our relations with other international and regional powers,” Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of the Foreign Department at the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration in northeast Syria, told Arta FM radio station on Monday.

He didn’t specifically name any countries, but noted that their priority is to prevent Turkish forces from invading their region.

‘Between a rock and a hard place’

Since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Kurdish People’s Protection Units known as (YPG) have been in charge of running their areas in the country’s northeast after Syrian regime troops withdrew to focus on fighting rebel forces elsewhere in the country.  

Experts say the sudden U.S. decision to withdraw from areas near the Syria-Turkish border has placed Syrian Kurdish forces in a difficult situation.

“The Syrian Kurds are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” said Nicholas Heras, a Syria expert at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

He said the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has the option to allow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to return to the area to prevent any Turkish military operation that could occur as a result of the U.S. troop withdrawal.

“This would be a bitter pill, but if the United States is going to encourage Turkey to carry out its military operations in northeast Syria, there may be no other option for them to turn to,” Heras told VOA.

The YPG-dominated SDF has been an effective U.S. partner in the fight against IS in Syria. But Turkey, a U.S. NATO ally, has opposed this partnership.

Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting for greater rights in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast for decades.

Despite a U.S.-Turkey agreement in August to establish a buffer zone between Turkish military and Syrian Kurdish fighters, Turkey has been threatening to carry out an offensive in northeast Syria to remove YPG fighters from areas near its border.

The White House said Turkey “will soon be moving forward” with its plans to carry out the offensive.

“The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial Caliphate, will no longer be in the immediate area,” the White House said in a statement.

The United States currently has about 1,000 troops in Syria that have been instrumental in the fight against IS. Kurdish military officials said on Monday that U.S. forces “have withdrawn from border areas with Turkey.”

Russia as an option

Some experts, like Radwan Badini, a professor of political science  at Salahaddin University in Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, say the anticipated security vacuum in northeast Syria following the U.S. troop pullout could force the Kurds to search for another powerful ally like Russia.

“There is still a chance that Russia could play a mediating role between al-Assad and the Kurds,” he said.

“Having Russia on your side, even though it’s a close [Syrian] regime ally, is much better than letting Turkey occupy the Kurdish region,” Badini told VOA.

But analyst Heras says that Russia has already made it clear to Kurdish forces that “it will not be the lobbyist for the Syrian Kurds in Damascus.”

“Russia wants the SDF to surrender to Assad first, then be possibly protected from Turkey by Assad later. It is just as likely that Russia will sell the SDF out to Turkey, in order to weaken the U.S.-trained forces,” he said.

Change in US decision?

Heras noted that, “the only real hope for the Syrian Kurds is a change of heart in the White House.”

But attempting to halt the U.S. decision to withdraw from Kurdish-held Syria is not an easy task, other experts believe.

“If the U.S. decision can’t be reserved, [Syrian Kurds] choice is surrender to the regime or a bloody insurgency against Turkey,” said Jonathan Spyer, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a U.S.-based think tank.

He added that YPG fighters “cannot defeat the Turks in a conventional battle. It is not viable if the intention is to drive Turkey out. It may be viable if the intention is to bleed Turkey over the medium to long term.”

New refugee crisis

United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Panos Moumtzis said on Monday that civilians in northeast Syria must be spared in any Turkish military operation in the region.

Rights groups also say that any operation carried out by Turkish forces in Syria’s northeast could further destabilize a region already devastated by the eight-year civil war.

“A Turkish assault on northeastern Syria, a country ravaged by war and a humanitarian crisis would likely cause massive civilian harm and further displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians…,” said Philippe Nassif, Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

He told VOA that, “a new refugee crisis on top of the one that has already led to over 5 million Syrians feeling their country would be a tragedy of epic proportions.”

…

Hong Kong struggled to recover on Monday, with the metro only partially functioning and infrastructure extensively damaged, after scores of protesters were arrested in violent clashes overnight that drew the first warning from the Chinese military.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched peacefully through the center of the Chinese-ruled city on Sunday, wearing face masks in defiance of colonial-era emergency powers that threaten them with a maximum of one year in prison for hiding their faces.

However, the rallies deteriorated into running clashes as night fell. Police fired tear gas and used baton charges in an attempt to disperse petrol bomb-throwing protesters in several locations across the Asian financial hub.

Scores of protesters were arrested and bussed away under the new emergency laws, which came into effect on Friday night, after some of the most violent clashes in four months of protests virtually shut the city down on Saturday.

The protests have plunged the former British colony into its worst political crisis in decades and pose the biggest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.

The Hong Kong government said in a statement early on Monday, a public holiday in the city, “public safety has been jeopardized and the public order of the whole city is being pushed to the verge of a very dangerous situation.”

Further protests are planned in different districts on Monday evening.

Hong Kong’s rail operator, MTR, said on Monday that, due to “serious vandalism”, most of the stations in the network were temporarily closed. That included typically busy stations such as Admiralty and Wan Chai, around the city’s bar district.

MTR’s announcement followed an unprecedented closure on Saturday and minimal operations on Sunday, which largely paralyzed much of the city.

The entire network, which carries around 5 million passengers a day, would shut at 6 p.m. (1000 GMT), more than four hours earlier than normal, to allow for repairs, it said.

Grocery stores that had shut early on Sunday were mostly open by Monday morning. Many businesses and stores have had to close repeatedly during the four months of protests and Hong Kong now faces its first recession in a decade.

Hong Kong’s embattled leader Carrie Lam invoked emergency powers last used more than 50 years ago in the hope of quelling the protests but the move has had the opposite effect, sparking three nights of violence.

China’s Hong Kong military garrison warned protesters on Sunday they could be arrested for targeting its barracks with laser lights.

Chinese military personnel raised a yellow flag with the arrest warning written in large letters, a Reuters witness said, the first direct interaction between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and protesters.

A few hundred protesters shone laser lights on the barracks walls, the first time they have targeted PLA facilities, and troops in fatigues on the roof shone spotlights at protesters in return. The protesters eventually dispersed.

What started as opposition to a now-withdrawn extradition bill has grown into a pro-democracy movement against what is seen as Beijing’s increasing grip on the city, undermining its “one country, two systems” status promised when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997.

China dismisses such accusations, saying foreign governments, including Britain and the United States, have fanned anti-China sentiment.

…

As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine’s new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry’s past political donors.

It’s unclear if Perry’s attempts to replace board members at Naftogaz were coordinated with the Giuliani allies pushing for a similar outcome, and no one has alleged that there is criminal activity in any of these efforts. And it’s unclear what role, if any, Giuliani had in helping his clients push to get gas sales agreements with the state-owned company.

But the affair shows how those with ties to Trump and his administration were pursuing business deals in Ukraine that went far beyond advancing the president’s personal political interests. It also raises questions about whether Trump allies were mixing business and politics just as Republicans were calling for a probe of Biden and his son Hunter, who served five years on the board of another Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.

On Friday, according to the news site Axios, Trump told a group of Republican lawmakers that it had been Perry who had prompted the phone call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy for a “favor” regarding Biden. Axios cited a source saying Trump said Perry had asked Trump to make the call to discuss “something about an LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant.”

While it’s unclear whether Trump’s remark Friday referred specifically to the behind-the-scenes maneuvers this spring involving the multibillion-dollar state gas company, The Associated Press has interviewed four people with direct knowledge of the attempts to influence Naftogaz, and their accounts show Perry playing a key role in the effort. Three of the four spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The fourth is an American businessman with close ties to the Ukrainian energy sector.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Energy Department said Perry, a former Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate, was not advancing anyone’s personal interests. She said his conversations with Ukrainian officials about Naftogaz were part of his efforts to reform the country’s energy sector and create an environment where Western companies can do business.

The Trump and Giuliani allies driving the attempt to change the senior management at Naftogazt, however, appear to have had inside knowledge of the U.S. government’s plans in Ukraine. For example, they told people that Trump would replace the U.S. ambassador there months before she was actually recalled to Washington, according to three of the individuals interviewed by the AP. One of the individuals said he was so concerned by the whole affair that he reported it to a U.S. Embassy official in Ukraine months ago.

The businessmen 

Ukraine, a resource-rich nation that sits on the geographic and symbolic border between Russia and the West, has long been plagued by corruption and government dysfunction, making it a magnet for foreign profiteers.

At the center of the Naftogaz plan, according to three individuals familiar with the details, were three such businessmen: two Soviet-born Florida real estate entrepreneurs, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and an oil magnate from Boca Raton, Florida, named Harry Sargeant III.

Parnas and Fruman have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations to Republicans, including $325,000 to a Trump-allied political action committee in 2018. This helped the relatively unknown entrepreneurs gain access to top levels of the Republican Party _ including meetings with Trump at the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

The two have also faced lawsuits from disgruntled investors over unpaid debts. During the same period they were pursuing the Naftogaz deal, the two were coordinating with Giuliani to set up meetings with Ukrainian government officials and push for an investigation of the Bidens.

Sargeant, his wife and corporate entities tied to the family have donated at least $1.2 million to Republican campaigns and PACs over the last 20 years, including $100,000 in June to the Trump Victory Fund, according to federal and state campaign finance records. He has also served as finance chair of the Florida state GOP, and gave nearly $14,000 to Giuliani’s failed 2008 presidential campaign.

In early March, Fruman, Parnas and Sargeant were touting a plan to replace Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev with another senior executive at the company, Andrew Favorov, according to two individuals who spoke to the AP as well as a memorandum about the meeting that was later submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Kiev.

Going back to the Obama administration, the U.S. Energy Department and the State Department have long supported efforts to import American natural gas into Ukraine to reduce the country’s dependence on Russia.

The three approached Favorov with the idea while the Ukrainian executive was attending an energy industry conference in Texas. Parnas and Fruman told him they had flown in from Florida on a private jet to recruit him to be their partner in a new venture to export up to 100 tanker shipments a year of U.S. liquefied gas into Ukraine, where Naftogaz is the largest distributor, according to two people briefed on the details.

Sargeant told Favorov that he regularly meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and that the gas-sales plan had the president’s full support, according to the two people who said Favorov recounted the discussion to them.

These conversations were recounted to AP by Dale W. Perry, an American who is a former business partner of Favorov. He told AP in an interview that Favorov described the meeting to him soon after it happened and that Favorov perceived it to be a shakedown. Perry, who is no relation to the energy secretary, is the managing partner of Energy Resources of Ukraine, which currently has business agreements to import natural gas and electricity to Ukraine.

A second person who spoke on condition of anonymity also confirmed to the AP that Favorov had recounted details of the Houston meeting to him.

According to Dale Perry and the other person, Favorov said Parnas told him Trump planned to remove U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and replace her with someone more open to aiding their business interests.

Dale Perry told the AP he was so concerned about the efforts to change the management at Naftogaz and to get rid of Yovanovitch that he reported what he had heard to Suriya Jayanti, a State Department foreign service officer stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv who focuses on the energy industry.

He also wrote a detailed memo about Favorov’s account, dated April 12, which was shared with another current State Department official. Perry recently provided a copy of the April memo to AP.

Jayanti declined to provide comment. Favorov also declined to comment.

On March 24, Giuliani and Parnas gathered at the Trump International Hotel in Washington with Healy E. Baumgardner, a former Trump campaign adviser who once served as deputy communications director for Giuliani’s presidential campaign and as a communications official during the George W. Bush administration.

She is now listed as the CEO of 45 Energy Group, a Houston-based energy company whose website describes it as a “government relations, public affairs and business development practice group.”

This was a couple of weeks after the Houston meeting with Favorov, the Naftogaz executive. Giuliani, Parnas and Baumgardner were there to make a business pitch involving gas deals in the former Soviet bloc to a potential investor.

This time, according to Giuliani, the deals that were discussed involved Uzbekistan, not Ukraine.

“I have not pursued a deal in the Ukraine. I don’t know about a deal in the Ukraine. I would not do a deal in the Ukraine now, obviously,” said Giuliani, reached while attending a playoff baseball game between the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins. “There is absolutely no proof that I did it, because I didn’t do it.”

During this meeting, Parnas again repeated that Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, would soon be replaced, according to a person with direct knowledge of the gathering. She was removed two months later.

Giuliani, who serves as Trump’s personal lawyer and has no official role in government, acknowledged Friday that he was among those pushing the president to replace the ambassador, a career diplomat with a history of fighting corruption.

“The ambassador to Ukraine was replaced,” he said. “I did play a role in that.”

But Giuliani refused to discuss the details of his business dealings, or whether he helped his associates in their push to forge gas sales contracts with the Ukrainian company. He did describe Sergeant as a friend and referred to Parnas and Fruman as his clients in a tweet in May.  

As part of their impeachment inquiry, House Democrats have subpoenaed Giuliani for documents and communications related to dozens of people, including Favorov, Parnas, Fruman and Baumgardner’s 45 Energy Group.

Baumgardner issued a written statement, saying: “While I won’t comment on business discussions, I will say this: this political assault on private business by the Democrats in Congress is complete harassment and an invasion of privacy that should scare the hell out of every American business owner.”

Sargeant did not respond to a voice message left at a number listed for him at an address in Boca Raton.

John Dowd, a former Trump attorney who now represents Parnas and Fruman, said it was actually the Naftogaz executives who approached his clients about making a deal. He says they then met with Rick Perry to get the Energy Department on board.

“The people from the company solicited my clients because Igor is in the gas business, and they asked them, and they flew to Washington and they solicited,” Dowd said. “They sat down and talked about it. And then it was presented to Secretary Perry to see if they could get it together.

“It wasn’t a shakedown; it was an attempt to do legitimate business that didn’t work out.”

The energy secretary

In May, Rick Perry traveled to Kyiv to serve as the senior U.S. government representative at the inauguration of the county’s new president.

In a private meeting with Zelenskiy, Perry pressed the Ukrainian president to fire members of the Naftogaz advisory board. Attendees left the meeting with the impression that Perry wanted to replace the American representative, Amos Hochstein, a former diplomat and energy representative who served in the Obama administration, with someone “reputable in Republican circles,” according to someone who was in the room.

Perry’s push for Ukraine’s state-owned natural gas company Naftogaz to change its supervisory board was first reported by Politico.

A second meeting during the trip, at a Kyiv hotel, included Ukrainian officials and energy sector people. There, Perry made clear that the Trump administration wanted to see the entire Naftogaz supervisory board replaced, according to a person who attended both meetings. Perry again referenced the list of advisers that he had given Zelenskiy, and it was widely interpreted that he wanted Michael Bleyzer, a Ukrainian-American businessman from Texas, to join the newly formed board, the person said. Also on the list was Robert Bensh, another Texan who frequently works in Ukraine, the Energy Department confirmed.

Gordon D. Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt D. Volker, then the State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine, were also in the room, according to photographs reviewed by AP. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said he was floored by the American requests because the person had always viewed the U.S. government “as having a higher ethical standard.”

The Naftogaz supervisory board is supposed to be selected by the Ukrainian president’s Cabinet in consultation with international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, the United States and the European Union. It must be approved by the Ukrainian Cabinet. Ukrainian officials perceived Perry’s push to swap out the board as circumventing that established process, according to the person in the room.

U.S. Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said Perry had consistently called for the modernization of Ukraine’s business and energy sector in an effort to create an environment that will incentivize Western companies to do business there. She said Perry delivered that same message in the May meeting with Zelenskiy.

“What he did not do is advocate for the business interests of any one individual or company,” Hynes said Saturday. “That is fiction being pushed by those who are disingenuously seeking to advance a nefarious narrative that does not exist.”

Hynes said the Ukrainian government had requested U.S. recommendations to advise the country on energy matters, and Perry provided those recommendations. She confirmed Bleyzer was on the list.  

Bleyzer, whose company is based in Houston, did not respond on Saturday to a voicemail seeking comment. Bensh also did not respond to a phone message.

As a former Texas governor, Perry has always had close ties to the oil and gas industry. He appointed Bleyzer to a two-year term on a state technologies fund board in 2009. The following year, records show Bleyzer donated $20,000 to Perry’s reelection campaign.

Zelenskiy’s office declined to comment on Saturday.

In an interview Friday with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Perry said that “as God as my witness” he never discussed Biden or his son in meetings with Ukrainian or U.S. officials, including Trump or Giuliani.

“This has been a very intense, a very focused push to get Ukraine to clean up the corruption,” Perry said in the interview. “I can’t go in good faith and tell a U.S. company, go and invest here, go and be involved if the corruption is ongoing.”

He did confirm he had had a conversation with Giuliani by phone, but a spokeswoman for the energy secretary declined to say when that call was or whether the two had discussed Naftogaz.

…

A series of memes that have gone viral in Bolivia show President Evo Morales combating raging forest fires with a toy water gun or a flame-thrower, while others superimpose his image on the original cast of the “Ghostbusters” film.

Many young Bolivians have used the memes to poke fun at South America’s longest-serving leftist leader and what they say was his delayed response to thousands of forest fires they blame on his push to develop areas with slash-and-burn agriculture. As the blazes raged, Morales appeared in televised images personally battling flames with a water-filled backpack and nozzle.

Supporters of Bolivia’s first indigenous president say that showed the lengths to which he will go to protect the country’s forests, but many young people don’t buy it. And with young voters making up about a third of Bolivia’s electorate, they could determine the Oct. 20 election in which Morales is seeking a fourth term.

“If the president would have acted before, we wouldn’t be mourning so much loss or the death of so many animals … I’m reconsidering my vote,” said Rolando Condori, 26, a chef at a restaurant in the city of El Alto.

Condori said he has cast ballots for the 59-year-old Morales since he became eligible to vote at age 18. But now he is listening to other candidates to see who can provide jobs and take care of the environment, which have become top issues ahead of the election.

Young Bolivians have been outraged by fires that consumed an estimated 4 million hectares (15,440 square miles) in the past two months, blazes that flew partly under the radar as world attention focused on fires in neighboring Brazil’s Amazon.

Most of the fires in Bolivia have been in dry forests, prairies and farmland in the southeastern Chiquitania region in Santa Cruz province, although some affected the country’s Amazon region.

“Before the fires, Morales had his triumph assured,” said Marcelo Carpio of the network of Leaders for Democracy and Development, a political science school.

Opponents say a decree issued by Morales’ administration in July allowing some controlled burns for agricultural purposes contributed to the environmental disaster. The government denies the forest fires were caused by the decree, saying farmers have cleared land with burns for years and most are still done illegally.

In Morales’ 14 years in office, poverty has dropped in South America’s poorest country and the president still maintains a broad base of support, even among the young.

“To me, (his re-election) would be good for our Bolivia,” said Aldair Hermoso, an 18-year-old who recently quit school to pursue his dream of becoming a professional soccer player. “Evo Morales will be a good president.”

But this support has diminished following corruption scandals, allegations about manipulation of the justice system and his insistence on running for yet another term.

Opinion polls, which say many young voters are undecided, point to a competitive election, and the possibility of a runoff vote. To avoid a runoff and win outright, a candidate must get 50% of the votes plus one or get 40% and finish 10 percentage points ahead of the nearest challenger.

“This is the first election with Mr. Morales participating in which the chance of him losing is real,” said political analyst Franklin Pareja.

Adding to discontent among the young was last year’s decision by Bolivia’s top electoral court to accept Morales’ candidacy for a fourth term despite a constitutional ban and a referendum in which more than 51% of Bolivians rejected his intention to modify the constitution to allow him to run again. Many questioned the independence of the court.

“Morales is no longer fashionable,” said Clara Huanca, a 21-year-old university student.

She said he has failed to provide plans for improving education and that she grew disappointed with Morales when he ignored the constitutional ban on running for more than two consecutive terms.

“I voted for Evo,” Huanca, who is of Aymara origin, said at an internet cafe while she finished a project with some of her classmates. “I was influenced by my parents, but now I’m completely against it and I’m analyzing my vote carefully.”

Many young Bolivians have no recollection of a president other than Morales, and some say they are ready for change despite years of economic and political stability.

But the impact of the youth vote is unpredictable.

While many reject Morales, who started in politics as a coca growers’ union leader, they are equally disenchanted with his top rivals, who include former President Carlos Mesa and lawmaker Oscar Ortiz.

Morales has said he doesn’t believe in social media.

“Social media are like sewers,” he said recently during a public event.

But his campaign has nevertheless created a group of “digital warriors” to reach out to young voters and counterbalance his negative image online.

Young Bolivians make up about 70% percent of the country’s internet users, but candidates have failed to understand their needs, said Tonny Lopez, a local expert in social networks.

And after 14 years in power, there is a lot of material out there to use to poke fun at Morales, Lopez said.

“It’s now in fashion to want to remove Evo (from power), and many don’t know why,” said Edgar Totora, 19. “I think it’s because of what he said himself: `I’ll leave if I lose the referendum,’ and he hasn’t done it. It’s like he’s laughing in our face.”

…

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris told Iowa voters on Sunday that they can help refute questions about her electability if they support her in the caucuses.

“Iowans have the ability to show our country what can be, even if we’ve never seen it before,” Harris said during an event on Iowa State University’s campus.

The visit to Ames marked her first to the state since Harris announced plans to recommit her focus on Iowa, as part of an effort to turn around a campaign that has thus far struggled to gain traction. The California senator is planning to campaign in Iowa for half the month of October, will double her campaign staff from 65 to 130 and add 10 field offices over the next month.

Harris told reporters after the event, however, that nothing overall would change about her strategy in the Hawkeye State beyond her plans to focus more of her time here.

“It’s the plan that we’ve always had, which is after Labor Day, double the resources here,” she said.

“It’s basically about doing what is, I think, an important part of the process, which is engaging with people on the ground, where they live, in their neighborhoods, in their homes to talk about the issues that concern them, and address them.”

The ISU event was smaller than many she’s had in Iowa. Asked if she was concerned about the crowd, Harris simply said, “I’m not into comparing crowd size.”

Some Iowa Democrats have questioned whether Harris’ decision to refocus on Iowa has come too late in the race, as a number of other campaigns have already built out 100-strong staffs and opened field offices across Iowa. But many voters in attendance at the Harris event said they were still making up their minds.

“I think I’m like a typical Iowan who expects to check out all the candidates,” said Kyle Poorman, a 38-year-old agricultural researcher from Ames. He said, however, that Harris didn’t win him over Sunday.

“I almost feel like she maybe is listening to too many advisers,” Poorman said, noting she didn’t offer many Iowa-specific answers to the questions she was asked. He also said “she probably has a great story that didn’t come out on the stump,” because in his mind she focused too much on President Donald Trump.

Katherine Worley, a 33-year-old international educator from Ames, said she still hadn’t decided on her top candidates and wasn’t sure if Harris would make the cut. “I have to see more people,” she said.

And the California senator’s decision to focus more of her time in the state didn’t impress Worley.

“There’s already energy and focus on Iowa, so I think that’s great, but I don’t know if it necessarily sways me,” she said.

…

A total of 110 million toilets constructed for 600 million people in 60 months.

Citing these figures, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced October 2 that the open defecation in rural India has ended.

However, the results of the world’s biggest toilet-building program rolled out by his government five years ago are more mixed.

While huge progress has been made in providing toilets across hundreds of thousands of villages, experts say open defecation has not been eliminated in a country where venturing into the fields is accepted as normal and where not everyone has access to a toilet yet.

The experience of 37-year-old Komal Godiwal, who migrated from her village in the northern Rajasthan state to work as a housemaid in New Delhi, highlights the gains and shortfalls of Modi’s flagship $20 billion “Clean India” mission.

Two years ago, she rushed to her village when, like millions of poor people, she received a government subsidy of about $200 to build a latrine. Her sister, who lives in the same village but did not receive the subsidy, uses the toilet. Critics charge that the distribution of money to help build toilets has been uneven.

Despite being the proud owner of a toilet, Godiwal herself struggles with issues of sanitation in the urban slum that is home to thousands of poor migrants like her. She and her family share a bathroom with about eight other families. “I have to wake up before 5 am, otherwise they get very dirty and there is a huge line,” she says.

Five years ago India accounted for the most people in the world defecating in the open – 600 million.  They mostly lived in rural areas, where having a household latrine was never a priority because of centuries-old cultural resistance to a toilet under the same roof as the kitchen or the prayer room.

Since then, those numbers have fallen dramatically as India has raced to build millions of toilets using an inexpensive design that involves constructing a twin-pit latrine where waste is piped from one pit to another and decomposes over time.

 Critics, however, charge that overzealous government workers may have inflated numbers since a deadline had been set for declaring India open-defecation free by October 2 — the 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India’s independence struggle.

“The entire movement happened in a mission mode. There were targets to achieve,” according to Nazar Khalid, a New Delhi research fellow at the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, a nonprofit that works on child and sanitation issues in India. He charges that in some places people were coerced to build toilets by local authorities who wanted to demonstrate progress.

A study conducted last year by the group in four of India’s biggest states found that access to household toilets increased from 37% in 2014 to 71% last year. However, roughly one-quarter of people who owned a toilet continued to defecate in the open – they considered it wholesome and healthy and an opportunity to get some fresh air or see their fields.   

The government has dismissed the study, saying that the sample size of 3,235 households was too small in a program that had targeted millions of homes.  

A publicity blitz by the Clean India mission has attempted to shift dogged age-old attitudes and get people to use inside toilets.

Nearly half a million volunteers at the village level took the message to the country’s vast rural areas about how open defecation is the source of diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid and worm infection. Catchy advertisements and even a Bollywood movie featuring a top star picked up the issue to emphasize how toilets at home improve security for women who venture into the fields in the cover of darkness.

Many sanitation experts emphasize that although problems persist, there have been massive gains.

“We have to look at it in the context of the massive scale of India,” according to V.K. Madhavan who heads the India affiliate of WaterAid, a global nonprofit organization working on sanitation issues.

“My sense is that while there are still areas for improvement and gaps, the progress that has been made and what has been achieved will shift the global indicators on sanitation.”

Godiwal, who grew up going into the fields, testifies to changes she has noticed during her visits to her village in the last two years, saying most younger people have stopped open defecation.

Nevertheless, age-old habits have been harder to break among the older people, she says.

“My brother scolds my mother if she goes out in the open, but she gets up early and goes out quietly because she prefers it,” she laughs. Meanwhile, she frets about the state of the toilet she is forced to use in her slum.  

The challenge of reaching the “last mile” also remains – coverage for the poorest and most marginalized, who often tend to be excluded from such programs.

“The point is that in our country so many people are so poor, life is a struggle and sanitation is not a priority,” says Madhavan.

At the same time, he is bullish about the program, saying there will be a point at which “it becomes aspirational for everybody to have a toilet.”

…