Suspected separatist insurgents stormed a security checkpoint in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south and killed at least 15 people, including a police officer and many village defense volunteers, security officials said on Wednesday.

It was the worst single attack in years in a region where a Muslim separatist insurgency has killed thousands.

The attackers, in the province of Yala, also used explosives and scattered nails on roads to delay pursuers late on Tuesday night.

“This is likely the work of the insurgents,” Colonel Pramote Prom-in, a regional security spokesman, told Reuters. “This is one of the biggest attack in recent times.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, however, as is common with such attacks.

A decade-old separatist insurgency in predominantly Buddhist Thailand’s largely ethnic Malay-Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat has killed nearly 7,000 people since 2004, says Deep South Watch, a group that monitors the violence.

The population of the provinces, which belonged to an independent Malay Muslim sultanate before Thailand annexed them in 1909, is 80 percent Muslim, while the rest of the country is overwhelmingly Buddhist.

Some rebel groups in the south have said they are fighting to establish an independent state.

Authorities arrested several suspects from the region in August over a series of small bombs detonated in Bangkok, the capital, although they have not directly blamed any insurgent group.

The main insurgency group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), denied responsibility for the Bangkok bombings, which wounded four people.

In August, the group told Reuters it had held a secret preliminary meeting with the government, but any step towards a peace process appeared to wither after the deputy prime minister rejected a key demand for the release of prisoners.

…

A trade war between the world’s top two economies cut U.S. imports of Chinese goods by more than a quarter, or $35 billion, in the first half of this year and drove up prices for American consumers, a U.N. study showed on Tuesday.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a trade feud for the past 16 months although there are hopes that an initial deal offering some relief may be signed this month.

If that fails, nearly all Chinese goods imports into the United States — worth more than $500 billion — could be affected.

U.S. imports from China subject to tariffs fell to $95 billion between January and June from $130 billion during the same period of 2018, the study released by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) showed.

“Overall, the results indicate that the United States tariffs on China are economically hurting both countries,” the report said. “United States losses are largely related to the higher prices for consumers, while China’s losses are related to significant export losses.”

Over time, Chinese companies began absorbing some of the extra costs of the tariffs through an 8% dip in export prices in the second quarter of 2019, but that still left 17% “on the shoulders of U.S. consumers”, said the report’s author Alessandro Nicita, an economist at UNCTAD.

The sector hit hardest by the U.S. tariffs are U.S. imports of Chinese office machinery and communication equipment, which fell by $15 billion. Over time, the scale of Chinese export losses increased alongside mounting tariffs, the study said.

Other countries stepped up to fill most of the gap left by China, the study found. It named Taiwan as the largest beneficiary of “trade diversion”, with $4.2 billion in additional exports to the United States in the first half of 2019. They were mostly office and communication equipment.

Mexico increased exports to the United States by $3.5 billion, mostly agriculture and transport equipment and electrical machinery. The European Union boosted deliveries by $2.7 billion, mostly via additional machinery exports, it found.

“The longer the trade war goes on, the more likely these losses and gains will be permanent,” Nicita said. Not all of Chinese trade losses were picked up by other economies and billions of dollars in trade were lost entirely.

The paper did not analyse the effect of Chinese tariffs on U.S. imports into China because detailed data was not yet available.

It also does not capture the most recent phase of the trade war — including 10% tariffs on about $125 billion worth of additional Chinese goods imported into the United States that took effect on Sept. 1 — beyond noting that it is likely to add to existing trade losses.
 

…

Nigerian police have freed 259 people from an Islamic rehabilitation center in the southwestern city of Ibadan, police said on Tuesday, taking the number rescued from abusive institutions since September to nearly 1,500.

Images from local TV station TVC taken after the captives were released showed a group of mostly young men and teenage boys. Many were emaciated. An infant was also among the group.

“We eat one meal a day,” freed captive Olalekan Ayoola, told TVC, saying the food wasn’t fit for a dog to eat.

Nigeria launched a crackdown on informal Islamic schools and rehabilitation centers in late September after a man was refused permission to see his nephews at one institution and complained
to police.

Many captives have said they were physically and sexually abused and chained up to prevent them escaping. Other sites raided in major police operations have been in the mostly Muslim north of the country. Ibadan is in the southwestern state of Oyo, which is predominantly Christian. Oyo state police spokesman Fadeyi Olugbenga said the facility was raided on Monday at about 2 p.m. (1300 GMT).

“Yesterday, 259 persons were released. We had women, men and teenagers,” Olugbenga said. Some people were locked inside a building and some were chained.

Olugbenga said nine people, including the owner of the center, had been arrested and were under investigation. Oyo’s commissioner of police, Shina Olukolu, told reporters on Monday that anyone found culpable would be prosecuted to “serve as a warning to others who may want to operate such houses that serve as illegal detention centers.”

Spokesmen for President Muhammadu Buhari, who ordered the crackdown, and the vice president both declined to comment. The president’s office issued a statement in October that said: “No responsible democratic government would tolerate the existence of the torture chambers and physical abuses of inmates in the name of rehabilitation of the victims.”

Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the north of the West African country. Such schools have been dogged by allegations of abuse and accusations that some children have
been forced to beg on the streets.

At other raided facilities, some parents thought their children were there to be educated and even paid tuition fees. Others sent misbehaving relatives to Islamic institutions to
instill discipline.

Muftau Adamu told TVC his parents came to collect him from the center in Ibadan but were told they must pay 1 million naira ($3,270) first – and never came back.

…

Egypt’s president has lavished praise on President Donald Trump on social media, calling him a “man with unique power to confront crises.”
 
Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi’s comments are the latest public example of the two leaders’ closeness.
 

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Egypt Says Washington to Host Nov. 6 Meeting on Ethiopia Dam Dispute

Egypt is worried that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, under construction near Ethiopia’s border with Sudan, will restrict supplies of already scarce Nile waters

El-Sissi thanked Trump late Monday for his “generous concern” for helping revive Egypt’s deadlocked dispute with Ethiopia over its construction of a massive upstream Nile dam.
 
A former army general who seized power in 2013 coup, el-Sissi has carried out a widespread crackdown on dissent, silencing critics and jailing thousands.
 

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How Egypt’s President Tightened his Grip

Behind the scenes, President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi’s closest advisers reworked the constitution to prolong his presidency and tighten his grip on Egypt. Not since the decades-long rule of Hosni Mubarak has so much power been concentrated in the hands of one man

Trump has avoided censuring el-Sissi for his repression, instead admiring his efforts to combat terrorism.
 
Trump has drawn criticism for his relationships with autocratic leaders such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

…

Two youths were shot dead and several other people were wounded in clashes between Guinean police and protesters at a funeral march for those killed in recent anti-government demonstrations, the authorities and the family of one of the victims said.

Violence erupted as hundreds marched in the capital Conakry carrying coffins of people killed in unrest since mid-October that has shaken the poor West African country.  

Demonstrators have taken to the streets over suspicions that President Alpha Conde is seeking to prolong his rule. 

According to an opposition toll, around 15 protesters have been killed during the weeks of bloody clashes with security forces, with dozens injured. The government has said one police officer was killed, but have not given an updated number of casualties. 

At Monday’s march, hundreds of people including relatives and opposition figures marched on foot or by motorbike through the Bambeto neighbourhood, bearing aloft the coffins of 11 of those killed since Oct. 24 draped in the national flag.

The marchers chanted “Justice for the dead” and “Alpha, killer” as they made their way from the hospital where victims’ remains had been held and a mosque where pre-burial prayers were planned.

Clashes broke out on the route, with youths hurling stones at riot police who responded with tear gas. Witnesses said they also fired live rounds into the crowd. 

Abdourahim Diallo, 17, was shot in the stomach at “point-blank” range when he went to attend the funeral of a friend who was killed two weeks ago, his sister Diariana told AFP. She said he died of his injuries in hospital. 

The security ministry subsequently said that a second youth had died.

…

The main candidates to become Spain’s next prime minister clashed Monday over how to handle Catalonia’s independence drive, ahead of a repeat election that opinion polls show could be as inconclusive as the one in April.

Opinion polls suggest a third of voters are still unsure who they will vote for Sunday, meaning Monday’s televised debate could be decisive. At this stage, polls point to a stalemate, with no party or bloc of parties having a majority.

Catalonia’s regional capital, Barcelona, has been rocked by weeks of sometimes violent protests since nine separatist leaders were sentenced to jail in mid-October for their role in a failed independence bid.

“You don’t believe in the Spanish nation,” the leader of the conservative People’s Party (PP), Pablo Casado, told acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, accusing him of being too soft on the Catalan separatists.

Sanchez, a Socialist, is leading in opinion polls but has lost support, while right-wing parties have grown more popular since last month’s rallies in Catalonia saw some protesters wreak havoc and throw Molotov cocktails at police.

Right-wing parties are now competing on which would take a harder line on the restive region, hoping to attract more votes Sunday.

“There’s a permanent coup d’etat in Catalonia,” said the leader of the far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, saying PP and the Socialists, which have dominated Spanish politics for decades, were both to blame.

Vox won its first parliamentary seats in April and opinion polls show that, boosted by anger over Catalonia protests, it can now hope to win more than 40 seats, up from 24 in the previous ballot. There are 350 seats up for grabs.

Poll results

Sunday’s parliamentary election will be the fourth in four years for Spain. New parties have emerged after the financial crisis, fragmenting the political landscape and making it much harder to form governments with stable majorities.

Polls carried out by GAD3, Sigma Dos and NC Report and published Monday pointed to the Socialists winning but falling short of a majority, with their numbers dropping to about 120 seats from the 123 they won in April. Vox was projected to become the third-biggest party.

PP would get more seats than in April, while the liberal Ciudadanos would be the most damaged by the repeat election.

All possible scenarios for deals to form a government are fraught with difficulties. Sanchez on Friday ruled out forming a “grand coalition” with PP.

Debating Catalonia

Challenged by his rivals on Catalonia, Sanchez said he had tackled the protests with a firm and proportional response. He added that, if elected prime minister, he would amend the country’s laws to make clear that organizing an illegal independence referendum, like Catalonia’s regional leaders did in 2017, is a crime.

Sanchez, who became prime minister in June last year after parliament ousted the conservatives in a corruption scandal, has been acting prime minister since the April election.

He also hit back at Casado and at Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera, saying they were “the two representative of the cowardly right in front of an aggressive far-right,” condemning their deals at local and regional levels with Vox.

The leader of far-left Unidas Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, with whom Sanchez failed to strike a deal to form a government after the April ballot, told Sanchez he “was wrong” if he thought the right would help solve the Catalan problem, saying dialogue with the separatists was the only solution.

While all agreed that a slowing down of Spain’s economic growth will be a major issue for who becomes prime minister, the candidates also clashed on economic policies, and in particular on taxation, with Casado saying: “In order for the Spaniards not to lose their jobs, Sanchez must lose his.”

Vox’s Abascal had not focused much on immigration in the April ballot — unlike many far-right party leaders facing elections in Europe — but took a harder line Monday, accusing Sanchez of not controlling who enters Spain.
 

…

More than 400 inmates across the state of Oklahoma were released from prison Monday in accordance to reforms approved by voters in 2016 to downgrade many crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.

The reforms were signed into law earlier this year and retroactively made simple drug possession a misdemeanor. It also made any theft, vandalism, shoplifting and robbery worth less than $1,000 a misdemeanor rather than a felony.

Under the changes, Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board approved the commutation of 462 inmates unanimously and it was made official by the Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, who has made reducing Oklahoma’s highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate one of his top priorities

According to Stitt’s office, releasing the prisoners will save the state an estimated $11.9 million annually.

…

Protesters in Lebanon rallied Sunday to call for President Michel Aoun’s ouster as part of a push for sweeping changes that have already brought the resignation of the country’s prime minister.

The protests in Beirut came hours after supporters of Aoun turned out to show their support for the president.

Aoun gave an address near the presidential palace in southeastern Beirut in which he said his supporters and the anti-government protesters should work together on anti-corruption efforts.

But in their later demonstration, the protesters rejected Aoun as a leader to deliver reforms, saying all of Lebanon’s political establishment needs to go.

The protests began last month in support of a complete overhaul of Lebanon’s sectarian-based politics. Under the current system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shi’ite Muslim.

The demonstrators have also blamed the political establishment for rampant corruption and poor public services.

…

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Sunday that “the worst is yet to come” with an oil spill that has affected more than 200 beaches on the country’s coast.

“What came so far and what was collected is a small amount of what was spilled,” Bolsonaro said in an interview with Record television.

He said he did not know if additional oil would impact his country’s coastline, but that “everything indicates that the currents went to the coast of Brazil.”

Oil slicks have been appearing for three months off the coast of northeast Brazil and fouling beaches along a 2,000 kilometer (1,250 mile) area of Brazil’s most celebrated shoreline.

Crews and volunteers have cleaned up tons of oil on the beaches.

Officials say it not yet possible to quantify the environmental and economic damage from the oil slicks.

The government on Friday named a Greek-flagged tanker as the prime suspect behind the oil slicks.

The ship Bouboulina took on oil in Venezuela and was headed for Singapore, it said.

The space agency Inpe said Friday there might still be oil at sea being pushed by currents and it could reach the states of Espiritu Santo and Rio de Janeiro in southeast Brazil.

…

Under Armour Inc. is being investigated by federal authorities over its accounting practices.

The athletic gear company said Sunday that it has been cooperating with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice on their investigations for two years.

The company said it firmly believes its accounting practices and disclosures were appropriate.

Under Armour reports earnings for the third quarter Monday.

The investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which said the probe involves whether the retailer shifted sales from quarter to quarter to make results appear stronger.

Under Armour founder Kevin Plank stepped down as CEO last month. The company has struggled since its explosive sales growth petered out in 2017. Last year it announced job cuts as part of a restructuring effort.

…

Iran will not lift its ban on talks with the United States, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday, describing the two countries as implacable foes on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

“One way to block America’s political infiltration is to ban any talks with America. It means Iran will not yield to America’s pressure,” Khamenei, who is Iran’s top authority, was quoted by state TV as saying.

“Those who believe that negotiations with the enemy will solve our problems are 100% wrong.”

Relations between the two foes have reached a crisis over the past year after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 pact between Iran and world powers under which Tehran accepted curbs to its nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions.

Washington has reimposed sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports, saying it seeks to force Iran to negotiate to reach a wider deal. Khamenei has banned Iranian officials from holding such talks unless the United States returns to the nuclear deal and lifts all sanctions.

The anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution is marked in Iran with annual demonstrations of crowds chanting “Death to America” across the country.

The embassy capture cemented the hostility between the two countries which has remained a central fact in Middle East geopolitics and an important part of Iran’s national ideology.

Iran, which accused the United States of supporting brutal policies of its ousted Shah, held 52 Americans for 444 days at the embassy, which it called the Den of Spies.

“The U.S. has not changed since decades ago … it continues the same aggressive, vicious behavior and the same international dictatorship,” Khamenei said. “Iran has a firm, iron will. It will not let America return to Iran.”

Washington’s European allies have opposed the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the nuclear pact. Iran responded to U.S. sanctions by gradually scaling back its commitments under the nuclear agreement and has said it could take further steps in November.

Khamenei poured scorn on French President Emmanuel Macron for trying to promote talks between the foes. Macron tried to arrange a failed meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.

“The French president, who says a meeting will end all the problems between Tehran and America, is either naive or complicit with America,” Khamenei said in remarks reported by state television.

…

Bangladesh said Sunday plans to relocate thousands of Rohingya living in overcrowded refugee camps to a remote island were “uncertain” after authorities failed to gain support from U.N. agencies.

Dhaka had wanted to begin its long-held plan this month to move 100,000 people to the mud-silt island of Bhashan Char, amid growing frustration with the presence of the squalid tent settlements in its southeastern border towns.

Bangladesh has said thousands of Rohingya families have volunteered to relocate, with some 3,500 of the Muslim minority due to be moved between mid-November to February during calm seas.

But the plan was in doubt as the U.N. has not supported the relocation so far, Bangladesh disaster management and relief minister Enamur Rahman told AFP.

“This has become uncertain,” Rahman said of the relocation to the island, which takes around three hours to reach by boat.

“They [U.N. agencies] still haven’t agreed to the relocation plan.”

Aid agencies including the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Program (WFP), which held meetings with the government, told him the island was “isolated” and “flood-prone.”

The agencies set out a list of conditions that had to be met, including a regular shipping service between the islet in the Bay of Bengal and the mainland, Rahman added.

The organizations provide humanitarian aid to the nearly one million Rohingya in the vast camps, including 740,000 who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar in August 2017.

“We won’t do anything forcefully,” he said, adding that at least two ships were set to ply the waters between the site and the mainland.

A U.N. official told AFP on Sunday that “U.N. agencies cannot support a move for which [they] have no technical information.”

Dhaka is due to hold another round of talks with the agencies on Wednesday, Rahman said.

Global activist group Fortify Rights said last month it interviewed 14 Rohingya at three camps, including some who appeared on lists of refugees allegedly willing to go, and found none had been consulted “and all opposed it.”

Other groups have also expressed misgivings about moving people to the island, which is regularly hit by devastating cyclones.

…

In Beirut, thousands of people turned out Sunday to show their support for Lebanon’s president. 

The demonstration was held near Michel Aoun’s presidential palace in southeastern Beirut. 

The show of support for Aoun is in direct contrast to the protests Lebanese citizens began staging across the tiny Mediterranean country last month, demanding a complete overhaul of Lebanon’s sectarian-based politics. 

The demonstrators have also blamed the political establishment for rampant corruption and poor public services. 

Another anti-government protest, however, is slated for later Sunday in central Beirut. 

…

Egypt’s Islamic State affiliate, Sinai Province, has sworn allegiance to the new leader named by the group following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the affiliate said on Telegram on Saturday.

Sinai Province, which has waged an insurgency against the Egyptian state, posted pictures of around two dozen fighters standing among trees, with a caption saying they were pledging allegiance to Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi.

…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in April said he would give the U.S. until the end of the year to become more flexible on nuclear talks. Since then, he’s launched 12 missiles to back up that warning, including a launch on Thursday. So far, though, there is no evidence the U.S. is changing its stance, meaning the situation could soon get much more volatile, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.

…

His revolutionary fervor diminished by the years that have also turned his dark brown hair white, one of the Iranian student leaders of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover says he now regrets the seizure of the diplomatic compound and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed.

Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s 40th anniversary of the attack, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh acknowledged that the repercussions of the crisis still reverberate as tensions remain high between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.

Asgharzadeh cautioned others against following in his footsteps, despite the takeover becoming enshrined in hard-line mythology. He also disputed a revisionist history now being offered by supporters of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that they directed the attack, insisting all the blame rested with the Islamist students who let the crisis spin out of control.

“Like Jesus Christ, I bear all the sins on my shoulders,” Asgharzadeh said.

At the time, what led to the 1979 takeover remained obscure to Americans who for months could only watch in horror as TV newscasts showed Iranian protests at the embassy. Popular anger against the U.S. was rooted in the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that toppled Iran’s elected prime minister and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The shah, dying from cancer, fled Iran in February 1979, paving the way for its Islamic Revolution. But for months, Iran faced widespread unrest ranging from separatist attacks, worker revolts and internal power struggles. Police reported for work but not for duty, allowing chaos like Marxist students briefly seizing the U.S. Embassy.

In this power vacuum, then-President Jimmy Carter allowed the shah to seek medical treatment in New York. That lit the fuse for the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover, though at first the Islamist students argued over which embassy to seize. A student leader named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who later became president in 2005, argued they should seize the Soviet Embassy compound in Tehran as leftists had caused political chaos.

But the students settled on the U.S. Embassy, hoping to pressure Carter to send the shah back to Iran to stand trial on corruption charges. Asgharzadeh, then a 23-year-old engineering student, remembers friends going to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar to buy a bolt cutter, a popular tool used by criminals, and the salesman saying: “You do not look like thieves! You certainly want to open up the U.S. Embassy door with it!”

“The society was ready for it to happen. Everything happened so fast,” Asgharzadeh said. “We cut off the chains on the embassy’s gate. Some of us climbed up the walls and we occupied the embassy compound very fast.”

Like other former students, Asgharzadeh said the plan had been simply to stage a sit-in. But the situation soon spun out of their control. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the long-exiled Shiite cleric whose return to Iran sparked the revolution, gave his support to the takeover. He would use that popular angle to expand the Islamists’ power.

“We, the students, take responsibility for the first 48 hours of the takeover,” Asgharzadeh said. “Later, it was out of our hands since the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the establishment supported it.”

He added: “Our plan was one of students, unprofessional and temporary.”

As time went on, it slowly dawned on the naive students that Americans wouldn’t join their revolution. While a rescue attempt by the U.S. military would fail and Carter would lose to Ronald Reagan amid the crisis, the U.S. as a whole expressed worry about the hostages by displaying yellow ribbons and counting the days of their captivity.

As the months passed, things only got worse. Asgharzadeh said he thought it would end once the shah left America or later with his death in Egypt in July 1980. It didn’t.

“A few months after the takeover, it appeared to be turning into a rotten fruit hanging down from a tree and no one had the courage to take it down and resolve the matter,” he said. “There was a lot of public opinion support behind the move in the society. The society felt it had slapped America, a superpower, on the mouth and people believed that the takeover proved to America that their democratic revolution had been stabilized.”

It hadn’t, though. The eight-year Iran-Iraq War would break out during the crisis. The hostage crisis and later the war boosted the position of hard-liners who sought strict implementation of their version of Islamic beliefs.

Seizing or attacking diplomatic posts remains a tactic of Iranian hard-liners to this day. A mob stormed the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011, while another attacked diplomatic posts of Saudi Arabia in 2016, which led to diplomatic ties being cut between Tehran and Riyadh. And Iran will commemorate the 40th anniversary of U.S. Embassy takeover on Monday by staging a rally in front of the Tehran compound where it was located.

However, Asgharzadeh denied that Iran’s then-nascent Revolutionary Guard directed the U.S. Embassy takeover, although he said it was informed before the attack over fears that security forces would storm the compound and retake it. Many at the time believed the shah would launch a coup, like in 1953, to regain power.

“In a very limited way, we informed one of the Guard’s units and they accepted to protect the embassy from outside,” Asgharzadeh said. “The claim (by hard-liners) on the Guard’s role lacks credit. I am the main narrator of the incident and I am still alive.”

In the years since, Asgharzadeh has become a reformist politician and served prison time for his views. He has argued that Iran should work toward improving ties with the U.S., a difficult task amid President Donald Trump’s maximalist campaign against Tehran.

“It is too difficult to say when the relations between Tehran and Washington can be restored,” Asgharzadeh said. “I do not see any prospect.”

…

Thirty-five soldiers were killed Friday in a “terrorist attack” on a Mali military post in the northeast of the country, the army said. 
 
“The provisional death toll has risen to 35 deaths,” it said on Facebook late Friday, adding that the situation was “under control.” 
 
An investigation into the attack on the outpost in Indelimane in the Menaka region was continuing, it said. 
 
The attack came a month after two jihadist assaults killed 40 soldiers near the border with Burkina Faso, one of the deadliest strikes against Mali’s military in recent Islamist militant violence. 
 
No group immediately claimed responsibility for Friday’s assault. 
 
The Malian government earlier condemned the “terrorist attack,” saying it had left numerous dead or wounded but without giving a precise toll. 
 
It said reinforcements had been rushed to the area to boost security and track down the attackers. 
 
Northern Mali came under the control of al-Qaida-linked jihadists after Mali’s army failed to quash a rebellion there in 2012. A French-led military campaign was launched against the jihadists, pushing them back a year later. 
 
But the jihadists have regrouped and widened their hit-and-run raids and land-mine attacks to central and southern Mali. 
 
The violence has also spilled over into Burkina Faso and Niger where militants have exploited existing intercommunal strife. 

…

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters descended on the capital of Islamabad Friday, determined to send the sitting prime minister home. The leader of the protests threatened dire consequences if his demands were not met within two days. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem was at the protest and has this story from Islamabad.

…

Backed by tens of thousands of protesters, Pakistan’s opposition parties Friday demanded the country’s prime minister resign within two days.

Demonstrators in Islamabad accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of destroying Pakistan’s economy and stealing the last election with the help of the military.

“Poor mothers are forced to sell their children for money. Young men are committing suicide. … Can we leave the people at the mercy of this incompetent government?” said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a cleric and leader of the Islamist political party Jamiat e Ulema e Islam Fazl (JUI-F) leading the protest.

March from Karachi

Friday’s peaceful demonstration was the culmination of a long march Rehman started Sunday in the port city of Karachi to draw attention to Pakistan’s issues.

Support from Pakistan’s biggest opposition parties, Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), seemed tepid at first. But the party’s senior leadership, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, joined Rehman on stage Friday to make fiery speeches.

“Our prime minister is selected, he does not represent the people, he is incompetent, he is inept,” Bhutto Zardari said.

Sharif savaged the prime minister’s economic performance.

“Imran Khan Niazi, you promised 10 million additional jobs. Instead, you’ve made hundreds of thousands jobless,” he said.

Senior members of both opposition parties are being investigated for corruption, allegedly carried out during previous governments. Both say the cases are politically motivated.

Meanwhile, Khan and his ruling party call the protests a ruse to compel the government to back off on the inquiries.

“People know what they really want. … The truth is, their cases are now public. With the massive corruption they carried out, all of them are scared they will be arrested,” Khan said while addressing a rally.

The opposition leaders did not spell out consequences if Khan does not step down, only hinting they may move to paralyze the government by blocking a main road leading to Parliament and other buildings.

The government said such a move would be forcefully repelled, prompting fears of possible violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators.

The protest has also increased tension between the opposition and Pakistan’s powerful military, which has directly ruled the country for half of its history.

“If we feel that our establishment [the military] is supporting this illegal government, then we are issuing a two-day ultimatum. After that, don’t stop us from making up our own minds,” Rehman said.

Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said opposition leaders should not drag the military into Pakistani politics.

“The army is an impartial institution. We believe in the constitution and law and our support is for a democratically elected government, not for any political party,” he said.

…

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has hailed a “landmark” meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee. In his address in Istanbul Thursday, the U.N. chief expressed hope for a political solution that will end the Syrian war. The U.N. says at least 180,000 people have been displaced since the Turkish incursion into Syria last month adding to the 6.5 million already displaced. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports U.S. troops have returned to a border area east of Qamishli.
 

…

The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives formalized the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday, passing a resolution along party lines setting up procedures for the next phase of the investigation. After weeks of testimony behind closed doors, Democrats are expected to begin public hearings into allegations Trump invited foreign interference into the 2020 election by putting pressure on Ukraine to provide information about a political rival. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
 

…

November marks 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall’s demise brought an end to a divided  Berlin — and symbolized the eventual liberation of East Germany, and later the rest of Eastern Europe, from Soviet communist rule. Yet as Charles Maynes reports, while the Wall is long gone, it still casts a shadow over German life.
 

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Human Rights Watch (HRW) says CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary forces have “committed summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability” — including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and attacks on health-care facilities.

In its report, released on Thursday, HRW called on the Afghan government to immediately disband all pro-government paramilitary groups that operate outside the “ordinary military chain of command.”

It is also calling for the Afghan government to “impartially investigate all allegations of abuse by Afghan security forces” and to “prosecute those responsible for war crimes and serious abuses.”

It says both the United States and the Afghan government should also “cooperate with independent investigations of all allegations of war crimes and other human rights abuses.”

It also says the U.S. government should “investigate any U.S. personnel” involved in abuses, and should “cease supporting Afghan forces that have been responsible for serious violations.”

HRW documented 14 cases from late 2017 to mid-2019 in which it said CIA-backed “strike groups” committed grave abuses during night raids, such as one in the southeastern province of Paktia in which a paramilitary squad killed 11 men, including eight who were home for the Eid holidays.

In some cases, HRW says, troops detained men and didn’t tell families where they were being held.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has disputed the HRW report, saying many of the claims against Afghan special forces were “likely false or exaggerated.”

“In ramping up operations against the Taliban, the CIA has enabled abusive Afghan forces to commit atrocities including extrajudicial executions and disappearances,” said Patricia Gossman, the report’s author and HRW’s associate Asia director.

“In case after case, these forces have simply shot people in their custody and consigned entire communities to the terror of abusive night raids and indiscriminate air strikes,” Grossman said.

Night raids, which combine surprise, overwhelming firepower, and night-vision equipment, are a tactic preferred by special forces.

On several occasions, raids which usually take place in Taliban-controlled areas were backed by airstrikes that “indiscriminately or disproportionately” killed civilians, HRW said.

According to data released this week by NATO, the United States conducted 1,113 air and artillery strikes in September, a large increase on previous months that came as talks between Washington and the Taliban collapsed.

CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said the agency’s operations abroad are conducted in “accordance with law and under a robust system of oversight.”

Barrett accused the Taliban of spreading misinformation and noted that the militants do not operate under any similar rules.

“Unlike the Taliban, the United States is committed to the rule of law,” officials added in a CIA statement.

“We neither condone nor would knowingly participate in illegal activities, and we continually work with our foreign partners to promote adherence to the law.”

Afghanistan’s CIA-backed militias, whose tradition goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s, are seen as a critical tool in the fight against Taliban and Islamic State militants.

Such paramilitary groups are officially under Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) but often operate almost independently of Afghan authorities.

Speaking to HRW, one unnamed diplomat referred to them as “death squads.”

The NDS did not immediately comment.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a U.S. government monitor, says Afghan special forces conducted 2,531 ground operations from January-September this year, more than the total of 2,365 for all of last year.

A U.N. report earlier this month said 1,174 civilians were killed and 3,139 wounded in Afghanistan from July to September this year — a 42 percent increase over the same period last year.

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Indian Kashmir officially became a federally ruled territory Thursday, nearly three months after New Delhi stripped its decades-old special status, but peace remains elusive in the Himalayan region that has been wracked by a violent separatist insurgency and is the flashpoint of its dispute with Pakistan.

The erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state is now split into two territories administered by New Delhi. One consists of the Muslim dominated Kashmir valley and Hindu dominated Jammu. The second is Ladakh, an icy desert bordering China.

However, months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government made the dramatic move, saying it will help stamp out terrorism and spur development in the country’s most restive region, there is widespread disenchantment and little semblance of normalcy in the Himalayan valley that is home to 8 million people.

“New highways, new railway lines, new schools, new hospitals will take the development of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to new heights,” Modi told a public rally in the western state of Gujarat.

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India Ends Statehood for Jammu and Kashmir

Modi has defended the move, saying the special status had impeded the region’s progress

The optimism was not reflected in the Kashmir valley, where shops were shuttered and streets largely deserted as a New Delhi appointee, Girish Chandra Murmu, was sworn in as the top official of Jammu and Kashmir.

“We are very apprehensive that things should not worsen. They are already bad,” according to Noor Ahmad Baba, a political analyst in the Kashmiri capital Srinagar. He describes the mood in the valley as sullen and angry, particularly among young people, and fears that downgrading Kashmir’s status could fuel the anti-India rebellion that New Delhi has struggled to control.

“They can’t go for any active resistance because of very heavy security presence around and there is no leadership,” Baba said.

While a huge security lockdown has kept a lid on popular protests, there has been a spate of militant attacks in the past two weeks. The internet continues to be shut down, although the communication blackout Kashmir faced ahead of the move has been somewhat eased. Businesses are counting losses of $1.4 billion, and apple farmers and traders have struggled to harvest and transport the bountiful crop due to fears of reprisals by militants. Regional political leaders who were placed under arrest to prevent them from fanning unrest remain in detention.

The most conspicuous change is that people from the rest of India can now buy land in Kashmir, previously banned under a constitutional provision known as Article 370 that gave Kashmiris special rights in property, education and jobs to protect the region’s identity.

The government has defended its move, saying it will link Kashmir with mainstream India, lessen its sense of alienation, guarantee its people rights available to other Indians, such as the right to education, and bring investment and jobs.

Home Minister Amit Shah told a public rally in Gujarat that scrapping Article 370 had shut down the “gateway to terrorism” in India, and will integrate Kashmir with the rest of the country.

That may not be easy, observers say. Recent militant attacks targeting migrant workers from outside the state are being interpreted as a signal Kashmir will not be secure for people from other parts of India. In the latest attack, on Tuesday, five construction workers were lined up and shot dead, according to officials. Earlier this month, six truckers who came to transport apples from the lush orchards were killed in separate incidents.

Businesses that have been crippled since the August 5 announcement because of the communication blackout are not optimistic that direct federal rule will make any difference on the ground.

“For every Kashmiri it is one and the same. Nothing is going to change. People are talking of investment now, but what about the present businesses? This is the big challenge,” according to the president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad.

 “The nascent IT sector is crippled. When there are no orders, where will our weavers and artisans go? In tourism sector alone 70,000 people are jobless.”

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Kashmiri Journalists Stage Protest Against ‘Media Gag’

Mobile and internet communications in the Kashmir valley are largely blocked, severely impacting the ability of journalists to report from the region

Outside of Kashmir, in the rest of India, Modi has won wide praise for making a bold move to stamp out the separatist insurgency fomented by Islamic militant groups that India says are supported by Pakistan  an allegation denied by Islamabad.

“I don’t have doubts about the need for such a step and I am optimistic that things will improve,” Jayadeva Ranade, a security and intelligence expert in New Delhi, said.

Others underline that to “win the peace” in Kashmir, the government urgently needs to address the political vacuum in the state where virtually all regional leaders and party workers remain under detention.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who is under detention tweeted, “GOI (government of India) has left Kashmiris in the lurch & shown disregard for their rights. But if you consider them as your own, reach out & engage with them before it’s too late.” Her Twitter post is being handled by her daughter.

Pointing out that the government has yet to allow people to speak out, The Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial that it should free political leaders and workers and lift curbs on people.

Bringing Kashmir under New Delhi’s rule has worsened India’s fraught relationship with Pakistan, which has strongly opposed the move. Islamabad has downgraded diplomatic ties, and stopped trade, postal and train services with India.

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Dracula, Frankenstein, and other monsters may have literary origins but Hollywood has made them iconic characters that have scared and thrilled audiences around the world. Filmmakers looked to science and archeology as inspiration for the movie monsters. The connection between science and art is shown at an exhibit called the Natural History of Horror at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.

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The medical examiner who ruled Jeffrey Epstein’s death a suicide is immediately pushing back against the suggestion by a longtime forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s family that some of the evidence indicates homicide.
 
New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson says Wednesday she stands “firmly” behind her findings. The autopsy report appeared to put much speculation about the 66-year-old financier’s death to rest.
 
Dr. Michael Baden reignited conspiracy theories Wednesday when he said on Fox News that fractures to Epstein’s larynx and hyoid bone are more consistent with homicidal strangulation.
 
Other experts have said the hyoid bone often breaks in suicidal hangings.
 
Baden was in the room for the autopsy, but he cautioned that his observations weren’t conclusive.
 
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center with a bedsheet around his neck on Aug. 10.

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Go inside the mission by US Special Forces that resulted in the suicide of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren examines how the mission was executed and what the fallout might be. Join Greta and VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb (@CarlaBabbVOA); VOA National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin (@jseldin); VOA Extremist Watch Desk reporter Hasib Alikozai (@Alikozai86); and retired Major General Robert Scales. Aired October 30, 2019.

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Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death will mean nothing to 19-year-old rape victim Jamila unless the Islamic State militants who enslaved her are brought to justice.

Jamila, who asked not to be identified by her last name, is one of thousands of women from the Yazidi minority religion who were kidnapped and raped by IS after it mounted an assault on the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq in August 2014.

“Even if Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, it doesn’t mean Islamic State is dead,” Jamila told Reuters outside the tent that is now her temporary home in the Sharya camp for displaced Yazidis in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

“This doesn’t feel like justice yet,” she said. “I want the men who took me, who raped me, to stand trial. And I want to have my voice heard in court. I want to face them in court. … Without proper trials, his death has no meaning.”

Baghdadi, who had led IS since 2010, detonated a suicide vest after being cornered in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday.

Inspired by his edicts to enslave and slaughter Yazidis, whom IS regard as infidels, his followers shot, beheaded and kidnapped thousands in a rampage which the United Nations called a genocidal campaign against them.

Along with thousands of other women and children, Jamila said she was enslaved by the militants and kept in captivity for five months in the city of Mosul along with her sister.

She was just 14 when she was seized. But her problems did not end after she and her sister managed to escape when, she said, their guards were high on drugs.

“When I first came back, I had a nervous breakdown and psychological problems for two years, so I couldn’t go to school,” she said.

No plans to go home

Now instead of working or catching up on her years of lost schooling, she looks after her mother, with whom she shares her cramped tent at the camp.

“My mother can’t walk and has health problems, so I have to stay and take care of her because my older siblings are in Germany,” she said.

The prospect of going home to Sinjar in northern Iraq is not an option for Jamila, and many others. The city still lies in ruin four years after the IS onslaught, and suspicion runs deep in the ethnically mixed area.

“Sinjar is completely destroyed. Even if we could go back, I wouldn’t want to because we’d be surrounded by the same Arab neighbors who all joined IS in the first place, and helped them kill us (Yazidis),” she said.

IS trials

Thousands of men are being tried in Iraqi courts for their ties to IS. Iraq has so far not allowed victims to testify in court, something community leaders and human rights groups say would go a long way in the healing process.

“It is deplorable that not a single victim of Islamic State’s horrific abuses including sexual slavery has gotten their day in court,” said Belkis Wille, Iraq Researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Iraq’s justice system is designed to allow the state to exact mass revenge against suspects, not provide real accountability for victims.”

For some of the nearly 17,000 Yazidis at the Sharya camp, Baghdadi’s death was a first step in that direction, though they fear the IS fighters who are still alive.

Mayan Sinu, 25, can dream of a new life after the camp as she and her three children have been granted asylum by Australia. But she also wants the men who shot her husband in the legs and dragged him off to be brought to justice. He has been missing since the incident five years ago.

“I hope Baghdadi is suffering more than we ever did, and my God we suffered,” said Sinu. “I wish he (Baghdadi) hadn’t blown himself up so I could have slaughtered him myself with my bare hands.”
 

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Hungary is set to reappoint its chief prosecutor to a new 9-year term and will remove its main judicial administrator, in moves that critics say highlight premier Viktor Orban’s mixed success in influencing the judiciary which remains one of the most independent bodies in Hungarian society.

Despite constant clashes with Western partners over the rule of law, the conservative populist Orban has solidified his grip over most walks of Hungarian life.

He rejects allegations that his government has eroded checks and balances and has said his strong mandate received in democratic elections empowers his Fidesz party to change laws.

While the country’s prosecution system has been under the direct control of chief prosecutor Peter Polt, an Orban loyalist, the National Association of Judges has resisted Orban and has been engulfed in a bitter dispute over administrative attempts to rein it in, via appointments or financial pressure.

President Janos Ader, a former head of Fidesz party and Orban’s key ally, proposed reappointing Polt as chief prosecutor for a second nine-year term on Tuesday. He gave no reasoning.

Parliament, where Fidesz holds a large majority, will have to confirm Polt.

The European Union said in 2019 Hungary lacked determined action to prosecute corruption in high-level cases and “the effective functioning of the prosecution service remains a concern.”

Polt has dismissed those claims as “baseless”.

Tunde Hando, the wife of Fidesz stalwart and European Parliament member Jozsef Szajer, will leave her position as chair of the judiciary administration a year early.

As chief administrator she was ultimately responsible for the operation of the court system, with a say over issues like the nomination of new senior judges or budgeting.

Hando said she always acted by the law, adding Hungary’s Constitution makes clear the fundamental division of powers.

Balazs Toth, a legal expert at the rights group Hungarian Helsinki Committee, who has represented clients in cases against the government, said Fidesz wants a country without checks and balances, but judges have withstood the propaganda and pressure.

Fidesz has nominated Hando to the Constitutional Court, once Hungary’s top arbiter of law but greatly weakened after Orban’s party started to appoint its members.

Prosecutors filter criminal cases and decide which cases to investigate and how, choosing which cases to refer to the courts – a power that critics have said it used selectively to block cases detrimental to Fidesz or Orban’s associates.

When investigating a case of suspected fraud in 2014 involving Orban’s son-in-law Istvan Tiborcz, Polt’s prosecutors found no wrongdoing. A later probe by the European anti-fraud body OLAF however, detailed alleged fraud totalling 13 billion forints ($44 million) and recommended Hungary investigate.

Polt reopened the case but again dismissed it.

Tiborcz has not commented on the case, in which he and his business partners were never charged, as matters did not proceed to court.

Polt has rejected allegations of complicity.

($1 = 296.3900 forints)

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Guinea-Bissau President Jose Mario Vaz named a new prime minister on Tuesday but his sacked predecessor refused to step down, intensifying a bitter power struggle between Vaz and the ruling party weeks ahead of a presidential election.

Vaz, who is running for again in the Nov. 24 poll, dissolved the government late on Monday saying the political situation was undermining the normal functioning of state institutions in the West African country.

It has suffered repeated bouts of instability since it became independent from Portugal in 1974, including nine coups or attempted coups and a surge in cocaine trafficking from South America that has been linked to senior military officials.

The country has been largely peaceful since Vaz came to power in a 2014 election that followed a coup two years earlier.

But he has repeatedly clashed over the balance of power in the semi-presidential system with a string of prime ministers put forward by the African Party of the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which controls a majority in parliament.

In a decree on Tuesday, Vaz named as prime minister Faustino Fudut Imbali, who served in the same post from 2000-2003 and represents the small Manifest Party of the People.

Aristides Gomes, who was put forward for the job by PAIGC, told Reuters he was refusing to go: “I am in my office, working.”

Gomes said Vaz’s orders were illegitimate since the president’s term technically expired on June 23. West African regional bloc ECOWAS declared a few days later that Vaz could stay in office through to the November election.

Vaz won the 2014 presidential election as the PAIGC’s candidate but fell out with the party after sacking his prime minister in 2015. He is now running for re-election as an independent candidate.

In a rare political protest, demonstrations from a party opposed to Gomes’s government took to the streets of the capital Bissau at the weekend, demanding the election be postponed so that voter lists could be checked for irregularities.

One protester died on Saturday and several were wounded, according to the government, a hospital source and march organizers.

Instability in Guinea-Bissau has typically taken the form of military coups, led by officers drawn mostly from a narrow military elite who fought for independence in 1963-1974.

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