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Рішення Верховної Ради про анбандлінг (розділення) НАК «Нафтогаз України» відкрила шлях для укладення угоди про транзит російського газу до Євросоюзу з використанням української газотранспортної системи. Про це на годині запитань до уряду 1 листопада у Верховній Раді заявив прем’єр-міністр України Олексій Гончарук.

«Уряд робить усе можливе, щоб угода була підписана в максимально короткий термін. Для цього, зокрема, було потрібно вирішити питання про анбандлінг (розділення) НАК «Нафтогаз України». Учора парламент це зробив, коли схвалив закон 2239-1. Тепер будемо працювати за європейськими правилами. Це дає нам можливість апелювати до наших європейських партнерів, союзників і виступати спільною позицією на переговорах. Переговори тривають. Але з російською стороною у нас, м’яко кажучи, не найпростіші відносини», – вказав Гончарук.

Голова уряду додав, що інтересом України є укладення довгострокового контракту, а не угоди на рік, як це пропонує російський «Газпром». «Ми будемо вимагати гарантій транзиту в достатній кількості, щоб можна було обслуговувати газотранспортну систему», – відзначив прем’єр-міністр.

Верховна Рада ухвалила 31 жовтня закон про анбандлінг «Нафтогазу», тобто про відокремлення газотранспортної системи України від НАК «Нафтогаз України», під управлінням якої вона зараз перебуває.

Документ передбачає, що ГТС залишиться у державній власності, однак для управління нею буде створено окрему компанію-оператора, на яку «Нафтогаз» впливати не зможе.

Наразі «Нафтогаз України» здійснює повний цикл операцій розвідки та розробки родовищ, експлуатаційного та розвідувального буріння, транспортування та зберігання нафти і газу, постачання природного і скрапленого газу споживачам. Відокремлення функцій, зокрема, транспортування газу вимагає, серед іншого, так званий Третій енергопакет нормативних актів Європейського союзу, втілити які зобов’язалася й Україна. «Нафтогаз України» є одноособовим акціонером компанії «Укртрансгаз», яка займається транспортуванням газу.

Реформа «Нафтогазу» передбачає проведення демонополізації компанії. Оператор української ГТС має бути виділений в юридичну особу, не пов’язану ні з «Нафтогазом», ні з іншими підприємствами, які займаються видобутком і генерацією енергії.
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Верховна Рада України 31 жовтня розглянула правки до державного бюджету і підтримала урядову ініціативу про виділення 1 млрд гривень шахтарям. Про це повідомляє пресслужба уряду.

Відповідний законопроєкт підтримав 291 депутат.

«Парламент підтримав пропозицію уряду про виділення 1 млрд грн на вирішення гострих проблем вугледобувної галузі, виплати заробітної плати шахтарям», – мовиться у повідомленні.

15 вересня у Верховній Раді зареєстрували проєкт державного бюджету. Парламент схвалив його у першому читанні. Остаточно законопроєкт про державний бюджет мають ухвалити до 1 грудня.

 
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Верховна Рада ухвалила 31 жовтня законопроєкт про анбандлінг «Нафтогазу», тобто про відокремлення газотранспортної системи України від НАК «Нафтогаз України», під управлінням якої вона зараз перебуває.

Відповідний законопроєкт підтримав 341 народний депутат.

Документ передбачає, що ГТС залишиться у державній власності, однак для управління нею буде створено окрему компанію-оператора, на яку «Нафтогаз» впливати не зможе.

Анбандлінг «Нафтогазу» одна з умов, які дадуть можливість Україні могла укласти новий контракт про транзит газу з Росією за європейськими правилами, зазначав раніше глава Міненерго Олексій Оржель.

У липні компанія «Нафтогаз» заявляла, що негайне проведення відокремлення оператора газотранспортної системи зараз неможливе через чинний транзитний контракт з російським «Газпромом».

Наразі «Нафтогаз України» здійснює повний цикл операцій розвідки та розробки родовищ, експлуатаційного та розвідувального буріння, транспортування та зберігання нафти і газу, постачання природного і скрапленого газу споживачам. Відокремлення функцій, зокрема, транспортування газу вимагає, серед іншого, так званий Третій енергопакет нормативних актів Європейського союзу, втілити які зобов’язалася й Україна. «Нафтогаз України» є одноособовим акціонером компанії «Укртрансгаз», яка займається транспортуванням газу.

Реформа «Нафтогазу» передбачає проведення демонополізації компанії. Оператор української ГТС має бути виділений в юридичну особу, не пов’язану ні з «Нафтогазом», ні з іншими підприємствами, які займаються видобутком і генерацією енергії.
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Pope Francis has declared that the Vatican Secret Archive isn’t so secret after all.

Francis on Monday officially changed the name of the Holy See archive to remove what he said were the “negative” implications of having “secret” in its name.
 
From now on, the vast trove of documentation of popes past will be officially known as the “Vatican Apostolic Archive.”
 
Francis noted that the archive has long been open to scholars and that he himself has decreed that the archives of World War II-era Pope Pius XII, accused by some of not speaking out enough about the Holocaust, would open ahead of time March 2, 2020.
 
But he said the name change better reflects the archive’s reality and “its service to the church and the world of culture.”

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French luxury group LVMH has offered to buy Tiffany & Co. for $14.5 billion in cash, sending shares in the New York jewelers soaring.

The purchase would add another household name to LVMH’s plethora of upscale brands. It owns fashion names such as Christian Dior, Fendi, and Givenchy as well as watchmaker Tag Heuer.

It would also give LVMH a much broader foothold in the United States and broaden its offerings in jewelry.

LVMH cautioned in a brief statement that “there can be no assurance that these discussions will result in any agreement.”

Tiffany said the offer was for $120 a share, which is about $14.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the offer over the weekend.

The New York-based company said Monday that it was considering the offer. Its shares jumped 31% to $128.81 in premarket trading in New York.

The offer comes as Tiffany has struggled with stagnating sales as China’s slowing economy has weighed on spending by Chinese tourists, who make up a substantial portion of luxury spending. The strong dollar has also made Tiffany products more expensive for consumers outside the U.S.

LVMH competes with the Kering Group, which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, and Richemont SA, which owns Cartier.

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Thousands of students have joined Iraq’s anti-government protests, defying a government order and tear gas from security forces.
 
The students skipped classes at several universities and secondary schools in Baghdad and across the Shi’ite south on Monday to take part in the protests. The demonstrations are fueled by anger at corruption, economic stagnation and poor public services.
 
In Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protests, demonstrators chanted: “It’s a student revolution, no to the government, no to parties!”
 
Security forces have fired tear gas and stun grenades to keep protesters from crossing a main bridge leading to the Green Zone, home to government offices and embassies.
 
At least 219 people have been killed in clashes with security forces since the protests began earlier this month.

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President Donald Trump falsely asserted that he predicted Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in a news conference Sunday aimed at showcasing his administration’s accomplishments in stemming the terrorist threat abroad.

A look at the president’s claims at the briefing, where he announced the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group:

TRUMP: “I’m writing a book … About a year before the World Trade Center came down, the book came out. I was talking about Osama bin Laden. I said, ‘You have to kill him. You have to take him out.’ Nobody listened to me.” Trump added that people said to him, ”‘You predicted that Osama Bin Laden had to be killed, before he knocked down the World Trade Center.’ It’s true.”

THE FACTS: It’s not true.

His 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” makes a passing mention of bin Laden but did no more than point to the al-Qaida leader as one of many threats to U.S. security. Nor does he say in the book that bin Laden should have be killed.

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US Military Acted Quickly on Intel to Capture or Kill Baghdadi

A US official told VOA the operation was staged from a base in Iraq

As part of his criticism of what he considered Bill Clinton’s haphazard approach to U.S. security as president, Trump wrote: “One day we’re told that a shadowy figure with no fixed address named Osama bin Laden is public enemy Number One, and U.S. jetfighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan. He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later it’s on to a new enemy and new crisis.”

The book did not call for further U.S. action against bin Laden or al-Qaida to follow up on attacks Clinton ordered in 1998 in Afghanistan and Sudan after al-Qaida bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The U.S. attacks were meant to disrupt bin Laden’s network and destroy some of al-Qaida’s infrastructure, such as a factory in Sudan associated with the production of a nerve gas ingredient. They “missed” in the sense that bin Laden was not killed in them, and al-Qaida was able to pull off 9/11 three years later.

In passages on terrorism, Trump’s book does correctly predict that the U.S. was at risk of a terrorist attack that would make the 1993 World Trade Center bombing pale by comparison. That was a widespread concern at the time, as Trump suggested in stating “no sensible analyst rejects this possibility.”

Still, Trump did not explicitly tie that threat to al-Qaida and thought an attack might come through a miniaturized weapon of mass destruction, like a nuclear device in a suitcase or anthrax.

TRUMP: “Nobody ever heard of Osama bin Laden until really the World Trade Center.”

THE FACTS: That’s incorrect. Bin Laden was well known by the CIA, other national security operations, experts and the public long before 9/11, with the CIA having a unit entirely dedicated to bin Laden going back to the mid-1990s. The debate at the time was over whether Clinton and successor President George W. Bush could have done more against al-Qaida to prevent the 2001 attacks.

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Clashes in the streets as thousands of people took to the streets for another weekend of protests in Hong Kong. This week, the city’s governing body formally withdrew the bill that sparked the original protests earlier this year, but that has done little to appease protesters in this leaderless movement, who say they want the government to do more to stave off what they believe is encroaching control from Beijing. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Hong Kong

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The United States is promising there will be no let-up in its pursuit of the Islamic State terror group despite the death of self-declared caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in what is being described as a “daring and dangerous” nighttime raid in northern Syria.
 
Baghdadi, who took over the group formerly known as al-Qaida In Iraq in 2010 and turned into a global threat, died “whimpering and crying” in a dead-end tunnel, according to U.S. President Donald Trump.
 

“Baghdadi’s demise demonstrates America’s relentless pursuit of terrorist leaders and our commitment to the enduring defeat of ISIS and other terrorist organizations,” the U.S. president said from the White House Sunday, using an acronym for the terror group.
 
“We know the successors,” he added. “And we already have them in our sights.”
 
Efforts to track them down may get an additional boost from the raid on the compound in Barisha, in Syria’s Idlib province, which led to the capture of a small group of IS officials and fighters.
 
Trump said U.S. forces also recovered, “highly sensitive material and information… much having to do with ISIS, origins, future plans, things that we very much want.”

Already, those efforts may be paying off.  The commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, General Mazloum Abdi, tweeted Sunday that IS spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was targeted and killed in a subsequent joint SDF-U.S. operation near the northern Syrian town of Jarablus, though U.S. officials have yet to comment.
 

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US Military Acted Quickly on Intel to Capture or Kill Baghdadi

A US official told VOA the operation was staged from a base in Iraq

Islamic State: an adaptive, potent terror group
 
But military and intelligence officials admit tracking down and eliminating key IS emirs and operatives, while serving to degrade the terror group’s capabilities, has not been sufficient to lead to its ultimate demise.
 
At one point, in late 2015, as the U.S.-led coalition tried to roll back the terror group’s caliphate, officials said airstrikes were killing, on average, one mid-level or senior-level IS leader every two days.

HVI [High Value Individual] strikes killed abt 70 senior/mid-level #ISIS leaders since May “depleting #ISIL‘s bench” per @OIRspox

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) October 13, 2015

 
U.S. counterterrorism officials later described some of those so-called decapitation strikes as “significant blows.”
 
Yet IS carried on, and even as it’s caliphate collapsed, with the last bit territory falling to coalition forces this past March, the terror group’s leadership was proving to be nimble and adaptive, focusing their efforts on a potent and growing insurgency.
 
“ISIS is working to advance an insurgency in Syria and Iraq comprised of dispersed networks spanning the battlespace,” a U.S. counterterrorism official recently told VOA.
 
“The group is using these networks to undermine local governance and reconstruction efforts by stoking violence and mistrust among ethno-sectarian lines,” the official added.
 
Other current and former officials warn such resiliency has been built into the IS’ operating model from the start.
 
“It’s a big deal, simply because of the symbolic importance of Baghdadi,” former U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told VOA, of the U.S. operation that killed the IS leader.
 
Baghdadi’s death not enough to stop IS
 
But he said Baghdadi’s death alone would not be enough.
 
“ISIS has been more de-centralized and has groomed leaders for just this eventuality,” Clapper said.

Terrorism analysts also point to a growing body of evidence that suggest even in groups which are less prepared to cope with the loss of an influential leader, strikes like the one that killed Baghdadi are rarely death blows.
 
“The death of a jihadist leader is always a dangerous moment for the group as it can lead to internal struggles,” said Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence for Le Beck, a Middle East-based security and geopolitical consultancy.
 

“In general, however, jihadist groups do tend to survive such strikes,” he said, pointing to IS’ main rival, al-Qaida, as an example. “[Osama] bin Laden was replaced by his former number two, [Ayman] al-Zawahiri, a much less charismatic leader, but one that still heads a powerful and global terror franchise.”
 
Recent intelligence from the U.S. and other countries indicates IS, even without Baghdadi, is well-positioned to survive and even thrive.
 
Despite no longer controlling territory in Syria and Iraq, the terror group still had an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 thousand fighters across Syria and Iraq. Officials also believe it still has plenty of cash, perhaps up to $300 million at its disposal.
 
And U.S. officials note IS retains many of its former capabilities, moving them underground as it ceded territorial control to U.S.-backed forces.

“The group has tens of thousands of seasoned fighters and hundreds of leaders who have survived decades of war,” said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “The Islamic State is more than its emir.”
 
Islamic State ‘brand lives on’
 
U.S. officials have likewise warned that IS has built itself in such a way that developments which they thought would undoubtedly lead to its demise — like the loss of almost all of its physical caliphate — have had less impact than anticipated.
 
“The so-called ISIS caliphate has been destroyed, but the ISIS brand lives on around the world,” State Department Counterterrorism coordinator Nathan Sales warned this past August.
 
Still, IS is likely to face some significant challenges, especially in the short term, knowing that the U.S. may have gained access to crucial information during the raid on Bashira.
 
“The first thing they’re going to do will probably be to activate security protocols to try to get their manpower and their resources to a position of safety with the expectation that the U.S. is going to hit the [IS] network hard,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst and CEO of Valens Global.
 
There is also a question of securing the allegiance of IS’ various affiliates, especially those in Afghanistan, Egypt’s Sinai, Libya and Nigeria.
 
“The standard bayat [pledge of allegiance] is not to an organization,” said Gartenstein-Ross “Bayat is on an individual to individual level.”
 
And exactly who that new leader will ultimately be is not clear.
 

“If you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have said that ISIS was always expecting that Baghdadi would eventually be killed and that the process of succession was already set in place,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a terrorism researcher and assistant professor at Queen’s University in Ontario Canada, who has interviewed active members of the movement.
 
“But now, after Baghuz, all of this is up in the air,” he said. “Whatever structures they had in place for succession are probably no more.”
 
There are also questions about how Baghdadi’s death will impact the morale of IS fighters and supporters. While analysts say most will view him as a martyr, ignoring President Trump’s descriptions of the IS leader dying “like a dog” and “like a coward,” his continued ability to defy the U.S. and send out occasional messages may be felt.
 
“It seems his reappearance earlier this year was a real morale booster for supporters,” said Raphael Gluck, co-founder of Jihadoscope, a company that monitors online activity by Islamist extremists.
 
“Clearly he, or those around him, thinks it’s good for ISIS and worth the risks,” Gluck said at the time.

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Clashes between police and militant elements in a thousands-strong crowd of demonstrators transformed part of central Barcelona into a battleground late on Saturday as another day of pro-independence protests turned violent. 

Projectiles were fired, at least six people were hospitalized with injuries, and barricades were set alight after officers charged ranks of demonstrators — many young and masking their faces — who had amassed outside Spanish police headquarters. 

The violent standoff in the city’s tourist heartland offered stark evidence of the fault lines developing between hardline and conciliatory elements within the region’s independence movement. 

It lasted several hours before protesters dispersed through the city’s streets. 

Barcelona has witnessed daily pro-secession protests since Oct. 14. That was when Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced nine politicians and activists to up to 13 years in jail for their role in a failed independence bid in 2017, prompting widespread anger in the region and sending shockwaves through Spain’s political landscape. 

Saturday’s protest was not the first marred by violence, with unrest notably on Oct. 18 having been more widespread. But it contrasted starkly with events earlier in the day, when 350,000 Catalans had marched peacefully through the city in support of calls from civil rights groups for the jailed separatist leaders to be freed. 
 
Bottles, balls, bullets

The later protest was organized by CDR, a pro-independence pressure group that favors direct action and has cut off rail tracks and roads, as well as trying to storm the regional parliament. 

It began around 7:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) and as the crowd grew to around 10,000, according to police estimates, demonstrators threw a hail of bottles, balls and rubber bullets at officers, TV footage showed. 

Police carrying shields and weapons and backed by some 20 riot vans then charged the demonstrators in an attempt to disperse them, splitting the crowd in two along Via Laietana near the police headquarters. 

Reuters TV footage showed police armed with batons forcing their way through the crowd while demonstrators threw stones and flares. News channel 24h showed police grappling one-on-one with demonstrators, who fell back before reforming their lines. 

Some projectiles were fired, with a Reuters photographer among those hospitalized after being hit in the stomach by a rubber or foam bullet. Catalan emergency services said that, in all, six people were hospitalized. 

The organizers of the earlier protest, grass-roots groups Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) and Omnium Cultural, had hoped that, with pro-secessionist parties split over what strategy to adopt, it would refocus attention in the secessionist camp by 
drawing the largest crowd since the court verdicts were passed. 

“From the street we will keep defending all the [people’s] rights, but from the institutions we need political answers,” ANC leader Elisenda Paluzie told the gathering, pledging to organize more protests. 

Local police said around 350,000 attended, compared with a daily peak of 500,000 at the Oct. 18 protest and 600,000 at a march that took place on Catalonia’s national day last month. 

All those figures, however, represent only a small percentage of the region’s 7.5 million population, and its electorate is almost evenly split over the issue of independence. 

Mainstream Spanish parties, including the minority Socialist government, have consistently rejected moves toward Catalan independence and all except for the left-wing Podemos are opposed to any form of referendum. 

They are now gearing up for a national election on Nov. 10. 
 
‘Prison is not the answer’

Both ANC and Omnium Cultural eschew violence and their then-leaders were among the nine jailed on Oct 14. 

Many who joined their march carried Catalan pro-independence flags and banners bearing slogans that included: “Prison is not the answer,” “Sit and talk” and “Freedom for political prisoners.” 

In the front row was regional government head Quim Torra, who earlier presided over a ceremony at which hundreds of Catalan mayors endorsed a document demanding self-determination. 

“We have to be capable of creating a republic of free men and women … and overcoming the confrontational dynamic with a constructive one,” he told them. 

While not currently affiliated with any party, Torra belongs to the separatist political movement Junts per Catalunya. It has been in favor of maintaining confrontation with authorities in Madrid, while its leftist coalition partner Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya favors dialogue. 

One marcher, Maria Llopart, 63, criticized the lack of unity between the two parties. “Everything looks very bad. We are not advancing,” she said. 

Francesc Dot, 65, said the nine leaders had been jailed in defense of “Spain’s unity.” 

His wife, Maria Dolors Rustarazo, 63, said she should also be in prison because she voted in the 2017 referendum, which Spanish courts outlawed. “If [all separatist votes] … have to go to jail, we will go, but I don’t think we would all fit,” she said. 

She condemned the violence but had understanding for young protesters being “angry at the lack of democracy.” 

On Saturday they included Manel, a 20-year-old student with his face obscured by a cloth, who said he was among those who lit barricades during last week’s unrest. 

“We need a consistent protest — more streets and less parliamentary talk, because that doesn’t seem to work,” he said before the CDR protest turned violent. 

“If we halt the economy, the Spanish government would be obliged to talk.” 

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Democratic presidential candidates in South Carolina Saturday accused U.S. President Donald Trump of stoking racism as they vied for the state’s black vote in its strategically important early primary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and five other Democrats participated in a forum at historically black Benedict College a day after Trump was presented an award there for his work on criminal justice, sparking outrage among candidates and temporarily prompting Senator Kamala Harris to pull out.

Harris, a former district attorney and state attorney general in California, spoke at the event Saturday after the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center, which gave Trump the award, was removed as a sponsor, according to her campaign.

A spokeswoman for that nonprofit group, which continued to be involved in organizing the event throughout the day, did not respond to a request for comment.

“I said I would not come because I just couldn’t believe that Donald Trump would be given an award as it relates to criminal justice reform,” Harris told the audience.

“Let’s be clear: This is somebody who has disrespected the voices that have been present for decades about the need for reform,” she said, criticizing the president for describing an impeachment inquiry against him as a “lynching,” a form of vigilante killing historically associated with white supremacists.

Showcase for Democrats

The event is an important showcase for Democrats ahead of South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary, the party’s fourth state-nominating contest. Six in 10 Democratic voters in the state are black and Biden has a strong early lead in local political polls.

In receiving the award Friday, Trump extolled his record on race and criminal justice before a largely handpicked and appreciative audience. The award recognized Trump last year signing bipartisan legislation including easing harsh minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

Biden told the crowd on Saturday that “I don’t quite understand” why Trump would get the award. “It’s not just his words that have given rise to hate,” he said. “His actions — his actions have failed the African American community, and all communities.”

Trump hopes his support for a sweeping criminal justice reform law will help him pick up votes among African Americans next year after only winning 8% of the black vote in 2016. The president easily won South Carolina, where Republican voters outnumber Democrats 2-to-1, in 2016.

On Twitter, the president shot back at Harris, calling her a “badly failing presidential candidate” and said low unemployment and new criminal justice reforms achieved during his administration are “more than Kamala will EVER be able to do for African Americans!”

A spokeswoman for Trump’s presidential campaign, Sarah Matthews, added that “only people with desperately failing campaigns try to make this kind of racist nonsense against the President and Republicans work.”

Biden and Warren

Ten Democrats seeking the presidential nomination are speaking at events in South Carolina this weekend and presenting plans on legalizing marijuana, ending the death penalty and eliminating sentencing disparities for offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine, which have disproportionately affected black people.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is scheduled to speak on the final day of the criminal justice event Sunday along with two other Democrats.

In South Carolina, Democrats are working to chip away at a Biden’s early advantage. Bolstered by the eight years he served as vice president to Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, Biden has deep connections with black politicians and clergy.

Biden leads his closest rival in South Carolina, Warren, by nearly 20 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics average of recent polls. The state may end up being crucial for the former vice president as a last line of defense if he continues to lose ground to rivals in Iowa and New Hampshire.

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President Donald Trump’s plan to attend Game 5 of the World Series Sunday will continue a rich tradition of intertwining the American presidency with America’s pastime.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s limousine drove onto to the field ahead of the 1933 World Series, the last time the nation’s capital hosted the Fall Classic. Congressional hearings on the stock market collapse were postponed so senators could attend the game.

Harry S. Truman tossed out a first pitch from the stands of a regular season game in August 1945, just days after the end of World War II, giving Americans a sense that normalcy was returning after years of global conflict.

George W. Bush wore a bulletproof vest under his jacket when he threw a perfect strike from the Yankee Stadium mound during the 2001 World Series, not 10 miles from where the World Trade Center was attacked a month earlier.

Trump, who has yet to throw out a ceremonial first pitch since taking office, plans to arrive after the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros are underway and leave before the final out, in hopes of making his visit less disruptive to fans, according to Rob Manfred, baseball’s commissioner.

Deep ties to baseball 

While it will be Trump’s first time attending a major league game as president, he has deep ties to the sport.

A longtime New York Yankees fan who was spotted regularly at games in the Bronx, he was also a high school player with enough talent that, he has said, he drew the attention of big league scouts.

Presidential attendance at baseball games has “become an institution and a unifying influence in a nation that is losing both,” said Curt Smith, a former Bush speechwriter and author of “The Presidents and the Pastime.”

“It is part of the job description, whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or a conservative. Bush found it a joy, he understood the symbolism of the moment. And he was the rule, not the exception,” Smith said.

Trump mentioned his World Series plan to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. But when asked whether he might throw out the first pitch, he said, “I don’t know. They’re going to have to dress me up in a lot of heavy armor,” apparently referring to a bulletproof vest. “I’ll look too heavy. I don’t like that.”

First pitch honor goes to Andres

But the Nationals, who decide on ceremonial first pitches, made clear that the president was not asked to take the mound. That honor instead will go to a notable Trump critic, celebrity chef Jose Andres, whose humanitarian work has been widely acclaimed.

Andres, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Spain, has been a longtime critic of the president’s views on immigrants and he halted plans to open a restaurant at the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. The Trump Organization then sued Andres, who also denounced the administration for failing to do enough to help the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

There’s some suspense around how Trump might be greeted at the game.

Though the fans at the high-priced event are likely to skew more corporate than at a regular season Nationals contest, Trump is extremely unpopular in the city he now calls home. In the 2016 election, Trump won 4% of the vote from the District of Columbia.

Trump’s White House staff has long tried to shield him from events where he might be loudly booed or heckled, and he rarely ventures out into the heavily Democratic city. (With the exception of his hotel, a Republican-friendly oasis a few blocks from the White House.)

‘Every president gets booed’

“It’ll be loud for Trump but every president gets booed: both Bushes, Reagan, Nixon. When Americans pay for their ticket, most of them buy into the great American tradition to boo whomever they want,” Smith said. “He should embrace it: So what if the elites boo you? Think of how it plays with your voters elsewhere in the country, thinking ‘There they go again, booing our guy.’ Use it!”

Trump has long been a baseball fan, especially of his hometown Yankees. Before he became president, he would be spotted at games, sometimes along the first-base line with then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Trump was also memorably photographed behind home plate across town in the moments after the final outs of the 2006 NLCS when the New York Mets lost to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Trump played high school baseball at New York Military Academy, where he was a star first baseman. His coach, Col. Ted Dobias, told Rolling Stone in 2015 that Trump “thought he was Mr. America and the world revolved around him.”

“He was good-hit and good-field,” Dobias said. “We had scouts from the Phillies to watch him, but he wanted to go to college and make real money.”

Phillies spokesman Greg Casterioto said Friday that the team’s scouting records do not go back that far and there is no way to verify that claim. But Trump, when honoring the 2018 World Series champion Boston Red Sox at the White House in May, fondly remembered his time playing the sport.

“I played at a slightly different level,” Trump said, “but every spring I loved it. The smell in the air.”

Relationship with pro sports

That event also underscored Trump’s tumultuous relationship with professional sports. Several Red Sox stars, including Mookie Betts, and the team’s manager, Alex Cora, declined to attend the White House ceremony. Trump has disinvited other championship teams, including the Golden State Warriors and Philadelphia Eagles, from attending after some of their players criticized him.

Trump is, so far, the only president since William Howard Taft in 1910 not to have thrown a first pitch at a major league game. The first president known to attend a game was Benjamin Harrison in 1892. Calvin Coolidge, nearly a decade before Roosevelt, was the only other president to attend a World Series game in Washington.

Trump will sit with league officials and likely watch from a luxury box, behind security and away from much of the crowd. That would be very different from some of his predecessors, including John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who sat by the field for their ceremonial duties.

“In the old days, they would throw from the presidential box,” said baseball historian Fred Frommer, who has written several baseball books, including a pair of histories about Washington baseball. “Players from both teams would line up on the first base line and would fight for it, like a mosh bit. And whoever emerged with it would take it to the president for a signature.”

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House Republicans have intensified their dissent against an impeachment inquiry of U.S. President Donald Trump, protesting that the House Intelligence Committee is questioning witnesses in hearings closed to the public and other lawmakers. The protest is part of Republicans’ strategy of attacking the process by which House Democrats probe allegations Trump sought foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports from Capitol Hill.
 

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Torrential rain that caused flooding and mudslides in towns east of Tokyo left at least nine people dead and added fresh damage in areas still recovering from recent typhoons, officials said Saturday.

Rescue workers were looking for one person still missing in Chiba. Another person was unaccounted for in Fukushima, farther north, which is still reeling from damage caused by Typhoon Hagibis earlier this month.

The death toll included eight people in Chiba and one in Fukushima.

Chiba inundated

While rains and floodwater subsided, parts of Chiba were still inundated. About 4,700 homes were out of running water and some train services delayed or suspended.

In the Midori district in Chiba, mudslides crushed three houses, killing three people who were buried underneath them. Another mudslide hit a house in nearby Ichihara city, killing a woman. In Narata and Chonan towns, three drivers drowned when their vehicles were submerged.

“There was enormous noise and impact, ‘boom’ like an earthquake, so I went outside. Then look what happened. I was terrified,” said a resident who lived near the crushed home in Midori. “Rain was even more intense than the typhoons.”

In Fukushima, a woman was found dead in a park in Soma city after a report that a car was washed away. A passenger is still missing.

Rain also washed out Friday’s second round of the PGA Tour’s first tournament held in Japan, the Zozo Championship in Inzai city.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held an emergency task force meeting Saturday morning and called for “the utmost effort in rescue and relief operations.” He also urged quick repairs of electricity, water and other essential services to help restore the lives of the disaster-hit residents.

Month’s worth of rain in half a day

The Prime Minister’s Office said the average rainfall for the entire month had fallen in just half a day Friday.

The downpour came from a low-pressure system above Japan’s main island of Honshu that moved northward later Friday. Power was restored Saturday at most of the 6,000 Chiba households that had lost electricity.

Two weeks ago, Typhoon Hagibis caused widespread flooding and left more than 80 people dead or presumed dead across Japan.

Yoshiki Takeuchi, an office worker who lives in a riverside house in Chiba’s Sodegaura city, said he had just finished temporary repairs to his roof after tiles were blown off by the September typhoon when Friday’s rains hit hard.

“I wasn’t ready for another disaster like this. I’ve had enough of this, and I need a break,” he told Kyodo News.

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The Trump administration is banning U.S. flights to all Cuban cities except Havana in the latest move to roll back the Obama-era easing of relations, officials said Friday.

Supporters of the ban said it would starve the Havana government of cash and limit its ability to repress Cubans and support Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. wants to overthrow.

Opponents said prohibiting flights would simply make it harder for Cuban-Americans to visit their families outside the capital, without making a significant impact on the Cuban government.

The State Department said JetBlue flights to Santa Clara in central Cuba and the eastern cities of Holguin, Camaguey would be banned starting in December. American Airlines flights to Camaguey, Holguin and Santa Clara, the beach resort of Varadero and the eastern city of Santiago are also being banned.

Flights to Havana, which account for the great majority of U.S. flights to Cuba, will remain legal.

“This action will prevent the Castro regime from profiting from U.S. air travel and using the revenues to repress the Cuban people,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter. Raul Castro stepped down as president last year but remains head of the Communist Party, the country’s highest authority.

Another stated reason for the move is to prevent tourism to Cuba, which is barred by U.S. law. But it is not clear how many people take the banned flights for tourism purposes. Many are used by Cuban-Americans visiting relatives in cities far from Havana by road.

“Eager to punish Cuba’s unbreakable defiance, imperialism is going after regular flights to various Cuban cities. It doesn’t matter that they’re affecting family relations, or the modest pocketbooks of most Cubans in both countries,” Carlos F. de Cossio, head of Cuba’s department of U.S. affairs, said on Twitter. “Our response isn’t changing.”

Charter flights to destinations outside Havana are apparently not affected by the ban, but those flights tend to be more expensive and far less convenient. The other remaining legal option is a flight to Havana and then a road trip that could last as much as eight to more than 12 hours over rutted, unsafe roads, in the case of Cuba’s eastern cities.

JetBlue and American issued brief statements saying they would comply with the decision.

The announcement coincided with an event in Miami calling for regime change in Cuba and featuring U.S. officials, Organization of Americans States President Luis Almagro, and a variety of Cuban-Americans and Cuban dissidents.

“This is a step forward,” said Cuba-born barber Ernesto Regues, who said he left the island in 2012 and still has family in Havana. “ow they need to stop the flights to Havana.”

Carrie Filipetti, deputy assistant secretary for Cuba and Venezuela in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Havana would serve as the gateway for Cuban-Americans wanting to see their relatives.

“We want to make sure that Cuban-Americans do have a route to their families. You need to enter. Havana is currently carved out for this,” she said.

She warned, however, that “we will continue to increase sanctions” and said other countries should do the same.

“It is a long path with many steps along the way,” she said to a standing ovation.

Lourdes Diaz, a retired Cuban-American who arrived in the U.S. one year after Castro’s Revolution, said she disagrees with the current sanctions, feeling they help Cuba’s communist government more than hurt it.

“The only thing that suffers is the people,” Diaz said.

The Trump administration has been regularly tightening the six-decade-old embargo on Cuba in recent months with the stated purpose of cutting off income to the Cuban government and forcing it to cut ties to Venezuela and grant more human rights to Cuban citizens. Washington has barred U.S. cruise ships visiting Cuba, sanctioned oil tankers moving petroleum from Venezuela to Cuba and permitted lawsuits against foreign companies profiting from their use of properties confiscated from Americans or from Cubans who later obtained American citizenship.

The measures have contributed to the Cuban government’s chronic shortages of hard currency and were blamed for several weeks of fuel shortages on the island, but so far there is no indication that the Trump policy is having its desired effect. Cuba’s security services continue to detain and harass dissenters and human rights groups say freedom of expression, assembly and other rights remain highly curtailed.

The Cuban and Venezuelan government remain tightly aligned and both have declared their intent to become even closer allies in the face of the Trump measures.

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North Korea has proposed that Seoul discuss the removal of its facilities from the North’s resort of Mount Kumgang, a key symbol of cooperation that Pyongyang recently criticized as “shabby” and “capitalist,” the South’s officials said on Friday.

In the latest sign of the neighbors’ cooling ties, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has urged that the South’s “backward” and “hotchpotch” facilities at the infrequently used resort be taken down and rebuilt, the North’s KCNA news agency has said.

On Friday, North Korea sent notices to the South’s Unification Ministry, which handles issues between the two sides, and Hyundai Group, whose affiliate Hyundai Asan Corp built resort facilities, asking for the demolition and seeking discussion through the exchange of documents, the ministry said.

“The government will prepare a creative solution to the Mt. Kumgang tourism project” by protecting the property rights of South Korean people while considering the international situation, inter-Korean agreements and domestic consensus, Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min said in a briefing.

Any withdrawal of South Korean relics from the scenic resort would be another setback for President Moon Jae-in’s campaign to end confrontation between the old foes, including efforts to resume stalled business initiatives.

“The North asking the South to discuss the issue ‘in writing’ means they don’t even want to talk about other things,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.

Mt. Kumgang is on North Korea’s eastern coast, just beyond the demilitarized zone separating the two countries. It was one of two major inter-Korean economic projects, along with the Kaesong industrial zone, and an important token of rapprochement during decades of hostilities following the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim, on a visit to a nearby province, hailed a new tourist resort being built there as a striking contrast to Mt. Kumgang’s “architecture of capitalist businesses targeting profit-making from roughly built buildings,” KCNA said.

However, the South’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said he did not see the North’s proposal as a bid to exclude the South, because Kim Jong Un had said he would welcome South Koreans if it was properly rebuilt, the Yonhap news agency said.

Tourism has become increasingly key to Kim’s policy of “self-reliant” economic growth, as it is not directly subject to U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing the North’s nuclear programs, though they ban the transfer of bulk cash to Pyongyang.

There have been no South Korean tours to Mt. Kumgang since 2008, although there have been infrequent events such as the reunions of families from both sides separated by the war.

Kim has called for Mt. Kumgang to be refurbished in “our own style” alongside other tourist zones, such as the Wonsan-Kalma coastal area and the Masikryong ski resort.

The Wonsan beach resort, one of Kim’s pet projects, is seen nearing completion by early 2020 after “remarkable construction progress” since April, 38 North, a U.S.-based project that studies North Korea, said in a report, citing satellite imagery.

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At least two demonstrators were killed in renewed anti-government rallies in the Iraqi capital on Friday, officials said, as security forces unleashed tear gas to push back thousands from Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone.

The protests were the second phase of a week-long movement in early October demanding an end to widespread corruption, unemployment and an overhaul of the political system.

Activists called Iraqis to go out on the streets again on Friday, which marks a year since Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi came to power. It is also a deadline set by the country’s top Shiite authority for him to enact desired reforms.

But the rallies began early, with hundreds gathering in the capital’s iconic Tahrir (Liberation) Square on Thursday evening.

On Friday, many crossed the bridge to mass near the Green Zone, which hosts government offices and foreign embassies, but security forces used a volley of tear gas to push them back.

“Two demonstrators died, with preliminary information indicating they were hit in the head or face by tear gas canisters,” said Ali Bayati, a member of the Iraqi Human Rights Commission.

He said nearly 100 more people were wounded.

There were no reports of live fire being used to disperse protesters.

‘We want dignity!’

“We’re not hungry — we want dignity!” a protester shouted in Baghdad on Friday morning, while another lashed out at “the so-called representatives of the people who have monopolised all the resources”.

One in five people lives in poverty in Iraq and youth unemployment sits around 25 percent, according to the World Bank.

The rates are staggering for OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer, which Transparency International ranks as the 12th most corrupt state in the world.

“I want my share of the oil!” another protester told AFP.

Rallies were also rocking the southern cities of Diwaniyah, Najaf and Nasiriyah, where demonstrators said they would remain in the streets “until the regime falls”.

Iraq’s highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has backed reforms, urged protesters Friday during his weekly sermon to use “restraint” to stop the demos descending into “chaos”.

But the real test will be the afternoon, when many are expecting supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr — an influential cleric who controls the largest parliamentary bloc — to hit the streets.

His supporters have breached the Green Zone in previous years. This week, he called on his supporters to protest and even instructed members of his own paramilitary force to be on “high alert.”

They could be seen in parts of Baghdad on Friday in a clear show of force.   

PM snipes at Sadr

The movement is unprecedented in recent Iraqi history both because of its spontaneity and independence, and because of the brutal violence with which a torrent of protests on October 1-6 was met.

At least 157 people were killed, according to a government probe published on Tuesday, which acknowledged that “excessive force” was used.

A vast majority of them were protesters in Baghdad, with 70 percent shot in the head or chest.

In response, Abdel Mahdi issued a laundry list of measures meant to ease public anger, including hiring drives and higher pensions for the families of protesters who died.

The beleaguered premier defended his reform agenda in a scheduled televised appearance early Friday, telling watchers it was their “right” to demonstrate as long as they did not “disturb public life”.

But he also said political figures demanding “reform” had themselves failed to enact it, in an apparent reference to Sadr’s “Alliance towards Reform” bloc.

Some have backed the government, including the powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force whose political branch is the second-largest parliamentary bloc.

And Iraq’s mostly-Kurdish north and Sunni west have stayed out of the protests.

Iraq has been ravaged by decades of conflict that finally calmed in 2017 with a declared victory over the Islamic State group.

Thus began a period of relative calm, with security forces lifting checkpoints and concrete blast walls and traffic choking city streets at hours once thought too dangerous.

Restrictions had even softened around the Green Zone but were reinstated as the October demonstrations picked up in Tahrir, which lies just across the Tigris River.

Authorities also imposed an internet blackout, which has been mostly lifted although social media remains blocked.

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From making so-called side deals with Ukraine to pulling U.S. forces from northeastern Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump has gone his own way when it comes to conducting U.S. foreign policy. But the Syria decision has sparked widespread opposition in Washington and in the case of Ukraine, critics say Trump sidestepped career U.S. diplomats to further his own interests against a potential election rival. 

Despite criticism, U.S. President Donald Trump is standing by his decision to move U.S. troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, where they fought alongside longtime Kurdish allies.
 
“They stayed for almost 10 years. Let someone else fight over this long, bloodstained sand,” Trump said.

This, as the top U.S. official to Syria appeared to distance himself from Trump’s decision.
 
“Were you consulted about the withdrawal of troops as was recently done?” Senator Bob Menendez, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked James Jeffrey, the U.S. Special Representative for Syria.

“I personally was not consulted,” Jeffrey said.

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Trump to Lift Turkey Sanctions

US president says he made decision after Ankara informed him that its ceasefire in an offensive against Kurds in northeastern Syria will be permanent

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, other diplomats testified about the Trump administration’s delay providing approved U.S military assistance to Ukraine.  

A written statement by one described how the White House bypassed normal diplomatic channels to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats and the Bidens in return for military aid.    

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White House Admits Quid Pro Quo Between Trump and Ukraine

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says Trump froze aid to Ukraine to pressure it to investigate Democrats and the 2016 presidential election

Democratic lawmakers have denounced this.

“The idea that vital military assistance would be withheld for such a patently political reason, for the reason of serving the president’s re-election campaign is a phenomenal breach of the president’s duty to defend our national security,” said Democrat Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Trump’s actions on Ukraine could threaten his presidency as the impeachment inquiry continues.  
 
“We have agencies, we have tasked areas along government, whose job it is to investigate those. And if President Trump wanted the Bidens investigated for their activities there, it should have been done through the diplomatic channels,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien of the University of Texas at Austin.

Those normal diplomatic channels have set the United States apart from countries whose policies are set by autocratic leaders, says terrorism expert Mike Newton.  
 
“The checks and balances, where agencies push back against each other, and really experienced, smart policy makers wrestle with choices and consequences and diplomatic fallout and maybe military best practices,” Newton said.
 

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House Speaker Pelosi Opens Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Move has potential to reshape current presidency and further divide the nation just a year before Donald Trump plans to stand for re-election

When this process is bypassed, experts say, U.S. credibility around the world is damaged.
 
“If there are doubts about the President’s decisions which there are in the State Department and the Pentagon, and the intelligence community as well as in the Congress, there’s real questions about cohesiveness of U.S. foreign policy and whether we have a real strategy,” said Mark Simakovsky of the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank.
 
Donald Trump was elected on promises to break with traditional U.S. foreign policy, and his supporters show no sign of abandoning him.

But the impeachment inquiry and outcry over his Syria policy show there are limits to his approach.  
 

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