Business

Russian authorities say they intend to add an opposition-run anti-corruption foundation to a list of so-called “foreign agents” operating in the country — potentially curtailing the operations of one of the Kremlin’s fiercest critics.

In a statement released Wednesday, Russia’s Justice Ministry said an audit of the Anti-Corruption Foundation — a non-governmental organization run by opposition leader Alexey Navalny  — showed the organization was receiving foreign funding to maintain its operations.  

The move puts the group, commonly known by its Russian acronym FBK, afoul of Russia’s so-called “foreign agents” law — a controversial 2012 measure the Kremlin says is necessary to protect Russian sovereignty and that civil society leaders argue tars NGOs as traitors and spies.  

Formally, the designation opens up the FBK to increased scrutiny by authorities — as well as fines and possible suspension of its operations.

While the ministry statement provided no details on its audit, an Interfax news agency report said regulators had found two undeclared foreign donations to the FBK — one from the U.S. and another from Spain.  

Their total: just over $2,000.

FBK members rejected the foreign agent charge outright, arguing the organization had always relied on local “crowdfunding” to maintain its work.

“The foundation is sponsored inclusively by citizens of Russia, by you,” wrote FBK Director Ivan Zhadanov in a Facebook post.

“This is simply an attempt to strangle the FBK,” added Zhadanov.

The group’s founder, opposition leader Alexey Navalny, went further — arguing the move reflected the foundation’s growing influence thanks to a series of video investigations targeting corruption by Kremlin insiders close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.  

“Putin is terribly afraid of the FBK,” wrote Navalny in a post on Twitter. “He can only rely on thieves, bribe takers, and corruptioneers.

“We expose corruption” added Navalny, “and we won’t stop no matter what.”

An NGO in the crosshairs

The announcement comes amid an intensifying assault against the FBK with overt political overtones.

A longtime thorn in the Kremlin’s side, the FBK’s troubles began in earnest again this summer.

After opposition candidates — including members of the FBK — were banned from local Moscow elections en masse, the group worked to organize street protests in response.

The result: a series of mostly peaceful demonstrations that saw over 2,500 arrests — many at the hands of truncheon-wielding police and aggressive OMON (federal government) riot police security forces.

Next, authorities launched an investigation into money laundering by the FBK — accusing the organization’s members of over $15 million in illicit transactions. Coordinated raids of FBK offices across the country ensued.   

At the time, Navalny insisted the raids were prompted by an FBK plan called “smart voting” — an election tactic that coordinated voter anger around candidates who had managed to clear registration barriers.

The strategy was credited with aiding significant losses for pro-Kremlin candidates in Moscow local elections.

FBK members say they plan to expand the strategy in regional political races in 2020 — a move that observers say may have prompted renewed efforts to cripple the organization.

Indeed, the FBK has most recently drawn authorities’ ire in the form of court fines.

This week, Moscow police announced they would sue Navalny and other key FBK members for $300,000 in damages — a sum intended to cover expenses incurred by security forces while policing the rallies.  

A Moscow restaurant and several other city services have piled on with similar lawsuits.

Now faced with the prospect of the new foreign agent label, Navalny and other FBK members took to social media to plead for renewed donations nationwide.   

Throughout the day, the requests ricocheted around the internet, prompting reaction from pro-Kremlin voices online as well as public expressions of support.  

“I haven’t done that in a while,” wrote user @DaniilKen in a post on Twitter that showed a screenshot of a money transfer to the FBK.  “But it was hard not to respond to the Justice Ministry.”  

Just how many more Russians might follow now remains the key question going forward.   

…

Women from across Africa are meeting at the annual Women in Tech Africa Week, hoping to bring more women into the tech industry and combat inequalities in technology use and access, especially for economic empowerment.

Francesca Opoku remembers having to physically send workers to deliver messages or documents when she started her small social enterprise in Ghana 10 years ago. Today, she works to keep up with fast-developing technology to grow her business that produces natural beauty products. She also trains women she works with in financial literacy, such as using simple mobile technology to manage their money.

“As a small African business, as you are growing and as you aspire to grow globally and your tentacles are widening, the world is just going techy,” Opoku said. “Business in the world is going techy. It’s especially relevant in small business. It’s the best way to make what you are doing known out there.”

She was at the launch of Women In Tech Africa in Accra, with events in six other countries including Germany, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Opoku said she wants to learn more about how she can use technology to make her business grow and to ensure she is not left behind in the technology divide.

Across Africa, this divide means women are 13% less likely to own a mobile phone and 41% less likely to use mobile internet than men.

Women In Tech Africa founder

Ethel Cofie, founder of Women In Tech Africa, an NGO that started in 2015, said addressing this gap is crucial. Her network of 5,000 women across 30 African countries is pushing the conversation about women in technology and leadership.

“There is a huge gender gap, and that is part of the conversation,” Cofie said. “When we are out here showing the world we actually exist, are doing things, what it does is, it provides avenues for us to support other women. One of the things Women in Tech has done is work with the Ghanaian Beauticians Association and Ghana traders associations. Even though these women are not necessarily as educated, they also need to be able to use tech to build their businesses.”

Cofie says the digital gap between men and women in Africa is a consequence of poverty and economic disparities. Men usually have higher incomes, and better access to mobile phones and internet data.

Education

Increasing digital access starts with education. At the G-7 summit this year, members pledged to work with developing countries to promote inclusion, equity and access for girls and women to quality education, including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Faiza Adams, a network engineer, started Girly Tech this year to inspire underprivileged Ghanaian girls into STEM careers. She’s training young girls in web development, programming and robotics in Accra.

“Imagine where girls don’t embrace tech, then in five years to come, we have only males who are in the tech space — there is no diversity,” Adams said. “So, in the decision making, they tend to use the male, male, male ideas instead of female. So, when we have inclusion, or there is diversity — I bring my idea, and the guy also brings his idea from the male perspective — we come together and solve societal problems.”

Cofie and Adams both say more women in tech will mean more problems solved in their own communities. But Cofie adds that half the battles — like the gender divide — could be overcome with the right policies in place.
 

…

Officials are working urgently to retrieve the bodies of 11 elephants that died after trying to save each other from a waterfall in a national park in central Thailand.

Park rangers had initially thought six adult elephants had died Saturday while trying to save a three-year-old calf that had slipped down the falls.

But Monday, a drone found the bodies of five more elephants in the waters below the fall in Khao Yai National Park.

Authorities have strung a net downstream to catch the bodies as they float down the fast-moving waters. There is concern that the rotting bodies will contaminate the water.

Officers expect the bodies to reach the net in a few days. The elephants will be buried and the area sealed with hydrated lime to prevent contamination, the Bangkok Post reported.

This is not the first such incident at the waterfall, known as Haew Narok (Hell’s Fall). In 1998, eight elephants died at the same site.

Park officials put up fencing to keep the wild animals away from the area, but that has not worked.

The park is home to about 300 of Thailand’s approximately 3,000 wild animals.

…

More than one-third of new mothers in four poor countries are abused during childbirth, a study published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet.

The study, carried out in Ghana, Guinea, Myanmar and Nigeria by the World Health Organization, found that 42% of the women experienced physical or verbal abuse or some form of stigma or discrimination at maternity health facilities.

The study also found a high number of caesarean sections, vaginal exams and other procedures being performed without the patient’s consent.

Of the 2,016 women observed for the study, 14% said they were either hit, slapped or punched during childbirth. Some 38% of the women said they were subjected to verbal abuse, most often by being shouted at, mocked or scolded.

An alarming 75% had episiotomies performed without consent. The procedure involves surgically enlarging the opening of the vagina.

The authors of the study urged officials to hold those who mistreat women during childbirth accountable. They also urged the governments to put into place clear policies and sufficient resources to ensure that women have a safe place to give birth.

Among the specific steps proposed by the study are: making sure all medical procedures are performed only after getting an informed consent; allowing the patient to have a companion of their choice in the delivery room; redesigning maternity wards to offer the maximum privacy; and making sure no health facility tolerates instances of physical or verbal abuse.

…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday awarded one of the nation’s highest civilian honors to Edwin Meese, best known for serving as President Ronald Reagan’s attorney general.

Meese, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, had a longstanding connection to Reagan that included serving as his chief of staff when Reagan was California’s governor. After Reagan became president, Meese served as his chief policy adviser before going on to serve as the nation’s 75th attorney general.

“He was a star,” Trump said. “Ed was among President Reagan’s closest advisers as the administration implemented tax cuts, a dramatic defense buildup and a relentless campaign to defeat communism.”

Meese was an early Trump critic who ended up supporting him and helping lead his transition team. Surrounded by family and friends in the Oval Office, the 87-year-old recalled some 30 years of working with Reagan at the state and national level and in his retirement.

“Ronald Reagan was a pivotal part of my life and I am always grateful to him,” Meese said.

Meese stayed active in conservative circles following his time in the Reagan administration as an author, speaker and fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.  
 
Meese resigned as attorney general in August 1988 after becoming ensnared in a probe of Wedtech Corp., a New York defense contractor. An independent prosecutor began looking at Meese’s record of assistance to Wedtech. A 14-month corruption investigation ended in a decision not to prosecute Meese, but a report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility said Meese had violated ethical standards.

Trump said Meese delivered “monumental change for the American people” as attorney general and cited the Reagan administration’s efforts against drug use, which Trump said proved successful with lower drug use by young adults.

“Would you like to make a comeback?” Trump joked before presenting Meese with the award.
 

…

Three U.S. House of Representatives committees are set to question Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, on Tuesday to find out more about the interactions between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian officials.

The closed-door deposition is part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry in the House, which Trump on Monday again rejected as a “scam” perpetrated by Democrats who do not want him to win a second term in office next year.

Sondland has become a prominent figure in the probe because of his efforts to get Ukraine to commit to investigate Trump’s potential presidential rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, Hunter.

A whistleblower complaint that launched the impeachment inquiry says the day after Trump spoke by telephone with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Sondland and U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker met with the Ukrainian leader and other political figures.

The whistleblower said that according to readouts of those meetings recounted by U.S. officials, “Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskiy.”

Speaking to reporters Monday at the White House, Trump returned to his repeated defense of the conversation with Zelenskiy as a “perfect call.”  When asked if he is worried about what might emerge now that a second whistleblower has come forward, Trump replied, “Not at all.”

He described the call as “congenial” and said there was “no pressure.”

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees have been leading the inquiry with depositions and subpoenas seeking documents from members of the Trump administration and the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

They issued fresh subpoenas Monday, demanding Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Office and Budget and Management Acting Director Russell Vought turn over documents by Oct. 15 relating to Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine.

Part of the investigation includes examining whether or not Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine was tied to his request for a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens.

No evidence of corruption by the Bidens in Ukraine has been found.

…

Iraqi President Barham Salih has condemned attacks on anti-government protesters and media after a week of demonstrations and related clashes left more than 100 people dead and 6,000 wounded.

He called those committing the violence criminals and enemies, and used a televised address Monday to call for a halt to the escalation.

Salih said Iraq had experienced enough destruction, bloodshed, wars and terrorism.

The military admitted earlier Monday to using “excessive force” in confronting protesters in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad.

The government took the step of removing security forces from the area and handing over patrols to police.  Officials also pledged to hold accountable any member of the security forces who “acted wrongly.”

The protests in Baghdad and in several southern Iraqi cities have grown from initial demands for jobs and improved city services, such as water and power, to calls now to end corruption in the oil-rich country of nearly 40 million people.

Iraq’s cabinet issued a new reform plan early Sunday in an effort to respond to the protests that have taken authorities by surprise.

After meeting through the night Saturday, cabinet officials released a series of planned reforms, which addressed land distributions and military enlistments as well as increasing welfare stipends for poor families and training programs for unemployed youth.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi told his cabinet late Saturday in televised remarks that he is willing to meet with protesters and hear their demands. He called on the protesters to end their demonstrations.

Former Shi’ite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament, called Friday for the government to resign and said “early elections should be held under U.N. supervision.”

…

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

Published reports say a Chinese state energy company that appears to have pulled out of a natural gas project in Iran had been under pressure to do so because of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh announced the departure of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) from the joint venture to develop Iran’s South Pars offshore gas field in comments Sunday reported by his ministry’s website.

Zanganeh said Iranian company Petropars, which originally had partnered with CNPC and France’s Total on the project, will develop the gas field on its own.

Total initially held a 50.1% stake in the joint venture announced in 2017, while CNPC had 30% and Petropars had 19.9%. Total withdrew from the project in August 2018 as the U.S. began reimposing sanctions on Iran to pressure it to negotiate a new deal to end its nuclear and other perceived malign activities.

Neither CNPC nor the Chinese government made any comment about the South Pars project on Monday, a public holiday in China.

But a Wall Street Journal report said CNPC executives previously had acknowledged that the company was struggling to find banks to transfer funds to Iran due to U.S. pressure. The article said CNPC’s own bank, Bank of Kunlun, had told customers that it was no longer processing trades with Iran while publicly asserting that it intended to keep its business with Tehran going.

The South China Morning Post reported that CNPC also “could have cause for concern when it comes to (U.S.) sanctions” because the company’s website says it has a four-year-old U.S.-based subsidiary that has made a “significant financial investment” in the United States.

The Trump administration has been unilaterally toughening sanctions on Iran since last year, calling on other nations not to do business with its energy and financial sectors and imposing secondary sanctions on foreign companies and individuals who defy those warnings.

U.S. officials sanctioned several Chinese shipping companies and executives last month for importing Iranian oil in defiance of a total ban on Iranian oil exports imposed by the U.S. in May. 

A Bloomberg report said CNPC’s role in the South Pars project had been uncertain for several months. It said Zanganeh had complained in February that CNPC had not carried out any of its share of the work. The report said CNPC was in negotiations to remain a partner in the project as recently as August, according to the head of Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas Co.

…

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned Monday that the controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline would increase Russia’s political influence on European Union foreign policy.

On a visit to Lithuania to promote US energy ties with Eastern European nations, Perry said the pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany “would deliver a stunning blow to Europe’s energy diversity and security.”

“It would increase Russia’s leverage over Europe’s foreign policy and Europe’s vulnerability to a supply disruption,” Perry told an energy forum in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

Perry said the Baltic sea pipeline, together with the TurkStream pipeline — which will supply Russian gas to Turkey via the Black Sea — “would enable Moscow to end gas transit through Ukraine by the close of the decade.”

“Nord Stream 2 is designed to drive a single source gas artery deep into Europe and [to drive] a stake through the heart of European stability and security,” Perry said.

He said the United States “were ready, were willing and were able” to increase European energy security by providing alternative sources, notably liquified natural gas and civil nuclear capabilities.

“We support multiple routes to deliver energy across Europe. Along with energy choice we support free and open markets… we oppose using energy to coerce any country,” he said.

Vilnius university professor Ramunas Vilpisauskas said that while the US criticism of Nord Stream was part of Washington’s drive to increase its own exports to Europe, it was also in line with the interests of a region dependent on Russian supplies.

“A commercial aim to increase US exports to Europe seems to be the main reason for the criticism of Nord Stream and Turkstream,” Vilpisauskas told AFP.

“But from the point of view of Lithuania and other central European EU members, it is a win-win situation because they have been actively looking for possibilities to diversify sources of their imports.”

The controversial 11-billion-euro ($12-billion) Nord Stream 2 energy link between Russia and Germany is set to double Russian gas shipments to Germany, the EU’s biggest economy.

Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states fear it will increase Europe’s reliance on Russian energy which Moscow could then use to exert political pressure.

…

Pope Francis urged South American bishops on Monday to speak “courageously” at a high-profile meeting on the Amazon, where the shortage of priests is so acute that the Vatican is considering ordaining married men and giving women official church ministries.

Francis opened the work of the three-week synod, or meeting of bishops, after indigenous leaders, missionary groups and a handful of bishops chanted and performed native dances in front of the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Led in procession by the pope, the bishops then headed to the synod hall to chart new ways for the Catholic Church to better minister to remote indigenous communities and care for the rainforest they call home.

Among the most contentious proposals on the agenda is whether married elders could be ordained priests, a potentially revolutionary change in church tradition given Roman rite Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy.

The proposal is on the table because indigenous Catholics in remote parts of the Amazon can go months without seeing a priest or receiving the sacraments, threatening the very future of the church and its centuries-old mission to spread the faith in the region.

Another proposal calls for bishops to identify new “official ministries” for women, though priestly ordination for them is off the table.

Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the retired archbishop of Sao Paulo and the lead organizer of the synod, said the priest shortage had led to an “almost total absence of the Eucharist and other sacraments essential for daily Christian life.”

“It will be necessary to define new paths for the future,” he said, calling the proposal for married priests and ministries for women one of the six “core issues” that the synod bishops must address.

“The church lives on the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is the foundation of the church,” he said, citing St. John Paul II.

Francis opened the meeting by extolling native cultures and urging bishops to respect their histories and traditions as they discern ways to better spread the faith.

History’s first Latin American pope has long held enormous respect for indigenous peoples, and denounced how they are exploited, marginalized and treated as second-class citizens and “barbarians” by governments and corporations that extract timber, gold and other natural resources from their homes.

Speaking in his native Spanish, Francis told the bishops how upset he became when he heard a snide comment about the feathered headdress worn by an indigenous man at Mass on Sunday opening the synod.

“Tell me, what is the difference between having feathers on your head and the three-cornered hat worn by some in our dicasteries?” he said to applause, referring to the three-pointed red birettas worn by cardinals.

Francis urged the bishops to use the three weeks to pray, listen, discern and speak without fear.

“Speak with courage,” he said. “Even if you are ashamed, say what you feel.”

The synod is opening with global attention newly focused on the forest fires that are devouring the Amazon, which scientists say is a crucial bulwark against global warming. It also comes at a fraught time in Francis’ six-year papacy, with conservative opposition to his ecological agenda on the rise.

Francis’ traditionalist critics, including a handful of cardinals, have called the proposals in the synod working document “heretical” and an invitation to a “pagan” religion that idolizes nature rather than God.

To that criticism, Hummes denounced Catholic “traditionalism” that is stuck in the past versus the church’s true tradition, which always looks forward.

“The church cannot remain inactive within her own closed circle, focused on herself, surrounded by protective walls and even less can she look nostalgically to the past,” he said. “The Church needs to throw open her doors, knock down the walls surrounding her and build bridges.”

In keeping with the meeting’s environmental message, the synod organizers themselves are taking measures to reduce their own carbon footprint.

Organizer Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri told the bishops there would be no plastic cups or utensils at the meeting, that synod swag such as bags and pens were biodegradable, and that the emissions spent to get more than 200 bishops and indigenous from South America to Rome — estimated at 572,809 kilograms of carbon dioxide — would be offset with the purchase of 50 hectares of new growth forest in the Amazon.

…

Two Americans and a British scientist have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of “how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.”

The Nobel Committee said Monday the award is shared by William Kaelin, Gregg Semenza and Peter Ratcliffe.

They will each get an equal share of the $918,000 cash award.

The committee said the men “established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function.”

It said the advances will help lead to new ways to fight anemia, cancer and other diseases.

…

A 16-year-old climate activist who garnered international attention when she scolded world leaders at the United Nations is visiting American Indian reservations in the Dakotas to talk about oil pipelines.

Greta Thunberg is appearing at panel discussions on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota at 5 p.m. Sunday and on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota on Tuesday.

The Lakota People’s Law Project says Thunberg is concerned about the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline through South Dakota, as well as plans to double oil flowing through the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota.

Thunberg traveled to the United States in August on a sailboat to promote her climate change campaign.

…

Researchers have been trying to learn more about a plant that has invaded lakes across Georgia and the Southeast, contributing to the deaths of eagles and other birds.

The hydrilla has helped to cause the deaths of American bald eagles and thousands of other water birds over the past 25 years, scientists say.

The plant isn’t killing the birds directly, but is providing a home for a new kind of cyanobacteria that produces a lethal toxin, The Athens Banner-Herald reported.

Scientists have been studying the issue after bald eagle carcasses were being found at a man-made lake in Arkansas. An increasing number of afflicted birds then began showing up in Arkansas, Georgia, and other states across the South.

There were reports of injuries — the loss of motor control in eagles and in a water bird called the coot. Their symptoms included wings that twitch but don’t flap, and difficultly maintaining balance.

Necropsies found that the affected eagles and coots showed peculiar lesions that made their brains look like sponges, the Athens newspaper reported.

Wildlife scientists had a name — Avian Vacuolar Myelinopathy, or AVM — but lacked crucial details on what was causing it.

The problem has been especially acute at Thurmond Lake, a man-made reservoir on the Savannah River between Georgia and South Carolina, the newspaper reported.

University of Georgia professor Susan Wilde saw patterns. The lakes where eagles were dying of AVM are man-made, and they had been heavily invaded by hydrilla. The coots were eating the hydrilla, and the eagles found easy prey in the disabled coots.

Wilde’s hypothesis: The coots could be ingesting some neurotoxin associated with the plants, then passing on the toxin when the eagles ate them. Wilde also found that a previously unknown kind of cyanobacteria was growing on the underside of the spreading hydrilla leaves. That could be producing lethal toxins.

In 2014, nearly two decades after the neurological disease first showed up, Wilde and her colleagues had a name for the cyanobacteria: Aetokthonos Hydrillicola, or eagle-killer. They’d also isolated the toxin it produces.

On Thurmond Lake, more than 105 AVM eagle deaths have been confirmed so far, and scientists believe the death toll is higher since many animal carcasses are never found.

Lake managers are trying strategies to beat back the plant invader and its toxic companion. They’ve had some success stocking Thurmond and other lakes with a kind of sterile grass-eating carp to gnaw away at the hydrilla, combined with sowing native water plants. Lake managers are also using chemical killers on the plants, though that carries its own set of environmental risks.

…

A group of eleven key Taliban prisoners is reported to have been released from the U.S.-run Bagram military base in Afghanistan in exchange for three Indian hostages.

Insurgent sources said Sunday the swap took place in the northern province of Baghlan and two former Taliban provincial governors were among those freed. Taliban men could be seen being welcomed by insurgent fighters in video images released via social media.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid when asked for his comments on the reported swap told VOA “I have not received the details. I am trying to get them and will share with you.”

There was no immediate reaction from U.S. officials or the Afghan government.

The Indian hostages were abducted last year along with four other countrymen while they were working on a project in Baghlan for the construction of a power generation station. One of them managed to escape and returned to India this past May while the fate of the rest was not known.

Many of the districts in the troubled Afghan province are either controlled or hotly contested by the Taliban.

<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

Pakistan Says Visiting US, Taliban Negotiators to Hold Direct Talks

The development comes several weeks after US President Donald Trump called off peace talks with the Taliban

U.S.-Taliban Meetings in Pakistan

Sunday’s reported prisoner exchange followed last week’s informal meetings between American and Taliban negotiators in neighboring Pakistan.

It was not immediately known, however, whether the prisoner swap was an outcome of the contacts, the first since early last month when U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly called off the year-long dialogue with the Taliban.

Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Idrees Zaman, while commenting on the Taliban’s visit to Pakistan, said on Saturday the insurgents were discussing with U.S, envoys the release of two Western hostages and not the resumption of the stalled dialogue.

Zaman was referring to an American professor and his Australian colleague who were kidnapped more than three years ago in Kabul. Kevin King, 60, and Timothy Weeks, 48, from Australia were teaching at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in the capital city before gunmen took them hostage near the campus in August 2016.

Neither U.S. nor insurgent officials publicly acknowledged the two sides held meetings during their last week’s stay in Pakistan, though officials of the host government had confirmed such meetings would take place.

American chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, deputy Taliban chief for political affairs, led their respective delegations at “several” interactions in Islamabad, according to insurgent sources.

General Scott Miller, the U.S. commander of NATO-led foreign troops in Afghanistan, also accompanied Khalilzad at the meetings, the sources said.

The U.S. embassy in Islamabad had insisted while confirming Khalilzad’s presence in the country that he was visiting for  bilateral “consultations” with Pakistani officials.

U.S.  and Taliban negotiators were said to be on the verge of signing a peace agreement after nine long rounds of negotiations hosted by Qatar before Trump declared the process “dead” citing continued insurgent deadly attacks on Afghan civilians and American troops in Afghanistan.

…

Jordan’s government said Sunday it has reached a pay deal with the teachers union to end a one-month strike, the country’s longest public sector strike that disrupted schooling for more than 1.5 million students.

The deal came after the strike threatened a deepening political crisis when the government last week began legal steps against the unions after they rejected meager pay hikes they said were “bread crumbs” and the government said it could not afford to give more.

The pay deal that raises allowances from 35% to 60% to teachers from next year comes after weeks of deadlock with the government intransigent over meeting an original 50% pay rise demanded by the unions it said would strain the heavily indebted country’s finances.

Officials said King Abdullah had ordered the government to reach the hefty wage deal which tests the ability of Prime Minister Omar al Razzaz to stay on track in implementing tough fiscal reforms backed by the International Monetary Fund aimed at reducing a record $40 billion public debt.

The government fears new pay demands by other public sector employees, including doctors, and pension increases for retired soldiers would wreck efforts to restore fiscal prudence needed for a sustained economic recovery.

Dozens of activists from the powerful teachers union, whose members succeeded in forcing the government to agree to substantial pay hikes after a four-week standoff, celebrated in front of their headquarters in Amman.

“The teachers got their demands,” said Nasser Al Nawasrah, deputy head of the Jordanian Teachers Syndicate. He called on his organization’s 100,000 members to immediately resume teaching pupils in around 4,000 public schools that had been affected by the strike.

Many parents had kept their children at home out of solidarity with the striking teachers.

In many of the country’s rural areas and smaller cities, traditional heartlands of support for the monarchy, the strike also became a protest against successive governments’ failure to deliver on promises of economic growth.

Growing disenchantment among ordinary Jordanians over tough IMF austerity measures and high taxes spilled into large street protests in the summer of 2018 that railed against corruption and mismanagement of public funds.

Officials say Jordan can no longer afford to sustain a public sector in which salaries eat up much of the central government’s $13 billion budget in a country with some of the world’s highest government spending relative to its economy.

The debt is due, at least in part, to the adoption by successive governments of an expansionist fiscal policy marked by job creation in the public sector.
 

…

Extra layers of security, intense on-screen action and a frightening incident inside a New York theater combined to create an unsettling experience for some moviegoers who went to see “Joker” on its opening weekend.

A young man who was loudly cheering and applauding on-screen murders sent some people heading toward exits in a crowded theater in Manhattan’s Times Square on Friday night. Other patrons yelled at the man, who spit on them as they left early, said Nathanael Hood, who was in the theater.

“I was scared. I’m sure a lot of other people were,” Hood said in an interview conducted by private messages.

Social media users posted photos of police, security sweeps and safety notices at theaters in California and Florida. And in Tennessee, a drive-in theater banned moviegoers from wearing costumes to a screening of the R-rated “Joker,” which scored an October box-office record with $13.3 million in earnings.

The Warner Bros. film, directed by Todd Phillips, presents the backstory of the man who becomes Batman’s classic foe. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, it probes the journey of a disturbed man with a penetrating laugh into a killer.

While Phillips has said he hopes the film inspires discussions about guns, violence and the treatment of people with mental illness, some feared the movie could inspire violence, particularly after a mass shooting killed 12 at a Colorado theater during a screening of another Batman movie in 2012.

Hood, who attended an afternoon viewing of “Joker” at AMC Empire 25 in Times Square, said a disruption began in the seats when the action on the screen grew intense.

“About halfway through when Joker started killing people and monologuing about how society is evil he started clapping really loudly and incessantly for a good minute. People started yelling for him to shut up, but he kept clapping and cheering like mad,” Hood said.

The man started clapping and cheering again “really loudly” during a climatic gunfight, he said, and got “belligerent” when people told him to quit.

“Finally security came and got him. He was still being interrogated outside the theater when we came out,” said Hood. Plenty of police were around the theater, he said.

Another moviegoer, Etai Benson, said the loud man was sitting beside him at the start of the movie and poured what appeared to be a full bottle of alcohol into a drink. The man’s behavior “combined with the carnage happening onscreen got people nervous,” he said.

“This was most likely a harmless drunk guy, but all the nervousness built around the film made what happened (Friday) night really unsettling,” Benson said in an interview conducted by private messages.

A spokesman for the Kansas-based AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., which operates AMC Theatres, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The FBI told local police agencies to monitor potentially threatening online posts related to the film.
Photos posted on social media showed officers and a police dog outside a theater where “Joker” was being shown in Orlando, Florida, and a police SUV was parked on the sidewalk outside a cinema in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, during a screening.

In Bristol, Tennessee, the owner of the Twin City Drive-In Theater, Danny Warden, posted a warning on Facebook that anyone wearing a costume or mask to see “Joker” wouldn’t be allowed in, and anyone who smuggled in an outfit would be asked to leave. 

Warden told WJHL-TV that the decision was “common sense” after the film sparked concerns about its violent content. 

…

Hundreds of climate activists barricaded themselves into a Paris shopping center Saturday as security forces tried to remove them, ahead of a planned series of protests around the world by the Extinction Rebellion movement.

Campaigners faced off against police and some inconvenienced shoppers as they occupied part of the Italie 2 mall in southeast Paris.

They unfurled banners with slogans like “Burn capitalism not petrol” above restaurants and the window displays fashion boutiques.

The protest comes ahead of planned disruption to 60 cities around the world from Monday in a fortnight of civil disobedience from Extinction Rebellion (XR), which is warning of an environmental “apocalypse.”

As the center tried to close in the evening, security forces ordered the protesters to leave the area, activists told AFP.

According to images broadcast on social networks, police then tried to enter the building, while protesters blocked entrances with tables and chairs.

“I am with XR to say stop this crazy system before it destroys everything,” one young woman told AFP, giving only her first name Lucie.

Other campaign groups also joined in with the Paris shopping center demonstration, including some members of the “yellow vest” anti-government protest group.

Non-violent protests are chiefly planned by XR from Monday in Europe, North America and Australia, but events are also set to take place in India, Buenos Aires, Cape Town and Wellington.

Another protest was held in Berlin Saturday, with campaigners setting up camp near the parliament building.

“To governments of the world: we declared a climate and ecological emergency. You did not do enough. To everybody else: rebel,” XR said on its website ahead of its International Rebellion wave of activism.

“You can’t count on us or Greta to do this for you,” it said, referring to teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. “Look inside yourself and rebel.”

Extinction Rebellion was established last year in Britain by academics and has become one of the world’s fastest-growing environmental movements.

Campaigners want the government to declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025, halt biodiversity loss and be led by new “citizens’ assemblies on climate and ecological justice.”
 

…

Hawaiian shirt day, doughnuts, shared sheet cake: There are a lot of ways to try to raise morale in the office. But Maxim Moskalkov visited some very special workspaces where workers know the best morale boost comes on four legs. 
 

…

The town of Minden, West Virginia looks like many small American towns, yet it is unique in that it is one of the most toxic places in the United States. Here, between 1970s and mid-1980s, the Shaffer Equipment Company used harmful chemicals to build electrical equipment. Those chemicals have been banned since 1979, but traces still remain. Daria Dieguts went there to find out more and filed this report narrated by Anna Rice. 
 

…

Mike Stura runs a 230 acre farm about an hour from New York City in the state of New Jersey. He isn’t really a farmer by trade, but he is a rescuer by choice and gives ailing animals a second chance. Anna Nelson visited Stura at Skylands Sanctuary, Anna Rice narrates the story. 
 

…