Month: November 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poll results

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

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

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

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

Debating Catalonia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Officials in California say fierce winds that have fueled fires across the state have subsided, allowing firefighters to mostly contain blazes that raged in the north and south.

The largest fire, in the northern wine county, was 80% contained on Monday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Cal Fire said the fire in Sonoma County, dubbed the Kincade Fire, burned more than 32,000 hectares and destroyed more than 370 structures since it began Oct. 23.

In Southern California, a blaze that erupted outside of Los Angeles on Thursday was 70% contained. The so-called Maria Fire destroyed 3,800 hectares and destroyed two structures near the community of Santa Paula, according to the Ventura County Fire Department.

A new study published Monday said invasive grasses may be contributing to more wildfires in the United States, especially in California. In the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ecologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, along with colleagues at the University of Colorado-Boulder, show that locations where common Mediterranean grass invades, fires ignite three times more often. The scientists found eight species of non-native grass that correlated with increased fire risk.

The recent fires in California sparked Twitter comments on Sunday by President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump tweeted that Newsom had done a “terrible job of forest management.”

“Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more,” Trump wrote.

..Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states…But our teams are working well together in…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2019

Newsom replied on Twitter: “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation.”

The wildfires across California forced nearly 200,000 people to evacuate. The fires have been fueled by seasonal Santa Ana winds, hot dry winds that blow in from the desert.

Last week, Southern California Edison said that 13 minutes before the Maria Fire broke out, the utility began to re-energize a power line in the same area where the fire erupted.

Another utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric acknowledged last week that one of its live power lines might have sparked the Kincade blaze. It said a transmission tower malfunctioned around the same time and place that the fire is believed to have begun.

California authorities blame PG&E lines for sparking last year’s wildfires that killed 85 people and destroyed entire towns. The utility, facing billions of dollars in lawsuits, was forced to declare bankruptcy earlier this year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Under Armour reports earnings for the third quarter Monday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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