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A federal appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s financial records must be turned over to the House of Representatives.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that lawmakers should get the documents they have subpoenaed from Mazars USA. The firm has provided accounting services to Trump.

Trump went to court to prevent Mazars from turning over the records. He could appeal to the Supreme Court.

Tax returns not included

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform subpoenaed records from Mazars in April. They include documents from 2011 to 2018 that the House wants for investigation into the president’s reporting of his finances and potential conflicts of interest. The list of documents makes no mention of Trump’s tax returns, which are the subject of separate legal disputes.

In a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court batted away Trump’s legal claims.

“Contrary to the President’s arguments, the Committee possesses authority under both the House Rules and the Constitution to issue the subpoena, and Mazars must comply,” Judge David Tatel wrote, joined by Judge Patricia Millett. Tatel was appointed by President Bill Clinton. Millett is an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Trump appointee Neomi Rao wrote in dissent that the committee should have asked for the records under the House’s impeachment power, not its legislative authority.

“The Constitution and our historical practice draw a consistent line between the legislative and judicial powers of Congress. The majority crosses this boundary for the first time by upholding this subpoena investigating the illegal conduct of the President under the legislative power,” Rao wrote.

Several records fights

The case is one of several working its way through courts in which Trump is fighting with Congress over records. The House Ways and Means Committee has sued the Trump administration over access to the president’s tax returns. In New York, Trump sued to prevent Deutsche Bank and Capital One from complying with House subpoenas for banking and financial records. A judge ruled against him, and Trump appealed. Trump also is in court trying to stop the Manhattan District Attorney from obtaining his tax returns.

Trump had argued that Oversight committee seeking the records from Mazars is out to get him and lacks a legitimate “legislative purpose” for its request. His lawyers have argued that congressional investigations are valid only if there is legislation that might result from them.

The committee, for its part, has said it is seeking the Trump financial statements, accounting records and other documents as part of its investigation into whether the president has undisclosed conflicts of interests, whether he has accurately reported his finances and whether he may have engaged in illegal conduct before and during his time in office.

The committee says the House is considering legislation related to government conflicts of interest and presidential financial disclosures, among other things.

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Arthur Jean Pierre contributed to this report in Port-au-Prince.

Thousands of protesters were in the streets of Haiti’s capital Friday, marching toward the affluent suburb of Petionville where they say they will wait for the President Jovenel Moise’s letter of resignation.

“Jovenel can’t remain in the country, he has to go!” a protester yelled as he made his way up the mountain from the Champ de Mars neighborhood, not far from the National Palace in Port-au-Prince.

“We don’t have a problem with the man — we don’t know him — we have a problem with the system (of government). We’re fighting for a new society and a better life,” a protester marching in the downtown area of Carrefour Aeroport said. “We have to rid ourselves of this economic morass.”

The opposition and anti-corruption groups called for citizens nationwide to fill the streets to continue pressuring the president to resign. They blame him for failed leadership, a fuel shortage, high inflation and rampant corruption.

“The police know where we’re heading,” opposition Senator Nenel Cassy told VOA Creole as he marched uptown. “We have protesters coming from different areas of the capital and we will merge at Place St. Pierre (in Petionville). And if they (the president) don’t bring us his resignation letter, we will head up to Pelerin.”

Cassy said the opposition has sent word to protesters coming down the mountain from Kenscoff, an agricultural town, to stop when they get to Pelerin 9, and wait there for a signal to continue down the mountain to the president’s home.

A week ago, when protesters tried to make it to Petionville, they were dispersed by security forces firing tear gas.

Asked by VOA Creole what they plan to do if they are allowed to reach Moise’s home, opposition leader Andre Michel skirted the question.

“I don’t think we’ll have a problem,” Michel said. When pressed, however, about whether they planned to resort to violence, he said, “Listen, we are a Republican opposition, we are a Democratic opposition, functioning within the confines of the Constitution of the Republic. Everything we do, we always invite the police (to come along).”

When VOA Creole arrived in Petionville around midday, two armored police trucks were blocking the main road leading to the president’s neighborhood. A large crowd was gathering in the middle of the street.

#Haiti security forces have blocked the road leading up to President @moisejovenel’s neighborhood, Pelerin, an affluent suburb of the capital. Meanwhile, some protesters have reached #Petionville, another affluent suburb. Video by @VOAKreyol Matiado Vilme pic.twitter.com/zNGbiDes4m

— Sandra Lemaire (@SandraDVOA) October 11, 2019

“We’re at the edge of the abyss,” a protester told VOA Creole, likening the current political climate to that which existed in the 1960s under dictator Papa Doc (President Francois Duvalier) whose Tonton Macoute henchmen terrorized the nation.

“When the government reaches this stage, it means it’s reached the end. This is an uprising, not a protest,” the protester said.

Haiti has been plagued for months by an increase in violence, a fuel shortage, high inflation, double-digit unemployment and food insecurity.

Weekly protests have negatively impacted businesses, schools and tourism.

Moise has taken steps toward resolving the crisis. Last week, he named several new Cabinet ministers and formed a special commission tasked with facilitating a national dialogue to negotiate an end to the crisis — an idea backed by the international community.

“This is a situation that requires political wisdom,” former Prime Minister Evans Paul, a member of the commission, told VOA Creole. Describing the current political climate as “extremely serious,” he said the root cause of corruption dates back to long before Moise took power in 2017.

“We’re all part of the problem, so let’s put our heads together to be part of the solution,” Paul said.
 
But the opposition and their supporters refuse to back down and say they will accept nothing less than the president’s resignation.
 

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The 5-year-old daughter of a British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran since 2016 has arrived back in Britain, her father said Friday, after making the “bittersweet” decision to bring her home.

Gabriella Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been staying with relatives in Iran since her mother Nazanin’s detention on sedition charges, visiting her in jail each week.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, stated in an open letter released earlier this week that Gabriella, who only speaks a few words of English, would return to Britain “in the near future.”

‘Bittersweet’ return

Richard Ratcliffe confirmed Friday that his daughter had arrived home, saying “Gabriella came back to us late at night, a bit uncertain seeing those she only remembered from the phone.

“It has been a long journey to have her home, with bumps right until the end,” he added in the statement.

“Of course the job is not yet done until Nazanin is home. It was a hard goodbye for Nazanin and all her family. But let us hope this homecoming unlocks another.”

Ratcliffe told AFP last week that his daughter’s return would be “bittersweet.”

“It will be lovely to have her back … and then also we will be weary of the fallout for Nazanin,” he said, noting that Gabriella had been his wife’s “lifeline and that lifeline will have been taken away.”

The young girl spent 3½ years living in Iran, visiting her mother in the Evin prison.

Her parents decided it would be best for her to be schooled in Britain.

“My baby will leave me to go to her father and start school in the UK,” her mother wrote in an open letter released earlier this month. “It will be a daunting trip for her travelling, and for me left behind.”

Arrested in 2016

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 as she was leaving Iran after taking their then 22-month-old daughter to visit her family.

She was sentenced to five years in jail for allegedly trying to topple the Iranian government.

A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the media group’s philanthropic arm, she denies all charges.

The case has unfolded amid escalating tensions between Tehran and the West, particularly with the United States and Britain.
 

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U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. mission of defeating Islamic State in Syria is accomplished and that he plans to keep Turkey in line through economy and not military power. Trump told reporters Thursday that there are no U.S. combat forces in Syria and he does not think Americans would want to send thousands of troops to fight there. Turkey’s assault on Kurdish-held villages in northern Syria has sparked an exodus of civilians from their homes and is threatening to exacerbate a humanitarian crisis in the region. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
 

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Antigovernment protests and unrest in Hong Kong continues after nearly four months. Among those affected by the turmoil are about 400,000 foreign domestic workers, mostly women from Indonesia and the Philippines. VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara brings this report from Hong Kong. 
 

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Evolutionary biologists know that humans have traces of DNA that go back millions of years, well before humans were human. But thanks to some amazing new high-resolution imagery, scientists can now see how that ancient DNA shows up, then disappears in early human embryos. VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka reports.

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U.S. President Donald Trump says he’s planning to get involved in the case of an American diplomat’s wife who left the U.K. after she was involved in a fatal wrong-way crash.
 
Trump on Wednesday called what happened “a terrible accident” and said his administration would seek to speak with the driver “and see what we can come up with.”
 
British police say the 42-year-old woman is a suspect in an Aug. 27 collision between a car and a motorcycle near RAF Croughton, a British military base in England used by the U.S. Air Force. The 19-year-old motorcyclist, Harry Dunn, was killed.
 
Trump says: “The woman was driving on the wrong side of the road. And that can happen.”
 
The woman’s name hasn’t been officially released.

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Californians are playing a waiting game – waiting for the power to go out. The region’s power company is cutting off electricity to reduce the risk of forest wildfires. Residents are being told to prepare. Michelle Quinn went to one town waiting for the lights to go off

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Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and Austria’s Peter Handke have been awarded the Nobel Literature Prize.

The award was not given last year, so Handke won the 2019 prize  for “an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience” while Tokarczuk won the 2018 prize “for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.”

Each author will receive a $918,000 cash award.

The Swedish Academy did not name a winner for the prize last year following accusations of sexual abuse and other wrongdoing by people connected to the academy.

The coveted Nobel Peace prize will be awarded on Friday.  

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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.   

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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.
 

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