Britain’s Parliament dissolved Wednesday for a five-week election campaign. Rising inequality is expected to be one of the central issues in Britain’s pre-holiday general election, as conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces off with leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn. Johnson has called for the snap election to gain more parliamentary support for his Brexit plan. But for some British voters, employment, health care, the environment and other issues are more important than how soon and under what conditions Britain can leave the European Union. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
The Berlin Wall’s demise 30 years ago brought an end to a divided Berlin — and symbolized the eventual liberation of East Germany, and later the rest of Eastern Europe, from Soviet communist rule. Yet the wall’s anniversary comes as the politics of east and west continue to reverberate through German society. In former communist East Germany, a democratic slogan from the revolution of 1989 rebounds – and resonates – among the present day nationalist far right. Charles Maynes reports from Thuringia in eastern Germany.
A lone attacker on Wednesday stabbed three foreign tourists and their tour guide at a popular archaeological site in northern Jordan, the official Petra news agency reported.
The agency said the attacker also wounded a policeman before he was subdued and arrested. The wounded were taken to a hospital.
Amateur video showed a bloody scene next to the Jerash archaeological site, an ancient city whose ruins, including a Roman amphitheater and a columned road, are one of the country’s top tourist destinations.
In one video, a woman can be heard screaming in Spanish. “It’s a dagger, it’s a dagger, there is a knife. Please, help him now!”
One woman is seen lying on the ground, with much blood around her, as someone presses a towel to her back. Another man sits nearby with an apparent leg wound.
There were no further details, but the al-Ghad newspaper said the tourists were Mexican and suffered serious wounds.
Suspected separatist insurgents stormed a security checkpoint in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south and killed at least 15 people, including a police officer and many village defense volunteers, security officials said on Wednesday.
It was the worst single attack in years in a region where a Muslim separatist insurgency has killed thousands.
The attackers, in the province of Yala, also used explosives and scattered nails on roads to delay pursuers late on Tuesday night.
“This is likely the work of the insurgents,” Colonel Pramote Prom-in, a regional security spokesman, told Reuters. “This is one of the biggest attack in recent times.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, however, as is common with such attacks.
A decade-old separatist insurgency in predominantly Buddhist Thailand’s largely ethnic Malay-Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat has killed nearly 7,000 people since 2004, says Deep South Watch, a group that monitors the violence.
The population of the provinces, which belonged to an independent Malay Muslim sultanate before Thailand annexed them in 1909, is 80 percent Muslim, while the rest of the country is overwhelmingly Buddhist.
Some rebel groups in the south have said they are fighting to establish an independent state.
Authorities arrested several suspects from the region in August over a series of small bombs detonated in Bangkok, the capital, although they have not directly blamed any insurgent group.
The main insurgency group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), denied responsibility for the Bangkok bombings, which wounded four people.
In August, the group told Reuters it had held a secret preliminary meeting with the government, but any step towards a peace process appeared to wither after the deputy prime minister rejected a key demand for the release of prisoners.
A trade war between the world’s top two economies cut U.S. imports of Chinese goods by more than a quarter, or $35 billion, in the first half of this year and drove up prices for American consumers, a U.N. study showed on Tuesday.
Beijing and Washington have been locked in a trade feud for the past 16 months although there are hopes that an initial deal offering some relief may be signed this month.
If that fails, nearly all Chinese goods imports into the United States — worth more than $500 billion — could be affected.
U.S. imports from China subject to tariffs fell to $95 billion between January and June from $130 billion during the same period of 2018, the study released by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) showed.
“Overall, the results indicate that the United States tariffs on China are economically hurting both countries,” the report said. “United States losses are largely related to the higher prices for consumers, while China’s losses are related to significant export losses.”
Over time, Chinese companies began absorbing some of the extra costs of the tariffs through an 8% dip in export prices in the second quarter of 2019, but that still left 17% “on the shoulders of U.S. consumers”, said the report’s author Alessandro Nicita, an economist at UNCTAD.
The sector hit hardest by the U.S. tariffs are U.S. imports of Chinese office machinery and communication equipment, which fell by $15 billion. Over time, the scale of Chinese export losses increased alongside mounting tariffs, the study said.
Other countries stepped up to fill most of the gap left by China, the study found. It named Taiwan as the largest beneficiary of “trade diversion”, with $4.2 billion in additional exports to the United States in the first half of 2019. They were mostly office and communication equipment.
Mexico increased exports to the United States by $3.5 billion, mostly agriculture and transport equipment and electrical machinery. The European Union boosted deliveries by $2.7 billion, mostly via additional machinery exports, it found.
“The longer the trade war goes on, the more likely these losses and gains will be permanent,” Nicita said. Not all of Chinese trade losses were picked up by other economies and billions of dollars in trade were lost entirely.
The paper did not analyse the effect of Chinese tariffs on U.S. imports into China because detailed data was not yet available.
It also does not capture the most recent phase of the trade war — including 10% tariffs on about $125 billion worth of additional Chinese goods imported into the United States that took effect on Sept. 1 — beyond noting that it is likely to add to existing trade losses.
Nigerian police have freed 259 people from an Islamic rehabilitation center in the southwestern city of Ibadan, police said on Tuesday, taking the number rescued from abusive institutions since September to nearly 1,500.
Images from local TV station TVC taken after the captives were released showed a group of mostly young men and teenage boys. Many were emaciated. An infant was also among the group.
“We eat one meal a day,” freed captive Olalekan Ayoola, told TVC, saying the food wasn’t fit for a dog to eat.
Nigeria launched a crackdown on informal Islamic schools and rehabilitation centers in late September after a man was refused permission to see his nephews at one institution and complained
to police.
Many captives have said they were physically and sexually abused and chained up to prevent them escaping. Other sites raided in major police operations have been in the mostly Muslim north of the country. Ibadan is in the southwestern state of Oyo, which is predominantly Christian. Oyo state police spokesman Fadeyi Olugbenga said the facility was raided on Monday at about 2 p.m. (1300 GMT).
“Yesterday, 259 persons were released. We had women, men and teenagers,” Olugbenga said. Some people were locked inside a building and some were chained.
Olugbenga said nine people, including the owner of the center, had been arrested and were under investigation. Oyo’s commissioner of police, Shina Olukolu, told reporters on Monday that anyone found culpable would be prosecuted to “serve as a warning to others who may want to operate such houses that serve as illegal detention centers.”
Spokesmen for President Muhammadu Buhari, who ordered the crackdown, and the vice president both declined to comment. The president’s office issued a statement in October that said: “No responsible democratic government would tolerate the existence of the torture chambers and physical abuses of inmates in the name of rehabilitation of the victims.”
Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the north of the West African country. Such schools have been dogged by allegations of abuse and accusations that some children have
been forced to beg on the streets.
At other raided facilities, some parents thought their children were there to be educated and even paid tuition fees. Others sent misbehaving relatives to Islamic institutions to
instill discipline.
Muftau Adamu told TVC his parents came to collect him from the center in Ibadan but were told they must pay 1 million naira ($3,270) first – and never came back.
El-Sissi thanked Trump late Monday for his “generous concern” for helping revive Egypt’s deadlocked dispute with Ethiopia over its construction of a massive upstream Nile dam.
A former army general who seized power in 2013 coup, el-Sissi has carried out a widespread crackdown on dissent, silencing critics and jailing thousands.
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.
FILE – People’s Party (PP) candidate Pablo Casado speaks in Madrid, Spain, April 28, 2019.
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.
Leader of VOX party, Santiago Abascal, arrives at a televised debate ahead of general elections in Madrid, Spain, Nov. 4, 2019.
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
FILE – Spain’s Socialist leader and acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez attends a rally to mark the kick off his campaign ahead of the general election in Seville, Spain, Oct. 31, 2019.
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
Leader of Ciudadanos’ party Albert Rivera and debate moderator Maria Casado arrive at a televised debate ahead of general elections in Madrid, Spain, Nov. 4, 2019.
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.
FILE – Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias speaks during a plenary session at Parliament in Madrid, Spain, Sept. 11, 2019.
The leader of far-left Unidas Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, with whom Sanchez failed to strike a deal to form a government after the April ballot, told Sanchez he “was wrong” if he thought the right would help solve the Catalan problem, saying dialogue with the separatists was the only solution.
While all agreed that a slowing down of Spain’s economic growth will be a major issue for who becomes prime minister, the candidates also clashed on economic policies, and in particular on taxation, with Casado saying: “In order for the Spaniards not to lose their jobs, Sanchez must lose his.”
Vox’s Abascal had not focused much on immigration in the April ballot — unlike many far-right party leaders facing elections in Europe — but took a harder line Monday, accusing Sanchez of not controlling who enters Spain.
More than 400 inmates across the state of Oklahoma were released from prison Monday in accordance to reforms approved by voters in 2016 to downgrade many crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
The reforms were signed into law earlier this year and retroactively made simple drug possession a misdemeanor. It also made any theft, vandalism, shoplifting and robbery worth less than $1,000 a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
Under the changes, Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board approved the commutation of 462 inmates unanimously and it was made official by the Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, who has made reducing Oklahoma’s highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate one of his top priorities
According to Stitt’s office, releasing the prisoners will save the state an estimated $11.9 million annually.
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…..
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.
Protesters in Lebanon rallied Sunday to call for President Michel Aoun’s ouster as part of a push for sweeping changes that have already brought the resignation of the country’s prime minister.
The protests in Beirut came hours after supporters of Aoun turned out to show their support for the president.
Aoun gave an address near the presidential palace in southeastern Beirut in which he said his supporters and the anti-government protesters should work together on anti-corruption efforts.
But in their later demonstration, the protesters rejected Aoun as a leader to deliver reforms, saying all of Lebanon’s political establishment needs to go.
The protests began last month in support of a complete overhaul of Lebanon’s sectarian-based politics. Under the current system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shi’ite Muslim.
The demonstrators have also blamed the political establishment for rampant corruption and poor public services.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Sunday that “the worst is yet to come” with an oil spill that has affected more than 200 beaches on the country’s coast.
“What came so far and what was collected is a small amount of what was spilled,” Bolsonaro said in an interview with Record television.
He said he did not know if additional oil would impact his country’s coastline, but that “everything indicates that the currents went to the coast of Brazil.”
Oil slicks have been appearing for three months off the coast of northeast Brazil and fouling beaches along a 2,000 kilometer (1,250 mile) area of Brazil’s most celebrated shoreline.
Crews and volunteers have cleaned up tons of oil on the beaches.
Officials say it not yet possible to quantify the environmental and economic damage from the oil slicks.
The government on Friday named a Greek-flagged tanker as the prime suspect behind the oil slicks.
The ship Bouboulina took on oil in Venezuela and was headed for Singapore, it said.
The space agency Inpe said Friday there might still be oil at sea being pushed by currents and it could reach the states of Espiritu Santo and Rio de Janeiro in southeast Brazil.
Under Armour Inc. is being investigated by federal authorities over its accounting practices.
The athletic gear company said Sunday that it has been cooperating with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice on their investigations for two years.
The company said it firmly believes its accounting practices and disclosures were appropriate.
Under Armour reports earnings for the third quarter Monday.
The investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which said the probe involves whether the retailer shifted sales from quarter to quarter to make results appear stronger.
Under Armour founder Kevin Plank stepped down as CEO last month. The company has struggled since its explosive sales growth petered out in 2017. Last year it announced job cuts as part of a restructuring effort.
Iran will not lift its ban on talks with the United States, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday, describing the two countries as implacable foes on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
“One way to block America’s political infiltration is to ban any talks with America. It means Iran will not yield to America’s pressure,” Khamenei, who is Iran’s top authority, was quoted by state TV as saying.
“Those who believe that negotiations with the enemy will solve our problems are 100% wrong.”
Relations between the two foes have reached a crisis over the past year after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 pact between Iran and world powers under which Tehran accepted curbs to its nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions.
Washington has reimposed sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports, saying it seeks to force Iran to negotiate to reach a wider deal. Khamenei has banned Iranian officials from holding such talks unless the United States returns to the nuclear deal and lifts all sanctions.
FILE – Religious symbols are held up outside the U.S. Embassy gates in Tehran, Iran, where students hold American hostages, on Nov. 28, 1979.
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.
FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference after the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the French mission to the UN in New York, Sept. 24, 2019
Khamenei poured scorn on French President Emmanuel Macron for trying to promote talks between the foes. Macron tried to arrange a failed meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.
“The French president, who says a meeting will end all the problems between Tehran and America, is either naive or complicit with America,” Khamenei said in remarks reported by state television.
Bangladesh said Sunday plans to relocate thousands of Rohingya living in overcrowded refugee camps to a remote island were “uncertain” after authorities failed to gain support from U.N. agencies.
Dhaka had wanted to begin its long-held plan this month to move 100,000 people to the mud-silt island of Bhashan Char, amid growing frustration with the presence of the squalid tent settlements in its southeastern border towns.
Bangladesh has said thousands of Rohingya families have volunteered to relocate, with some 3,500 of the Muslim minority due to be moved between mid-November to February during calm seas.
But the plan was in doubt as the U.N. has not supported the relocation so far, Bangladesh disaster management and relief minister Enamur Rahman told AFP.
“This has become uncertain,” Rahman said of the relocation to the island, which takes around three hours to reach by boat.
“They [U.N. agencies] still haven’t agreed to the relocation plan.”
Aid agencies including the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Program (WFP), which held meetings with the government, told him the island was “isolated” and “flood-prone.”
The agencies set out a list of conditions that had to be met, including a regular shipping service between the islet in the Bay of Bengal and the mainland, Rahman added.
The organizations provide humanitarian aid to the nearly one million Rohingya in the vast camps, including 740,000 who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar in August 2017.
“We won’t do anything forcefully,” he said, adding that at least two ships were set to ply the waters between the site and the mainland.
A U.N. official told AFP on Sunday that “U.N. agencies cannot support a move for which [they] have no technical information.”
Dhaka is due to hold another round of talks with the agencies on Wednesday, Rahman said.
Global activist group Fortify Rights said last month it interviewed 14 Rohingya at three camps, including some who appeared on lists of refugees allegedly willing to go, and found none had been consulted “and all opposed it.”
Other groups have also expressed misgivings about moving people to the island, which is regularly hit by devastating cyclones.
In Beirut, thousands of people turned out Sunday to show their support for Lebanon’s president.
The demonstration was held near Michel Aoun’s presidential palace in southeastern Beirut.
The show of support for Aoun is in direct contrast to the protests Lebanese citizens began staging across the tiny Mediterranean country last month, demanding a complete overhaul of Lebanon’s sectarian-based politics.
The demonstrators have also blamed the political establishment for rampant corruption and poor public services.
Another anti-government protest, however, is slated for later Sunday in central Beirut.
Egypt’s Islamic State affiliate, Sinai Province, has sworn allegiance to the new leader named by the group following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the affiliate said on Telegram on Saturday.
Sinai Province, which has waged an insurgency against the Egyptian state, posted pictures of around two dozen fighters standing among trees, with a caption saying they were pledging allegiance to Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in April said he would give the U.S. until the end of the year to become more flexible on nuclear talks. Since then, he’s launched 12 missiles to back up that warning, including a launch on Thursday. So far, though, there is no evidence the U.S. is changing its stance, meaning the situation could soon get much more volatile, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.
His revolutionary fervor diminished by the years that have also turned his dark brown hair white, one of the Iranian student leaders of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover says he now regrets the seizure of the diplomatic compound and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed.
Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s 40th anniversary of the attack, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh acknowledged that the repercussions of the crisis still reverberate as tensions remain high between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.
Asgharzadeh cautioned others against following in his footsteps, despite the takeover becoming enshrined in hard-line mythology. He also disputed a revisionist history now being offered by supporters of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that they directed the attack, insisting all the blame rested with the Islamist students who let the crisis spin out of control.
“Like Jesus Christ, I bear all the sins on my shoulders,” Asgharzadeh said.
At the time, what led to the 1979 takeover remained obscure to Americans who for months could only watch in horror as TV newscasts showed Iranian protests at the embassy. Popular anger against the U.S. was rooted in the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that toppled Iran’s elected prime minister and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The shah, dying from cancer, fled Iran in February 1979, paving the way for its Islamic Revolution. But for months, Iran faced widespread unrest ranging from separatist attacks, worker revolts and internal power struggles. Police reported for work but not for duty, allowing chaos like Marxist students briefly seizing the U.S. Embassy.
Iranians walk past anti-U.S. graffiti on the wall of the former U.S. Embassy, in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 15, 2019.
In this power vacuum, then-President Jimmy Carter allowed the shah to seek medical treatment in New York. That lit the fuse for the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover, though at first the Islamist students argued over which embassy to seize. A student leader named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who later became president in 2005, argued they should seize the Soviet Embassy compound in Tehran as leftists had caused political chaos.
But the students settled on the U.S. Embassy, hoping to pressure Carter to send the shah back to Iran to stand trial on corruption charges. Asgharzadeh, then a 23-year-old engineering student, remembers friends going to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar to buy a bolt cutter, a popular tool used by criminals, and the salesman saying: “You do not look like thieves! You certainly want to open up the U.S. Embassy door with it!”
“The society was ready for it to happen. Everything happened so fast,” Asgharzadeh said. “We cut off the chains on the embassy’s gate. Some of us climbed up the walls and we occupied the embassy compound very fast.”
Like other former students, Asgharzadeh said the plan had been simply to stage a sit-in. But the situation soon spun out of their control. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the long-exiled Shiite cleric whose return to Iran sparked the revolution, gave his support to the takeover. He would use that popular angle to expand the Islamists’ power.
“We, the students, take responsibility for the first 48 hours of the takeover,” Asgharzadeh said. “Later, it was out of our hands since the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the establishment supported it.”
He added: “Our plan was one of students, unprofessional and temporary.”
As time went on, it slowly dawned on the naive students that Americans wouldn’t join their revolution. While a rescue attempt by the U.S. military would fail and Carter would lose to Ronald Reagan amid the crisis, the U.S. as a whole expressed worry about the hostages by displaying yellow ribbons and counting the days of their captivity.
As the months passed, things only got worse. Asgharzadeh said he thought it would end once the shah left America or later with his death in Egypt in July 1980. It didn’t.
“A few months after the takeover, it appeared to be turning into a rotten fruit hanging down from a tree and no one had the courage to take it down and resolve the matter,” he said. “There was a lot of public opinion support behind the move in the society. The society felt it had slapped America, a superpower, on the mouth and people believed that the takeover proved to America that their democratic revolution had been stabilized.”
It hadn’t, though. The eight-year Iran-Iraq War would break out during the crisis. The hostage crisis and later the war boosted the position of hard-liners who sought strict implementation of their version of Islamic beliefs.
Seizing or attacking diplomatic posts remains a tactic of Iranian hard-liners to this day. A mob stormed the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011, while another attacked diplomatic posts of Saudi Arabia in 2016, which led to diplomatic ties being cut between Tehran and Riyadh. And Iran will commemorate the 40th anniversary of U.S. Embassy takeover on Monday by staging a rally in front of the Tehran compound where it was located.
However, Asgharzadeh denied that Iran’s then-nascent Revolutionary Guard directed the U.S. Embassy takeover, although he said it was informed before the attack over fears that security forces would storm the compound and retake it. Many at the time believed the shah would launch a coup, like in 1953, to regain power.
“In a very limited way, we informed one of the Guard’s units and they accepted to protect the embassy from outside,” Asgharzadeh said. “The claim (by hard-liners) on the Guard’s role lacks credit. I am the main narrator of the incident and I am still alive.”
In the years since, Asgharzadeh has become a reformist politician and served prison time for his views. He has argued that Iran should work toward improving ties with the U.S., a difficult task amid President Donald Trump’s maximalist campaign against Tehran.
“It is too difficult to say when the relations between Tehran and Washington can be restored,” Asgharzadeh said. “I do not see any prospect.”
Thirty-five soldiers were killed Friday in a “terrorist attack” on a Mali military post in the northeast of the country, the army said.
“The provisional death toll has risen to 35 deaths,” it said on Facebook late Friday, adding that the situation was “under control.”
An investigation into the attack on the outpost in Indelimane in the Menaka region was continuing, it said.
The attack came a month after two jihadist assaults killed 40 soldiers near the border with Burkina Faso, one of the deadliest strikes against Mali’s military in recent Islamist militant violence.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for Friday’s assault.
The Malian government earlier condemned the “terrorist attack,” saying it had left numerous dead or wounded but without giving a precise toll.
It said reinforcements had been rushed to the area to boost security and track down the attackers.
Northern Mali came under the control of al-Qaida-linked jihadists after Mali’s army failed to quash a rebellion there in 2012. A French-led military campaign was launched against the jihadists, pushing them back a year later.
But the jihadists have regrouped and widened their hit-and-run raids and land-mine attacks to central and southern Mali.
The violence has also spilled over into Burkina Faso and Niger where militants have exploited existing intercommunal strife.
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters descended on the capital of Islamabad Friday, determined to send the sitting prime minister home. The leader of the protests threatened dire consequences if his demands were not met within two days. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem was at the protest and has this story from Islamabad.
Backed by tens of thousands of protesters, Pakistan’s opposition parties Friday demanded the country’s prime minister resign within two days.
Demonstrators in Islamabad accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of destroying Pakistan’s economy and stealing the last election with the help of the military.
“Poor mothers are forced to sell their children for money. Young men are committing suicide. … Can we leave the people at the mercy of this incompetent government?” said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a cleric and leader of the Islamist political party Jamiat e Ulema e Islam Fazl (JUI-F) leading the protest.
Fazal-ur Rehman, president of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) waves to supporters during what participants call Azadi March (Freedom March) to protest the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, in Islamabad, Nov. 1, 2019.
March from Karachi
Friday’s peaceful demonstration was the culmination of a long march Rehman started Sunday in the port city of Karachi to draw attention to Pakistan’s issues.
Support from Pakistan’s biggest opposition parties, Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), seemed tepid at first. But the party’s senior leadership, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, joined Rehman on stage Friday to make fiery speeches.
“Our prime minister is selected, he does not represent the people, he is incompetent, he is inept,” Bhutto Zardari said.
Sharif savaged the prime minister’s economic performance.
“Imran Khan Niazi, you promised 10 million additional jobs. Instead, you’ve made hundreds of thousands jobless,” he said.
Supporters of religious and political party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) chant slogans during what participants call Azadi March (Freedom March) to protest the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad, Nov. 1, 2019.
Senior members of both opposition parties are being investigated for corruption, allegedly carried out during previous governments. Both say the cases are politically motivated.
Meanwhile, Khan and his ruling party call the protests a ruse to compel the government to back off on the inquiries.
“People know what they really want. … The truth is, their cases are now public. With the massive corruption they carried out, all of them are scared they will be arrested,” Khan said while addressing a rally.
The opposition leaders did not spell out consequences if Khan does not step down, only hinting they may move to paralyze the government by blocking a main road leading to Parliament and other buildings.
The government said such a move would be forcefully repelled, prompting fears of possible violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators.
The protest has also increased tension between the opposition and Pakistan’s powerful military, which has directly ruled the country for half of its history.
“If we feel that our establishment [the military] is supporting this illegal government, then we are issuing a two-day ultimatum. After that, don’t stop us from making up our own minds,” Rehman said.
Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said opposition leaders should not drag the military into Pakistani politics.
“The army is an impartial institution. We believe in the constitution and law and our support is for a democratically elected government, not for any political party,” he said.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has hailed a “landmark” meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee. In his address in Istanbul Thursday, the U.N. chief expressed hope for a political solution that will end the Syrian war. The U.N. says at least 180,000 people have been displaced since the Turkish incursion into Syria last month adding to the 6.5 million already displaced. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports U.S. troops have returned to a border area east of Qamishli.
The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives formalized the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday, passing a resolution along party lines setting up procedures for the next phase of the investigation. After weeks of testimony behind closed doors, Democrats are expected to begin public hearings into allegations Trump invited foreign interference into the 2020 election by putting pressure on Ukraine to provide information about a political rival. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
November marks 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall’s demise brought an end to a divided Berlin — and symbolized the eventual liberation of East Germany, and later the rest of Eastern Europe, from Soviet communist rule. Yet as Charles Maynes reports, while the Wall is long gone, it still casts a shadow over German life.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary forces have “committed summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability” — including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and attacks on health-care facilities.
In its report, released on Thursday, HRW called on the Afghan government to immediately disband all pro-government paramilitary groups that operate outside the “ordinary military chain of command.”
It is also calling for the Afghan government to “impartially investigate all allegations of abuse by Afghan security forces” and to “prosecute those responsible for war crimes and serious abuses.”
It says both the United States and the Afghan government should also “cooperate with independent investigations of all allegations of war crimes and other human rights abuses.”
It also says the U.S. government should “investigate any U.S. personnel” involved in abuses, and should “cease supporting Afghan forces that have been responsible for serious violations.”
HRW documented 14 cases from late 2017 to mid-2019 in which it said CIA-backed “strike groups” committed grave abuses during night raids, such as one in the southeastern province of Paktia in which a paramilitary squad killed 11 men, including eight who were home for the Eid holidays.
In some cases, HRW says, troops detained men and didn’t tell families where they were being held.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has disputed the HRW report, saying many of the claims against Afghan special forces were “likely false or exaggerated.”
“In ramping up operations against the Taliban, the CIA has enabled abusive Afghan forces to commit atrocities including extrajudicial executions and disappearances,” said Patricia Gossman, the report’s author and HRW’s associate Asia director.
“In case after case, these forces have simply shot people in their custody and consigned entire communities to the terror of abusive night raids and indiscriminate air strikes,” Grossman said.
Night raids, which combine surprise, overwhelming firepower, and night-vision equipment, are a tactic preferred by special forces.
FILE – Taliban fighters stand with their weapons in Ahmad Aba district, on the outskirts of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, Afghanistan, July 18, 2017.
On several occasions, raids which usually take place in Taliban-controlled areas were backed by airstrikes that “indiscriminately or disproportionately” killed civilians, HRW said.
According to data released this week by NATO, the United States conducted 1,113 air and artillery strikes in September, a large increase on previous months that came as talks between Washington and the Taliban collapsed.
CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said the agency’s operations abroad are conducted in “accordance with law and under a robust system of oversight.”
Barrett accused the Taliban of spreading misinformation and noted that the militants do not operate under any similar rules.
“Unlike the Taliban, the United States is committed to the rule of law,” officials added in a CIA statement.
“We neither condone nor would knowingly participate in illegal activities, and we continually work with our foreign partners to promote adherence to the law.”
Afghanistan’s CIA-backed militias, whose tradition goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s, are seen as a critical tool in the fight against Taliban and Islamic State militants.
Such paramilitary groups are officially under Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) but often operate almost independently of Afghan authorities.
Speaking to HRW, one unnamed diplomat referred to them as “death squads.”
The NDS did not immediately comment.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a U.S. government monitor, says Afghan special forces conducted 2,531 ground operations from January-September this year, more than the total of 2,365 for all of last year.
A U.N. report earlier this month said 1,174 civilians were killed and 3,139 wounded in Afghanistan from July to September this year — a 42 percent increase over the same period last year.
Indian Kashmir officially became a federally ruled territory Thursday, nearly three months after New Delhi stripped its decades-old special status, but peace remains elusive in the Himalayan region that has been wracked by a violent separatist insurgency and is the flashpoint of its dispute with Pakistan.
The erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state is now split into two territories administered by New Delhi. One consists of the Muslim dominated Kashmir valley and Hindu dominated Jammu. The second is Ladakh, an icy desert bordering China.
However, months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government made the dramatic move, saying it will help stamp out terrorism and spur development in the country’s most restive region, there is widespread disenchantment and little semblance of normalcy in the Himalayan valley that is home to 8 million people.
“New highways, new railway lines, new schools, new hospitals will take the development of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to new heights,” Modi told a public rally in the western state of Gujarat.
The optimism was not reflected in the Kashmir valley, where shops were shuttered and streets largely deserted as a New Delhi appointee, Girish Chandra Murmu, was sworn in as the top official of Jammu and Kashmir.
“We are very apprehensive that things should not worsen. They are already bad,” according to Noor Ahmad Baba, a political analyst in the Kashmiri capital Srinagar. He describes the mood in the valley as sullen and angry, particularly among young people, and fears that downgrading Kashmir’s status could fuel the anti-India rebellion that New Delhi has struggled to control.
“They can’t go for any active resistance because of very heavy security presence around and there is no leadership,” Baba said.
While a huge security lockdown has kept a lid on popular protests, there has been a spate of militant attacks in the past two weeks. The internet continues to be shut down, although the communication blackout Kashmir faced ahead of the move has been somewhat eased. Businesses are counting losses of $1.4 billion, and apple farmers and traders have struggled to harvest and transport the bountiful crop due to fears of reprisals by militants. Regional political leaders who were placed under arrest to prevent them from fanning unrest remain in detention.
The most conspicuous change is that people from the rest of India can now buy land in Kashmir, previously banned under a constitutional provision known as Article 370 that gave Kashmiris special rights in property, education and jobs to protect the region’s identity.
The government has defended its move, saying it will link Kashmir with mainstream India, lessen its sense of alienation, guarantee its people rights available to other Indians, such as the right to education, and bring investment and jobs.
Home Minister Amit Shah told a public rally in Gujarat that scrapping Article 370 had shut down the “gateway to terrorism” in India, and will integrate Kashmir with the rest of the country.
That may not be easy, observers say. Recent militant attacks targeting migrant workers from outside the state are being interpreted as a signal Kashmir will not be secure for people from other parts of India. In the latest attack, on Tuesday, five construction workers were lined up and shot dead, according to officials. Earlier this month, six truckers who came to transport apples from the lush orchards were killed in separate incidents.
Businesses that have been crippled since the August 5 announcement because of the communication blackout are not optimistic that direct federal rule will make any difference on the ground.
“For every Kashmiri it is one and the same. Nothing is going to change. People are talking of investment now, but what about the present businesses? This is the big challenge,” according to the president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Sheikh Ashiq Ahmad.
“The nascent IT sector is crippled. When there are no orders, where will our weavers and artisans go? In tourism sector alone 70,000 people are jobless.”
Outside of Kashmir, in the rest of India, Modi has won wide praise for making a bold move to stamp out the separatist insurgency fomented by Islamic militant groups that India says are supported by Pakistan an allegation denied by Islamabad.
“I don’t have doubts about the need for such a step and I am optimistic that things will improve,” Jayadeva Ranade, a security and intelligence expert in New Delhi, said.
Others underline that to “win the peace” in Kashmir, the government urgently needs to address the political vacuum in the state where virtually all regional leaders and party workers remain under detention.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who is under detention tweeted, “GOI (government of India) has left Kashmiris in the lurch & shown disregard for their rights. But if you consider them as your own, reach out & engage with them before it’s too late.” Her Twitter post is being handled by her daughter.
Pointing out that the government has yet to allow people to speak out, The Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial that it should free political leaders and workers and lift curbs on people.
Bringing Kashmir under New Delhi’s rule has worsened India’s fraught relationship with Pakistan, which has strongly opposed the move. Islamabad has downgraded diplomatic ties, and stopped trade, postal and train services with India.
Dracula, Frankenstein, and other monsters may have literary origins but Hollywood has made them iconic characters that have scared and thrilled audiences around the world. Filmmakers looked to science and archeology as inspiration for the movie monsters. The connection between science and art is shown at an exhibit called the Natural History of Horror at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
