Pope Francis wished for peace in the world at the start of the New Year. Thousands of people packed Saint Peter’s Square to hear his word on World Peace Day. The pope also used strong words during a morning mass in the Vatican Basilica to decry violence against women and called for an end to the exploitation of the female body.

Under a brilliant winter sun and blue sky, Pope Francis wished a huge crowd gathered in Saint Peter’s Square a happy new year of peace. The pope said it is not expected that our planet has begun a new circle around the sun and that humanity continues to live in it but rather it is always a miracle that surprises and that one should be thankful for.
 

On World Peace Day, instituted by Pope Paul VI, Pope Francis said that for 2020 the message is this: “Peace is a path of hope, a path on which one advances through dialogue, reconciliation and conversion.”
 
Earlier Pope Francis celebrated a solemn mass on New Year’s Day in Saint Peter’s Basilica. On January 1, the Church celebrates Mary, mother of Jesus.
 
In his first homily of 2020, the pope spoke against violence inflicted on women in modern society. He said all violence against women is a desecration of God. He also called for an end to the exploitation of the female body saying it “must be freed from consumerism” and it “must be respected and honored.”
 
He said “how often is a woman’s body sacrificed on the profane altar of advertising, profit, pornography, exploited as a surface to be used.” He added that while women are “the sources of life,” they are continually offended, beaten, raped, forced into prostitution” or forced to have abortions.
 
Pope Francis said that our level of humanity is understood by the way we treat a woman’s body. He also said that in order to make the world more united and at peace, women should become fully-associated with decision-making.
 
In his homily, the pope also addressed the issue of immigration and mothers who undertake difficult voyages to improve the lives of their children.
 
He said: “There are mothers, who risk perilous journeys to desperately try to give the fruit of the womb a better future and are judged to be redundant by people whose bellies are full of things, but whose hearts are empty of love.”
 

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Taiwan parliament’s passage of a bill Tuesday banning infiltration by political rival China dealt a new blow to relations that have already sparked military threats and diplomatic tug-of-wars in the past four years.

Legislators gave final approval to a bill that allows sentences of five years in prison or a fine equal to $330,600 for lobbying, election influence, fake news dissemination and political contributions originating outside Taiwan.

The law — an unusual tool for a democracy — doesn’t name China specifically but the government’s Mainland Affairs Council says it applies to Chinese nationals as well as Taiwanese with connections in China. Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office accused the ruling party Tuesday of using the bill to win elections.  

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party camp says the bill will advance Taiwan’s security. Its government has previously accused China of meddling in campaigns for the January 11 legislative and presidential elections.

“Every country in the whole world is considering how to handle China’s infiltration or infiltration by autocratic rule, because this isn’t old school, not the same — they use technology, use the economy, use social media, Facebook and YouTube, all sorts of ways to infiltrate,” independent lawmaker Freddy Lim said ahead of the vote.

“So how do we use an administrative mechanism or legislative mechanism taken together so the new generation can stop this infiltration?” he asked.
 
China-Taiwan ties
 
China and Taiwan have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when the Nationalists lost to the Communists and rebased their government in Taipei. China claims sovereignty over democratically ruled Taiwan and insists that the two sides eventually unite, by use of force if needed.
 
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, a 63-year-old law scholar up for re-election this month, has angered China since taking office in 2016 by rejecting its condition for dialogue – that each side come to the table as part of China.
 
Tsai enjoys support among Taiwanese who oppose China’s goal of one day ruling their democratically run island. About 80% of Taiwan citizens are in opposition, government surveys found in early 2019.

China has flown military planes and passed aircraft carriers near Taiwan during Tsai’s term, the defense ministry in Taipei says. It also has persuaded seven countries to switch their recognition from Taiwan to Beijing, Taiwanese officials believe.
 
New chill in relations
 
Taiwanese officials began accusing China last year of using money and mass media to influence the upcoming elections. Chinese authorities had influenced Taiwan’s “grassroots” by enticing tourists, buying advertisements and using the “mafia,” the Mainland Affairs Council told VOA in July.
 
Tsai’s chief election opponent Han Kuo-yu of the Nationalist Party favors restarting talks with Beijing on its condition that both parties belong to a single China.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office accused the Democratic Progressive Party of “major activity in ‘green terror’,” according to the semiofficial People.cn news website.  

The party is known informally in Taiwan as the “green” side. The bill “destroys cross-strait exchanges, creates cross-strait hostility, hurts feelings between people on the two sides and severely impacts Taiwanese people’s welfare,” People.cn said.

A “psychological impact” is certain even if details of the bill go unenforced, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

“It does have implications, it does have impacts and it does have at least as a minimum a psychological impact over businessmen, students and also scholars and also politicians in terms of their communications or their relationship with the mainland,” Sun said.

China, however, will probably keep quiet before the election to avoid being seen in Taiwan as an infiltrator, she added.

Opposition in Taiwan Nationalist Party lawmakers protested the vote Tuesday with a sit-in.  

They fear the bill will lead to unwarranted surveillance of an estimated 2 million Taiwanese who work or study in China. Some invest there; others have taken jobs because wages in China are higher than the equivalent in Taiwan.

“It is a very strange law that is overreaching the power of the executive branch that can indict anyone suspicious of any activities related to China,” Nationalist Party legislator Jason Hsu said in an interview.

About 60% of new college graduates want to work outside Taiwan, Hsu estimated, and more than two-thirds are looking at China. “Would they be profiled as infiltrators or spies?” he asked.
 
 

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The leader of France’s hardline CGT union on Wednesday urged all workers to join pension strikes that have crippled public transport over the past month, as a showdown with President Emmanuel Macron enters a second month.

In his New Year’s address Tuesday Macron vowed not to back down on his plan to replace France’s 42 separate pension schemes with a single system that would require people to work longer.

The government says the changes are necessary to make the system fairer for all and more sustainable but unions argue that workers, particularly in the public sector, will lose out.

Reacting to Macron’s speech, CGT leader Philippe Martinez called for strikes “everywhere” from next week, both “in the public and the private sector”.

“Faced with a self-satisfied president who thinks that everything is going fine in this country we have to send a stronger warning sign,” he told BFM news channel.

“We’re calling on all the French to mobilize, attend demonstrations and go on strike,” he added.

The 28-day strike, which left thousands of travelers stranded over the Christmas holidays, is on course to exceed the longest transport strike to date in France, which lasted for 28 days in 1986 and early 1987.

Macron’s New Year’s address was closely watched for signs that the government’s resolve might be weakening.

But while calling for a “rapid compromise” during a new round of negotiations with unions next week, Macron vowed that the reforms “will be carried out.”

Reacting to his comments, Yves Veyrier, secretary-general of the Force Ouvriere (FO) Union, one of France’s biggest, said: “I don’t get the impression that there is much room for negotiation.”

Far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of the France Unbowed (LFI) party, added on Twitter: “These are not [New Year] wishes but a declaration of war to the millions of French who refuse his reform.”

Already another day of mass protests is set for January 9, when teachers, dockers, hospital workers and other public sector employees are expected to join transport workers by striking for the day.

Energy workers have also called for a three-day blockade of the country’s oil refineries and fuel depots starting January 7, raising the specter of petrol shortages.

But the strike participation rate is waning, with just 7.7 percent of employees at train operator SNCF on strike Tuesday, far below the levels seen when the protest began on December 5.

On Tuesday, musicians from the Paris Opera, whose employees enjoy a special retirement regime dating back to 1698, played a protest concert outside the Bastille Opera for several hundred passers-by.

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India plans to make a fresh attempt to land an unmanned mission on the moon in 2020 after a failed bid last year, the head of the country’s space program said Wednesday.

Work is going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 mission to put a rover probe on the moon’s surface, Indian Space Research Organization chairman K. Sivan told a press conference.

“We are targeting the launch for this year but it may spillover to next year,” Sivan said. Indian sources said authorities had set November as a provisional target for launch.

India seeking to become only the fourth nation after Russia, the United States and China to put a mission on the moon’s surface and boost its credentials as a low-cost space power.

The country’s Chandrayaan-2 module crash-landed on the moon’s surface in September.

Sivan said the new propulsion module, lander and surface rover would cost about $35 million, with a significantly higher outlay for the launch itself.

He added that India had chosen four candidate astronauts to take part in the country’s first manned mission into orbit, pledged to take place by mid-2022.

The four are to start training in Russia later this month. Up to three astronauts are to take part in the mission, which will be one of the landmark projects scheduled for the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from British rule.

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Severe flooding hit Indonesia’s capital as residents were celebrating New Year’s, killing at least four people, displacing thousands and forcing the closure of a domestic airport.

Tens of thousands of revelers in Jakarta were soaked by torrential rains as they waited for New Year’s Eve fireworks. 

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said Wednesday that monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged at least 90 neighborhoods.

Wibowo said the dead included a 16-year-old high school student who was electrocuted while more than 19,000 people were in temporary shelters after floodwaters reached up to 3 meters (10 feet) in several places.

Television footage and photos released by the agency showed dozens of cars floating in muddy water while soldiers and rescuers in rubber boats were struggling to evacuate children and the elderly who were holding on the roofs of their squalid houses. 

The floods inundated thousands of homes and buildings in poor and wealthy districts alike, forcing authorities to cut electricity and water supplies and paralyzing transport networks, Wibowo said. 

Director General of Civil Aviation Polana Pramesti said the floods also submerged the runway at Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusumah domestic airport, prompting authorities to close it, stranding some 19,000 passengers. 

Flooding also highlighted Indonesia’s infrastructure problems as it tries to attract foreign investment.

Jakarta is home to 10 million people, or 30 million including those in its greater metropolitan area. It is prone to earthquakes and flooding and is rapidly sinking due because of uncontrolled extraction of ground water. Congestion is also estimated to cost the economy $6.5 billion a year.

President Joko Widodo announced in August that the capital will move to a site in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.

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The Arab League called Tuesday for efforts to “prevent foreign interference” in Libya in the wake of military and maritime agreements signed by Turkey with the U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli.

Permanent representatives of the pan-Arab organization, in a meeting at its Cairo headquarters requested by Egypt, passed a resolution “stressing the necessity to prevent interference that could contribute to facilitating the arrival of foreign extremists in Libya.”

They also expressed “serious concern over the military escalation further aggravating the situation in Libya and which threatens the security and stability of neighboring countries and the entire region.”

On Monday, the U.N.’s Libya envoy, Ghassan Salame, said the deals signed by Turkey and the Tripoli government represented an “escalation” of the conflict wracking the North African country.

Libya has been mired in conflict since a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival administrations in the east and the west vying for power.

In November, Ankara signed a security and military cooperation deal and also inked a maritime jurisdiction agreement with the Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital.

In addition, Turkey is preparing to hold a vote in parliament on deploying troops in support of the GNA which is battling forces of eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Egypt, in a letter sent to the United Nations last week, said it considers the Ankara-Tripoli agreements “void and without legal effect,” adding that foreign military involvement in Libya amounted to a violation of a U.N. arms embargo in force since the uprising.

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Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren looks back on the biggest stories of 2019 and examines how that will shape 2020. Joining Greta: Michael; O’Hanlon from the Brookings Institution, VOA White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara and Plugged In’s Mil Arcega. Air Date: January 1, 2020.

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A Slovak court handed a 15-year prison sentence to a man charged with facilitating the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in 2018 in a plea deal on Monday, a spokeswoman said.

The killing of Kuciak and his fiancee, both 27, at their home outside Bratislava in February 2018 sparked mass protests against corruption in the central European nation, shaking the government. The case will play a role in a parliamentary election due in February.

Zoltan Andrusko, 42, was one of five charged in the case but the only to confess and seek a plea deal to act as a witness.

The trial of the other four, including entrepreneur Marian Kocner who was a subject of Kuciak’s reporting on fraud cases involving politically connected businessmen, started on Dec. 19 and will continue in January.

Andrusko had agreed a 10-year sentence with prosecutors but a court on Monday rejected that deal and proposed a longer sentence, which the defendant accepted, the court said.

“This court considers the extraordinary reduced sentence as justified, as well as logical, but the court, by its decision, should seek justice not only for the accused but for all sides of the case, for society, for justice in the law,” newspaper Dennik N cited judge Pamela Zaleska as saying.

Prosecutors say Kocner had ordered Kuciak’s killing. He and his accomplices, who have all pleaded not guilty, face up to life in prison if convicted.

The case is a test of Slovak judicial independence given that the investigation exposed links between Kocner and police and public officials.

The murders stoked widespread public anger and forced Prime Minister Robert Fico to resign last year. His ruling Smer party faces a tight election on Feb. 29.
 

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What would it be like to attend a concert with thousands of other people without leaving your home? Matt Dibble dons a VR headset to find out

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Malawi is distributing personal security alarms to people with albinism, a condition that causes whitening of the skin from lack of pigmentation.  Malawi authorities hope the alarms will protect albinos from attacks by people who believe their body parts have magical powers. But the alarms have only a limited range, raising doubts about their effectiveness.  

Vendor Chipiliro Laston was nearly abducted in March by three men pretending to be police officers.

The men said they were searching houses of villagers suspected of keeping albino body parts, which are used across East Africa for so-called “black magic.”

Laston was saved when the men failed to produce identity cards and villagers handed them over to the real police.

Speaking about the incident, Laston said “I realized that I can be killed any day because of the way those people came.  I was extremely terrified, and I realized that I am being stalked. So, since that time, I still live in fear.”

Police say at least 25 albinos have been killed in Malawi since 2014, and albino graves are often robbed – not for possible jewelry but for bodies.

So-called witch doctors use albino body parts in potions or rituals believed to bring good luck, love or wealth.

Malawi authorities this year reacted to public pressure by distributing mobile personal security alarms to the country’s estimated 10,000 albinos.

Mary Navicha, Malawi’s minister for gender and disability, says it’s all about safety.

“As [the] government, we are trying to create [a] conducive environment for the persons with albinism, that’s why we are distributing security gadgets for them to be protected and for them to be safe in their communities.”

The alarm sound is activated when the wearer pulls a safety pin but can only be heard within a range of about 100 meters.

Sheriff Kaisi, political scientist at Blantyre International University, doubts the effectiveness of the sound.

“You can agree with me that even the sound is not so alarming that people can say ‘There is something happening.’  And it is not in our tradition as Malawians that in many cases that when we hear the sound of an alarm, people start rushing to see what is happening over there,” Kaisi said.

Malawi police and local leaders are trying to educate people to react to any alarms.

Laston says he feels a little safer with the alarm on, but the limited range deters him from traveling to earn money, so he is struggling to put food on the table.

Malawi’s albinos initially refused the alarms when they were first offered in May because authorities labelled them as gifts from President Peter Mutharika.

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Erik Prince, a major Republican donor and founder of controversial security firm Blackwater, has been referred to the U.S. Treasury Department for possible sanctions violations tied to his recent trip to Venezuela for a meeting with a top aide of President Nicolas Maduro, two senior U.S. officials said.

There’s no indication that Prince, whose sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, will be sanctioned for the meeting last month in Caracas with Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.

But the fact the visit was flagged underscores the concern of officials in the Trump administration over what appeared to be an unauthorized diplomatic outreach to Maduro. This, as support for opposition leader Juan Guaido inside Venezuela — if not Washington — appears to be waning.

The U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

 Little has been revealed about Prince’s surprise trip to Caracas last month. But the mere presence in Venezuela of a businessman with longstanding ties to the U.S. national security establishment prompted questions about whether he was there to open a secret back channel to Maduro on behalf of the Trump administration, something the State Department has strenuously denied.

 It also marks something of a reversal for Prince, who earlier in 2019 was thought to have been pitching a plan to form a mercenary army to topple Maduro.

A person familiar with Prince’s visit said he had been asked to travel to Venezuela by an unidentified European businessman with longstanding ties to the oil-rich nation. The person said Prince did not discuss any business nor receive anything of value during his trip — actions that would’ve violated U.S. financial sanctions on Maduro’s socialist government.

The purpose of the trip was to meet key players in the crisis-wracked nation, not to serve as an emissary for the Trump administration, according to the person, who isn’t authorized to discuss the visit and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The person said Prince, a former Navy SEAL, continues to support the Trump administration’s goal of removing Maduro but believes State Department efforts to reach that goal have failed and new alternatives — which the person did not specify — need to be tried.

Before traveling, Prince notified the National Security Council and Treasury Department about his plans and received no objections, the person said.

In a statement, Prince’s attorney didn’t provide any details about the trip or whom his client may have alerted in the U.S. government.

“Before traveling to Venezuela as a private citizen, Erik Prince received clear legal guidance, which he scrupulously followed,” Matthew Schwartz said in the statement. “There is nothing unlawful about simply visiting Venezuela and participating in non-business discussions, which is all that Mr. Prince did. We would be better served by focusing on measures that might actually restore peace and prosperity to Venezuela rather than worrying about who paid a visit to whom.”

Neither the National Security Council nor the Treasury Department responded to a request for comment.

Rodriguez is a key aide to Maduro and also one of more than 100 Venezuelan government insiders who have been slapped with sanctions by the U.S. In addition, the Trump administration this year has imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry and a ban on U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the Maduro administration.

While in Caracas, Prince also met members of the opposition, although the person familiar with his trip declined to say whom.

An aide to Juan Guaido said no such meeting with anyone in the opposition took place. But the aide was unable to provide the same assurances for a small faction of minority parties that recently split from Guaido and initiated negotiations with Maduro that the U.S. considers a time-wasting sideshow.

A year after the U.S. recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president, arguing that Maduro’s re-election was fraudulent, the 36-year-old lawmaker is under increasing pressure from friends and foes alike to articulate a fresh vision for unseating the socialist leader, who has grown more confident as the economy stabilizes under a flood of black-market U.S. dollars.

Another person familiar with the visit said Prince, in his late November dinner at Rodriguez’s home, urged the release of six executives of Houston-based Citgo held for more than two years on what are widely seen as trumped-up corruption charges. Two weeks later, the six men — five of them dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizens — were granted house arrest. The person also spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivities surrounding the trip.

Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special envoy to Venezuela, said Dec. 20 that Prince was not a messenger for the U.S. government, nor was the U.S. engaging in any secret talks with Maduro.

“I have yet to find an American official who says he or she was briefed by Mr. Prince, and I have asked,” Abrams told a press briefing. “So, I don’t know if he briefed an American official, and if so, who it was.”

Prince has been accused of acting as a back channel on behalf of Trump before. In 2017, he met with an official close to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles, islands off the coast of east Africa. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his Russia investigation said the meeting was set up ahead of time with the knowledge of former White House aide Stephen Bannon.

Prince soared to notoriety after Blackwater employees in 2007 shot and killed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square during the Iraq war. After the scandal the company’s name was changed and Prince sold his shares to a private equity fund. Today he heads a private equity fund focused on investments in emerging markets.

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New York City’s counterterrorism czar expects Times Square to be “the safest place on the planet Earth” on New Year’s Eve.

Thousands of police officers will be on duty for Tuesday night’s festivities, along with specialized units armed with long guns, bomb-sniffing dogs and other measures.

For the first time, police drones are expected to keep watch over the big, confetti-filled celebration — a year late after rain grounded the department’s unmanned eye-in-the-sky last year.

This year’s forecast calls for some clouds, but no rain and none of the bitter cold that iced out spectators two years ago.

The NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, John Miller, said stacking various security tools and techniques gives police “multiple chances to catch something coming through.”

“Times Square is probably going to be the safest place on the planet Earth on New Year’s Eve because nobody else puts that kind of effort into an event like this,” Miller said.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said there are no specific, credible threats to the event, which brings hundreds of thousands of people to midtown Manhattan and attracts millions of TV viewers. Post Malone, BTS and Alanis Morissette are scheduled to perform on stages in the heart of Times Square.

Shea said spectators should feel safe but encouraged them to remain vigilant and to alert an officer or call a police hotline if they feel something is amiss.

“This is going to be one of the most well-policed, well-protected celebrations in the entire world and we’ll have another safe and enjoyable New Year’s Eve,” Shea said.

Safety measures

Streets in and around Times Square will be closed to car traffic hours before the ball drops and police cars and sand-filled sanitation trucks will be positioned to stop vehicles from driving into the crowd.

Everyone showing up for the confetti-filled festivities should expect to be wanded with metal detectors before being ushered to one of 65 viewing pens set up around Times Square to prevent overcrowding.

Backpacks, chairs and coolers are banned, as well as personal drones. And don’t think about popping champagne or lifting a Maddog 20/20 to ring in 2020. The NYPD says alcohol is strictly prohibited.

There aren’t any bathrooms, and anyone leaving won’t be allowed back to their original spot.

Some revelers are sure to end up featured on Ryan Seacrest’s “Rockin’ Eve” broadcast, especially if they’re wearing those kitschy “2020” glasses, but there’s a good chance everyone in Times Square will be caught on one camera or another.

Police will be monitoring more than 1,000 security cameras, along with feeds from police helicopters and the drones.

Several of the NYPD’s drones are equipped with thermal-imaging and 3D-mapping capabilities and strong camera lenses that can greatly magnify a subject.

Since last year’s New Year’s Eve rainout, they’ve been used at other big events in the city, such as the Women’s March and St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
 

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