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Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Sunday ahead of a midnight deadline to name an interim prime minister.
Anti-government rallies have rocked Baghdad and the Shi’ite-majority South since October, protesting against corruption, poor services, and a lack of jobs. Protesters have called for an end to the political system imposed after the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s resigned Friday. President Barham Salih and parliament have since missed several deadlines to appoint a new prime minister. Mahdi and his government had agreed to stay on in a caretaker role until a new prime minister is approved.
But Mahdi’s resignation failed to satisfy anti-government protesters who have said it is not enough for a new prime minister to take over — they are demanding changes to the entire political system, which they call corrupt, inept, and say it does little to help impoverished Iraqis despite the nation’s oil wealth.
Protesters on Sunday decried the likely pick for the new interim prime minister, former higher education minister Qusay al-Suhail, who is opposed by critics for his ties to Iran. Demonstrators categorically reject his candidacy along with any other potential contenders who have been part of the government since 2003.
At least 460 people have died and tens of thousands of others have been wounded since the demonstrations erupted in October in Baghdad and in Shi’ite-majority areas in southern Iraq.
Among the protesters rallying in India against a controversial new citizenship law that critics call anti-Muslim are thousands of female students and conservative Muslim women who seldom appear in public places. The law has excluded Muslims from six religious groups who will get expedited citizenship if they fled persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. At a university in the Indian capital which has been at the forefront of protests, Anjana Pasricha talks to women to find out why they have emerged on the streets.
Boeing Co’s Starliner astronaut spacecraft landed in the New Mexico desert on Sunday, the company said, after faulty software forced officials to cut short an unmanned mission aimed at taking it to the International Space Station.
The landing at 7:58 a.m. ET (1258 GMT) in the White Sands desert capped a turbulent 48 hours for Boeing’s botched milestone test of an astronaut capsule that is designed to help NASA regain its human spaceflight capabilities.
“We hit the bull’s-eye,” a Boeing spokesman said on a livestream of the landing.
The landing will yield the mission’s most valuable test data after failing to meet its core objective of docking to the space station.
After Starliner’s touchdown, teams of engineers in trucks raced to inspect the vehicle, whose six airbags cushioned its impact on the desert surface as planned, a live video feed showed.
The spacecraft was in an apparently stable condition after landing, according to images posted by officials from the U.S. space agency NASA.
The CST-100 Starliner’s debut launch to orbit was a milestone test for Boeing. The company is vying with SpaceX, the privately held rocket company of billionaire high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, to revive NASA’s human spaceflight capabilities. SpaceX carried out a successful unmanned flight of its Crew Dragon capsule to the space station in March.
The Starliner capsule was successfully launched from Florida on Friday, but an automated timer error prevented it from attaining the right orbit to meet and dock with the space station. That failure came as Boeing sought an engineering and public relations victory in a year that has seen corporate crisis over
the grounding of its 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes of the aircraft. The company’s shares dropped 1.6% on Friday.
Parachute challenge
Ahead of Sunday’s landing, Starliner’s three main parachutes deployed just over one mile (1,600 metres) from the Earth’s surface after enduring intense heat from the violent reentry through the atmosphere, plummeting at 25 times the speed of sound.
The parachute deployment, one of the most challenging procedures under the program to develop a commercial manned space capsule, earned Boeing a fresh win after a previous mishap where one parachute failed to deploy during a November test of Starliner’s abort thrusters.
That test tossed the capsule miles into the sky to demonstrate its ability to land a crew safely back on the ground in the event of a launch failure.
For the current mission, Boeing and NASA officials said they still do not understand why software caused the craft to miss the orbit required.
Sunday’s landing marked the first time a U.S. orbital space capsule designed for humans landed on land.
All past U.S. capsules, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, splashed down in the ocean. Russia’s Soyuz capsules and China’s past crew capsules made land landings.
Berlin police gave the all-clear on Saturday after earlier evacuating a Christmas market that was the scene of a fatal attack three years ago to investigate a possible suspicious object, which they did not find.
Tunisian Anis Amri ploughed a truck into the Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz in 2016, killing 12 people. Amri, who had Islamist militant ties, was later shot dead by Italian police after he fled Germany.
“Our police measures around #Breitscheidplatz are finished. A dangerous object has not been found,” Berlin police tweeted. “In the evening, our colleagues had found two people who behaved suspiciously at the #Breitscheidplatz and checked them.”
Daily newspaper Bild quoted a police spokesman as saying that the two men were stopped after leaving the square at a conspicuously fast pace and that, on taking their names, officers believed one was the subject of an arrest warrant.
The police cleared the square as a precaution. However, they subsequently realized the man’s name was similar to someone facing an arrest warrant, but not an exact match, Bild reported.
Travelers across France scrambled Saturday to begin their Christmas getaways as a strike over a pension overhaul showed no signs of letting up.
Trains were canceled, roads were packed and nerves were tested, but hopes of a holiday truce were dashed after talks between the government and union leaders this week failed to ease the standoff. Train operator SNCF warned that the traffic would be “severely disrupted” over the festive period.
SNCF said its aim to allow 850,000 ticket holders to travel this weekend was being upheld — but only half of its usual services were running.
“I’m upset. This strike is unbearable. … The government must do something,” said Jeffrey Nwutu Ebube, who was in the northern port town of Le Havre trying to find a way back home to the southern city of Toulouse, 850 kilometers (530 miles) away.
Late Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron called on the strikers to embrace a “spirit of responsibility” and for “collective good sense to triumph.”
“I believe there are moments in the life of a nation when it is also good to call a truce to respect families and the lives of families,” he said, speaking in Abdijan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast, where he was on a visit.
Options are few
Many stranded travelers have turned to car rental agencies or sharing platforms since the strike began on December 5, but the last-minute surge in demand meant vehicles were hard to come by.
People ride bicycles alongside a traffic jam, in Paris, Dec. 20, 2019. France’s punishing transportation troubles may ease up slightly over Christmas but unions plan renewed strikes and protests in January.
“We tried other ways, BlaBlaCar, et cetera, but everything is full, everything is taken,” said Jerome Pelletier, a manager in the textile industry.
Macron wants to forge the country’s 42 separate pension regimes into a single points-based system that the government says will be fairer and more transparent.
It would do away with schemes that offer early retirement and other advantages to mainly public sector workers, not least train drivers who can retire as early as 52.
While some unions support a single system, almost all reject a new “pivot age” of 64 — beyond the legal retirement age of 62 — which workers would have to reach to get a full pension.
1995 strike
They are hoping for a repeat of 1995, when the government backed down on pension reform after three weeks of metro and rail stoppages just before Christmas.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Thursday that talks had made progress and called on unions to lift the strike “so that millions of French can join their families for the end of this year.”
Although the moderate UNSA union agreed, the hardline CGT and Force Ouvrier unions said they would not let up.
This weekend, the last for Christmas shopping, the RATP Paris train operator said metro services would be “heavily reduced” on Sunday with only two driverless metro lines working.
The protest is also taking a heavy toll on businesses, especially retail during one of the busiest periods of the year, with industry associations reporting turnover declines of 30 to 60 percent from a year earlier.
The United States will continue to pursue diplomatic negotiations with North Korea while pressing Pyongyang to improve its human rights practice, a State Department official said this week.
Robert Destro, U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor affairs, told VOA in an interview Thursday that Washington has to “engage” with “a human rights violator like North Korea” to “get them to change their behavior.”
Robert Destro, U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor affairs. (Courtesy U.S. State Department)
Destro’s remarks came amid escalating threats from North Korea to give the U.S. an ominous “Christmas gift” and walk away from nuclear talks.
Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that he was redesignating North Korea as a Country of Particular Concern for systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom. The same day, President Donald Trump signed legislation tightening sanctions on Pyongyang.
Destro also commented on human rights practices in Iran, China and Venezuela. The following are excerpts from the interview.
VOA: Earlier this morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just redesignated Iran as a Country of Particular Concern. One year ago, Iran, along with others, like China and North Korea, were designated as CPC. Are those countries being redesignated again this year under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998?
DESTRO: I can’t speak to the other countries, you know. I can only speak for the countries that have been through the designation process. So I’m — the secretary announced Iran, so that’s all I can talk to you about today.
VOA: On North Korea: Yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly, in an annual resolution, condemned “the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights” in and by North Korea. Could you please comment?
DESTRO: Well, we remain deeply concerned about what’s going on in North Korea. I think the credible evidence that’s coming out of North Korea speaks for itself. I think that the U.S. has been very eloquent and I don’t think we have much to add to that. It’s a very good statement.
VOA: Is there any discussion in this building that putting North Korea’s human rights abuses on the spot is hurting the diplomatic effort?
DESTRO: I’m not sure how to answer a question like that. I think that it’s — in any case where you have a human rights violator like North Korea and you’re trying to get them to change their behavior, you have to engage with them. I mean, this is just human behavior. You’re either going to have a good relationship or a bad relationship or something in between. So my view is that there’s nothing inconsistent with the president trying to engage with the North Koreans and to try and get them to change their behavior. That’s the whole point of the negotiations.
VOA: On Tibet, a recent proposed congressional bill — the Tibetan Policy and Support Act — would impose sanctions on any Chinese official who interferes in the selection of the successor to His Holiness Dalai Lama. It would also press for a U.S. consulate in Lhasa. China has pushed back, saying the United States “blatantly interferes in China’s internal affairs and sends a wrong signal to the Tibetan independent forces.” What is your take on this issue? How do you respond to China’s criticism?
DESTRO: As an official of the State Department, it’s not my role to comment on pending congressional legislation. Congress is its own independent branch, you know. They will take whatever action they need to take, and then we will take whatever actions are appropriate once they’ve acted.
VOA: On Venezuela, what is the U.S. assessment of the reported harassment by the government against the National Assembly members?
DESTRO: Well, the United States is committed to democracy in Venezuela. By removing the immunity of members of Congress, you know, you don’t foster democracy. And so we’re very concerned about any attempts by the government to suppress its own democratically elected representatives. That’s just not appropriate.
VOA: Do you have a general view on the current human rights situation in Venezuela?
DESTRO: Well, we applaud the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Madam (Michelle) Bachelet’s most recent report. We think it is a good follow-up to the report that they had before. And I think we all need to study it very carefully and to take heed of the kinds of recommendations that it makes.
VOA: Thank you very much for talking to Voice of America.
President Donald Trump on Saturday said the United States and China would “very shortly” sign their so-called Phase One trade pact.
“We just achieved a breakthrough on the trade deal and we will be signing it very shortly,” Trump said at a Turning Point USA event in Florida.
The Phase One deal was announced this month as part of a bid to end the monthslong tit-for-tat trade war between the world’s two largest economies, which has roiled markets and hit global growth.
Under the deal, the United States would agree to reduce some tariffs in exchange for a big jump in Chinese purchases of American farm products.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week that the pact would be signed in early January, adding that the deal had already been translated and was just undergoing a technical “scrub.”
Russia and Ukraine announced terms of a new gas transit deal on Saturday, under which Moscow will supply Europe for at least another five years via its former Soviet neighbour and pay a $2.9 billion settlement to Kyiv to end a legal dispute.
The deal is a major breakthrough for both countries, which have been seeking to resolve disputes over Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Under the new agreement, Russia’s Gazprom, which supplies over a third of Europe’s gas needs, would use an agent to book the transit of 225 billion cubic metres (bcm) of the fuel via Ukraine over five years.
Of the total, 65 bcm would be shipped in 2020, falling to 40 bcm in 2021 and in each of the subsequent years, Gazprom said. The Russian gas company would also pay Ukraine the $2.9 billion before Dec. 29, in line with the amount proposed in arbitration rulings between Gazprom and Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz in 2018.
In exchange, Ukraine is expected to sign a legal settlement and withdraw all outstanding claims, also before Dec. 29, aiming to resolve the issue before the existing supply deal expires.
Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz had gone to an arbitration court in Stockholm in a number of disputes over gas prices and transit fees dating back to 2014.
The presidents of Russia and Ukraine met in Paris on Dec. 9 to discuss options for a settlement over Donbass and terms for the new gas transit deal. The talks, known as the Normandy summit, were brokered by France and Germany.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Oleksiy Orzhel said on Saturday that under the new deal both parties had an option to extend the five-year term by another 10 years. He added that the transmission tariff for the Russian gas would rise.
The deal comes as U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation on Friday that included provisions to impose sanctions on companies laying pipe for Nord Stream 2, a project that aims to double gas capacity from Russia along the northern Nord Stream 1 pipeline route to Germany.
Nord Stream 2, which will run along the Baltic sea floor, will enable Russia to bypass Ukraine and Poland to deliver gas. The group behind Nord Stream 2 said on Saturday it aimed to complete the pipeline as soon as possible, after a major contractor suspended pipe-laying activities due to the U.S. sanctions.
The United States is “very concerned” about the intensification of the conflict in Libya, with a rising number of reported Russian mercenaries supporting Khalifa Haftar’s forces on the ground turning the conflict into a bloodier one, a senior State Department official said on Saturday.
The United States continues to recognize the Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Serraj, the official said, but added that Washington is not taking sides in the conflict and is talking to all stakeholders who could be influential in trying to forge an agreement.
“We are very concerned about the military intensification,” the official told Reuters. “We see the Russians using hybrid warfare, using drones and aircraft…This isn’t good.”
“With the increased numbers of reported Wagner forces and mercenaries on the ground, we think it’s changing the landscape of the conflict and intensifying it,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, referring to a shadowy group of mercenaries known as Wagner.
Years-long rivalry
Libya has been divided since 2014 into rival military and political camps based in the capital Tripoli and the east. Serraj’s government is in conflict with forces led by Khalifa Haftar based in eastern Libya.
Haftar is backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and most recently Russian mercenaries, according to diplomats and Tripoli officials. The issue has come up in a meeting earlier this month between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Pompeo said there could be no military solution to the fighting and that Washington had warned countries against sending weapons to Libya, adding that he reminded Lavrov
specifically of the U.N. arms embargo on Libya.
FILE – Mourners pray for fighters killed in airstrikes by warplanes of General Khalifa Haftar’s forces, in Tripoli, Libya, April 24, 2019.
Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) has been trying since April to take Tripoli. Earlier this month, he announced what he said would be the “final battle” for the capital but has not made much advance.
The U.S. official said the involvement of Russian mercenaries so far has not tipped the conflict in favor of Haftar. “It’s creating a bloodier conflict…more civilian
damage, damage to infrastructure like the airports,.hospitals have been targeted. But at the same time we don’t see that Haftar is gaining ground.”
Turkey agreement with Libya ‘provocative’
Turkey has backed Libya’s internationally recognized government led by Fayez al-Serraj and the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on maritime cooperation in the eastern Mediterranean as well as a security agreement which could deepen military cooperation between them.
In a first reaction from the United States on the agreements between Turkey and Libya, the U.S. official said the maritime MOU was “unhelpful” and “provocative.”
“Because it’s drawing into the Libyan conflict interests that up until now had not been involved in the situation in Libya,’ the official said. “With maritime boundaries, you’re
drawing in Greece and Cyprus…from the United States’ perspective, this is a concern; it’s not the time to be provoking more instability in the Mediterranean,” the official said.
Ankara has already sent military supplies to Libya in violation of a United Nations arms embargo, according to a report by U.N. experts seen by Reuters last month. Its maritime
agreement with Libya enraged Greece and drew ire from the European Union.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey could deploy troops to Libya in support of the GNA but no request has yet been made.
Venice’s Hotel Association is urging tourists to visit the lagoon city without fear of high waters. Hoteliers say there have been many cancellations for Christmas and New Year’s, and that bookings have dropped more than 45 percent following the exceptional high tide of November 12. They add that the city is as beautiful as ever and that all museums, shops and restaurants are functioning properly, as is transportation.
The Venice Hotel Association is calling on tourists all over the world to come to see for themselves the beauty of a city that has always lived with high tides, which hoteliers stressed, come and go. They fear that the many cancellations received by hotels following the extraordinary high tide of Nov. 12 has scared tourists away.
FILE – The ‘Acqua Alta,’ a term used to describe Venice’s exceptional tide peaks, is seen outside the city’s Luna Baglioni Hotel during November flooding. (Sabina Castelfranco/VOA)
Venice’s hotel association president, Vittorio Bonacini, said that tide certainly caused many problems in the city, with its hotels alone suffering $33 million in structural damage. He explained that the exceptionally high tide, which peaked at 187 centimeters (74 inches) and caused the worst flooding in the city in 50 years, was brought on by four factors: a rare lunar attraction, sirocco winds, extremely low atmospheric pressure on the high Adriatic Sea and winds blowing from the east at more than 126 kilometers (79 miles) an hour.
Bonacini added that the convergence of those factors was a lethal mix for the configuration of Venice and that the pictures captured at the time reminded everyone of just how fragile the city and its environment are. Bonacini said that what the pictures did not show is that the event lasted a mere one-and-a-half hours and that the tide had begun to recede after 3 hours.
Bonacini said that for centuries Venice has lived and experienced high water or “acqua alta,” regulated by the cycles of the tides which rise and recede every 6 hours.
FILE – Emergency workers are seen wading through high waters during November flooding in Venice. (Sabina Castelfranco/VOA)
Hoteliers say that very quickly after a high tide event, life in the city is back to normal. They say it was obviously harder after the exceptional Nov. 12 event, but all Venetians came together and worked very hard to return the city back to normality in a very short time and, in spite of the damage, everyone resumed their ordinary daily lives.
The tides are not an earthquake, they say, but something that comes and goes, and Venice has always lived with them. As tides come and go, soon the water disappears from the flooded squares and streets, and it’s business as usual at bars, restaurants and shops.
Hoteliers made clear that all activities function properly in the city and that Venice is safe again for everyone, including children and the elderly. They stressed that “acqua alta” is nothing traumatic, but that many hotel guests even consider it a fun experience.
Many hotels hand out high plastic boots to their guests as gifts so that they can avoid getting their feet wet and are not forced to use elevated walkways to enjoy a cup of coffee sitting at a bar in a flooded Saint Mark’s Square.
A mysterious figure who used a rare narwhal tusk to help subdue a knife-wielding extremist on London Bridge last month has been identified as a civil servant in Britain’s Justice Ministry.
Darryn Frost ended his silence Saturday, telling Britain’s Press Association that he and others reacted instinctively when Usman Khan started stabbing people at a prison rehabilitation program at a hall next to the bridge on Nov. 29.
Frost used the rare narwhal tusk to help subdue Khan even though the attacker claimed to be about to detonate a suicide vest, which turned out to be a fake device with no explosives. The intervention of Frost and others help keep the death count to two. He said another man used a chair as a weapon in the desperate struggle.
“When we heard the noise from the floor below, a few of us rushed to the scene,” the 38-year-old said. “I took a narwhal tusk from the wall and used it to defend myself and others from the attacker. Another man was holding the attacker at bay with a wooden chair.”
He said Khan had a large knife in each hand and pointed at his midriff.
“He turned and spoke to me, then indicated he had an explosive device around his waist,” Frost said. “At this point, the man next to me threw his chair at the attacker, who then started running towards him with knives raised above his head.”
The confrontation quickly moved onto London Bridge, where Frost and others – including one man who sprayed Khan with a fire extinguisher – managed to fight the attacker to the ground until police arrived.
The extremist, who had served prison time for earlier terrorism offenses, was shot dead by police moments later after he threatened again to detonate his vest.
Frost said he was withholding many details out of respect for the victims and their families and because of the ongoing investigation. He paid tribute to Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt, the two young people stabbed to death when the attack started.
“In reading about their lives and work I am convinced they represent all that is good in the world, and I will always feel the deep hurt of not being able to save them,” he said.
Frost praised those wounded in the attack and said some had refused treatment until the more severely hurt were cared for.
“That consideration and kindness filled me with hope on that dark day,” he said.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is holding talks with General Motors Co. on the automaker’s petition to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles on American roads without
steering wheels or other human controls, the head of the agency
said Friday.
Acting NHTSA Administrator James Owens said his agency aims to decide soon on GM’s January 2018 petition as well as on a request by Nuro, a driverless delivery startup backed by Softbank Corp., to deploy a limited number of low-speed, highly automated delivery vehicles without human occupants.
The agency’s review comes at a time of heightened concerns
about the safety of automated piloting systems in vehicles and
aircraft, a potential revolution in ground and air transportation.
“I expect we’re going to be able to move forward with these
petitions soon — as soon as we can,” Owens told Reuters, adding
action “definitely” would come next year.
“This will be a big deal because this will be the first such action that will be taken,” Owens said.
GM, the No. 1 U.S. automaker, confirmed it has been in talks with NHTSA about the petition. Nuro also confirmed it is in talks with NHTSA.
Still work to do
GM Chief Executive Mary Barra and U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao last week met and discussed the petition, officials said, but significant work remains at the technical level.
Owens said NHTSA officials are “crawling through these petitions because we want to make sure” the driverless vehicles are at least as safe as other cars on the roads.
“There’s a lot of back and forth between us and the companies,” Owens said during a Reuters interview that also included Chao and other Transportation Department officials. “We’re sharing with them thoughts and ideas and concerns. They come back to us with additional information.”
Chao said it is important that NHTSA take its time in reviewing the GM petition. Chao suggested that some auto industry officials and analysts were too optimistic about the timing for deployment of fully autonomous vehicles.
“I think the complexity was far greater than what a lot of very optimistic advocates were thinking,” Chao said.
FILE – In this Aug. 16, 2018, photo a self-driving Nuro vehicle parks outside a Fry’s supermarket, which is owned by Kroger, as part of a pilot program for grocery deliveries in Scottsdale, Ariz.
In GM’s petition, NHTSA is for the first time looking at a vehicle in which all driving decisions are made by a computer rather than a human driver. Nuro, which partnered with Kroger Co. last year to deliver groceries, seeks approval not to include a windshield in the vehicle.
The petitions — formal applications for action by the agency — seek exemptions from U.S. vehicle safety rules largely written decades ago that assumed human drivers would be in control of a vehicle. The petitions are for up to 2,500 vehicles per manufacturer.
GM initially said it hoped to win approval to deploy the vehicles by the end of this year. But in July its self-driving unit, Cruise, said it was delaying commercial deployment of cars as more testing of the vehicles was required. A new target date wasn’t specified.
Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit this year began offering some rides with no human driver in its limited autonomous ride-hailing service in Arizona, but with steering wheels and employees watching remote feeds of the vehicles’ cameras.
“We’re in communication with them about how they are ensuring the safe operation of the vehicle,” Owens said. “We will continue having a back-and-forth with them.”
