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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have a healthy 10-point lead ahead of an election on Dec. 12, a poll by Savanta ComRes showed on Wednesday, extending their advantage over Labour after the Brexit Party stood down candidates.
The poll, carried out for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, showed the Conservative Party with 40%, up 3 points from a poll last week, ahead of Labour on 30%, up 1 point.
The poll was conducted after Nigel Farage said his Brexit Party would not put candidates up in Conservative-held seats, a major boost to Johnson. The Brexit Party will still stand candidates in Labour-held seats.
“The Brexit Party’s decision not to stand in Conservativeseats is likely to have an obvious positive impact on the overall Conservative vote share,” said Chris Hopkins, Head of Politics at ComRes.
“But it’s those Labour-held seats that the Conservatives need to win for a majority, and the Brexit Party could still scupper those best-laid plans.”
The poll showed the Liberal Democrats on 16% and the Brexit Party on 7%. Voting analysis website Electoral Calculus said the vote shares implied a Conservative majority of 110 seats. The online poll of 2,022 adults was carried out on Nov. 11-12.
Microsoft is bringing holograms to the office. The company recently started shipping its 2nd version of HoloLens, a headset that allows users to touch and interact with 3D holograms in everyday settings. Various industries have begun experimenting with the new computing device and VOA’s Tina Trinh had a chance to check it out.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalized 833,000 people — an 11-year high in new oaths of citizenship — in fiscal 2019, which ended Sept. 30. This fiscal year, USCIS administered the Oath of Allegiance to 60 of America’s newest citizens, from 51 countries, during a special naturalizing ceremony Tuesday at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Saqib Ul Islam talked to some of the new citizens about how they feel and what they are looking forward to as a U.S. citizen.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is beefing up patrols by civilian militias across the nation as political rivals call for mass demonstrations against him.
Maduro in a national broadcast Tuesday ordered the nation’s 3.2 million militia members to patrol Venezuela’s streets. He gave the command seated between the nation’s top-ranking military leaders.
The heightened patrols overlap with a Saturday protest called by opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido, who has led a nearly year-long campaign to oust Maduro with backing from the U.S. and 50 other nations.
Guaido has not managed to rally large demonstrations in recent months.
However, a wave of political unrest has struck several Latin American nations, and Bolivian socialist leader Evo Morales abruptly resigned Sunday.
Maduro says the same “imperialist” forces that undermined Bolivia’s president seek to oust him.
A Michigan teenager was the recipient of what could be the first double lung transplant on a person whose lungs were severely damaged from vaping, health officials said Tuesday.
Doctors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit described to reporters Tuesday the procedure that saved the 17-year-old’s life and pleaded for the public to understand the dangers of vaping.
The teen was admitted in early September to a Detroit-area hospital with what appeared to be pneumonia. He was transferred to Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit and taken Oct. 3 to Henry Ford Hospital where the transplant was performed Oct. 15. The double lung transplant is believed to be the first performed on a patient due to vaping.
Doctors found an “enormous amount of inflammation and scarring” on the teen’s lungs, said Dr. Hassan Nemeh, surgical director of thoracic organ transplant at Henry Ford. “This is an evil I haven’t faced before. The damage that these vapes do to people’s lungs is irreversible. Please think of that — and tell your children to think of that.”
Health officials declined to release the teen’s name and said he is expected to recover. They also did not specify what the teen vaped or how long he vaped.
A photo of a patient being transported is displayed while medical staff at Henry Ford Hospital answer questions during a news conference in Detroit, Nov. 12, 2019.
“We asked Henry Ford doctors to share that the horrific life-threatening effects of vaping are very real!” his family said in a statement released by the hospital. “Our family could never have imagined being at the center of the largest adolescent public health crisis to face our country in decades.”
“Within a very short period of time, our lives have been forever changed. He has gone from the typical life of a perfectly healthy 16-year old athlete — attending high school, hanging out with friends, sailing and playing video games — to waking up intubated and with two new lungs, facing a long and painful recovery process as he struggles to regain his strength and mobility, which has been severely impacted.”
The boy had his 17th birthday after initially being admitted to the hospital.
More than 2,000 Americans who vape have gotten sick since March, many of them teenagers and young adults, and at least 40 people have died.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week announced a breakthrough into the cause of a vaping illness outbreak, identifying the chemical compound vitamin E acetate as a “very strong culprit” after finding it in fluid taken from the lungs of 29 patients. Vitamin E acetate previously was found in liquid from electronic cigarettes and other vaping devices used by many who got sick and only recently has been used as a vaping fluid thickener.
Many who got sick said they had vaped liquids that contain THC, the high-inducing part of marijuana, with many saying they received them from friends or bought them on the black market.
E-cigarettes and other vaping devices heat a liquid into an inhalable vapor. Most products contained nicotine, but THC vaping has been growing more common.
FILE – A man blows a puff of smoke as he vapes with an electronic cigarette, Oct. 18, 2019.
Henry Ford doctors did not say Tuesday what the lung transplant recipient vaped. They did say that he was critically ill when he arrived at Henry Ford where he was placed Oct. 8 on an organ transplant waiting list. His lung damage due to vaping was so severe and he was so close to death that the teen immediately was placed at the top of the transplant waiting list, they said.
“Vaping-related injuries are all too common these days. Our adolescents are faced with a crisis,” said Dr. Lisa Allenspach, pulmonologist and the medical director of Henry Ford’s Lung Transplant Program. “We are just beginning to see the enormous health consequence jeopardizing the youth in our country … these vaping products should not be used in any fashion.”
The 17-year-old’s case does not open any new ethical considerations about transplants for people how who irreparably damage their own lungs by vaping, Nemeh told The Associated Press.
“It won’t change what we do on a routine basis. We will still evaluate every patient as an individual patient,” he said. “We hope sharing this patient’s story prevents anyone else from experiencing a vaping injury that would require a transplant.”
Nemeh added that lung transplants have been considered for ex-smokers who have quit and demonstrated that they quit smoking, but transplants are not routinely done for people over the age of 70.
“Children do receive priority over an adult for a transplant from a pediatric donor,” he said. “The United Network for Organ Sharing creates the rules and then offers the organs to recipients who are a match. We don’t decide who gets an offer.”
The fate of about 800,000 young, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children is in the hands of nine U.S. Supreme Court justices. The court will decide if the Trump administration has the right to end the program, called DACA, which protects the young immigrants, known as dreamers, from deportation. For most of them, the United States is the only home they have ever known, and they are protesting losing their protected status. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the U.S. high court heard arguments for both sides on Tuesday.
Exiled Bolivian president Evo Morales arrived Tuesday in Mexico, which granted him asylum after he resigned the presidency on Sunday and fled his country. Mike O’Sullivan reports, Bolivian opposition leaders say they are working to ensure a peaceful transition despite continuing tensions.
While Southern California draws film and television students from all over the world, people in New Mexico don’t have to set foot outside the state to learn the trade, as local colleges are grooming talent for a booming entertainment industry that has sprung up about 1,200 kilometers from Hollywood.
Recently, Albuquerque Studios signed a billion-dollar contract with entertainment giant Netflix and a $500 million deal with NBC Universal Studios. These agreements come on the heels of New Mexico’s enhanced tax incentives to production companies, who film there and hire local talent. One of the seedbeds for such talent is Central New Mexico (CNM) Community College.
Students at Central New Mexico Community College can learn about wardrobe assembly, electrical work, set lighting and camera operation — to name a few of the courses offered. For New Mexico residents, CNM charges $56 per credit hour; for nonresidents, $296 per credit hour. Even that price is nowhere near the five-figure yearly tuition at other colleges around the country, such as New York’s renowned School of Visual Arts, whether tuition is upwards of $50,000 a year, for a similar program.
Both schools promise connections and training to get their students hired. But in Albuquerque, students have an edge: a blossoming film industry that provides tax incentives for TV and film productions with crews made up of at least 60% local hires.
Amber Dodson, film liaison for the city of Albuquerque, said entertainment giant Netflix alone has committed over the next decade to spending $1 billion in production and generate 1,000 jobs a year throughout the state. She said students in Albuquerque learning “below-the-line” crafts, which include jobs on a film crew like a grip, “are getting jobs often times before they even graduate.”
Jim Graebner, CNM’s senior film instructor, described the school’s program for below-the-line crafts.
“Our program is only a two-term program, that’s basically half a (calendar) year, where we get through the whole protocol of how to make a movie and workflow, and then we expose people to all the different tools they’ll need on a set and then try to get them specialized in a different craft,” Graebner, or “Grubb” as he is known, added.
Work ethic
Graebner likened CNM’s program to a “boot camp,” where the students are working hard to learn skills to meet the needs of production companies and studios.
“The biggest thing we have to teach them is stamina, because they are coming in(to) a world where everybody expects an eight-hour workday. We’ve got 14 hours. It’s the average,” he said.
In a trade dominated by men for decades, women are beginning to make inroads.
“I have women – especially Hollywood’s big on upping the percentage of women on all the below-the-line (non-cast member) crafts – I have women who are grips now and they don’t have to be huge or strong. So, if you’re a woman, want to become a grip, I can get you a job tomorrow,” Graebner said.
Apart from learning to be a grip – that is, to be part of a team that builds and develops a movie set – students receive mentoring and gain on-set experience.
Graebner said the school connects students with the local union, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) 480, where they train with a paid union member and get evaluated for their skills. If they show competency, they can get into the workforce pipeline for the industry, which the union has negotiated for safe working conditions and labor benefits.
Good prospects
CNM instructional technician Gabe Reyes works full time at CNM and also freelances for the film industry.
With the influx of Hollywood in Albuquerque, Reyes said CNM’s Applied Technologies and Film program has taken off since he started in the summer of 2018.
Karen Grandinetti, enrollment strategist of CNM School of Applied Technologies, said the program had 220 students enrolled in the summer of 2018. This fall, there are 657 students.
Prospects are also good for homegrown New Mexican directors and actors who want to build a career in their home state.
One of them is Riley Del Rey, a student actor in the film program at CNM, who recently completed a short film called “Doubt.”
“I think it’s important for people that are moving here to work on productions to take a look at our work and to start selecting their directors and their talent from this market because that’s what’s going to get people to stay and that’s it’s gonna uplift our state,” she says.
Del Rey also pointed to the importance not having to set foot outside the state where she grew up to learn the trade and seek job opportunities.
“What’s making me stay here is that this is the place I’m getting my chops, and it’s where I have family. I also know people in the industry and, with the film community growing so much, it’s just more places for me to find where I fit in here,” Del Rey said. “It’s also less daunting than traveling thousands of miles to go somewhere where I’m not familiar with and (where) it’s kind of a make-it-or-break-it situation.
“I still have to take risks, but I still have all the support from my network here at school but also the family ties that I have to New Mexico,” she added.
An airstrike carried out by American forces in eastern Afghanistan has mistakenly killed at least four Afghan soldiers and injured six others.
A provincial police spokesman said the overnight incident occurred in the troubled Logar province during clashes between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents.
Shahpoor Ahamadzai told VOA the fighting erupted Monday night after insurgents assaulted a security outpost near the provincial capital of Pul-e-Alam.
The Taliban attack prompted the Afghan National Army (ANA) to call in U.S. air support, which resulted in the “friendly fire” incident, Ahmadzai explained.
A U.S. military spokesman told VOA it was aware of reports an American airstrike conducted in support of Afghan forces may have resulted in ANA casualties.
“U.S. and Afghan forces are working closely together to develop a shared understanding of this event. A joint investigation is ongoing,” the spokesman said.
Separately, the provincial police confirmed a U.S. convoy was struck by a suicide car bomber near a foreign military base just outside Pul-e-Alam.
A U.S. military spokesman confirmed the attack, saying it only killed the assailant driving the vehicle.
“No U.S. or Coalition service members were wounded or killed in the attack. We are investigating the incident,” the spokesman added.
There were no claims of responsible from the Taliban, which often claims attacks against U.S. and NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan.
Exiled Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Tuesday the European Union’s assessment of whether to suspend trade privileges for his country will add momentum to efforts to restore democracy despite a government crackdown.
The EU finalized a preliminary report Tuesday that Sam Rainsy said would be the basis for suspending trade privileges for Cambodia. The EU announced earlier this year that it would begin a monitoring process to decide on the ending of preferential duty-free and quota-free imports from the Southeast Asian nation. It said it acted on concerns that Cambodia was limiting human and labor rights.
The EU did not immediately make the report public but said it had been sent to the Cambodian authorities.
The report comes amid several developments that have shaken the Cambodian political scene.
Sam Rainsy made a well-publicized trip in which he vowed to return to his homeland to spark a popular movement to unseat long-serving authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Cambodia’s government had said he and other exiled colleagues were unwelcome, and managed to hinder them from entering on Saturday, their intended date.
However, as Sam Rainsy found himself stuck in Malaysia, a Cambodian court announced Sunday that it was releasing from house arrest Kem Sokha, his co-leader in the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, who had been detained without trial for more than two years on a treason charge widely seen as specious. It retained the charge against him and barred him from political activity.
The release of Kem Sokha suggested that Hun Sen, whose hard line included detaining scores of opposition supporters accused of supporting Sam Rainsy’s return plan, may be seeking to assuage his critics — especially the EU — by projecting an image of compromise.
The possibility of the EU junking Cambodia’s trade privileges is perhaps the greatest leverage the opposition holds over the situation, as an economic downturn could erode the support Hun Sen has earned with Cambodia’s economic growth.
“If they don’t want Cambodia to face an economic crisis, with hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs, they must restore democracy,” Sam Rainsy told a news conference outside Malaysia’s Parliament building after meeting a group of Malaysian lawmakers.
The EU initiated its move after Hun Sen’s ruling party won a sweeping victory in 2018 elections. The EU and others said the polls were not free and fair because the Cambodia National Rescue Party — the sole credible opposition force — was dissolved in 2017 by Cambodia’s Supreme Court, which is seen as being under the government’s influence.
Sam Rainsy insisted Tuesday that the timing was now right for peaceful resistance to topple Hun Sen’s government due to the “unique combination of internal pressure and external pressure.”
Phnom Penh’s release of Kem Sokha from house arrest was an indication of mounting pressure on the government, he said.
Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said Sunday on his Facebook page that Sam Rainsy was now allowed to enter Cambodia but would have to face a raft of charges and standing convictions. Sam Rainsy did not say Tuesday when he might make the journey.
“I will stay in the region because the situation can change very quickly, and I will go back to Cambodia,” he said.
One brother is considered a shoo-in for the job of Sri Lanka’s president in elections this weekend and another is eyeing the prime minister’s post when that election becomes due early next year.
Two other brothers are political strategists for their Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party and one of them is considering a shot at becoming the speaker in parliament. Three men of the family’s next generation are also in politics.
The Rajapaksas, best known for the brutal defeat of separatist Tamil rebels and then drawing Sri Lanka into China’s orbit when the West and India shunned the Indian Ocean island, are back at the centre of the nation’s deeply divisive politics and it is stoking fear.
While there are no formal opinion polls, former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the hot favorite to win the presidential election this Saturday. His chief opponent Sajith Premadasa, a government minister, is seen to be trailing.
Gotabaya led the operations against the Tamil Tigers when his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was president. Gotabaya has faced lawsuits in Sri Lanka and in the United States over allegations of staged killings of Tamil separatists, critics and journalists during the war.
Both brothers deny the allegations as part of a Western conspiracy to interfere in the island nation of 22 million that sits astride vital shipping lanes and has long been a tinder-box of tensions between the dominant Sinhalese Buddhists and minority ethnic Tamils.
In recent months, Sinhalese hardliners have also targeted the tiny Muslim community.
Mahinda lost the 2015 presidential election to a Cabinet colleague who turned against him — Maithripala Sirisena. After his ouster, the family’s fortunes fell into decline.
But Easter Sunday bombings on hotels and churches, in which more than 250 people were killed, derailed Sirisena’s presidency, and he has announced he will not contest this year.
The attacks, claimed by Islamic State, have rekindled support for the Rajapaksas and their brand of Sinhalese nationalism.
Mahinda is barred from running for president again, and is on the stump for Gotabaya, bringing an affable touch to the campaign against the rather gruff manner of his brother, more known for his military machismo.
Another brother, Basil, handles the party finances and striking deals with rival groups while a fourth brother and former speaker, Chamal, campaigns in the family borough in the south of the island.
Family prospect
Mahinda, who is currently leader of the opposition in parliament, is the obvious choice for prime minister when parliamentary elections are held early next year, said Keheliya Rambukwella, spokesman for the Gotabaya campaign.
Chamal Rajapaksa would be the choice for parliament speaker, a position he has previously held, political experts say. In all, seven members of the family are involved in politics, and some of the others could also end up in parliament.
“We are going to see family rule again, and all the excesses that came up with it the last time,” said Health Minister Rajitha Senarathne, who is opposed to the Rajapaksas. “They will suppress all dissent.”
In a front page editorial, the state-run Sunday Observer said it was “afraid” of a Gotabaya presidency and appealed to voters to make the “right choice.”
“A wrong choice will send the country hurtling toward authoritarianism and iron-fisted rule,” it said.
Gotabaya’s spokesman dismissed warnings of family rule, saying the candidate was quite clear merit will be only consideration for top political jobs.
“When Gotabaya comes to power he will appoint people with qualification to the positions, irrespective of their ties to him,” Rambukwella said.
On the campaign, Gotabaya has been uncompromising about the need to strengthen security, repeatedly raising the circumstances that led to the Easter Sunday attacks.
At a campaign rally in Wellawaye in central Sri Lanka Gotabaya said during his time as defense secretary, he had raised special military and intelligence units to tackle extremism, drug trafficking networks and the underworld. These cells had since been weakened, he said.
“There can be no higher priority than national security,” he said.
Only a few hundred people responded to the opposition’s call Sunday to protest in the streets of Haiti’s capital to continue pressuring President Jovenel Moise to step down.
On previous Sundays, tens of thousands have filled Port-au-Prince streets from morning to sundown.
Much lower turnout for today’s anti-government protest in Port au Prince, #Haiti. The opposition blamed armed attacks against protesters, bribes of money and food and fear. But they vow to keep pressing the president to resign. pic.twitter.com/2uVAI8mCpd
Have the protests lost momentum? VOA Creole put the question to opposition leaders marching on Sunday.
Sen. Ricard Pierre said he thinks bribes and fear were partly to blame for the small crowd.
“A significant number of Bel Air residents have died — an area that heavily supports the efforts of the Alternative (opposition group). We have people hiding out in the poor neighborhoods because the government has threatened to kill them,” the senator told VOA Creole. “There have been efforts to distribute weapons to residents of the slums. They’ve been offered money, offered food. But despite the massacres endured by the poor people, there are some of them in the streets today fighting (for a better life).”
VOA could not confirm the senator’s allegations.
Downtown, evangelical pastor Prophete Mackenson Dorilas, who, perched atop a carnival-style truck had been surrounded by thousands of followers during October protests, was seen marching in the street with only a handful of protesters. He blamed fear and the absence of his truck for the low turnout.
“The first truck we were offered, I turned down because it wasn’t what I requested. So, they said they would bring me another truck, and I’m still waiting. Some members of my church had intended to join the protest, but they heard the police was targeting protesters, so they ran away,” Dorilas told VOA Creole, adding that the people also need motivation.
“The churchgoers don’t like to see me walking on the street. They like to see me up high,” he said.
Also marching with about a dozen protesters was former Haitian Army Col. Himmler Rebu, who described his participation as the right thing to do.
“There are two efforts happening simultaneously. There are those (members of the opposition) who are in offices working on plans and strategy, and there are those who are accompanying the people marching in the streets. So today, that’s my job, ” he said.
Up north
Early Sunday, tires were seen burning in the middle of a main road in the northern city of Cape Haitian. There were also roadblocks made of tree branches, rocks, metal and debris.
“These roadblocks are here because President Jovenel still refuses to resign. We will keep blocking the streets, and we will keep protesting until the president leaves,” a protester told VOA Creole.
Opposition summit
Back in the capital, members of the opposition spent the weekend meeting at the Marriott Hotel to discuss the transition process that would be activated if Moise were to resign.
“We are in agreement on four aspects of the transition: governance, control, steps forward and duration,” announced opposition Sen. Youri Latortue, who heads the Haitian Senate’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Committee. No further details were given.
Senator Youri Latortue signs an agreement with leaders from the opposition, to choose an interim president in place of President Jovenel Moise.
On the subject of who would replace Moise, the group decided that the choice would be made by a five-member committee comprised of a representative of each opposition group. The transitional president would be chosen among the Supreme Court judges. The committee would also choose a prime minister.
“This is a historic event,” prominent businessman Gregory Brandt, who represented the private sector at the meeting, told VOA Creole. “The country has been suffering through a complicated situation for two months now. We aren’t selling merchandise, we aren’t receiving merchandise. Port-au-Prince is beginning to face a scarcity of basic goods. We’re facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, so we must sit down in all seriousness to discuss how we can resolve this crisis.”
US aid
Last week, Rob Thayer, director of USAID’s “Food for Peace” program, told VOA Creole the agency has earmarked 3,500 metric tons of emergency food aid for Haiti, which will be distributed to those in need.
In addition to the food aid, the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort has been docked off Haiti’s shores since Nov. 6 for a seven-day medical and humanitarian mission. According to the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, the ship’s staff has seen more patients per day in Haiti than on any other stop of their five-nation tour.
What a week-end! We’re proud of the Comfort crew & their HAITIAN partners’ effort as they are seeing more patients at the clinic per day than they have on any other stop of the 5 months #EnduringPromise mission. – #AmbSisonpic.twitter.com/Jed9vSyGtg
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concern about the situation in Haiti last week on Twitter.
The #USNSComfort has arrived to provide much-needed medical services in Haiti. We call on all of Haiti’s leaders to come together to solve the ongoing political & economic gridlock through dialogue & institutions. We stand with all Haitians who peacefully call for accountability. pic.twitter.com/C2GTw3kgzS
“The #USNSComfort has arrived to provide much needed medical services in Haiti. We call on all of Haiti’s leaders to come together to solve the ongoing political & economic gridlock through dialogue & institutions. We stand with all Haitians who peacefully call for accountability,” Pompeo tweeted.
President Moise
Meanwhile, Moise has been busy naming new cabinet ministers, meeting with members of the diplomatic corps, and giving interviews to the foreign press. He has also increased his visibility on the streets, in the national press and on social media.
“Since my first day in office, I have always preached the same thing — togetherness, unity — because the country is tired,” Moise said during a Nov. 7 speech. “Our (nation’s) motto is Unity is Power. But unfortunately, this system (of government), the system that uses people, gives us a different motto which is, Divide and Conquer. Whenever a person wants to enrich himself, he pits us against each other. And when we’ve taken the bait and died in battle, who benefits? Not us.”
FILE – Haitian President Jovenel Moise sits at the Presidential Palace during an interview, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Oct. 22, 2019.
Early Sunday morning, before the anti-government protest began, Moise visited police stations in Carrefour and Petionville, his press secretary announced. According to a press statement received by VOA Creole early Monday morning, Moise sought to see the working conditions for the policemen and asked for a detailed report on the current status of affairs that will be used to “better address the needs of the agents of the PNH (National Police of Haiti).”
Yvan Jasmin Martin in Cape Haitian, Renan Toussaint and Yves Manuel in Port-au-Prince and Ronald Cesar in Washington contributed to this report
Yvan Martin Jasmin 
