Chile canceled the hosting of two important international meetings in the capital, Santiago, because of ongoing protests across the South American country. Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera said Wednesday his country will not host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in November or the COP25 environmental summit in December, as his government has to deal with the unprecedented unrest that has left about 20 people dead and led to the resignation of eight cabinet ministers. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

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From: MeNeedIt

Officials in Pakistan say at least 65 people have been killed and dozens more injured after fire engulfed a passenger train near Pakistan’s Rahimyar Khan city.

Local television footage showed flames pouring out of the train’s carriages and people could be heard crying.

Railway authorities are probing the cause. Initial reports say the fire was caused when a gas cylinder in one of the wagons exploded. Army helicopters are helping in rescue efforts. 

Train accidents are common in Pakistan, where the railways have seen decades of decline because of corruption, mismanagement and lack of investment. They often take place at the unmanned crossings, which frequently lack barriers and sometimes signals.

In July, at least 23 people were killed in the same district when a passenger train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into a goods train that had stopped at a crossing.

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From: MeNeedIt

The Washington Nationals defeated the Houston Astros 6-2 Wednesday in the deciding seventh game of the World Series to claim their first Major League Baseball championship in franchise history.

Washington had to rely on what had become a defining factor of their playoff run, staging a late comeback after falling behind early in the game.

The Nationals played in five deciding games in October and at one point trailed in all five. Even making the playoffs seemed like a distant goal in May when the team was struggling with a 19-31 record.

‘We stayed in the fight’

But Manager Dave Martinez, who faced numerous calls for him to be fired, preached resiliency and his motto that to turn things around the team needed only to win that day’s game.

“Guess what, we stayed in the fight,” Martinez said Wednesday, echoing what had become a team slogan. “We won the fight!”

A second-inning home run by Astros first basemen Yuli Gurriel put the Nationals and ace starting pitcher Max Scherzer in a 1-0 hole.

Scherzer was pitching days after being scratched from a planned start in Game 5 of the series thanks to a neck injury. He and the Nationals fell behind 2-0 in the fifth inning as Houston shortstop Carlos Correa singled home Gurriel.

Up to that point, Astros starting pitcher Zack Greinke had been moving methodically through the Washington lineup, allowing only a single by Nationals left fielder Juan Soto in the second inning. Things changed in the seventh inning.

Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon sent a one-out Greinke pitch into the left field stands. Soto came to the plate next and reached on a walk, prompting Astros Manager A.J. Hinch to end Greinke’s night and put the game in the hands of relief pitcher Will Harris.

No relief

The first batter Harris faced was Washington designated hitter Howie Kendrick, already a star of the playoffs for hitting a grand slam in the deciding game of the first round that pushed the Nationals past their painful history of never winning a playoff series.

Kendrick smacked the second pitch from Harris down the right field line where it slammed into the foul pole for a home run that put the Nationals ahead 3-2.

A Soto single in the eighth inning widened the lead to 4-2, and right fielder Adam Eaton gave the Nationals more cushion in the top of the ninth with a single that scored two more runs.

Nationals pitcher Patrick Corbin allowed just two hits in three innings of work, while reliever Daniel Hudson tossed a perfect ninth inning as the Astros failed in their quest to turn their 107-win regular season into a reclamation of the World Series crown they won in 2017.

“Let’s be honest, there’s 28 other teams that would love to have our misery today,” Hinch said after the loss. “We play to get here. We play to have an opportunity to win it all. And I just told our team, it’s hard to put into words and remember all the good that happened because right now we feel as bad as you can possibly feel.”

A game like the season

“The way this game went is the way this whole season went,” said Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who was the team’s first draft pick after it relocated from Montreal to Washington in 2005. “What a story. What a fun year, man.”

The most valuable player of the World Series was Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg. He won Game 1 and Game 6 of the series while giving up just two runs and striking out seven batters in each contest.

Strasburg called the experience of winning a championship “surreal.”

“To be able to do it with this group of guys is something special. We didn’t quit.”

The series made history in an odd way with the visiting team winning each of the seven games. Washington won games one, two, six and seven in Houston, while Houston won games three, four and five in Washington.

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From: MeNeedIt

In Myanmar’s Kachin State, eight years of conflict and displacement has caused some civilians to turn to drugs as authorities struggle to control and rehabilitate heroin and amphetamine addicts, both in the refugee camps and cities across the state. Users and officials tell of the struggles – both on and off the battlefield. Steve Sandford filed this report for VOA

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From: MeNeedIt

A respected British think tank slammed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal on Wednesday, concluding that the economy would be 3.5% smaller compared with staying in the European Union.

The study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research says the agreement would deliver a 70 billion-pound ($90 billion) blow to the U.K. Researchers said that the outlook is clouded by political and economic uncertainty.

“We would not expect economic activity to be boosted by the approval of the government’s proposed Brexit deal,” the group said.

The researchers based their prediction on the assumption that the U.K. would leave the bloc with a free trade agreement with the EU after a transition lasting until 2021 while negotiating new deals with other nations. It said that higher “barriers to goods and services, trade and restrictions to migration,” would force the economy to slow.

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UK’s Party Leaders Brace for Brexit Election

The House of Commons on Tuesday approved an early election in hopes of breaking the deadlock over Britain’s departure from the European Union

As politicians squabble over how and when Britain will leave the EU, Brexit is reshaping the economy. Initially planned for March, Brexit was pushed back to Halloween and now is not likely to happen before January. Companies are meanwhile shifting investments, creating new supply chains and stockpiling goods to mitigate any damage that would occur from leaving the EU, with or without a deal.

The NIESR estimated that the economy was 2.5 % smaller than it would have been had Britain not voted in 2016 to leave the European Union.

The British government says it plans a different scenario than the one considered by the think tank.

“We are aiming to negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union, which is more ambitious than the standard free trade deal that NIESR has based its findings on,” the Treasury department said in a statement.

The research suggested a no-deal Brexit would cause an even greater loss to the economy, with a 5.6% blow to GDP.

Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said the figures “come as no surprise”.

“The Tories’ obsession with Brexit at any cost puts our future prosperity at risk,” he said. “It is unconscionable that any government would voluntarily adopt a policy that would slow economic growth for years to come.”

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From: MeNeedIt

President Donald Trump’s new national security advisor will represent the United States at the East Asia Summit, the White House said Tuesday, the lowest-level official to lead the Washington delegation since it was first invited to the regional forum.

With Trump embroiled in an impeachment inquiry, the muted presence at the November 3-4 summit in Bangkok is sure to renew charges that the United States is not focused on Asia at a time that China’s clout is growing.

The White House said that Robert O’Brien, who took over the position in September from the hawkish John Bolton, would lead a U.S. delegation that will include Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who will also travel separately to Indonesia and Vietnam.

Despite Trump’s non-attendance, he is expected to go the following week to a separate summit of the Pacific Rim-wide APEC bloc in Santiago, Chile.

The East Asia Summit concept was promoted for years by Malaysia’s veteran Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an outspoken proponent of the continent’s future who envisioned an eventual bloc akin to the European Union.

But the United States was controversially excluded from the inaugural summit in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, drawing widespread commentary in Asia that Washington was too preoccupied with the Middle East.

After President Barack Obama vowed to pivot US attention toward Asia, the United States — as well as Russia — were invited as full participants in the summits starting in 2011.

Obama attended each year except 2013, when he was fighting congressional Republicans over a government shutdown and sent secretary of state John Kerry instead.

Trump flew to the Philippines for his first East Asia Summit in 2017 but, with the session running late, he left early and ended a 12-day trip to Asia, with then secretary of state Rex Tillerson taking his place.

Last year, Vice President Mike Pence attended the summit in Singapore, where he described China’s militarization of the dispute-rife South China Sea as “illegal and dangerous” and vowed to stand by US allies in the region.

Trump has said that he plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to seek headway in a trade war at the November 16-17 APEC summit in Chile, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has also confirmed his attendance.

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From: MeNeedIt

Indonesia is about the closest thing left to a liberal democracy in Southeast Asia, so analysts had high hopes that President Joko Widodo could promote civil rights and transparency, while steering an open economy to more global trade. As the president enters his second term this month, however, those expectations are coming back down to earth.

Although Indonesia distinguishes itself with a relatively free press and big emerging market, it appears to be backtracking in examples like corruption, economic protectionism, and instability in the Papua region marked by separatism and ethnic tensions. In an analysis of the next term of the president known as Jokowi, investment research firm IHS Markit predicted Indonesia’s unfulfilled economic reforms would lead to gross domestic product growth of 5 percent, lower than the 7 percent government goal.

Corruption is a good example, given the high-profile change to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in September that led to protests across the country of 260 million people. Previously the commission was already seen as more show than substance, a nominal way for Jakarta to claim it was fighting corruption. But the September change took the teeth out of the commission even further, reducing the amount of time it can investigate criminals, and requiring it to seek approvals from the president, which weakens its independence.

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Joko Widodo Re-Elected Indonesian President

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, has been re-elected with 55.50% of the vote, defeating former army general Prabowo Subianto. The victory was confirmed by the General Elections Commission (KPU). “The number of valid votes for candidate No. 1, Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin, is 85,607,362 votes. The number of valid votes for candidate No.

‘Soft’ on Corruption

“There are signs that the government is going soft on its commitment to clamp down on corruption after parliament approved changes to how the country’s anti-corruption body (KPK) is governed,” senior Asia economist Gareth Leather wrote in a Capital Economics analysis. “We are concerned that the move will weaken the KPK’s powers to investigate new corruption allegations.”

He added, “Indonesia is rated as one of the most corrupt countries in the region and the high level of corruption remains a major deterrent to foreign businesses.”

Backtracking on corruption is all the more stark because Indonesia has been a “beacon of progress” among Southeast Asian democracies, according to the Lowy Institute. Elsewhere in the region are fewer signs of open societies: military rule in Myanmar and Thailand, one party rule in Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, and Vietnam, monarchism in Brunei, and authoritarian populism in the Philippines. The closest runner up is Malaysia, where democracy appeared to decline until the ruling party was surprisingly beaten in 2018 elections.

Even though the April election that returned Jokowi to power in Indonesia was free and fair, it involved curbing Islamic extremism in the Muslim-majority country, which is a slippery slope that could lead to curbing free speech more generally.

“The Jokowi government’s decision to take a tougher line against extremism is welcome, but he needs to ensure that tactics used do not feed a new narrative of repression,” Nava Nuraniyah, Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict analyst in Jakarta, said.

She further argued Jokowi could have dealt with extremists by emphasizing that all citizens are equal, including minority Christians and Buddhists, rather than emphasizing his own Islamic piety.

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Joko Widodo Inaugurated as Jakarta’s 7th President

In Indonesia Monday, a former furniture entrepreneur turned wildly popular politician, Joko Widodo, was officially sworn in as the country’s seventh president. There are huge expectations and challenges ahead for Widodo, who will now lead the world’s

Economy

Besides risks from the China-U.S. trade war, Indonesia faces economic risks in the areas of education, protectionism, and infrastructure. One has only to look at the subway proposal in Jakarta, long discussed but yet to appear, for an example. Infrastructure spending has fallen after a period of investment, and the island nation’s logistics sector sits behind those of Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam in World Bank lists.

Protectionism is evident in Indonesia’s willingness to block commodities exports, and poor test performance suggests the young generation is not as equipped for the future as it could be.

“The two key economic challenges facing President Joko Widodo in his second term are boosting GDP growth and reducing Indonesia’s external vulnerabilities,” Leather said. “We don’t think he will succeed in either.”

Still Indonesia has the biggest economy in Southeast Asia and thus a big customer base that appeals to domestic and foreign business. It is also a population full of people free to engage in critical public discourse, which cannot be said of the whole region. The question is whether the people and the economy live up to their potential.

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From: MeNeedIt

Concert promoters in the U.S. are stepping back from plans to scan festivalgoers with facial recognition technology, after musicians and others gave it some serious side-eye.

Although it remains entirely possible that music venues will eventually take a second look at the controversial technology.

Live-entertainment giants AEG Presents and Live Nation both recently disavowed any plans to use facial recognition at music festivals, despite earlier indications to the contrary. Their public pronouncements have led a group of musicians to declare victory after a months-long campaign to halt the technology’s use at live shows.

Advances in computer vision have enabled businesses to install cameras that can recognize individuals by their face or other biometric characteristics. Venue operators have talked about using the technology at gateways to secure entry for select groups or to offer perks for repeat customers.

Privacy advocates worry that such uses might also pave the way for greater intrusions, such as scanning audience members in real time to analyze their behavior.

Both concert organizations seemed to be edging toward remembering more faces. In May 2018, for instance, Live Nation Entertainment subsidiary Ticketmaster announced it was partnering with and investing in Texas facial recognition startup Blink Identity, saying in a note to shareholders that the technology will enable music fans to associate their digital ticket with their image and “then just walk into the show.”

AEG, which operates the Coachella festival in southern California and other major events, updated its online privacy policy earlier this year with language stating that it may collect facial images at its events and venues for “access control,” creating aggregate data or for “personalization” — a term commonly used by retailers trying to tailor advertising or promotions based to a specific customer’s behavior.

Now, however, both organizations have done an about-face. AEG’s chief operating officer for festivals, Melissa Ormond, emailed activists earlier this month to say: “AEG festivals do not use facial recognition technology and do not have plans to implement.” AEG confirmed that statement this week but declined further comment.

Live Nation said in a statement that “we do not currently have plans to deploy facial recognition technology at our clients’ venues.” The company insisted that any future use would be “strictly opt-in,” so that non-consenting fans won’t have to worry about potentially facing the music.

Facial recognition isn’t seen in many musical venues. The biggest location known to employ it is New York City’s Madison Square Garden, which confirmed this week that facial recognition is one of the security measures it uses “to ensure the safety of everyone” in the arena. It declined to say what it looks at and why. The New York Times first reported its use last year.

While the music industry paused, Major League Baseball stole a base by rolling out biometric ticketing in the U.S., usually involving fingerprints or iris scans to get into ballparks. Authorities in some parts of Europe have bounced around the idea of using either facial or voice recognition to keep tabs on unruly soccer fans, such as those participating in racist chants. Police agencies in China have used facial recognition at concerts featuring pop singer Jacky Cheung to identify and arrest people wanted as criminal suspects.

American music event promoters this fall have been pressured to disclose their facial recognition plans by digital rights group Fight for the Future, which asked dozens of festival organizers to pledge not to use a technology it describes as invasive and racially biased.

Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello co-authored an opinion column in BuzzFeed last week that described the pledge as the “first major blow to the spread of commercial facial recognition in the United States.”

The CEO of Blink Identity says opposition to its Ticketmaster partnership is misguided.

“They’re talking about mass surveillance,” said Mary Haskett, who co-founded the Austin, Texas startup. “We’re against mass surveillance…. Nobody’s talking about doing what they’re protesting against.”

Haskett said Blink’s system allows concertgoers to opt in by taking selfies with their phones, which the company transforms into mathematical representations and deletes. The system might offer access to a shorter line or a VIP section.

But protesting musicians fear their fans’ mugshots could still end up in the hands of law enforcement or immigration authorities.

“Of course it’s going to be used by security,” said Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, a guitarist for Rhode Island punk band Downtown Boys, which played Coachella in 2017. “Of course it’s going to be used by law enforcement.”

Punk rockers aren’t the only ones fixing the technology with a death stare. A June survey by the Pew Research Center found that while people are generally accepting of facial recognition used by police, only 36% said they trust tech companies to deploy it responsibly. Just 18% trust advertisers.

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From: MeNeedIt

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says this week’s inaugural meeting of a committee tasked with drafting a new Syrian constitution presents a “unique opportunity” for peace.

The U.N. chief said Tuesday that he expects the 150-member committee to work “in good faith.”

Representatives from the Syrian government, opposition and civil society are to begin meeting Wednesday in Geneva.
 
Repeated U.N. efforts to host talks on ending Syria’s eight-year civil war have largely failed.

Guterres stressed that “meaningful engagement” by committee members must be accompanied by a cessation of hostilities across the country. He says that would facilitate “a broader political process.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has all but won the war militarily with the help of Russia. Syria’s last rebel stronghold is in the northwestern province of Idlib.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

Ninety years ago, on Oct. 29, 1929, the U.S. stock market plummeted nearly 13%. Wall Street investors panicked and unloaded their stock. The unprecedented financial crash became known as Black Tuesday.

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From: MeNeedIt

California Governor Gavin Newsom says there are hopes that by later Monday the near historic winds that are driving a huge wildfire in the northern part of the state will “substantially settle down” as some 3,000 people work to put out the blaze.

“We’re not out of the woods, but we are leaning in the right direction,” Newsom said at a late Sunday briefing.

The western U.S. state is commonly hit by numerous wildfires at this time of year with the combination of low humidity and strong winds combining to create favorable conditions for fire growth.

Firefighters had said the Kincade Fire, named for a local road where the flames are believed to have started in Sonoma County, was at 10% containment, but as of late Sunday that had dropped to 5% with the fire at about 22,000 hectares in size.

Cal Fire said the blaze had already destroyed about 100 structures.

California State Senator Mike McGuire said 4,600 people have gone to shelters in Sonoma County.

Statewide, about 180,000 people have evacuated their homes to seek safety from wildfires.  

Newsom declared a state of emergency Sunday and said there is “no question” the evacuations have saved lives.

“Go means go,” he said, encouraging people to heed any evacuation orders.

In Southern California, fire officials said a much smaller wildfire in Santa Clarita near Los Angeles was 70% contained, but not before it destroyed several dozen buildings.

The California utility company Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to nearly 1 million homes and businesses across Northern California, some with little notice, as part of a strategy to try to prevent surges from downed power lines sparking more fires.

Businesses are angry that the power cuts have cost them tens of thousands of dollars, and residents bitterly complain about the inconvenience of going days without electricity, especially those who need power for life-saving medical devices.

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.

Governor Newsom, who had criticized the utilities, said the state will spend $75 million to help residents and businesses deal with the power cuts.  He said the state has a lot of work to do toward putting electrical wires underground and to manage forests in order to prevent both wildfire damage and the need to shut off the power.

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From: MeNeedIt

Negotiations on a sweeping 16-nation free trade deal and a code of conduct for the hotly contested South China Sea are expected to take center stage at a summit of Asian leaders in Bangkok next month.

The leaders of all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are due to attend the bloc’s regular year-end summit on Nov. 2-4, along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva are also expected.

Meetings related to the summit begin Thursday.

RCEP a big deal

As this year’s chair of ASEAN, Thailand is hoping to end its run with negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) all but done. In the works since 2012, the deal is seen by some as China’s retort to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiations for which excluded China and fell apart when the US pulled out.

Taking in all 10 ASEAN countries and six others — Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea — it would cover 45 percent of the world’s population and a third of global GDP.

With India and China still at loggerheads over market access, “signing of the RCEP deal seems unlikely” at the summit, said Peter Mumford, head of Southeast Asia coverage for political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

“But ASEAN hopes to at least be able to announce that substantial progress has been made, to ensure momentum is sustained,” he added.

Prapat Thepchatree, who heads the ASEAN Studies Center at Thammasat University, said Thailand was keen to show progress under its watch, especially in the face of the rising tide of protectionism, not least from the US-China trade war.

Once in place, the RCEP will have “a big impact in terms of financial terms and also in terms of psychological terms. It will give a big push … for all regional countries in this part of the world to hope that we still have a chance to support a liberal economic order, ” he said.

With specific tariff negotiations on 80 percent of goods and services complete, and on most others nearly so, the countries could come very close to wrapping up a deal this year, said Piti Srisangnam, director of academic affairs for the ASEAN Studies Center at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.

Order in the South China Sea

At its last leader’s summit in June, ASEAN said it also hoped to finish the year with the negotiating draft of a code of conduct for the South China Sea ready for a first reading. The code would set the rules for settling disputes in the busy sea lane, where China has competing claims with several bloc members to teeming fishing grounds and a seabed potentially rich in oil and gas.

Piti said he was hopeful the bloc would announce that the draft was ready for a first reading during the summit, adding that China has raised few complaints with the document of late.

“I am expecting…good news,” he said. “There are some good signals from both [sides].”

Independence from both China and the US

At the last summit, the bloc also adopted the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, a policy plan that aims to give its members a lead role in tying the Indian and Pacific oceans together while resisting the pull of China and the US to fall wholly into either’s orbit.

“I think this document will put big powers in a difficult position to reject it, and in practice … they will have to accept it as a regional principle, and that will [allow] ASEAN to play an important role,” Prapat said. “For the November summit, the task is for ASEAN to convince other big powers to agree to accept this document.”

As part of the balancing act, he said ASEAN will use the summit to try to further link its infrastructure plans with China’s Belt and Road Initiative while urging the US, Japan and other powers as well to invest in more projects across the bloc. Thailand has used its latest term as bloc chair to push for connecting the region digitally as well, he added.

Will President Trump attend?

It remains to be seen whether they will get the chance to make their case to US President Donald Trump himself. Neither the US Embassy in Bangkok nor the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is organizing the summit, would comment on whether he would attend.

Should Trump choose to stay away, Prapat said it would further embolden China to assert its will over the region.

While his absence has already been factored into expectations, Mumford said, it could still “reinforce the view of some countries in the region that this US administration is less engaged” in Southeast Asia.

Piti said the US president may have a strong bearing on the summit either way — by spurring on those who do attend to see the RCEP through.

“If they conclude the RCEP by this summit, they should thank Donald Trump … because of his trade war policy,” he said.

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From: MeNeedIt