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The flu season has started in the Northern Hemisphere. Although it’s still very early in the season, two deaths have been reported. One was a child, the other an adult with a chronic illness, but seemingly healthy people can also die from the flu.
Those most likely to die from the flu are the very young and the very old. But seemingly healthy people die as well.
Jen Ludwin was one of those seemingly healthy people when she caught the virus. She was young — 23 years old with no underlying conditions.
“I figured, ‘You know what, I’ll spend seven days in bed and just fight it off and I’d be OK.’ But I was totally wrong,” she said.
Ludwin’s organs to begin to fail.
“I was already in septic shock, and that my organs were starting to fail,” she said. “On top of that I had ARDS, which is a respiratory distress syndrome, and then DIC, which caused me to bleed internally and clot in my extremities. And all of those complications together led to gangrene in my limbs, and so I became an amputee.”
Researchers Think They Know Why Some Flu Patients Get Heart Problems video player.
Researchers Think They Know Why Some Flu Patients Get Heart Problems
Dr. Eric Adkins at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center says when a virus attacks the body, it’s like an all-out war.
“The body’s response to infection is basically a big inflammatory response that can cause all kinds of problems in the various organs,” he said.
A clue in a protein
It’s a mystery why otherwise healthy people have severe complications from the flu. But researchers at Ohio State University College of Medicine uncovered a clue. Jacob Yount specializes in the study of microbial infection at Ohio State. He says the researchers found a link between a heart complication as a result of getting the flu and a protein that’s critical to fighting it.
“We make this protein and it inhibits viruses from entering our cells,” he said.
But, Yount says, some people have a genetic mutation that blocks the production of that protein, and without it, the flu is more likely to infect the heart and lead to heart failure.
“It can actually block the electrical current that’s traveling through the heart,” he said.
The study found that the mice without this gene were more likely to have heart complications after being infected with the flu virus. Adkins says this finding may help doctors care for flu patients in the future.
“If you know that they’re missing the gene ahead of time, then you may tailor your medical therapy differently,” he said.
Millions affected
The researchers say that millions of people worldwide are likely to have this genetic mutation, including about one-fifth of those of Chinese descent.
Now that scientists understand what might be causing the problem, they are searching for treatments that might prevent or reverse these heart complications in the future. Right now, though, the best protection is getting a flu shot
Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi promised to listen to people’s grievances in a televised address after three days of deadly protest in Baghdad and several other cities. Hundreds of protesters rallied in the capital for a third consecutive day Thursday, defying a curfew, to call for jobs, improved services and an end to widespread corruption. About 30 people have been killed so far and hundreds others have been injured in clashes between the police and protesters. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the authorities authorities have extended a curfew in several southern cities as the death toll rises.
When considering what lies ahead in the impeachment inquiry targeting President Donald Trump, a famous movie line comes to mind. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
That line was uttered by legendary Hollywood actress Bette Davis in the 1950 film, “All About Eve.” But it would seem to fit the times when it comes to where the president and opposition Democrats are headed in the weeks to come.
Emotions and tensions are running high in Washington as the impeachment inquiry targeting Trump gains momentum. And many political experts believe this latest battle over the Trump presidency is likely to sharpen the longstanding political divide within the country just as the 2020 presidential campaign gets underway in earnest.
Impeachment Battle Fuels Sharp Partisan Divide video player.
Trump has appeared to be in battle mode in recent days as the prospect of impeachment looms. On Thursday, in front of reporters outside the White House, he openly urged Ukraine and China to start investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!
It was a phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on July 25, however, that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry being pushed by congressional Democrats. In a summary of the call released by the president, Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens, even though neither Trump nor his allies have produced any public evidence of wrongdoing.
Trump’s mood has grown increasingly combative in recent days as more details emerge about the call.
“People have said to me, how does he handle it?” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “Because it is all a fraud, and because of that, and because I know that I am right and because I am doing a great job for the American people, I am very, very happy living the way I am living.”
Trump has also ramped up his attacks on the news media.
“Much of it is corrupt. You have corrupt media in this country and it truly is the enemy of the people,” he said.
FILE – Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden attend an NCAA basketball game between Georgetown University and Duke University in Washington, Jan. 30, 2010.
Democratic pressure
Congressional Democrats remain focused on Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader and his appeal for help in trying to find political dirt on Democratic rival Joe Biden. For months, Biden has consistently beaten Trump in head-to-head matchups in polls.
Democrat Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has become the face of the impeachment inquiry and told reporters Wednesday that Democrats were determined to quickly move ahead with their inquiry.
“To try to effectively coerce a foreign leader that is completely dependent on our country for military, economic, diplomatic and other support to intervene in our election to help his campaign. It is hard to imagine a more corrupt course of conduct,” Schiff said.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and described the phone exchange as a “perfect call.”
But legal expert Paul Schiff Berman of the George Washington University Law School said the allegations are serious.
“The entire purpose and content of the call as released by the White House is only to further the president’s personal, political efforts to hurt one of his political opponents, and that is an abuse of power and authority that goes beyond anything I think we have ever seen,” Schiff Berman told VOA.
Impeachable conduct?
As the House moves ahead with its inquiry, Vanderbilt University expert Thomas Schwarz said lawmakers will eventually have to consider whether Trump’s behavior is serious enough to warrant removal from office.
“I think the real question will be whether it rises to the level of an impeachable offense. It might be helpful in the investigation if they can find a pattern of this type of behavior in his other interactions with foreign leaders.”
Even if Democrats eventually move to impeach Trump in the House, they would face long odds on actually removing him from office because Republicans control the Senate. In a Senate impeachment trial, 67 of the 100 senators would have to find the president guilty in order to remove him from office.
Pushing polarization
President Donald Trump speaks after signing an executive order regarding Medicare at Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center, Oct. 3, 2019, in The Villages, Florida.
The impeachment battle is already hardening feelings about Trump among both supporters and opponents.
Even as polls indicate growing support for impeachment, many of the same surveys show Trump’s base rallying to his support even more strongly than before.
And the longer the inquiry goes on, the more likely it is that it will further fray a nation already politically fractured, according to veteran analyst William Galston at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“So the polarization is both increasing and deepening and there is no getting around the fact that we are in for months of conflict around this issue,” Galston told VOA. “It will pour gasoline on an already raging fire, I am afraid.”
On the campaign trail
The impeachment inquiry is also dominating the Democrat’s presidential primary race. On the campaign trail in Nevada, Joe Biden had a direct message for the president. You are not going to destroy me and you are not going to destroy my family.”
What happens with the impeachment effort will have a big impact on the 2020 campaign.
“The next five to eight weeks is probably going to tell us a lot more about the 2020 presidential election than the last three years have,” Brookings analyst John Hudak told a panel discussion on impeachment earlier in the week.
Trump is no stranger to political battles, and the one coming up over impeachment could be the defining moment of his presidency.
In recent days, anti-government protests have engulfed Baghdad and some other cities in Iraq. Security forces have opened fire, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. A curfew has been imposed in the capital and the internet has been cut off in several regions. The United States has urged authorities to exercise restraint. As the country stands on the brink of descending once more into violence, there are fears of a return to sectarian conflict. Henry Ridgwell reports from a recent London conference on the uncertain future of Iraq.
By the late 19th century, slavery was over, but the American South was still rife with discrimination and injustice for rural African American sharecroppers.
“They could only shop at one store, the country store, where prices were high,” says Louis Hyman, an economic historian and assistant professor at Cornell University.
“It often was the case that the landlord also owned the store, and their lives were ruled by credit. They basically could only shop at that store because their accounts would not be reconciled until the cotton crop came in. Because of that, they didn’t really have cash, and they really didn’t have an alternative way to get credit.”
A country store in Person County, North Carolina, 1939.
Enter Sears, the department store chain founded by Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck in 1893, which had a catalog that offered black sharecroppers an alternative. Sears let customers buy on credit, which gave African Americans the option to bypass the local country store, where black customers had to wait until the white customers were served.
“They couldn’t buy the same clothes as white people. They couldn’t buy the same food as white people…This was part of the sort of everyday white supremacy of Jim Crow,” Hyman says. “And so, the Sears catalog allowed them a way to buy clothes that were nicer than were available in that country store, to buy food that the white people ate… It offered them a choice where they didn’t have to feel second-class in their shopping lives.”
Women’s hats are pictured in a 1907 Sears Roebuck catalog from the shelves of the Chicago Public Library, Aug. 26, 1948.
The Jim Crow laws, which were in effect from the 1880s to the 1960s, were state and local mandates that enforced racial segregation in the American South. The most common types of these laws outlawed intermarriage and required businesses and public institutions to separate their black and white patrons.
Sears, the department store founder, was not motivated by social justice. As a businessman, he was in it for the money. Once Sears realized that African Americans were using the catalog to avoid discrimination at the hands of white supremacists, he took steps to make sure they could continue to shop the catalog.
Sears set up systems that gave black patrons the option to go directly to the postal carrier, completely bypassing the country store, which in some cases, was also the post office.
Sharecropper eating near Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1937. (Photo by Dorothea Lange)
Rumors spread that Sears and Roebuck were black, presumably to convince white shoppers that they shouldn’t shop at Sears. Sears and Roebuck published pictures to prove they were white.
“It’s easy to think of Jim Crow as just taking away the vote from African Americans, but it was part of an everyday kind of experience of difference that legitimates a kind of hierarchy,” Hyman says, adding that African Americans have always had a less equal access to the market.
“This is what racial segregation is all about. You see that today. Where are the food deserts? In cities. Why don’t black people have access to the same kinds of stores that white suburbanites do? And a lot of the experience of black people is an experience of monopoly, not being able to get to a bank, having to rely on a check-cashing place, not being able to get to that slightly better-paying job because they’re isolated in terms of transportation or neighborhood.”
Last October, Hyman tweeted about the Sears catalog’s role in battling white supremacy. The thread went viral on Twitter and was seen by millions. Actor LeVar Burton was among those who retweeted it.
“I think the reason it connected with people is that people still shop while black, they still get trailed through stores,” Hyman says. “We still have this daily experience of not being welcome and being forced to feel second-class.”
Hyman says it’s not a coincidence that the Sears catalog began to decline after the end of the Jim Crow era. Some on the Twitter thread suggested that Amazon shopping can play a similar role for African American customers today as the Sears catalog did more than a century ago.
Majorities of Americans across racial lines say white people are treated more fairly than black people by the police, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
But the poll finds a disconnect between white Americans who identify disparate treatment of people of color by the police, but who don’t see police violence as a serious problem — a contrast on display this week as many black Americans welcomed the guilty verdict against former Dallas officer Amber Guyger as a singular victory, rather than proof of changing attitudes.
About 7 in 10 black Americans, and about half of Hispanics, call police violence against the public very serious, compared with about a quarter of white Americans. Roughly another third of white Americans call it a moderately serious problem.
The dynamic has played out in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2014 with the fatal shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by white, former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson.
Raising awareness
The work of activists around the issue of policing in communities of color has helped to raise awareness, said poll respondent Warren Miller, a 62-year-old Realtor living in Fairview, Michigan, who said his black friends helped him realize that white people are treated more fairly by police.
But Miller, who is white, also said he doesn’t believe police violence against the public is a serious problem. Asked why, he laughed nervously before responding: “In northern Michigan, we don’t have as many problems, the city issues. It’s small town America, where everybody knows everybody. That could’ve influenced part of my perception as well,” he said.
Myth of equal justice
“White folks are trying to grapple with the difference between what they want to and need to believe about their country, and what their eyes increasingly are telling them is true,” said anti-racist author and educator Tim Wise, adding that for many black and brown Americans, the notion that racism is systemic and not limited to individual instances is easier to accept “because it’s their lived experience.”
“For white folks, there’s a need to hold on to the myth that America is an equal justice kind of place,” said Wise, who is white. “People of color have never had to, nor have they ever been able to, buy into the fiction of liberty and justice for all.”
Overall, about a third of Americans think police violence against the public is a very serious problem in the U.S., though another third call it moderately serious. By comparison, close to half say violence against police is very serious.
Misconception about blacks
But the poll also finds 55% of Americans say they think police in most communities are more likely to use deadly force against a black person compared with a white person.
“I think there’s a misconception that black citizens are inherently more dangerous or more likely to react violently to a police encounter,” said Gabe Wood, 49, of Wilmington, North Carolina.
The Democrat, who is white, cited “a laundry list of issues that go back a long time” like stereotypes about different races and the threats they present.
“I do think in some areas of the country and some parts of towns, I think police officers are quicker to resort to deadly force because of a perceived and sometimes unreal threat,” Wood said.
Guyger’s trial was the latest in a string of high-profile cases in recent years in cities including Baltimore, Cleveland and Minneapolis, as well as Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and North Charleston, South Carolina, to highlight the issue of disparate policing in communities of color.
Reforms put on hold
Those cases and others prompted Justice Department efforts to reform local police departments under former President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder. Such efforts have stalled under President Donald Trump, who has embraced law enforcement. His administration in 2017 labeled Black Lives Matter as “black identity extremists.”
Guyger, a 31-year-old white former officer, was convicted Tuesday of murder in the killing of 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean after apparently entering his home by mistake and concluding that he was an intruder. She was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison.
Some observers cited the rare circumstances of the case as a factor in the rare outcome, as officer-involved shootings of unarmed black people are sometimes prosecuted, but often result in acquittals.
Others will point to the guilty verdict as evidence of progress, said Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler.
“People’s understandings about the police are going to be based on their own experiences with the police,” Butler said. “The more typical case is when the officer is on-duty and the victim is not as sympathetic, and the officer is seen by many white folks as ‘just trying to do his job.’ We’re still a long way from equal justice under the law.”
The AP-NORC poll of 1,286 adults was conducted Sept. 20-23 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone.
Melinda Gates has pledged $1 billion to promote gender equality in the United States.
In an article published in Time Wednesday, Gates wrote, “It’s frustrating — even heartbreaking — to confront evidence of the many ways our country continues to hold women back.”
Gender equality has long been an issue of interest for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Pivotal Ventures, the investment and incubation company she founded in 2015.
“For most of our history, women’s absence from positions of power and influence wasn’t newsworthy; it was normal,” she wrote. “The fact we’re now talking about these inequities is itself a sign of progress.”
She said Pivotal Ventures will use the money to work with organizations and policymakers to achieve three targets: breaking down barriers women face on the job, helping women move up faster in leadership positions and holding companies accountable for fostering gender equality. The goal is to make a significant impact within 10 years.
Gates wrote that in 2018, “there were more men named James running Fortune 500 companies than there were women. This year, only one CEO on that list of 500 is a woman of color.”
She said her reaction to facts like that “is a complicated mix of outrage and optimism.”
Gates hopes her commitment will push others into action.
“$1 billion is a lot of money, but I also recognize that it’s only a small fraction of what’s necessary,” she wrote. “That’s why I hope the financial commitment I’m making today is seen as both a vote of confidence in the experts and advocates who are already working on these issues — and an invitation for others to join the cause and make commitments of their own. Equality can’t wait, and no one in a position to act should either.”
As political tensions flare back home, Hong Kong students on U.S. college campuses say they have been ostracized and in some cases threatened by fellow students from mainland China, and they suspect they are being watched from afar by Beijing.
Some say they see the hand of the Chinese government working in ways that threaten academic freedom.
“Even though many Chinese students are studying right here, sometimes they are all being monitored. They’re not really free of their minds and expression in this country,” said Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law, a 26-year-old graduate student in Asian studies at Yale University.
Law said he was told by a fellow student that other Chinese at the Ivy League school are avoiding contact with him for fear it will be reported back to the Chinese Embassy and they or their families back home will face consequences.
“There will be staring, spotting me and discussing among themselves, and pointing at me in an unfriendly manner,” said Law, whose continuing political work has included visits to Washington to meet with members of Congress.
Nathan Law, a Hong Kong democracy activist and current graduate student at Yale, poses on the school campus in New Haven, Conn., Sept. 23, 2019.
Chinese students in US
Hong Kong has been beset with huge pro-democracy demonstrations since June that have triggered clashes with riot police in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory and stirred fears of a violent crackdown from Beijing.
More than 360,000 students from mainland China attended U.S. colleges and universities in the 2017-18 school year, compared with about 7,000 from Hong Kong, according to the Institute of International Education.
At Emerson College in Boston, student Frances Hui, of Hong Kong, faced threatening language from classmates from mainland China after she published a column in the student newspaper headlined “I am from Hong Kong, not China.”
She said she was unnerved by comments online by people who said they had seen her on campus and described her as short, which made her feel as if she were under surveillance. And she panicked when an Emerson student posted her column on Facebook along with a comment that any opponents of China “must be executed.”
Hui, 20, said she alerted the Emerson administration.
Emerson spokeswoman Sofiya Cabalquinto said the college supports “the rights of our students’ voicing their opinions and doing so free from threats.” She said the college put a plan in place to address Hui’s concerns, but she would not say whether disciplinary action was taken against the student who made the online post.
Death threats
Law gained prominence as a student protest leader before winning election to Hong Kong’s legislature in 2016 but was later expelled as a member and jailed for several months for his activism.
He said he started getting death threats of unknown origin online soon after he arrived in August, including warnings that people with guns would go looking for him at Yale and suggestions that Chinese students in the U.S. assault him. He said he was also subjected to insults echoing a Chinese Communist Party campaign labeling him a criminal.
He reported the threats to police and the Yale administration. He said the harassment has subsided since Yale police began monitoring the online threats.
He said he hasn’t faced anything so overt from Yale students, although he said people have circulated his information in a group for Chinese students at Yale on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, and urged people to say “hi” to him — a gesture he saw as vaguely threatening.
A Yale spokeswoman, Karen Peart, said only that the university police department takes appropriate action whenever a campus community member faces an unsafe situation.
Beijing watching
A report this year by Human Rights Watch said Chinese students at times remain silent in their classrooms out of fear their comments will be reported to Chinese authorities by other students. The organization described the monitoring as one of several ways the Chinese government undermines academic freedom on foreign campuses.
“Schools need to get very clear about these problems and they need to get policies to respond to them,” said Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch’s China director.
At universities in Australia and New Zealand, students on either side of the political divide have built up and torn down displays advocating autonomy for Hong Kong.
And there have been signs of tensions at other U.S. campuses, including Georgetown University in Washington, which has seen dueling chalk messages on the Hong Kong protests, and Columbia University in New York, where Hong Kong democracy advocates were greeted last month by protesters holding China’s flag at a lecture hall where they were giving a talk.
North Korea has tested what appears to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile — an important advancement in Pyongyang’s weapons program and a major provocation just days ahead of working-level nuclear talks with the United States.
South Korea’s military says it is “highly likely” North Korea tested a Bukkeukseong-type submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, early Wednesday from the sea near the coastal city of Wonsan in Gangwon province. Seoul says the missile flew about 450 kilometers but reached an altitude of about 910 kilometers, meaning it was launched at a lofted trajectory that would make its maximum distance much longer.
It is not yet clear whether the North launched the SLBM from a submarine or an underwater platform.
If confirmed, it could be the first time since 2017 that North Korea has tested a missile that is capable of flying distances that exceed what is considered to be “short range.” Its exact maximum range is not yet known.
The provocation comes at a particularly fragile moment. Late Tuesday, North Korea’s vice foreign minister said Pyongyang and Washington have agreed to hold long-delayed, working-level talks on October 5. The two sides will have “preliminary contact” the day before, she said.
It’s not clear how the latest launch will impact the talks. North Korea has conducted 11 rounds of ballistic missile launches since May. U.S. President Donald Trump has said he has “no problem” with Pyongyang’s previous launches, since they were short-range.
People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Oct. 2, 2019. North Korea on Wednesday fired projectiles toward its eastern sea, South Korea…
A new threat
A submarine-based missile launch would be a major escalation and a reminder of the threat posed by North Korean weapons.
Following several failed tests, North Korea in 2016 successfully tested a ballistic missile launched from a submarine. Reports have suggested that North Korea is working on new types of SLBMs, but those models had not yet been tested.
“We knew they were working on it but the question is why test it now?” asked Vipin Narang, a nuclear expert and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Get one in before the bell, betting we won’t walk away? Test the SLBM before talks start knowing you can’t once they do? Build leverage? All of the above?”
The development of satellite-launched ballistic missiles adds an unpredictable new component to North Korea’s arsenal. SLBMs are mobile, potentially increasing the range of North Korea’s ballistic missile arsenal. They are also easier to hide.
The latest test demonstrates North Korea is successfully diversifying its nuclear delivery options in ways that make it harder to combat using regional missile defenses, said Eric Gomez, a policy analyst for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.
“This improves DPRK ability to survive attacks and have forces left to retaliate,” said Gomez.
Talking while launching
The North Korean launch risks embarrassing Trump and upsetting working-level talks that have been delayed for months. Though the United States has given no signs it will back out of the negotiations, Pyongyang seems to be sending the message it will continue its provocations even while engaging in negotiations.
“The North Koreans have a long history of juggling carrots and sticks,” said Mintaro Oba, a former U.S. diplomat who focused on the Koreas. “They combine these launches that raise tensions with what we call ‘charm offensives’ and that’s exactly what we saw today.”
“Their motivation is both to accelerate their technology, to create a sense of urgency behind negotiations to get some sort of nuclear deal with the United States, and to send some signals domestically as well that Kim Jong Un is strong and that the military remains an important constituency,” Oba said.
Regional threat
The missile launches also threaten North Korea’s neighbors.
Japanese officials said Wednesday North Korea fired two missiles, and that one landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone off Shimane Prefecture. The other landed just outside Japan’s EEZ, Tokyo said.
If confirmed, it would be the first time in nearly two years that a North Korean rocket has landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo condemned the launch.
“North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles this morning,” he said. “This type of short range ballistic missile is a violation of United Nations resolutions and we seriously and heavily protest and reprimand against such act.”
North Korea has given varying justifications for its previous launches this year. Some of the launches, it says, were aimed at sending a warning to South Korea. Others were simply a test of its military capabilities and should not be seen as a provocation, it insisted.
Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said the latest launch likely has a dual message: to increase leverage ahead of working-level talks with the United States, and to respond to South Korea’s unveiling Tuesday of advanced weaponry, including the F-35A stealth fighter acquired from the U.S.
A South Korean fighter pilot stands near a F-35 A Stealth on the 71st anniversary of Armed Forces Day at the Air Force Base in Daegu, South Korea, Oct. 1, 2019.
Delayed talks
The North’s announcement of talks came almost exactly three months after Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas and agreed to resume working-level talks.
The talks have been stalled since February, when a Kim-Trump meeting in Vietnam broke down over how to pace sanctions relief with steps to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program.
It’s not clear if either side has softened their negotiating stance, though recent developments suggest an increased willingness to work toward a deal.
Late last month, Trump said a “new method” to the nuclear talks would be “very good.” That is especially relevant since North Korean officials have for months said the only way for the talks to survive is if the United States adopts a “new method” or a “new way of calculation” or similar language.
Trump also recently dismissed his hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton, who had disagreed with Trump’s outreach to North Korea.
North Korea praised both developments, even while criticizing the U.S. for what it sees as provocative actions, including the continuation of joint military exercises with South Korea and weapons sales to Seoul.
Approach
North Korea has repeatedly said it is not willing to unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons. Pyongyang instead prefers a phased approach, in which the United States takes simultaneous steps to relieve sanctions and provide security guarantees.
Kim and Trump have met three times since June 2018. At their first meeting in Singapore, the two men agreed to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. But they never agreed on what that means or how to begin working toward it.
Trump has said he is open to holding another summit with Kim. But it has long been unclear how the talks can advance without more substantive discussions — including technical experts — about what each side is prepared to offer and how to get there.
“I hope this will at minimum reacquaint the substantive negotiators with their counterparts and perhaps lead to some actionable leads,” said Melissa Hanham, a weapons expert and deputy director at the Open Nuclear Network. “Any substantive working-level talks are good. Diplomacy is like a muscle and it needs exercise.”
Brazil’s top court is expected to make a ruling this week that could lead to the annulment of dozens of cases brought by the sprawling Operation Car Wash that has snared top politicians and businesspeople across Latin America. The probe, once heralded as a model of anti-corruption efforts, has been heavily criticized in Brazil following allegations that some prosecutions were politically tainted. Here’s a look at the challenges the operation faces:
What is Operation Car Wash?
“Operation Car Wash” began in March 2014 as an investigation into money laundering involving a gas station owner in the southwestern state of Parana. The suspects reached plea bargains that opened windows onto an immense graft scheme. Prosecutors say executives of major construction companies effectively formed a cartel that decided which firms would be awarded huge contracts with the state oil company Petrobras and how much to inflate prices to cover payoffs for politicians and Petrobras executives.
What Has It Achieved?
The inquiry has led to the sentencing of 159 individuals, including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, former congressional Speaker Eduardo Cunha, former Rio de Janeiro Gov. Sergio Cabral and Eike Batista, once Brazil’s richest man. Prosecutors say Brazil can expect to retrieve over $3.4 billion in stolen money, with a fourth of that amount already returned. The probe has also led to the arrest or resignation of presidents in Peru and has rattled nations across the hemisphere.
So Why is It Losing Steam?
Some legal analysts, business leaders and politicians have accused Car Wash prosecutors of judicial overreach to further a political agenda, notably in the conviction of Da Silva, which forced him out of the last presidential race. The Intercept Brasil news website said hacked cellphone conversations showed that the judge guiding the Car Wash probe, Sergio Moro, had improperly coordinated with prosecutors, allegations he denies. Moro was later chosen justice minister by newly elected conservative President Jair Bolsonaro, whose campaign was boosted by the removal of the front-running Da Silva. The controversy has led some to urge limits on the investigation.
What is the Supreme Court Discussing?
Plea bargain testimonies are at the core of the Car Wash investigation. A majority of justices in Brazil’s top court voted last week in favor of allowing defendants mentioned in plea deals to testify after hearing the accusation. They argue that the accused had not been adequately allowed to defend themselves. The case applied to Marcio de Almeida Ferreira, the Petrobras executive who raised the issue. Justices have yet to decide whether the decision will apply only to his and future cases, or be retroactive — a measure that potentially could undermine earlier convictions.
What Could the Ruling Mean?
The Car Wash task force, part of the federal public prosecutors’ office, says 143 criminal defendants might benefit from a retroactive ruling. The decision could open the door for the annulment of some cases Da Silva is involved in, but not the one that put him behind bars. The 73-year-old former president was found guilty in July 2017 of accepting an apartment in the city of Guaruja as a kickback from construction company OAS in return for his influence. His lawyer says the prosecution was “corrupted” and that the former president should be freed anyway.
What About Congress?
Lawmakers — some of them under investigation themselves — recently passed a law against possible “abuse of authority” from prosecutors, judges and police. Fabio Kerche, a political scientist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, says prosecutors in Brazil have a lot of autonomy and little accountability. The new law seeks to limit some of that power by expanding the list of what is considered an “abuse of authority.” While it does not target Car Wash prosecutors or judges specifically, it applies to them too. A magistrates’ association says it will fight some of the new measures in the Supreme Federal Court. Bribery experts from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation also expressed concerns before the bill was approved, saying they fear it will let corrupt people “unfairly attack justice-seeking prosecutors and judges for appropriately doing their jobs.”
Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno announced an end to government subsidies for holding down fuel prices and said Tuesday night that he will send congress a proposal to overhaul taxes and labor rules as a way to revitalize the economy.
In an address broadcast on television and radio, Moreno said he was eliminating the $1.3 billion subsidy for gasoline and diesel. The move will raise the price of gasoline to $2.30 a gallon from $1.85 and the cost of diesel to $2.27 from $1.03.
He said a tax overhaul bill that he would send to the National Assembly within hours would include a provision for a three-year special tax on companies with annual revenue above $10 million. The extra money would go to education, health and safety, he said.
Moreno said the proposal also would provide for reducing taxes on technological and cellular equipment, machinery and industrial equipment for simplifying refunds for exporters that pay foreign trade taxes. To stimulate the creation of jobs, he said he is proposing a new law to make hiring easier, encourage facilities for telework and help those who start businesses.
“The goal is more work, more entrepreneurship and better opportunities … boosting economic growth and employment,” the president said.
Moreno also announced that government employees will be required to contribute a day’s pay each month to state coffers on the grounds that they receive higher pay than workers in the private sector.
Ecuador is experiencing economic problems arising from the high public indebtedness inherited from the 2007-2017 administration of President Rafael Correa. Moreno has sought credit with international agencies, especially the International Monetary Fund.
The speaker of Nepal’s parliament, one of the country’s leading Communist Party leaders, resigned Tuesday following allegations that he raped a government worker at her home while he was intoxicated.
In the letter of resignation, Krishna Bahadur Mahara said he wants to make it easier for an independent and unbiased investigation of the allegation.
Police refused to comment. News reports said the woman accused Mahara of entering her house Sunday night while her husband was away and assaulting her.
An earlier statement issued by Mahara’s office said the allegation was baseless and that he had stepped out of his official residence for only two hours in the afternoon and was home on Sunday evening.
It said the woman had been refused a position in Mahara’s office and was likely angry as a result.
Mahara was elected speaker of the House of Representative last year after the Communist Party of Nepal won a majority of the seats in elections in November 2017.
Mahara was a leading figure of the Maoist rebels who fought a violent campaign against the government between 1996 and 2006. The Maoists entered United Nations-monitored peace talks in 2006, ending their armed revolt, and joined mainstream politics. Mahara played a key role in the peace talks with the government.
He has served as deputy prime minister, information minister and home minister.
