Three anti-government protesters were shot dead and at least 58 others were wounded in Baghdad and southern Iraq on Saturday, security and medical officials said, as Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi formally submitted his resignation to parliament. 

Lawmakers were expected to either vote or accept outright Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation letter in a parliamentary session Sunday, two members of parliament said. 

The prime minister announced Friday that he would hand parliament his resignation amid mounting pressure from mass anti-government protests, a day after more than 40 demonstrators were killed by security forces in Baghdad and southern Iraq. The announcement also came after Iraq’s top Shiite cleric withdrew his support for the government in a weekly sermon. 

The formal resignation came after an emergency cabinet session earlier in which ministers approved the document and the resignation of key staffers, including Abdul-Mahdi’s chief of staff. 

Caretaker cabinet

In a pre-recorded speech, Abdul-Mahdi addressed Iraqis, saying that following parliament’s recognition of his stepping down, the cabinet would be demoted to caretaker status, unable to pass new laws and make key decisions. 

Existing laws do not provide clear procedures for members of parliament to recognize Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation, Iraqi officials and experts said. Cabinet bylaws allow the prime minister to tender his resignation to the president, but there is no specific law that dictates the course of action should this be tasked to parliament. 

“There is a black hole in the constitution. It says nothing about resignation,” said lawmaker Mohamed al-Daraji. 

There are two main laws that could direct parliament’s course of action, he added: Either they vote Abdul-Mahdi out in a vote of no-confidence, per Article 61 of the constitution, or resort to Article 81, reserved for times of crisis when there is a vacancy in the premiership, shifting those duties temporarily to the president. 

“My understanding is this will be taken care of per Article 61,” he said.

A vote of no confidence would demote Abdul-Mahdi’s cabinet to caretaker status for 30 days, in which parliament’s largest political bloc would have to propose a new candidate. 

This is where the real problem comes in, experts and officials said. 

Product of alliance

Abdul-Mahdi’s nomination as prime minister was the product of a provisional alliance between parliament’s two main blocs — Sairoon, led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Fatah, which includes leaders associated with the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units headed by Hadi al-Amiri. 

In the May 2018 election, neither coalition won a commanding plurality that would have enabled it to name the premier alone. To avoid political crisis, Sairoon and Fatah forged a precarious union. 

“Now we are back to the question of who is the largest bloc that can name the next prime minister,” said one official close to the State of Law party, led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. “If they don’t come to an agreement before the 30-day deadline, then we might have to go to the Supreme Court.” 

Officials traded theories as to why Abdul-Mahdi chose to tender his resignation through parliament, with some speculating it was to buy more time or avoid the risk of a vacuum should the post remain empty. 
 Abdul-Mahdi had alluded to the challenges faced by political parties to find consensus candidates, saying in earlier statements he would step down once an alternative candidate was found. 

In his speech, addressing these speculations, Abdul-Mahdi said he was acting on the advice of Iraq’s chief Supreme Court judge. 

“The perspective I received from the chief of the federal Supreme Court is that the resignation should be submitted to those who voted the government in,” he said. 

Low expectations

Abdul-Mahdi listed his government’s accomplishments, saying it had come to power during difficult times. “Not many people were optimistic that this government would move forward,” he said. 

The government, he said, had managed to push through important job-creating projects, improve electricity generation and strengthen ties with neighboring countries. 

“But unfortunately, these events took place,” he said, referring to the mass protest movement that engulfed Iraq on October 1. “We need to be fair to our people and listen to them, where we made mistakes, where we did not make up for the mistakes of previous governments.” 

At least 400 people have died since the leaderless uprising shook Iraq, with thousands of Iraqis taking to the streets in Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite southern part of the country. They have decried corruption, poor services and a lack of jobs, and they have called for an end to the post-2003 political system. 

Security forces have used live fire, tear gas and sound bombs to disperse crowds, leading to heavy casualties. 

Three protesters were killed and 24 wounded in the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq on Saturday as security forces used live rounds to disperse them from a key mosque, security and hospital officials said. 

Bridge battles

In Baghdad, at least 11 protesters were wounded near the strategic Ahrar Bridge when security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas to prevent demonstrators from removing barricades. The protesters are occupying part of three strategic bridges — Ahrar, Sink and Jumhuriya — in a standoff with security forces. All three lead to the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government. 

In the southern city of Nasiriyah, security forces used live fire and tear gas to repel protesters on two main bridges, the Zaitoun and the Nasr, which lead to the city center. Heavy fighting has taken place in Nasiriyah in recent days, with at least 31 protesters killed. 

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Abdul-Mahdi referred to the rising death toll in his speech. 

“We did our best to stop the bloodshed, and at the time we made brave decisions to stop using live ammunition, but unfortunately when clashes happen there will be consequences,” he said. 

…

Apple says it will reevaluate how it identifies “disputed borders” after receiving criticism for displaying Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia on maps and weather apps for Russian users. 
 
Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told Reuters on Friday that the U.S. technology giant was “taking a deeper look at how we handle disputed borders.” 
 
Muller said Apple made the change for Russian users because of a new law that went into effect inside Russia and that it had not made any changes to its maps outside the country. 

Review of law
 
“We review international law as well as relevant U.S. and other domestic laws before making a determination in labeling on our maps and make changes if required by law,” she told Reuters. 
 
Muller added that Apple “may make changes in the future as a result” of its reevaluation of the policy, without being specific. 
 
Russian and Ukrainian embassies in the United States did not immediately return requests for comment. 
 
When using the apps from the United States, Ukraine, and in parts of Europe, no international borders are shown around the peninsula. 
 
After the reports surfaced of the appearance of Crimea as part of Russia, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told RFE/RL that it had sent a letter to Apple explaining the situation in Crimea and demanding that it correct the peninsula’s designation. 
 
It also said on Twitter that “let’s all remind Apple that #CrimeaIsUkraine and it is under Russian occupation — not its sovereignty.” 
 
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystayko tweeted, “Apple, please, please, stick to high-tech and entertainment. Global politics is not your strong side.” 

Applause from Russia
 
Vasily Piskarev, who chairs the Russian State Duma’s Committee on Security and Corruption Control, welcomed Apple’s move, saying, “They have brought [their services] in line with Russian law.” 
 
“The error with displaying Crimean cities on the weather app has been eliminated,” Piskarev told reporters. 
 
Competitor Google Maps has designated Crimea differently over the years depending on the user’s location, listing it as Russian for Russian users and Ukrainian for most others. 
 
“We make every effort to objectively depict the disputed regions, and where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders,” a Google spokesperson told Tech Crunch magazine. 

Troops entered in 2014
 
Russia took control of Crimea in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. 
 
Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. 
 
The international community does not recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, and the United States and European Union have slapped sanctions on Russia over its actions against Ukraine. 
 
Reuters and the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service contributed to this report. 

…

Schools and universities have been shut in parts of Iran, including the capital, Tehran, because of high levels of pollution, state media reported Saturday. 
 
The decision was announced late Friday by Deputy Governor Mohammad Taghizadeh, after a meeting of an emergency committee for air pollution. 
 
“Due to increased air pollution, kindergartens, preschools and schools, universities, and higher education institutes of Tehran province will be closed,” Taghizadeh was quoted by official government news agency IRNA as saying. 
 
Schools in the capital will also be closed Sunday, Taghizadeh said. 
 
“Having examined the index of pollutants in Tehran … it was decided for all schools to be closed tomorrow in Tehran province, except for the counties of Firuzkuh, Damavand and Pardis,” he said. 
 
The young, elderly and people with respiratory illnesses were warned to stay indoors, and all sports activities were suspended Saturday. 
 
Tehran has suffered from dangerous levels of pollution and smog since mid-November. 
 
Schools were also closed in the northern province of Alborz and in the central province of Esfahan, IRNA reported, citing officials. 
 
Other areas where schools were shut included the northeastern city of Mashhad, the northwestern city of Orumiyeh and Qom, south of Tehran. 

…

A high-ranking Taliban official has been killed in clashes with security forces in Jowzjan province in Afghanistan’s north, a local official said Saturday. 
 
Qari Nuriddin and his four bodyguards were killed in the district of Mengajik, where the militant group has a strong presence, provincial government spokesman Abdul Maaruf Azar told RFE/RL. 
 
Four other militants were wounded in the clashes that erupted overnight, the spokesman said. 
 
There was no immediate comment from the Taliban. 
 
Azar also confirmed local reports that more than 25 members of the Taliban in Mengajik had recently cut ties with the militant group to return to civilian life. 
 
Azar told RFE/RL that all of them were young men from the Mengajik district. 
 
Most of them had left for Iran and Turkey in search of work, Azar said. He didn’t provide further details. 

…

Maltese prosecutors on Saturday charged a prominent local businessman as being an accomplice to the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in a 2017 car bombing on Malta. 
 
Yorgen Fenech, a Maltese hotelier and director of the Maltese power company, was also charged in the evening courtroom hearing with being an accomplice to causing the explosion that killed the 53-year-old reporter as she drove near her home. 
 
Magistrate Audrey Demicoli asked Fenech to enter pleas. He replied that he was pleading innocent, and he was remanded in custody. 

The reporter’s family has alleged that Fenech has ties to close associates of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, including his recently resigned chief of staff. 
 
It wasn’t immediately clear if Muscat might resign amid increasing calls by citizens on the island, including Caruana Galizia’s family, for him to step down. Muscat, in power since 2013, has said he will speak after the investigative case is complete. 
 
“What we now expect is the prime minister to leave office and to leave Parliament,” Corinne Vella, one of the slain reporter’s sisters, told The Malta Independent after the arraignment of Fenech. 

Investigations urged

Vella also called for Muscat as well as his former chief of staff, Keith Schembri. to be “properly investigated” for their “possible involvement in Daphne’s assassination.” 
 
Schembri quit his government post a few days earlier. He had been taken into custody for questioning but was later released. 
 
Two of Muscat’s ministers also were questioned and have resigned. They, along with Schembri, have said they are innocent of wrongdoing. 
 
Caruana Galizia wrote shortly before her death that corruption was everywhere in political and business circles in the tiny EU nation. 
An alleged go-between in the bombing has received immunity from prosecution for alerting authorities to Fenech’s purported involvement. 
 
Three men have been in jail as the alleged bombers, but no trial date for them has been set. 

…

They left Vietnam carrying dreams of small fortunes and the heavy burden of family expectations.

But they died in a box, and came home in coffins.

For the 39 migrants who set off from one of the poorest parts of their Southeast Asian country in search of work in Britain, the promise of riches outweighed the risks of the perilous journey through Latvian forests and Belgian streets, to the oxygen-starved truck container in which they met their fate.

The bodies were discovered in late October, in the back of a refrigerated lorry, just outside London.

On Saturday, the last bodies were repatriated to Vietnam.

Here are the stories of three of the victims.

The lost boy

Teenager Nguyen Huy Hung had longed to see his parents, both of whom had left Vietnam to find work in Britain’s nail salons.

“It should have been a family reunion,” said a neighbor who declined to be identified. “His parents reached Britain safely and smoothly. They’d already paid smugglers to arrange his trip. “He was too young to suffer from tragedy.”

Hung was one of two 15-year-old victims. Raised in a small fishing village in Ha Tinh province, rooms in the family home had been rented out because most of his family, apart from Hung’s grandparents, had relocated overseas for work.

Hung flew from Hanoi to Russia on Aug. 26, his sister, who works in South Korea, said in a Facebook post days after news of the incident emerged.

By Oct. 6, he was in France, she wrote, but they lost contact Oct. 21, two days before the container was found.

The family had paid 10,000 pounds ($12,900) to get him to Europe, his sister told Reuters. They were to pay more money to people smugglers in Vietnam once he reached Britain, she added.

Hung’s body was repatriated Saturday.

But with no documentation and their hopes of being reunited with their son in Britain shattered, Hung’s parents will miss his funeral.

The carpenter

Rudimentary dumbbells made from rusted iron and mossy lumps of concrete are some of the few objects Nguyen Dinh Gia has to remind him of his son.

Luong was an honest boy, Gia said. At 20, Luong didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, and he had never had a girlfriend.

Luong loved sports, and his ramshackle weights. In October 2017, he left Ha Tinh province and found work in a nearby province as a carpenter, a skill he learned from his brother.

“He didn’t try to get into university,” Gia said. “Not many children around here do.”

From there, Luong traveled to Hanoi where he boarded a flight to Russia.

He stayed there until April 2018, when he drifted to Ukraine where he spent his nights with other migrants in a warehouse. He would contact his father sometimes, Gia said.

“I felt comfortable knowing he was safe, living there,” Gia added.

Weeks later, Luong left for Germany. He moved by road, but he walked for seven hours too.

“It was a one-day journey and everyone with him was Vietnamese,” Gia said.

There, Luong begged his father to pay for him to go to France, where he stayed until this October, when he decided to join friends working in Britain.

“I tried to persuade him not to go,” Gia said. “I told him the money he had earned in France was huge for the family.”

Gia had paid $18,000 to people smugglers to get his son that far. A few days before he boarded the doomed truck, Luong called home.

Gia said he was in good spirits.

Luong’s body was repatriated Wednesday and he was buried Thursday.

“After waiting for so many days, my son has finally arrived,” Gia said.

The dreamer

Bui Thi Nhung had been dreaming of Europe.

She hoped to be reunited with her boyfriend, in Britain.

Her Facebook posts in the days before she died showed her in Brussels, where she drank bubble tea on the steps of the old stock exchange.

Like the other two, she flew from Vietnam to Russia, then crossed into Latvia. From there she moved to Lithuania, then Poland, Germany, and Belgium, friends and neighbors told Reuters.

It wasn’t her first attempt.

“My life is full of ups and downs. I want to fly to Europe, but I can’t,” she wrote, four months earlier. 

“I don’t want to stay home, marry young and live penniless,” Nhung told friends who had suggested she stay in Vietnam and raise cattle instead. “I’ll try my luck next time.”

According to her friends, Nhung first wanted to find work in Germany, and spent a year in Vietnam learning to paint nails. “A girl has to have a job otherwise no one will marry her,” she wrote.

On her third try, Nhung finally made it to Europe. The trip ended in disaster.

“I’m about to start a new journey,” Nhung wrote to friends a few days before they lost contact with her.

Nhung’s friends have memorialized her Facebook page to keep her stories alive. Many of her friends are scattered overseas, working in Europe’s nail bars.

“Please don’t blame us,” one of her friends told Reuters. “Don’t blame the 39 victims in the back of the truck.”

Nhung made her final journey home on Saturday.

She was 19 years old.

…

An approaching typhoon is threatening to complicate the hosting by the Philippines of the largest biennial games in Southeast Asia, already marred by logistical foul-ups that the president vowed to investigate.

President Rodrigo Duterte is set to welcome Saturday the first few thousand athletes, coaches and sports officials from the region in an opening ceremony to be lit by digital fireworks after nightfall in a huge indoor arena in Bocaue town north of Manila. The expected VIPs include Brunei leader Hassanal Bolkiah, whose son is a player on the sultanate’s polo team.

More than 8,000 athletes and officials were expected to fly in for the games, which began in 1959 in the Thai capital of Bangkok with just a dozen sports. In the Philippines, 56 sports will be featured in 529 events, the largest number in the 11-nation competition so far, which will be held in more than 40 venues including in the traffic-choked capital of Manila.

About 27,000 police have been deployed to secure the 11-day games.

Typhoon Kammuri

A slow-moving typhoon was bearing down in the Pacific and forecasters expect it to blow into the main northern Luzon island early next week. The main sporting venues in Clark and Subic, former U.S. military bases turned into popular leisure and commercial hubs north and northwest of Manila, are in or near Typhoon Kammuri’s path.

Kammuri was packing sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 170 kph (106 mph) as of late Friday but could still strengthen, forecasters said. The prospect of it becoming a super typhoon was unlikely but cannot be ruled out.

“The contingency plan involves delay of the competition, the cancellation of competition,” Ramon Suzara, executive director of the organizing committee, said in a news conference. Indoor competitions could proceed in bad weather if power is not lost but the entry of spectators may be restricted, he said.

Terrible traffic, unfinished facilities

The threat posed by the typhoon comes after widely publicized complaints of athletes who flew in early for training and preliminary matches over long hours of waiting for shuttles at Manila’s airport, getting stuck in the chaotic traffic, food and hotel accommodation issues and unfinished facilities in the city.

An early football match between the men’s teams of Malaysia and Myanmar proceeded despite the absence of a functioning scoreboard at Manila’s Rizal Stadium, which opened in the 1930s but has undergone renovations, according to an Associated Press photographer who covered the match.

Thailand’s football team, which was pressed for time to train and could not afford to plod through Manila’s traffic jams to a stadium, trained on the streets one night instead, its coach was quoted in local news reports as saying.

Duterte and his close political ally, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, who heads the organizing committee, separately apologized for the troubles.

Funding criticized, inquiry promised

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief who supports Duterte’s anti-crime campaign, questioned the transfer of a huge amount of government funds to the organizing committee, which is a private foundation, comparing it to a past corruption scandal where state funds were funneled to nongovernment groups before allegedly being pocketed by some lawmakers.

Suzara denied there was any irregularity, saying government auditors scrutinized how money was spent. He blamed the monthslong delay in the passage earlier this year of the national budget for failure to complete the construction and renovation of some sports facilities on time.

Opposition Sen. Franklin Drilon questioned the propriety of spending about 50 million pesos (nearly $1 million) for the construction of a tower with a cauldron, which would be lit in flames during the games, saying the money for such extravagance could have been used to build classrooms for impoverished children.

“I ignore them because my stomach is titanium,” Suzara told the AP in an interview, explaining how he has endured criticism to focus on preparations.

Cayetano said certain groups opposed to Duterte were trying to sabotage the Philippines’ hosting of the games. He did not elaborate.

Duterte pledged to investigate the mess and Cayetano expressed readiness to face a Senate investigation after the games.

“There was a lot of money poured into this activity and I suppose that with that kind of money, you can run things smoothly,” Duterte said. But he admonished critics: “Do not create a firestorm now because we are in the thick of preparation. … I assure you I will investigate.”

…

Supporters cheered late Friday as once-powerful opposition leader and two-time Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori left the prison where she had been held while being investigated for alleged corruption. Peru’s Constitutional Tribunal approved her release.

Smiling broadly, the daughter of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori walked out of the women’s prison in the Lima district of Chorrillos and was handed a bouquet of roses by her husband, Mark Villanella, who had been on a hunger strike demanding her release.

Keiko Fujimori called her 13-month prison stay the “most painful time of my life, so the first thing I want to do now that I am on the street is thank God for giving me the strength to resist.”

Odebrecht accusations

She was freed by the Constitutional Tribunal in 4-3 vote earlier this week. The magistrates noted the decision on a habeas corpus request does not constitute a judgment on her guilt or innocence with regards to accusations she accepted money from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Fujimori could still be returned to a cell.

Dozens of riot police were present in case of protests by opponents who have called her release another blow for entrenched impunity for the corrupt in the South American country. But most of the people outside the prison were her supporters.

“The Constitutional Tribunal has corrected a great damage done to us in a process filled with abuses and arbitrariness,” Fujimori said.

Changed political landscape

The 44-year-old, who was jailed in October 2018, faces a radically different political landscape outside of prison.

Her Popular Force party held a majority in congress until September, when President Martin Vizcarra dissolved the legislature in a popular move he described as necessary to uproot corruption. The conservative Popular Force will participate in January legislative elections, but Fujimori is not expected to be a candidate and analysts predict that her party could fare poorly in the voting.

As party leader, Fujimori helped fuel the impeachment of former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for lying about his ties with Odebrecht. But now Fujimori herself has been ensnared by a corruption scandal that has toppled political and businesses leaders around Latin America.

Corruption allegations have hit all of Peru’s presidents between 2001 and 2016.

Prosecutors accuse Fujimori of laundering $1.2 million provided by Odebrecht for her 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns. They opened an investigation into the campaigns after seeing a note written by Marcelo Odebrecht, head of the Brazilian mega-company, on his cellphone that said: “increase Keiko to 500 and pay a visit.”

Fujimori denies the accusations and says prosecutors and Peru’s election body have received Popular Force’s accounting books for inspection.

Striking downfall

Her jailing capped a striking downfall for a politician who went from presidential daughter, to powerful opposition leader, to within a hair’s breadth of the presidency.

Fujimori’s father, a strongman who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, remains a polarizing figure. Some Peruvians praise him for defeating Maoist Shining Path guerrillas and resurrecting a devastated economy, while others detest him for human rights violations. He is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption.

She tried to follow in her father’s presidential footsteps and forge a gentler, kinder version of the movement known as “Fujimorismo.”

She finished second in the 2011 election and five years later lost in a razor-thin vote, coming within less than half a percentage point of defeating Kuczynski.

…

Six European nations say they will join a fledgling financial system to bypass U.S. sanctions against Iran, challenging U.S. President Donald Trump days before he meets leaders of some of those nations in London.

In a joint statement Friday, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden said they are in the process of become shareholders of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). Britain, France and Germany launched INSTEX in January to enable companies to trade with Iran without using U.S. dollars or going through U.S. banks, thereby shielding such companies from U.S. sanctions.

Trump has been toughening U.S. sanctions against Iran since November 2018 as part of a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Tehran to reach a new deal to stop its perceived malign behaviors. Earlier last year, he pulled the U.S. out of a 2015 deal in which world powers eased sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on the Iranian nuclear program. Trump said that deal was not tough enough on Tehran.

EU commitments

The Trump administration has warned other nations not to engage in various transactions with Iran or face secondary U.S. sanctions. But the 28-member European Union has pledged to do what is necessary to uphold its nuclear deal commitments, seeing the deal as a major contributor to global nonproliferation and Mideast stability.

In their joint statement, the six European nations said: “In light of the continuous European support for the agreement and the ongoing efforts to implement the economic part of it and to facilitate legitimate trade between Europe and Iran, we are now in the process of becoming shareholders of INSTEX, subject to completion of national procedures.”

The statement did not clarify what those procedures are, or how long the six nations will take to complete them.

Britain, France and Germany have said INSTEX initially will facilitate trade with Iran in humanitarian goods, such as food, medicine and medical devices that the U.S. has declared to be exempt from its sanctions.

The three nations also have said they eventually will expand INSTEX to cover other types of trade, raising the possibility that such transactions will defy U.S. sanctions. But there have been no announcements of any companies using INSTEX to engage in humanitarian or other trade with Iran since its January launch.

In an interview with the Al Arabiya network earlier this month, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook reiterated that Washington opposes the use of INSTEX for any “sanctionable activity” and has expressed that view to Britain, France and Germany. He also reiterated his skepticism that Iran will create its own INSTEX counterpart that meets international standards against money laundering and terrorism financing.

Counterpart mechanism

Iran has said it created the counterpart mechanism in April, calling it the Special Trade and Finance Instrument (STFI). But European officials have not acknowledged the establishment of any Iranian counterpart mechanism that satisfies their financial transparency requirements.

Four of the nations that agreed to join INSTEX, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, are NATO allies of Washington, as are Britain, France and Germany. Trump is to meet the leaders of those seven nations at a NATO summit in London, Dec. 2-4.

The White House has said the summit will focus on the alliance’s “unprecedented progress on burden-sharing” in defense spending and the “need … to ensure its readiness for the threats of tomorrow … and those posed by terrorism.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a VOA Persian request for comment on the decision by six more European nations, four of them NATO members, to join a financial channel that has drawn U.S. warnings against using it for sanctionable transactions.

Iran nuclear deal critic Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, dismissed the latest European announcement about INSTEX as a symbolic act with little consequence.

“As long as the Trump administration is willing to enforce U.S. sanctions, very few companies will risk punishment to process transactions through INSTEX. President Trump should make this clear when he meets his NATO counterparts in the coming days,” Dubowitz said in an email to VOA Persian. “To reinforce this message, the Treasury Department should sanction the Iranian INSTEX counterpart STFI, which is linked to several sanctioned entities.”

An FDD policy brief published in May said all of STFI’s shareholders are Iranian banks or controlled by Iranian banks that have been sanctioned by Washington for illicit activities.

Dismissive of INSTEX

Iranian officials also have been dismissive of INSTEX, complaining that its European creators have been too slow to get companies to start using it. They also have threatened to continue violating more provisions of the 2015 nuclear deal unless European powers provide Tehran with adequate economic compensation for the U.S. sanctions.

Iran has seen its currency slump and its unemployment and inflation soar under the strain of sanctions and rampant government corruption and mismanagement.

Iran so far has committed four violations of its 2015 commitments regarding the amount and quality of nuclear materials it can stockpile and produce at certain sites. The steps have slightly reduced the time it would take for Iran to accumulate enough material to make a nuclear bomb, a breakout period that was meant to be at least one year under the deal. Western powers accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge it denies.

Importante décision aujourd’hui de six pays européens de rejoindre INSTEX. Engagement fort des Européens pour soutenir le #JCPOA et l’autonomie d’action européenne. Nous attendons de l’#Iran qu’il revienne dans le cadre de cet accord. https://t.co/AQJpg6JCE8

— Jean-Yves Le Drian (@JY_LeDrian) November 29, 2019

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in welcoming the decision by the six other European nations to join INSTEX, echoed their call for Iran to reverse its violations of the nuclear deal in a Friday tweet. But neither he nor the other nations set a deadline for Iran to return to full compliance or warned what would happen if Tehran ignored that call.

A Nov. 24 article by Iran’s state-approved Mehr news agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Gholamreza Ansari as saying that “despite heavy pressure and sanctions,” Iran’s trade volume with Europe in the first nine months of 2019 reached $3.8 billion, of which $3.3 billion was European exports to Iran.

Taken together, the European Union and Switzerland export over three times more medicine to Iran than China, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, UAE, and United States combined. Europe is an irreplaceable trade partner for Iran and that’s why efforts like INSTEX are so important. pic.twitter.com/fjm8Q1QMM1

— Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (@yarbatman) November 29, 2019

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the “Bourse & Bazaar” media company that supports business diplomacy between Europe and Iran, tweeted that European medicine exports are a significant part of that ongoing trade.

“Europe is an irreplaceable trade partner for Iran and that’s why efforts like INSTEX are so important,” he said.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

…

Albanians began the week on a high note, as they prepared to celebrate the country’s Independence Day, and finished it in heartbreak, Friday burying loved ones who perished in the worst earthquake to hit the Balkan country in decades.

Forty-nine people died, including seven children ages 2 to 8, and 900 were injured; 5,200 people are without shelter; and 1,200 buildings were destroyed in the 6.4-magnitude quake Tuesday. The panic has been palpable as people refuse to go home. They also have been rattled by several aftershocks, including one that registered at 5.0.

Seismologist Rexhep Koçi told VOA that while there was the likelihood for more aftershocks, they would be increasingly weaker.

The port city of Durrës, 33 kilometers west of the capital, Tirana, saw the highest death toll, with 25 people killed. Farther north, in the small town of Thumanë, the quake killed 23 people, six of whom belonged to one family, and all but one younger than 30. They were buried Friday. One person also died in the nearby small town of Kurbin.

WATCH: A vigil for quake victims in Tirana

Vigil for quake victims in Tirana, Nov 29 video player.

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Tirana residents turned out in the city center to honor the victims, placing candles in a makeshift memorial by the statue of Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg.

The state of emergency declared Wednesday for Durrës and Thumanë was extended to the heavily damaged town of Laç. Prime Minister Edi Rama said he made the decision after opposition leader Lulzim Basha suggested it. Rama appeared to put on hold the acrimony often on display between the two political rivals.

“In this case, our concerns and ideas converge,” Rama said, inviting the opposition to participate in the Committee for Earthquake Relief.

For Rama, the tragedy hit close to home as his office confirmed that among the dead was his son Gregor’s fiancée, Kristi Reçi, who died along with her parents and brother in Durrës.

Helping hands

As search-and-rescue operations were closing, with one person unaccounted for in Durrës, providing aid to survivors has become the focus.

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Physician Shkëlqime Ladi said doctors are on hand to help with immediate needs.

“We are focusing more on the psychological aspect of the affected. Their psychological state is aggravated,” she told VOA in Laç.

In Durrës, volunteers and residents are offering condolences and support.

“We feel very bad for the families, people who have lost their lives. If needed, we can take people in. We have a house, it is not a problem at all,” Durrës resident Hysen Mnalla told VOA.

Erald Peposhi is one of a group of students from Tirana who went to Durrës to help. They delivered 180 meals and 300 sandwiches.

“We are here to help those who are left homeless. As you can see, there are people that need food, and we hope the situation improves soon,” he said Friday.

For the second time since the earthquake, the European Union has activated its Civil Protection Mechanism to help Albania.

Right after the earthquake, EU sent crews from Greece, Italy and Romania to help with search and rescue and now the government has asked for experts to help assess the damage.

EU Ambassador to Albania Luigi Soreca said Friday that the European Union and its member states are standing with Albania and working nonstop to provide assistance “in this very difficult moment.”

“It is a week of deep sorrow and tragedy for Albania,” Soreca said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go once again to the Albanian people and especially to the families, friends and communities of those who have lost their lives.”

Neighboring Kosovo, Italy, Greece and Montenegro have sent in crews. The United States has also offered help.

‘Repaying the help I received in 1999’

Her voice trembling and in tears, Emine Imeri, a volunteer from the Drenica region in Kosovo, told VOA in Thumanë the situation reminded her of 20 years ago when Albania welcomed thousands from Kosovo as they fled ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces in the Balkans conflict.

“The entire Drenica, the entire Kosovo, has mobilized. We regret that we had to repay the favor in such circumstances. We would have preferred to repay what they did for us 20 years ago for a happy occasion,” she said.

She also said she hoped the aid they brought would help.

“People took their coat off their back to send it here,” she said.

It was just one example of the outpouring of help from the new country, 90% of whose population are ethnic Albanians.

People spontaneously came from Kosovo, operated mobile kitchens, gathered donations and opened their homes for those in Albania wanting to find shelter or to escape the aftershocks. On Friday alone, individuals and businesses from Kosovo delivered 100 tons of much needed necessities.

Kosovo’s Security Force sent troops across the border to help, and outgoing Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj allocated 500,000 euros for earthquake relief. He visited Durrës on Friday, as did his likely successor, Albin Kurti.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi visited Thumanë the day after the tragedy.

Subdued independence

The earthquake struck two days before Albania’s 107th anniversary of independence. There was no celebration, but a show of solidarity gave solemnity to the day.

Albanian President Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Rama, who have been fighting bitterly over political matters, appeared together in Vlora Thursday, where independence was declared.

The Independence Day coincided this year with the U.S. Thanksgiving Day, and many Albanian Americans rallied to collect donations, holding several fundraisers to help one of the poorest countries in Europe.

“I am so heartbroken for my people back home, for those who have lost lives and loved ones,” New York City Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, an Albanian American, told VOA.

Marko Kepi, of the Albanian American organization Albanian Roots, organized a fundraiser that raised nearly $1 million in less than a day.

“This fundraiser is simply to help those who have lost their homes and to help those families who lost their loved ones, do whatever we can so they can have some sort of peace of mind, that they are not alone, they have support and they are not going to be left out in the street,” he said.

Armand Mero reported from Tirana, Ilirian Agolli reported from Durrës, Pëllumb Sulo reported from Laç.

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Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Friday he would offer his resignation to parliament to allow lawmakers to choose a new government, in a move that follows weeks of violent anti-government protests.

Abdul Mahdi’s decision came in response to a call for a change of leadership on Friday by Iraq’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, his office said in a statement.

“In response to this call, and in order to facilitate it as quickly as possible, I will present to parliament a demand (to accept) my resignation from the leadership of the current government,” said the statement, signed by Abdul Mahdi.

The statement did not specify when he would tender his resignation. Parliament is due to convene on Sunday.

The announcement came after weeks of anti-government unrest in which security forces have killed around 400 mostly peaceful demonstrators and the country has careered towards a serious escalation of violence.

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As he prepared to announce his candidacy for president on Sunday, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a page from an old political playbook.

Appearing in a black church in the city’s Brooklyn borough last week, the multibillionaire media mogul apologized for long pushing a now-defunct policing tactic that had disproportionately targeted African American and Hispanic residents.

Known as “stop and frisk,” the controversial policy, imposed between 2003 and 2013, allowed New York City police to stop, temporarily detain, and search anyone suspected of carrying weapons and other contraband. 

“I was wrong,” Bloomberg declared to the congregation. To those who had been wronged by the policy, he said, “I apologize.” 

Criminal justice policy records

Bloomberg is the latest Democratic candidate forced to reckon with a criminal justice policy record that critics view as too punitive to minorities.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has been criticized for backing a 1994 crime bill that helped trigger a federal prison population explosion, while South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has faced questions over policing tactics in his hometown.

Others, including Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, have had to justify their law enforcement policies as a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and a California prosecutor, respectively. 

That Democrats are under scrutiny over criminal justice issues is unusual. Historically, Democratic presidential candidates ran on platforms of civil rights and criminal justice reform while Republicans campaigned as tough law-and-order candidates, according to criminal justice experts.     

But as the 2020 campaign enters the crucial primary phase, Democratic candidates are being forced to disavow criminal justice policies they once championed, while Republican President Donald Trump — who hardly discussed criminal justice in 2016 — is touting himself as a leading reform candidate.

Trump says he can make that claim because he signed into law a sweeping piece of legislation known as the First Step Act last December. The legislation, which has released or reduced the prison sentences of thousands of inmates convicted of drug offenses, has earned Trump praise from many African Americans. 

“It’s sort of a switch in what people thought was the standard left-right divide,” said Noah Weinrich of Heritage Action for America, a conservative grassroots organization.

So what happened?

The short answer is the country has changed. The 1994 Crime Bill now under attack from liberals and African Americans was enacted during the Clinton administration, near the height of a violent crime epidemic in the country when heavy-handed policies enjoyed broad public support.

But as crime has steadily declined over the past two decades to historically low levels, support for those measures has eroded and politicians on both sides of the aisle have increasingly embraced overhaul proposals.

Behind the 1994 Crime Bill

Biden helped craft the legislation when he was a U.S. senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and now is taking heat for the legislation’s more onerous side effects.   

“Today, crime and murder rates are at historic lows and American communities are safer than they have been in generations,” said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, acting director of the Justice Program at New York University’s Brennan Center. “That’s significant because that allows the bipartisan conversations about how to best reduce the number of people who have been incarcerated.” 

To be sure, criminal justice reform is not among the most pressing concerns for voters who care more about issues such as health care, immigration and jobs, according to polling.

But public support for measures, such as eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, has been on an upswing in recent years. That has prompted not only the large field of Democratic candidates but also the Republican president to campaign on criminal justice issues. Today, instead of incarceration, politicians increasingly talk about rehabilitation and redemption.

“Now we’re at a point in the country where we’re looking at our criminal justice system and saying maybe sentencing is what we need to think about and how do we best get our nonviolent criminals back into being productive members of society,” veteran Republican strategist David Avella said.

Last December, growing bipartisanship for criminal justice reform culminated in the enactment of the First Step Act.

Considered the most sweeping overhaul in a generation, the First Step Act allows for the early release of some nonviolent offenders, while providing inmates with in-prison job training to ease their reintegration into society and reduce recidivism rates. To date, more than 3,000 prisoners have been released and nearly 1,700 others have received sentence reductions under the program.

“Last year we brought the whole country together to achieve a truly momentous milestone,” Trump said last month at the historically black Benedict College in South Carolina, where he received an award for signing into law the First Step Act. “They said it couldn’t be done.”

Trump was an unlikely champion of the bill. When he first ran for president in 2016, he was seen as an obstacle to reform.

While his platform was notably silent on the issue, he consistently pushed for tough-on-crime policies over the decades, advocating lengthy sentences for violent offenders and effusing about New York City’s stop-and-frisk policies. 

Then, after he was elected in 2016, Trump appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior White House adviser. Given a broad policy platform, Kushner zeroed in on an issue that he said was very close to his heart: prison reform.

Kushner’s father imprisoned

His father, real estate developer Charles Kushner, spent 14 months in a federal prison in the 2000s for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Jared Kushner later called his father’s incarceration “obviously unjust.”

“When I had my personal experience, I wish that there was somebody who was in my office in the White House, who cared about this issue as much as I do, and if they’d been focused on it in making a difference, perhaps that would have made an impact on a lot of people who I came to meet and care about,” he told CNN’s Van Jones, a prominent African American advocate of the First Step Act, last year.  

Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy organization that lobbied for the legislation, said Kushner played an indispensable role in championing the bill and that Trump deserves credit for signing it into law.

“No one would have thought four years ago or three years ago that President Trump would have signed a law like that,” Ring said. “Everyone would have been skeptical that he would have supported any reform. So because he did it, I see no reason not to celebrate that.”

But Democratic candidates were in no mood to celebrate Trump’s action. They have denounced other Trump administration policy decisions that they say have set back years of progress on criminal justice. These include the Justice Department’s recent decision to resume federal executions.

“I find it hypocritical of him to tout whatever advances have been made in the First Step Act given his history,” Democratic candidate Harris said at the Bipartisan Justice Center event after Trump received the award.  

Harris, who had initially opposed the First Step Act for not going far enough to address criminal justice reform before voting for it, has faced criticism for not embracing criminal justice reform when she was San Francisco’s top prosecutor and later California’s attorney general.

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