Wildfires razing Australia’s drought-stricken east coast have left two people dead and several missing, more than 30 injured and more than 100 homes destroyed, officials said Saturday.

Around 1,500 firefighters were battling 70 fires across Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, with the most intense in the northeast where flames were fanned by strong winds, Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.

Firefighters found a body Saturday in a burned car near Glen Innes, he said.

A woman who was found Friday unconscious and with serious burns near Glen Innes had died in a hospital, he said.

Another seven people have been reported missing in the vicinity of the same fire.

Toll expected to climb

“We are expecting that number (of missing persons) to climb today,” Fitzsimmons told reporters. “There are really grave concerns that there could be more losses or indeed more fatalities.”

More than 30 people including firefighters received medical treatment for burns and one patient had a heart attack, he said.

At least 100 homes were estimated to have been destroyed since Friday, but that damage toll could rise significantly as firefighters were able to extinguish flames and access fire zones, Fitzsimmons said.

Hundreds flee in Queensland

Hundreds of people evacuated their homes along a 500-kilometer (310-mile) swath of the eastern seaboard from the Queensland state border south to Forster.

Forster is a town 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Sydney, Australia’s largest city. Many spent the night in evacuation centers while some slept in cars.

In Queensland, more than 30 wildfires were raging Saturday. At least one house was lost, a firefighter suffered a broken leg and 2,000 residents were evacuated from two towns in the state’s southeast, authorities said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned Australia to expect more bad news from the fire zones.

“The devastating and horrific fires that we have seen particularly in New South Wales but also in Queensland have been absolutely chilling,” Morrison told reporters in Sydney.

‘It’s going to be horrific’

In the New South Wales town of Taree, more than 300 people evacuated overnight to a social club, including Club Taree’s chief executive Morgan Stewart.

“It was pretty scary,” Stewart said. “We’re hearing lots of stories of lost houses, lost property, goods and effects, animals, land. It’s going to be horrific, I think.”

Peter Lean spent the night on the roof of his house in the town of Wallabi Point, extinguishing burning embers carried on strong winds.

“I’ve never seen the sky so red since 2000,” Lean said. “We’ve got winds blowing, they’re circling, it’s like a cyclone.”

The fire danger reached unprecedented levels in New South Wales on Friday, when 17 fires were burning at the most extreme danger rating known as the Emergency Warning Level.

“I can only recall a figure of less than 10 that we (previously) got to, which was an extraordinary event in years past,” Fitzsimmons said.

“The fact that we have 17 at once yesterday and another nine burning at Watch and Act (Level) is a magnitude that we simply haven’t seen before, commanding so much attention, so much priority, so much competition for resources and need to get to different communities,” he added.

Only two fires were burning at the highest danger rating by Saturday.

The annual Australian fire season, which peaks during the Southern Hemisphere summer, has started early after an unusually warm and dry winter.
 

…

India’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Hindu temple on a disputed religious ground and ordered that alternative land be given to Muslims. 

The dispute over land ownership has been one of the country’s most contentious issues. 

The 16th-century Babri Masjid mosque was destroyed by Hindu hard-liners in December 1992.

The Supreme Court said in a judgment Saturday that 5 acres (2.02 hectares) of land will be allotted to the Muslim community in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya. 

The disputed land will be given to a board of trustees for the construction of a temple for Hindu god Ram.

…

Seven Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers have either been detained or face arrest Saturday, in a move expected to escalate public fury a day after the death of a student linked to months of anti-government protests.

A police statement said three of the lawmakers had been detained and charged Saturday with obstructing the local assembly during a raucous May 11 meeting over a now-shelved China extradition bill that sparked five months of protests calling for democratic reforms.

The others received summons to turn up at police stations Saturday to face arrest.

Pro-democracy lawmakers slammed the government clampdown as a calculated move to provoke more violence as an excuse to postpone or cancel Nov. 24 district elections — low-level polls viewed as a barometer of public sentiment in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

Anger has deepened against the police after Friday’s death of a 22-year-old who fell off a parking garage after police fired tear gas during recent clashes.

“We’ll say no to their plans,” lawmaker Tanya Chan told a news conference. Referring to the upcoming vote, she said “it is a de facto referendum for all Hong Kong voters to cast their vote and say no to police brutality and say no to our unjust system. And this is definitely our chance to show our determination.”

She said the polls will send a crucial message also to Beijing, accused by protesters of interfering in the city’s freedoms and rights promised when the former British colony returned to Chinese control in 1997.

Gary Fan, one of the lawmakers who received the police notice, said the arrest was a “dirty tactic” that is adding fuel to the fire.

“This is political suppression. People can see clearly that (Hong Kong leader) Carrie Lam continues to hide behind the police and is now using the legal system against the movement,” he said.

The city’s Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Secretary Patrick Nip denied the arrests were linked to the polls.

“There is no correlation between the two. The police are doing their job and investigating each and every case and take appropriate action,” Nip said.

He said the government aims to conduct the polls smoothly and peacefully.

Thousands attended multiple memorial events across the city Friday night, calling for truth and justice for Chow Tsz-Lok, the student who died Friday of injuries sustained in a fall.

More protests

Violence erupted later in familiar scenes that have beset the city with police firing tear gas to disperse hard-core protesters who set street fires, blocked roads and vandalized shops and public utilities. More protests are being planned this weekend.

Although the circumstances of Chow’s fall have not been determined, many blamed police, who have been accused of heavy-handed tactics including widespread use of tear gas and pepper spray since the protests demanding democratic reforms started in June. His death will also complicate efforts by the government to cool tensions.

There have been only few fatalities during the unrest, including some reported deaths by suicide and a man who fell to his death while hanging pro-democracy banners on a building.

More than 3,300 people have been arrested in the movement, that has since expanded to include calls for direct elections for the city’s leaders and other demands.

…

President Donald Trump prepares to welcome Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House Nov. 13, just weeks after Turkey launched an assault in Syria on Kurdish fighters — longtime allies of the United States in the fight against Islamic State terrorists. U.S. lawmakers from both  parties have slammed the president for his announcement that he plans to withdraw most U.S. troops from Syria, and Democratic lawmakers are also blasting his invitation to Erdogan while Turkey continues its attacks on the Kurds. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
 

…

A Serbian health minister who used his medical credentials to help mobsters avoid trial, a Belgrade mayor’s dozens of personal bank accounts, ties between a convicted drug kingpin and Montenegro’s president.

Stevan Dojčinović, the reporter behind some of the highest-profile scandals to hit the Western Balkans in 2018, was on hand to receive the 2019 Knight International Journalism Award at the 35th annual ICFJ dinner in Washington this week. 

Honored alongside Marty Baron of The Washington Post, Elizabeth Palmer of CBS News and Rose Wangui of Nairobi-headquartered NTV, Dojčinović used his acceptance speech to warn about spreading nationalist tendencies.

“Many in the United States were shocked by the victory of Donald Trump, the Brexit turmoil, and the rise of populism, extremism and nationalism around the world,” he said to an estimated 600 guests in attendance. “In Serbia and the countries in the shadow of Russia, we got a head start. I’ve been reporting on it in my country for decades.

“Finally, Eastern Europe does something first!” he quipped.

Founding editor of the Belgrade-based Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, KRIK, and a regional contributor to the International Center for Journalists-partnered Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, Dojčinović has repeatedly been the target of threats and intimidation campaigns.

In its 2019 World Press Freedom Index, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders called Serbia a place where “practicing journalism is neither safe nor supported by the state.” Since 2013, the news media watchdog group lowered Serbia’s press freedom ranking from 63 to 90, on a scale of the 180 countries surveyed.

Last month, the executive producer of Serbia’s privately owned N1TV blamed Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic for a recent campaign of harassment targeting the broadcaster and journalists throughout the country.

The Vucic government denies targeting N1TV or any reporters, and the president’s media adviser, Suzana Vasiljevic, told VOA that Serbians enjoy a free press, and that neither Vucic nor his officials incriminate or harass journalists.

The Knight International Journalism Award is given once annually to reporters, editors or media professionals who have produced journalism of the highest standard in the faces of threats or unusually difficult circumstances.

This story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service.

…

A new, unreleased book called “A Warning” paints the most damning public profile of Trump since he took office nearly three years ago.

Trump is “like a 12-year-old in an air traffic control tower” and a senile old man running around with no pants, according to the book by an unnamed author.

The anonymous writer describes him or herself as a “senior official in the Trump administration” who decided to withhold their name to keep the spotlight on Trump.

Opinion piece to book

The author is the same person who wrote a New York Times opinion piece last year describing how some top officials are trying to protect the country from what was called an impulsive president.

According to an advance copy of “A Warning” obtained by The Washington Post, President Trump is cruel, inept, and a danger.

“He stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information, not occasionally but regularly,” according to the book.

The president is likened to a “12-year-old in an air traffic control tower pushing the buttons indiscriminately” as planes try to avoid a collision.

The writer speaks of what is described as Trump’s sexist comments about women, commenting on their make-up, dress and weight.

In one meeting, the president allegedly used a mock Hispanic accent to complain about female migrants crossing from Mexico, calling them useless and saying if they came with husbands, the men could be used to pick corn.

25th Amendment

Trump is also described as someone incapable of leading the country in a crisis, saying he tunes out intelligence and national security briefings and described as someone easily flattered who other world leaders regard as “a simplistic pushover.”

According to “A Warning,” senior administration officials had considered a mass resignation and say Vice President Mike Pence was ready to back a majority of Cabinet members if they tried to remove Trump through the 25th amendment.

Pence denies this, saying the book is “appalling” and said he never heard anyone in the White House talking about such a move.

White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham brushed off the book as “a work of fiction” and a “farce,” calling the writer a “coward” for wishing to remain anonymous.

But the author says many current and former administration officials share the unflattering views on Trump.

The writer also says he or she deliberately avoided talking about specific events in detail to protect his or her identity.

…

The dramatic demise in Vietnam of two maps that show China’s claim to a disputed tract of sea herald a longer-term effort at expunging material that officials find politically offensive — and not just in Vietnam.

Both maps, one in a luxury Volkswagen car and the other in a DreamWorks film, show the nine-dash line that Beijing uses to demarcate its claims in the South China Sea. Vietnamese officials contest the line and say some of the waters within it are theirs. The two countries have sparred since the 1970s over maritime sovereignty.

Vietnam will probably keep censoring material that implies Chinese sovereignty over the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, Asia scholars say. They would effectively follow China’s continued use of authoritarian rule to ban websites and publications that violate its stances on international issues.

“I think this is but the latest series of essentially what I would call posturing,” said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. “You have to keep on emphasizing your sovereignty over a certain part, because if you don’t, then the international community will think that you are giving up.”

First a film, then a car

Vietnamese cinemas stopped showing the movie Abominable in mid-October because the animated scenes depict a map that delineates Beijing’s claim to the South China Sea, domestic media outlet VnExpress International reported. Vietnam disputes the Chinese claim.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also overlap Chinese claims in the sea that’s rich in fisheries and energy reserves. Chinese maritime activity angers especially Vietnam because China controls the 130-islet Paracel archipelago that both sides claim.

On Monday this week, Vietnamese customs decided to confiscate a $173,000 Volkswagen five-seater after its GPS map displayed China’s “illegal” nine-dash line, state-run Viet Nam News reported. The importer will be fined up to $2,600 and Volkswagen Viet Nam as much as $1,724.

“The General Department of Customs said that all competent government agencies in a meeting on the incident had unilaterally agreed that such a violation must be handled strictly,” Viet Nam News reported.

A private university in Vietnam decided on its own to jettison 500 to 700 books used by first-year Chinese language students because the texts carried the same kind of map, VnExpress International reported Sunday.

Chinese playbook

Beijing has asked dozens of foreign companies over the past two years to tweak wording on their websites so it reflects Chinese political views. Foreign firms have complied particularly by labeling self-ruled Taiwan as part of China, per Beijing’s stance.

China and Vietnam as communist countries are “very consistent” in their posturing, Oh said. Citizens in both often kick off a case by alerting authorities. Filmgoers spotted the map in Vietnam. In China, netizens had noticed foreign websites implying Taiwan was a country.

Vietnam, going forward, will probably play up and shoot down any pro-Beijing South China Sea references they see, analysts say.

“Now there is something like a general trend, every material, movie, media and book that has Chinese maps of the nine-dash line,” said Nguyen Thanh Trung, Center for International Studies (SCIS) director at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.

Maps are suddenly subject to review because of “heightened tension,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at market research firm IHS Markit. A Chinese survey vessel had fanned anger earlier in the year when it was frequenting waters near a Vietnamese offshore oil exploration site.

China has consecrated its claims throughout the sea over the past decade by using landfill to build islands.

Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines, as democracies, would find it harder to ban material.

However, the producer of Abominable decided against screening the film in Malaysia last month after censors there objected to the map. In the Philippines, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin said the film’s map should be cut.

Vietnam’s limitation

Exporters of map-bearing material must mind their politics now, Biswas said.

“Somehow one has to avoid these sensitivities, but it’s very hard because everyone has their own claim, so if you portray anything there’s a danger that someone will object,” he said.

Vietnam, however, will avoid openly criticizing international companies too often because it depends on foreign factory investment for economic growth, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.

China can tap into its much larger domestic market for economic stability.

“The last thing that I think Vietnam would like to be portrayed as is a bully or engaging in economic coercion, in the way that Beijing’s practices have created that image, so I think Vietnam will probably take a softer tone in order to preserve a relatively good image,” Nagy said.

…

Human rights groups, lawyers and former defectors are criticizing South Korea’s decision to return two North Korean fishermen who are suspected of killing 16 of their colleagues and then fleeing to the South.

The two men were captured late last week after their squid fishing boat crossed the eastern sea border separating North and South Korea, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. The two confessed that they and another man killed the captain and then 15 other crew members.

South Korea rejected the men’s request for defector status on the grounds they are “heinous criminals” and returned them to North Korea through the Panmunjom border village Thursday.

The bizarre incident tests South Korea’s domestic and international legal commitments. The country’s constitution in theory recognizes North Koreans as South Korean nationals, and Seoul usually accepts fleeing North Koreans, pending an investigation into their background. But South Korean law also allows authorities wide latitude to reject incoming North Korean individuals, for instance, on national security grounds.

Despite the criminal allegations against the North Korean fishermen, some defector and human rights groups in Seoul say the men deserved the legal protections offered by South Korea, noting it is highly likely they will now be executed without a fair trial.

“The two defectors should be handled under the South Korean legal system. We can expect what punishment they will receive in North Korea,” said a statement from Saejowi, a Seoul-based defector support group.

No due process

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) also said it was “deeply concerned” about “the first deportation of North Koreans by South Korea since the 1953 Korean War Armistice.”

“This is the first time (South Korea) has sent North Koreans back against their will,” said HRNK. “In doing so, South Korea has undermined its national constitution, which recognizes all North Koreans as citizens of South Korea, granting them the right to live in the South and be protected by its legal system.”

“As we know from decades of research into how North Korea treats its citizens, there is no doubt that the two deportees have been returned to a place where they face no due process, harsh punishment, torture, and almost-certain execution,” said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of HRNK.

The two Koreas do not have an extradition agreement. While South Korea’s government technically claims judicial authority over the North, South Korean officials say that does not apply to this case.

Officials point to Article 9 of South Korea’s North Korean Refugees Protection and Settlement Support Act, which says authorities are not required to extend protection to those who commit “serious crimes such as murder.”

Grisly killings

Following a three-day investigation, South Korean investigators expressed confidence they have pieced together the details of the grisly slayings.

The fishing boat left the North Korean port of Kimchaek on Aug. 15 with a crew of 19, officials say. But late last month, three crew members killed the captain, allegedly because he had treated them harshly.

“The young men told investigators they decided to kill the other 15 crewmembers as well because they feared they would be punished for the murder if any witnesses were left alive,” reported South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo.

“They called out the others by twos every 40 minutes on the pretext of changing shifts and methodically slaughtered them with a blunt weapon and threw the bodies into the water,” the paper reported.

The three men initially tried to return to the same North Korean port, but after one of the men was arrested, the two others fled using the same boat and were subsequently detained by the South Korean navy, according to South Korean officials.

Joo Seong-ha, a prominent North Korean defector-turned journalist who lives in Seoul, supports the decision to deport the fishermen.

“Crimes against humanity must be punished everywhere,” Joo said in a public Facebook post. “I believe that the agents from NIS and Defense Ministry made a rational decision.”

International obligations

But while it may be difficult to sympathize with those accused of multiple homicides, the decision sets a bad precedent, said Seoul-based human rights lawyer Kim Se-jin, who said South Korea did not live up to its international obligations.

Specifically, Kim points out that South Korea is a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture, which prohibits the return or extradition of a person to another state “where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

“We respect the South Korean investigation, but the Convention Against Torture says if the criminal or suspect is expected to be tortured or threatened, then the government should not repatriate,” Kim said. “Even though the facts that constitute the crime are obvious, South Korea should have subjected them to judicial proceedings in South Korea.”

“It is de facto truth that the two criminals have a high chance of extrajudicial executions,” she said.

Defections slow

Since the end of the 1950s Korean War, which ended in a truce and not a peace treaty, around 32,000 North Koreans have fled to the South, most via China.

North Korean refugees are first interrogated by South Korean authorities to ensure they are not spies. They are sent to a government-run center to receive training meant to better equip them to live in South Korea.

In recent years, the number of North Koreans coming to the South has slowed. In 2018, 1,137 North Koreans entered South Korea. That is down from a peak of 2,914 in 2009.

…

Twitter has suspended the accounts of a prominent U.S.-based Iranian opposition group and several of its supporters for alleged violations of the company’s rules, marking the company’s latest intervention in a bitter online feud between Iranian government opponents and supporters.

The account of the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC), a nonprofit group that supports what it calls the Iranian people’s “struggle for democratic change” and a “non-nuclear government,” was suspended Wednesday and remained blocked a day later. It had more than 6,000 followers before the suspension.

OIAC found itself suspended from Twitter just as it began hosting a Wednesday briefing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington to discuss what it called an “increase in domestic suppression and regional aggression by Tehran.”

Republican Senators Ted Cruz and John Boozman attended the event.

OIAC is allied to exiled Iranian dissident movement Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which leads the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and advocates the “overthrow of religious dictatorship” in Iran. Islamist clerics have led the nation since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Photos of our Senate event today, Nov 6, 2019. Thanks to @SenTedCruz@JohnBoozman#FreeIranpic.twitter.com/fRTzreCkE2

— IAC Texas (@IAC_TX) November 6, 2019

Speaking to VOA Persian, OIAC board member Alex Arzabak said the group’s social media team first noticed the suspension of their account as they were preparing to tweet about Wednesday’s event. They instead shared images from the event on a smaller account run by the group’s Texas affiliate. Arzabak said it was the first time OIAC’s main Twitter account has been suspended.

Two San Francisco-based supporters of OIAC and MEK told VOA Persian that their Twitter accounts also had been suspended Wednesday. The account of Peymaneh Shafi, an IT engineer, remained blocked Thursday, while the account of her friend Shanaz, who declined to share her last name for privacy reasons, was suspended for part of Thursday until being unblocked in the afternoon, local time.

Arzabak and the two women said they received no warning of the account suspensions from Twitter and were unaware of violating any Twitter rules. They also said they suspected their accounts were the target of complaints by the Iranian government or its supporters, who may have reported those accounts to Twitter in order to trigger the suspensions. Twitter enables its users to file complaints about other users’ accounts anonymously.

Pro-Iranian government Twitter users often have criticized MEK supporters on the social media platform, accusing them of spreading lies and engaging in other manipulative behavior. Pro-MEK Twitter users, in turn, have accused Iranian government supporters of slandering them and trying to silence their voices.

In June, Twitter announced the removal of 4,779 accounts that it said originated in Iran and were engaged in a coordinated, government-backed effort to abuse its service and undermine “healthy discourse.” It said 2,865 of those accounts “employed a range of false personas to target conversations about political and social issues in Iran and globally.”

Twitter declined a VOA Persian request to comment on its latest suspensions of the pro-MEK accounts or what rules they allegedly violated. The company’s terms of service prohibit several types of user behavior, including engaging in spam. 

“There is a misunderstanding with Twitter,” OIAC’s Arzabak said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We plan to contact Twitter about the suspension. When they hear our concerns, I’m sure they will help,” he said.

Speaking to VOA Persian Thursday, Shafi said she sent Twitter a request to unblock her account but received a reply notifying her that she had violated Twitter rules and would be permanently banned.

“I used Twitter mainly to campaign against executions and unjust treatment of dissidents in Iran,” Shafi said, adding: “I’m not going to be quiet about this.”

Shanaz sent VOA Persian a screen shot of a Twitter notice that she said she received Wednesday, showing that she also had been “permanently suspended” because of “multiple or repeat violations of our rules.”

She later shared a screen shot of another Twitter message that she said she received Thursday, saying the company decided to unsuspend her account after reviewing her appeal.

A VOA Persian review of Shanaz’s tweets shortly after her account was unblocked found that she had posted an average of about 100 tweets a day in the previous five days, almost all of them retweets of posts by other pro-MEK users, media outlets, and a variety of U.S. officials, lawmakers and analysts. Several of the pro-MEK users whom she retweeted also had been suspended from Twitter on Wednesday before being re-instated by late Thursday.

“Twitter’s algorithm on spam or whatever criteria they used to suspend me is not perfect and needs more work,” Shanaz said, after her account was unblocked.

In an online note about suspended accounts, Twitter said most of them are suspended “because they are spammy, or just plain fake, and they introduce security risks for Twitter and all of our users.”

“Unfortunately, sometimes a real person’s account gets suspended by mistake, and in those cases we’ll work with the person to make sure the account is unsuspended,” the note added.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

…

As South Sudan slowly stabilizes after decades of conflict, the world’s youngest nation continues to battle illiteracy. South Sudan has the lowest literacy rate in world: 27% of the adult population can read and write. To combat the problem, authorities have launched thousands of adult education classes across the country.

Rebecca Nyankiir Deng, 47, is studying with her 17-year-old daughter. But while most mothers help their children study, Deng has been illiterate for most of her life. So, her daughter is helping her learn to read and write English.

“My mother has now learned a lot of English words such as greetings. And, that makes me happy,” the daughter said. “If I come home early, I help my mom to do her homework.”

As a child, civil war in what is now South Sudan prevented Deng from going to school. To earn money, she makes and sells beaded jewelry.

A free education

The amount Deng earns is so little, however, that she struggles to buy food and pay her daughter’s school fees.

But, Deng is now getting an education alonog with her daughter.

“We are studying here because they are teaching us for free,” Deng said. “If I had to pay for school, I wouldn’t be here.”

Deng is one of a growing number of South Sudanese adults who see the current peace as a chance to pursue an education, with hopes for a better job in the future.

Literacy a top priority

South Sudan’s education minister, Deng Deng Hoc Yai, says adult literacy is a top priority because it helps pull people out of poverty and prevents conflict.

“At the individual level, at the level of a country, with communities that have a lot of educated people, they will all be working, all be enjoying better health, they will be more peaceful compared to people who are illiterate,” the minister said.

The Education Ministry told VOA that slightly more than 208,000 South Sudanese adults are now enrolled in programs to learn how to read and write.

And, as long as the current peace in South Sudan holds, they expect those numbers will continue to grow.

…

A top aide to Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer in Iowa has privately offered campaign contributions to local politicians in exchange for endorsing his White House bid, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the conversations.
 
The overtures from Pat Murphy, a former state House speaker who is serving as a top adviser on Steyer’s Iowa campaign, aren’t illegal – though payments for endorsements would violate campaign finance laws if not disclosed. There’s no evidence that any Iowans accepted the offer or received contributions from Steyer’s campaign as compensation for their backing.
 
But the proposals could revive criticism that the billionaire Steyer is trying to buy his way into the White House. Several state lawmakers and political candidates said they were surprised Steyer’s campaign would think he could buy their support.
 
Tom Courtney, a former Democratic state senator from southeastern Iowa who’s running for reelection to his old seat, told The Associated Press the financial offer “left a bad taste in my mouth.”
 
Murphy didn’t respond to a request for comment. Alberto Lammers, Steyer’s campaign press secretary, said Murphy was not authorized to make the offers and that the campaign leadership outside of Iowa was unaware that he was doing so until the issue was raised by The Associated Press.
 
Courtney declined to name Murphy as the Steyer aide who made the offer, but several other local politicians said they received similar propositions, and all confirmed the proposal came from Murphy himself. Most requested anonymity to speak freely about the issue. Another, Iowa state Rep. Karin Derry, said Murphy didn’t explicitly offer a specific dollar amount, but made it clear Derry would receive financial support if she backed Steyer.
 
“It was presented more as, he has provided financial support to other downballot candidates who’ve endorsed him, and could do the same for you,” she said.
 
Courtney described a similar interaction with Steyer’s campaign.
 
“Tom, I know you’re running for Senate. I’m working for Tom Steyer,” Courtney recalled hearing from the aide. “Now you know how this works. …He said, ‘you help them, and they’ll help you.”’
 
“I said, ‘it wouldn’t matter if you’re talking monetary, there’s no amount,’ ” Courtney continued. “I don’t do that kind of thing.”
 
Lammers, Steyer’s campaign press secretary, said the candidate hasn’t made any individual contributions to local officials in Iowa and won’t be making any this year. In an email, Lammers said Steyer’s endorsements “are earned because of Tom’s campaign message,” and distanced the candidate from Murphy.
 
“Our campaign policy is clear that we will not engage in this kind of activity, and anyone who does is not speaking for the campaign or does not know our policy,” Lammers said.
 
The overtures do not appear to have made much of a difference for Steyer. Aside from Murphy’s support, Steyer has received the endorsement of just one Iowan since entering the race in July – former state Rep. Roger Thomas.
 
Thomas did not respond to phone calls, but in a statement provided by the campaign, he said that he endorsed Steyer “because he’s the outsider who can deliver for Iowans on the issues that matter most: getting corporate corruption out of our politics and putting forth a rural agenda that revitalizes communities across Iowa.”
 
Thomas’ endorsement was issued in October after the close of the most recent campaign finance reporting period, which ended Sept. 30. The disclosure Steyer filed offers no indication that he directly gave Thomas any money.
 
Experts say a campaign could violate campaign finance laws if they don’t disclose payments for endorsements.
 
“It’s legal if you disclose a payment for an endorsement on your campaign finance report,” said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington. But, he added, “It would be unlawful if you don’t disclose it, or you disclose it but try to hide who the recipient is, or try to hide what that purpose was.”

A trio of former Ron Paul aides faced legal trouble in 2016 over similar issues during the 2012 Iowa Republican caucus campaign. Campaign chairman Jesse Benton, campaign manager John Tate and deputy campaign manager Dimitri Kesari were convicted in 2016 of charges related to arranging and concealing payments for then-Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, who switched his support from then-Rep. Michele Bachmann to Paul just six days before the Iowa caucuses. Sorenson served 15 months in jail for his role in the scheme.
 
It’s unclear whether Murphy could face a similar legal complaint, but the issue could revive scrutiny of how Steyer is deploying his financial resources. The billionaire businessman built his fortune in banking and investment management before turning to politics, and though he’s never held public office he invested tens of millions of dollars in political activism and electoral politics before launching his presidential bid this year. Prior to his presidential run, Steyer’s most recent focus was a multi-million-dollar, pro-impeachment campaign, and as the U.S. House takes up the issue, he’s argued he’s put it on the national agenda.
 
Steyer has largely self-funded his presidential campaign, spending $47.6 million of his own money in the first three months since launching his bid, much of that on online fundraising and advertising. Steyer qualified for the November debate, but he remains at the back of the pack in early-state and national polls.
 

…

A new book on Ruth Bader Ginsburg explores the Supreme Court justice’s thoughts on the (hash)MeToo movement and her hope that non-disclosure agreements, which have come under fire in sexual misconduct cases, “will not be enforced by the courts.”

Several women have spoken out about their encounters with disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and other high-profile men despite the financial and legal risk of violating the agreements. Others, including former Fox news anchor Gretchen Carlson, want to be released from the confidentiality clauses, concluding they only serve to cover up abuse and keep victims silent.

In “Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law,” the 86-year-old feminist icon questions whether the (hash)MeToo movement will render the secrecy clause obsolete in such cases.

“One interesting thing is whether it will be an end to the confidentiality pledge. Women who complained and brought suit were offered settlements in which they would agree that they would never disclose what they had complained about,” Ginsburg said at a February 2018 event at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia that’s included in the book.

“I suspect we will not see those agreements anymore,” she said at the time.

Ginsburg revised her thoughts in edits made this year, according to the book, which was written by National Constitution Center President Jeffrey Rosen and released Tuesday.

“I hope those agreements will not be enforced by courts,” Ginsburg added.

Ginsburg had championed equal protection for women in the 1970s as co-founder of the Women’s Rights Projects at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Some lawyers who represent women today in sexual misconduct cases, including Debra Katz and Gloria Allred, pushed back on Ginsburg’s view of the non-disclosure agreements, known as “NDAs.” They called them essential to securing settlements and protecting their clients’ privacy.

“Employers would not be willing to pay the kind of settlement that they pay now if they believe that all other employees would know about (it),” said Katz, who represented Christine Blasey Ford in her Senate testimony against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Katz also fears the disclosures would make it hard for her clients to find work again.

For Carlson, the secrecy has left her unable to take part in media coverage of her lawsuit against Fox News. She received a reported $20 million settlement in 2016 after claiming late Fox News chief Roger Ailes fired her after she rejected his sexual advances.

“It’s really through NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) and through other means of settling these kinds of cases of sexual harassment that we keep women silent,” Carlson told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Until that changes, she said, “we’re not going to eradicate this problem.”

Katz, though, insists it’s not up to victims to change the culture.

“The onus should be not on the person who’s brought a claim to . protect women in the future from sexual harassment. That’s the job of the employer,” Katz said.

Fox did not respond to requests for comment on the issue this week.

NBC Universal, in the wake of Ronan Farrow’s reports that the company had buried a string of sexual misconduct claims with confidential settlements, announced Oct. 25 that it would release current or former employees “from that perceived obligation” if they contacted the company.

Time’s Up and other (hash)MeToo activists lauded the move, but questioned why the accusers had to meet with the company at all.

At least two states, New York and California, have placed limits on the use of NDAs in sexual misconduct cases since the (hash)MeToo movement took off in 2017. The New York law allows them only if the victim prefers it.

But Allred, for one, sees no signs that courts will stop enforcing them. Often times, they’re sent straight to arbitration, she said.

Weinstein, who’s awaiting trial in January on rape and sexual assault charges, is not known to have sought damages from anyone speaking out.

At least one celebrity has, though not successfully.

Comedian Bill Cosby, as he awaited trial in 2016, filed suit against victim Andrea Constand, her mother and her lawyer after they cooperated with authorities who had reopened the case, a decade after he paid Constand a confidential $3.4 million settlement.

“We were adamant that you couldn’t do that,” said Constand’s lawyer Dolores Troiani, who said the agreement preserved their right to talk to police. “That is against public policy.”

Cosby, who later withdrew the complaint, was convicted last year and is now in prison.

Ginsburg, in a 2018 conversation recounted in the book, said she expects the (hash)MeToo movement to have staying power, and any backlash to be limited.

“There are still advances, a way forward, and I do think the more women there are in positions of authority, the less likely that setbacks will occur,” Ginsburg said.

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