An earthquake shook some buildings in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir state in India on Friday, witnesses said.

The magnitude 6.1 quake was centered in mountainous Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan, at a depth of 210 km (130 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Officials in Kabul said they were assessing damage in areas around the sparsely populated epicenter.

In Pakistan, tremors shook furniture and power cable poles.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Waseem Ahmad, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority in Islamabad, estimated the quake to be about 6.4 magnitude.

“I was with my kids at a badminton court when we felt strong jolts,” said Nusrat Jabeen in Pakistan’s capital. “It was very scary. We felt everything was shaking. We ran out for safety.”

Tremors were also felt in India’s mountainous Kashmir state where people rushed out of their homes and offices.

The Indian subcontinent has suffered some of the largest earthquakes in the world.
 

…

French President Emmanuel Macron will be sharing a holiday meal Friday with French forces stationed in Ivory Coast as he begins his visit to West Africa where he also plans to concentrate over the weekend on how to confront the rising jihadist violence imperiling the region. 

The trip is providing a respite for Macron from the ongoing strikes back home over his plans to raise the retirement age, which have paralyzed transport ahead of the holiday season.

France has some 4,500 military personnel stationed throughout West and Central Africa, where Islamic extremist groups have carried out unprecedented attacks this year against local armies in Mali and Niger. Attacks are multiplying, too, in Burkina Faso.

The security situation Africa’s Sahel region is deteriorating by the day, said Ivorian political analyst Geoffroy Julien Kouao. Ivory Coast is not only home to a French military base, it is also the region’s economic powerhouse and it came under attack in 2016 when al-Qaida-linked militants sprayed gunfire at a popular beach, killing 19 people.

“Let’s not forget that Ivory Coast shares 800 kilometers (500 miles) of border with Mali and Burkina Faso so the military component dominates this visit by the French president,” Kouao said.

Macron was to meet with leaders of the Sahel countries in France earlier this month but the meeting was postponed when an Islamic State affiliate carried out the deadliest assault on Niger’s military in recent memory. Officials said 71 soldiers were killed when their army camp was overpowered near the volatile border with Mali.

During his first stop Friday evening at a French military base, Macron plans to meet with those on the front lines of the fight including some commandos who were involved in the operation in Mali during which 13 soldiers died in a helicopter collision.

On Saturday, Macron plans to help launch the International Academy to Fight Terrorism, which will focus on regional strategies and training those involved in the fight against extremism, according to the French presidency.

He also will pay a visit to Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou in Niamey on Sunday before returning to France, where the summit with West African leaders has been rescheduled to mid-January.

Macron’s high-profile visit to Ivory Coast’s commercial capital also comes ahead of pivotal elections scheduled for October 2020. The former colonizer has substantial economic interests there, and past outbreaks of violence have seen French expatriate civilians targeted.

Ivorians remain scarred by the post-election bloodshed in 2010-2011 that left more than 3,000 people dead after then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Alassane Ouattara, who ultimately prevailed and then was reelected in 2015.

Initially Ouattara was limited to two terms, meaning the 2020 election would be a wide open field. Ivorian elections, though, have proven to be anything but predictable: Ouattara recently has given signs he might consider a third bid if his nemesis gets involved.

Gbagbo, who was accused of unleashing violence to cling to office after losing the runoff vote, remains popular among some Ivorians and it’s unclear what kind of influence he could have. He has been acquitted of criminal charges at The Hague in connection with the violence, though International Criminal Court prosecutors have launched an appeal.

Before that electoral crisis Ivory Coast already had suffered through a civil war that began in 2002 and left the country with a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south until a 2007 peace deal. During the crisis a 2004 bombing killed nine French soldiers and an American scientist who had sought refuge at the base amidst the fighting.

On Sunday, Macron will pay tribute to the victims of a 2004 bombing during Ivory Coast’s civil war this weekend in Bouake. A trial is to begin in France next year, 15 years after the attack that killed nine French soldiers and an American civilian who had sought shelter at the French army base. 

The Belarussian pilot and two Ivorian co-pilots who carried out the bombings are accused of murder and attempted murder, but will not be there because the international arrest warrants were never carried out.

The American victim, Robert Carsky, 49, grew up in Syracuse, N.Y. and spent most of his adult life working in West Africa as a soil scientist and crop researcher. A representative from the U.S. Embassy in Ivory Coast is expected to join Macron and his entourage at the site.

“These events took place in a context of war and relations between Paris and Abidjan were abysmal at that time,” Kouao said. “Macron and Ouattara want to erase this difficult moment and show that the two countries have excellent relations today.”

…

Boeing’s new Starliner capsule rocketed toward the International Space Station on its first test flight Friday, a crucial dress rehearsal for next year’s inaugural launch with astronauts.

The Starliner carried Christmas treats and presents for the six space station residents, hundreds of tree seeds similar to those that flew to the moon on Apollo 14, the original air travel ID card belonging to Boeing’s founder and a mannequin named Rosie in the commander’s seat.

The test dummy — named after the bicep-flexing riveter of World War II — wore a red polka dot hair bandanna just like the original Rosie and Boeing’s custom royal blue spacesuit.

“She’s pretty tough. She’s going to take the hit for us,” said NASA’s Mike Fincke, one of three astronauts who will fly on the next Starliner and, as test pilots, take the hit for future crews.

As the astronauts watched from nearby control centers, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the capsule blasted off just before sunrise from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket was visible for at least five minutes, its white contrail a brilliant contrast against the dark sky. Thousands of spectators jammed the area, eager to witness Starliner’s premiere flight.

It was a one-day trip to the orbiting lab, putting the spacecraft on track for a docking Saturday morning.

This was Boeing’s chance to catch up with SpaceX, NASA’s other commercial crew provider that completed a similar demonstration last March. SpaceX has one last hurdle — a launch abort test — before carrying two NASA astronauts in its Dragon capsule, possibly by spring.

The U.S. needs competition like this, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Thursday, to drive down launch costs, boost innovation and open space up to more people. 

“We’re moving into a new era,” he said.

The space agency handed over station deliveries to private businesses, first cargo and then crews, in order to focus on getting astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. 

Commercial cargo ships took flight in 2012, starting with SpaceX. Crew capsules were more complicated to design and build, and parachute and other technical problems pushed the first launches from 2017 to now next year.

It’s been nearly nine years since NASA astronauts have launched from the U.S. The last time was July 8, 2011, when Atlantis — now on display at Kennedy Space Center — made the final space shuttle flight. 

Since then, NASA astronauts have traveled to and from the space station via Kazakhstan, courtesy of the Russian Space Agency. The Soyuz rides have cost NASA up to $86 million apiece.

“We’re back with a vengeance now,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said from Kennedy, where crowds gathered well before dawn.

Chris Ferguson commanded that last shuttle mission. Now a test pilot astronaut for Boeing and one of the Starliner’s key developers, he’s assigned to the first Starliner crew with Fincke and NASA astronaut Nicole Mann. A successful Starliner demo could see them launching by summer.

“This is an incredibly unique opportunity,” Ferguson said on the eve of launch.

Mann juggled a mix of emotions: excitement, pride, stress and amazement.

“Really overwhelmed, but in a good way and really the best of ways,” she said.

Built to accommodate seven, the white capsule with black and blue trim will typically carry four or five people. It’s 16.5 feet (5 meters) tall with its attached service module and 15 feet (4.5 meters) in diameter. 

Every Starliner system will be tested during the eight-day mission, from the vibrations and stresses of liftoff to the Dec. 28 touchdown at the Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Parachutes and air bags will soften the capsule’s landing. Even the test dummy is packed with sensors.

Bridenstine said he’s “very comfortable” with Boeing, despite the prolonged grounding of the company’s 737 Max jets. The spacecraft and aircraft sides of the company are different, he noted. Boeing has long been involved in NASA’s human spacecraft program, from Project Mercury to the shuttle and station programs. 

Boeing began preliminary work on the Starliner in 2010, a year before Atlantis soared for the last time. 

In 2014, Boeing and SpaceX made the final cut. Boeing got more than $4 billion to develop and fly the Starliner, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion for a crew-version of its Dragon cargo ship.

NASA wants to make sure every reasonable precaution is taken with the capsules, designed to be safer than NASA’s old shuttles.

“We’re talking about human spaceflight,” Bridenstine cautioned. “It’s not for the faint of heart. It never has been, and it’s never going to be.”

…

Ethiopia has launched its first satellite.

The satellite was launched into space Friday from at a space station in China. 

Ethiopian and Chinese officials and scientists, however, watched a live broadcast of the Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite launch at the Entoto Observatory and Research Center, north of the East African country’s capital, Addis Ababa.  

“This will be a foundation for our historic journey to prosperity,” Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen said in a speech at the event. “The technology is an important even if it’s delayed.” 

Solomon Belay, the director general of the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute, told Reuters that China covered most of the costs of building the satellite.  

The data from the satellite will help Ethiopia to monitor the country’s resources and improve its responses. 

…

Russia’s FSB security service on Friday searched the home of a man named by Russian media as the prime suspect in a rare shooting incident near the FSB’s central Moscow headquarters, neighbors told Reuters.

A gunman opened fire on the FSB’s main building in Moscow on Thursday evening, killing at least one FSB employee and wounding five other people.

It was not immediately clear what the shooter’s motive was and the FSB has not publicly commented on his identity or its own investigation.

The attack happened shortly after President Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference and while he was attending a Kremlin event to celebrate the work of the security services.

The FSB suspected the attack may have been planned to coincide with Putin’s speech at the event, a source close to the FSB told Reuters.

Some Muscovites on Friday laid flowers outside the FSB’s headquarters and examined damage to the famous building. A Reuters reporter saw a toughened glass window pockmarked with bullet holes near its main entrance.

There has been no official confirmation of the identity of the gunman, whom the FSB said it had killed. But some Russian media, citing unnamed sources, have named the suspect as Yevgeny Manyurov, a 39-year-old former private security guard.

Manyurov lives with his mother in a rundown five-story Soviet-era apartment block in the town of Podolsk in the Moscow Region. His neighbors, who described Manyurov as a quiet gun enthusiast, told Reuters on Friday that the FSB had searched the family home in the early hours of Friday morning.

Natalya Fedorovna, a pensioner who lives in the same building, said FSB agents had woken her family up at around three o’clock in the morning and asked her son to join them for a conversation.

Tatyana Tsaryeva, another resident, said she had also noticed some “hustle and bustle” in the stairwell in the early hours of Friday morning. Dmitry, her husband, said police had completely cordoned off the building at one stage while they questioned neighbors and checked their documents.

He described Manyurov as a normal guy, who had once asked him to join him at a local shooting range, but that he had declined. Tsaryeva said he was someone who kept to himself.

…

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says it is “appalled” by a Tehran court’s decision to uphold prison sentences for four journalists from the Gam (Step) online magazine.

However, the appeals court in Tehran reduced the length of the jail terms from 18 to five years for each journalist — Amirhossein Mohammadifard, Sanaz Allahyari, Amir Amirgholi, and Assal Mohammadi — for a combined total of 20 years, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog said on December 18.

The initial sentences were passed by a Tehran revolutionary court in September.

The journalists were arrested a year ago on what Amnesty International called “spurious” national security charges related to their reporting on workers’ rights protests in Khuzestan Province over grievances concerning unpaid wages and poor conditions.

“Their prosecution forms part of a wider crackdown on labor rights activists and journalists covering the protests at Haft Tappeh [sugar] company in late 2018,” the London-based group said in July. 

RSF said on December 18 that the same appeals court in Tehran also upheld a prison sentence for Marzieh Amiri, a journalist for the reformist Shargh newspaper, but reduced her sentence from 10 years in prison and 148 lashes to five years in prison.

Amiri was arrested in May after covering a demonstration outside parliament in the capital.

She and the other four journalists were released in October pending the decision by the appeals court, RSF said.

The rulings come as Iran is facing international condemnation for its crackdown on the protests that rocked more than 100 cities across the country last month that were triggered by gasoline-price hikes and a rationing plan.

Amnesty International this week said at least 304 people had been killed during the several days of protests and that the authorities were continuing to carry out a “vicious crackdown,” arresting thousands of protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, and students to “stop them from speaking out about Iran’s ruthless repression.”

Iranian officials have dismissed Amnesty’s death toll figures as “lies.”

…

“I’m buying dollars, I’m buying euros,” Roly, 28, whispers furtively to tourists outside a hotel in Havana.

Roly, who declined to disclose his last name for fear of reprisals, works as a “mule”, traveling abroad to buy goods to sell back in Communist-run Cuba where the black market booms due to shortages and high prices in the state-run economy.

But like many Cubans, he says that he is struggling to acquire the hard currency he needs as it has become near impossible in recent weeks to obtain it legally at the country’s banks and exchange houses.

Analysts say the recent elusiveness of hard currency is likely due to a deteriorating economic situation and increased demand as the government steps up moves to end Cuba’s labyrinthine dual currency system.

Among those affected are Cubans who want to protect themselves from any kind of possible depreciation this complex process could entail by parking their savings in hard currency and those, like Roly, wanting to travel abroad.

Neither of Cuba’s two currencies – the peso or the dollar-equivalent convertible peso (CUC) – are legal tender outside the island, where all financial institutions are state-run.

“There’s been no money available at the banks or exchange houses for weeks, you have to look elsewhere,” said Roly. “I’ve spent half a day on the streets under the sun and I haven’t managed to buy a single dollar.”

Cuba’s foreign exchange earnings have declined in recent years in tandem with the economic woes of its ally Venezuela and a tightening of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo under President Donald Trump, including increased restrictions on U.S. travel.

Several countries such as Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador have also ended over the past year contracts under which they hired thousands of Cuban doctors from the state. Such service exports make up most of Cuba’s hard currency earnings.

In October, Cuba opened around a dozen stores selling appliances, car parts and other items for dollars, with a bank card. Economists said this should help authorities rake in some hard currency and stem capital flight through the activity of mules such as Roly.

Some say establishing the “dollar stores” could also be a sign the government is bringing back the greenback to stabilize the economy during elimination of the dual currency system, at least during a transition phase.

“The economy is already being dollarized, even if no-one says it” said Cuban economist Omar Everleny. “That the CUC has started to lose value…is a reality”.

Cuba’s two currencies have circulated on the island at multiple exchange rates ever since the decline of Cuba’s former benefactor the Soviet Union as part of a strategy to open up the economy while shielding local industry and citizens.

But the system has for years been deemed more damaging than beneficial to the economy and the government is expected to eliminate the CUC over the next year.

In November, it banned its export and import. Passengers catching flights abroad have to now exchange their CUCs before passing through customs and purchase goods on the other side in tradeable currency.

“For the last few weeks, they’ve not allowed us to sell hard currency, neither dollars or euros, because there’s no money,” said Miriam Gonzalez, 55, a cashier at an exchange house.

“They are sending all the hard currency received here to the airport.”

Even those with accounts in hard currency at Cuban banks have struggled to get their money out, sometimes having to wait for weeks, much to their frustration.

“You just can’t trust our country’s banks,” said one client, who declined to give her name after attempting to withdraw 500 euros someone had transferred her from Spain. Her bank instead put her on a waiting list.

“There’s no money available at the moment … it’s disrespectful.”

…

The Turkish fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi this week denounced Saudi Arabia’s human rights record during a visit to Italy and called for action to bring those responsible for the killing to justice. She also said she is “heartbroken” the Italian Super Cup was being played in Saudi Arabia. 

Speaking in Turkish at a press conference this week at the Foreign Press Association, Hatice Cengiz said that more than a year after Khashoggi’s death, no European country had yet done anything about this terrible and unacceptable killing. 

Cengiz said she asked Italian senators how it was acceptable that no one was punished for the killing. She also asked if they were really prepared to just to let it go away.

“This is something really embarrassing for all of mankind,” she said.

Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, where he had gone to obtain documents needed to get married to Cengiz. Weeks after Khashoggi failed to leave the consulate, the Saudis admitted he was dead. 

Cengiz said that five people were sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for the murder, but that no information has been made available as to who they are and or what were charged with.

Italian Senator Emma Bonino pledged that action would be taken by Italy, including possibly requesting a boycott of the G-20, scheduled to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2020.

“The best way to go forward and putting a stop to impunity but without revenge is an international commission of inquiry to really understand what happened and who organized this, under what political mandate and political decision,” Bonino said.

On December 22, an Italian Super Cup soccer match between Juventus and Lazio, is scheduled to be played at the King Saud University stadium in Riyadh. Cengiz said she was “heartbroken” that, given Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, the game is proceeding.

…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent resounding general election victory — the biggest Conservative win since his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 barnstorming success — has made it certain that Britain will part company with the European Union come the end of January, fulfilling the government’s key re-election campaign pledge to “get Brexit done.”

Even ardent Remainers, who hoped to engineer a second Brexit referendum to overturn the 2016 plebiscite in which a small majority voted to leave the European Union, have accepted their hope will not become a reality. With a majority of 80 in the House of Commons, Johnson’s withdrawal legislation, which was presented Thursday in parliament, will sail through.

So will next year be largely a Brexit-free one? Is the saga of Britain’s departure from Europe to be finally completed more than three-and-a-half years after the country voted to leave? Think again, say analysts. Britain and Europe will shortly enter a second and possibly trickier stage of negotiations over their future political and trade relations, and the stakes are high for both sides.

Speaking after his huge Dec. 12 general election win, Johnson said the results of Britain’s third such vote in four years had emphasized the “irrefutable” determination of the British people to leave the EU and to end the “miserable threats” of a second Brexit referendum, a re-run plebiscite backed by both Britain’s main opposition party, Labour, and the centrist Liberal Democrats.

But whether the Johnson government will be able to forge a trade deal with Brussels by the end of 2020, the deadline set under the terms of the withdrawal agreement struck by London and Brussels in November, is another matter.

Until the deadline, Britain will be in transition with access to the EU’s single market and customs union and it will be obliged to observe EU laws and regulations as well as product standards.

The post-Brexit transition period could be extended by mutual agreement between London and Brussels for up to two years, but Johnson is adamant he will not seek any extension. And, to the delight of hardline anti-EU Conservative members of parliament, he’s boxing himself in by adding a new clause to Brexit legislation that rules out by law any extension of the transition.

The move, which has roiled currency markets, is reminiscent of the tactics of his Conservative predecessor, Theresa May, who drew early Brexit red lines when negotiating the first departure stage of Brexit. But she had to keep on backing down, a pattern that eroded her authority and doomed her.

Johnson’s political rivals have labeled the refusal to contemplate even an extension as “reckless and irresponsible.” Labour lawmaker Keir Starmer said the move meant Johnson is “prepared to put people’s jobs at risk” by crashing out of the EU without any trade deal.

Some Conservatives who favor maintaining a close relationship with the EU worry the move will backfire and make it more difficult to negotiate a post-Brexit agreement with Brussels. For Brexit hardliners that is exactly what they want — a no-deal Brexit that frees Britain from any regulatory alignment with the EU, which they say means Britain will finally be in control of its destiny.

Johnson told lawmakers this week the clause he is introducing to the exit legislation would put an end to years of “deadlock, dither and delay.” That it certainly will. But it has heightened the chances of Britain leaving the bloc without any agreement, according to EU officials and European national leaders.

They say Johnson’s aim to conclude a trade deal by the end of 2020 is unrealistic and that the complicated negotiations ahead will be daunting, including controversial issues such as fishing rights, consumer and environmental standards and financial services as well as security cooperation, transportation and goods.

Analysts say Johnson’s hardline approach is a political signal, designed to indicate to those who had been hoping he might slide to a softer Brexit over the next few months. Pro-EU politicians had been arguing that the large parliamentary majority he enjoys would allow him to face down hardline Brexiters in his own party.

But Conservative insiders say Johnson has concluded that if the second-stage talks with Brussels are to go anywhere fast, there has to be a definite deadline, one that will focus minds. How effective that might be remains unclear. Trade deals typically take many years to finalize and senior EU figures are skeptical that a deal can be agreed to within 12 months, brinkmanship notwithstanding.  

If no deal is agreed to in time, Britain will default to trading with Europe, by far its largest trading partner, under World Trade Organization (WTO) terms, meaning tariffs could be put on imports and exports to and from the EU and customs checks could be placed on goods and regulatory barriers on services.

The new president of the European Council, Charles Michel, has warned Brussels will not agree to a free trade deal that does not include Britain agreeing to abide by EU regulatory rules and product standards. “The EU is ready for the next phase,” he said after Johnson’s election win. “We will negotiate a future trade deal, which ensures a true level playing field,” he added.

Speaking in Strasbourg, France, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the Brexit transition deadline of December 2020 leaves “very little time” for the British and European sides to reach agreement. She warned that without an agreement by the end of 2020, Britain and the EU will face again a cliff-edge. “And this would clearly harm our interests,” she added.

EU officials have formally welcomed Johnson’s victory but are hoping the British prime minister has in mind a “close as possible future relationship.” They also point to Johnson’s post-election promise to seek “common ground” and to approach politics with a “new and generous spirit” after the rancor of the past three years.

A no-deal Brexit, which will disrupt British business and possibly push Britain into recession, according to the Bank of England, would make it harder for Johnson to fulfill the promises he has made to invest in Britain’s crumbling public services and infrastructure — pledges he needs to make good on if he’s to keep the support of the large numbers of traditional working-class Labour voters who switched their allegiance in the election and backed him.

…

Russia has signaled it will file an appeal against its four-year Olympic ban due to World Anti-Doping Agency sanctions which President Vladimir Putin on Thursday branded “unfair.”

The Russian anti-doping agency’s supervisory board voted Thursday to file an arbitration case with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland. WADA last week ruled Russia had manipulated doping laboratory data to cover up past offenses.

Putin said it was not fair to threaten Russia with more doping-related punishment, and that any sanctions should be on an individual basis. “I think it is not just unfair but not corresponding to common sense and law,” Putin said.

The case will likely be referred to CAS within the next 10-15 days, supervisory board chairman Alexander Ivlev said. After a panel of three CAS arbitrators is chosen, a verdict will be issued within three months.

“The ball will be in WADA’s court and the issue will be discussed in a legal context,” Ivlev said. “We consider the argumentation to be fairly strong and we will see how the issue develops.”

Thursday’s decision must be approved by another panel of Russian sports and anti-doping figures, but that seems a formality.

Most of the panel’s members, including the Russian Olympic Committee and Russian Paralympic Committee, have said they want an appeal.

Sports officials are likely to have substantial influence over how the case is argued and the hiring of lawyers, rather than leaving it in the hands of Russian anti-doping agency CEO Yuri Ganus. He is a frequent critic of top officials and has said the appeal has little chance of success.

Senior political figures including Putin had also signaled they wanted an appeal filed.

“We need to wait calmly for the relevant rulings, including the arbitration court ruling and we’ll know what position we’re in,” Putin said Thursday. “Russian athletes have been training and will keep training for all competitions.”

The WADA sanctions, announced last week, ban the use of the Russian team name, flag or anthem at a range of major sports competitions over the next four years, including next year’s Olympics and the 2022 soccer World Cup.

However, Russian athletes will be allowed to compete as neutrals if they pass a vetting process which examines their history of drug testing, and possible involvement in cover-ups at the lab.

That has prompted anger from some Western athletes and organizations like the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which wanted a blanket ban on Russian athletes.

Putin added WADA’s recommended four-year ban on Russia hosting major sports competitions would have little effect, pointing to the 2022 men’s volleyball world championships as an event Russia intends to keep.

WADA demands events are moved unless it’s “legally or practically impossible” to do so , which could create a loophole for event organizers who don’t want to break financial commitments.

That ban already doesn’t apply to next year’s European Championship soccer games in St. Petersburg or the 2021 Champions League final, both of which are exempt because they’re continental, not world, championships.

Russia handed over the lab’s doping data archive in January in return for having earlier sanctions lifted in 2018. WADA investigators found evidence that Russia was intensively editing the data in the weeks before the handover to remove signs of failed drug tests.

WADA said it found fake messages spliced into chat logs in an apparent attempt to smear former lab director Grigory Rodchenkov, who’s become a key witness for WADA since leaving Russia.

Russia has produced its own report arguing that any editing was the result of illicit changes made from abroad, or the instability of the lab software.

…

Tens of thousands of hectares of farmland is being destroyed as desert locusts swarm over Somalia, in the worst invasion in 25 years. 
 
The locusts have damaged about 70,000 hectares of farmland in Somalia and neighboring eastern Ethiopia, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Wednesday. 
 
VOA’s Harun Maruf tweeted dramatic videos of the insects flying over the central Somali town of Adado:

Video: Huge locust swarm over Adado town today. Somalia faces the worst Desert Locust outbreak in over 25 years according to @FAOSomaliapic.twitter.com/2ZuI0vEhDI

— Harun Maruf (@HarunMaruf) December 18, 2019

The FAO said the locust invasion was worse than had been predicted and was likely to spread to other nations in the Horn of Africa, including Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, South Sudan and Sudan. 
 
“As the weather seems favorable for the locust breeding, there is a high probability that the locust will continue to breed until March-April 2020,” FAO regional coordinator David Phiri said. 
 
“I was supposed to get up to 3,000 kilograms of teff [a cereal grass] and maize this year, but because of desert locusts and untimely rains, I only got 400 kilograms of maize and expect only 200 kilograms of teff,” Ethiopian farmer Ashagre Molla, 66, said. “This is not even enough to feed my family.” 

…

In mid-June, Abdulrasoul Ibrahim Omar, 38, hired smugglers to transport him, his pregnant wife and his two small daughters out of Libya. 
 
Speaking over WhatsApp during the journey, he would not say where he was going. 
 
“No safety in Libya. I fled to … ,” he texted, not completing the thought. 

Before arriving in Libya, Omar fled genocide in Darfur and Sudan, and survived one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.   
 
Almost all the people traveling to Libya’s coast in hopes of making it to Europe face beatings, rapes, torture or kidnappings, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Smugglers demand heavy ransoms from the usually impoverished families in exchange for their loved ones’ lives. 
 
“[They are] suffering some of the gravest human rights abuses in the world today,” said Charlie Yaxley, a UNHCR spokesperson in Geneva. “We don’t know how many people are dying on the way.” 
 
At the U.N. Refugee Conference on Wednesday, Libya’s permanent representative to the U.N. office at Geneva said the world’s wealthy nations should take more preventive actions for people feeling the need to flee their countries in the first place. 
 
“Prior to official refugee status, refugees face terrible tragedies through migration and displacement,” said Ambassador Tamim M. Baiou. “As a transit country, Libya is deeply familiar with the first two phases.” 
 
Danger in Libya 
 
Despite the danger of traveling, staying in Libya was not an option, Omar said. 
 
In April, his neighborhood was bombed in the war between the country’s eastern and western governments. He and his neighbors took up residence in a makeshift camp inside a schoolhouse in Tripoli.

Months later, as Omar and his family traveled out of the country, bombs hit a detention center holding refugees and migrants on the other side of town, killing more than 50 people. Most had been arrested after the boats they were trying to take to Europe wrecked in the Mediterranean Sea. 
  
The victims were among the thousands of refugees and migrants detained in Libya above the objections of the UNHCR, which calls the arrests arbitrary and advocates for the release of all the detainees. 
 
Omar’s teenage cousin, Abdullah, was a detainee in the center and survived the blast. 
  
As he searched for a safe place, Omar continued to text. He said the trip was too dangerous to reveal his route.   
   
“When I reach wherever, I will [send] you my location,” he texted. 
  
Dreams of resettlement 
  
Before he left Libya, Omar, his family and his neighbors described their journey into the country. Many wept as they told their stories in a crowded room in the schoolhouse. 
  
One woman was raped by a smuggler. At the time, she was pregnant, and miscarried after the attack. She later found she was pregnant with her rapist’s child. Her husband abandoned her, apparently ashamed.   
   
Another woman pointed out scars on her teenage son’s arms. He had been kidnapped and beaten until she gathered enough money to pay the ransom.   
   
Once in Libya, the families were among the luckier travelers, taking odd jobs and apartments while they continued efforts to get to Europe or other Western countries. Like Omar, they all wanted to be resettled by the U.N., but the wait is long, and there is no guarantee. 

Only 5% of the people determined to be eligible for resettlement are placed, according to Yaxley, because wealthier countries offer too few spaces. 
 
“It’s incredibly challenging,” he said. 
   
The families all said they would not return to their homes and would not stay in Libya. They said that if they were not resettled, they would try to get to Europe on a smuggler’s boat. So far this year, more than 1,200 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, according to the International Organization for Migration. 
  
“We follow the media, and we see that many ships collapse,” Omar said. “The only thing I’m looking for is freedom.” 

On the move   
   
As the war continued in Libya, the schoolhouse where Omar’s neighbors were staying was evacuated. The residents took shelter in a parking lot.   
   
But Omar and his family found shelter in Tunisia. To get there, the family hired smugglers and walked 25 kilometers through the desert. Mahasen, Omar’s wife, was six months pregnant and exhausted when they arrived. 
  
Now, he is still waiting for resettlement, despite being told months ago that his family was eligible. 
 
“It’s shame from the world to keep silent as we die,” he said in a text on Wednesday.      

His new son, Ibrahim, was born in September and is now also waiting to be resettled. 
  
“We are ordinary people,” Omar said. “Only persecuted and fled from war.” 

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