In international diplomacy, sports can sometimes act to bridge bitter divides between longstanding rivals. A similar unifying force could be at work, at least temporarily, in America’s politically polarized capital city. VOA’s Brian Padden reports, Democrats and Republicans are coming together to support the Washington Nationals baseball team playing in Major League Baseball’s World Series.

…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence criticized American companies for selling out U.S. values to protect their access to China’s profitable markets.  In a speech on trade Thursday, Pence singled out Nike and the National Basketball Association (NBA) for ignoring the abuses of the Chinese Communist Party. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

…

From making so-called side deals with Ukraine to pulling U.S. forces from northeastern Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump has gone his own way when it comes to conducting U.S. foreign policy. But the Syria decision has sparked widespread opposition in Washington and in the case of Ukraine, critics say Trump sidestepped career U.S. diplomats to further his own interests against a potential election rival.  VOA’s Jesusemen Oni reports on how the president’s foreign policy decisions are stirring controversy in Washington.

…

The International Red Cross has warned of an imminent “humanitarian catastrophe” at an overcrowded makeshift migrant camp on Bosnia’s border with Croatia and asked for urgent relocation of its occupants to a safer area.

In a statement Thursday, it said the Vucjak camp, which has been named “The Jungle” by migrants living there, has no running water, no electricity, no usable toilets, and has leaking overcrowded tents. Currently there are 700 people living there.

The Red Cross said that there are people in the camp with untreated broken limbs and 70% of the population has scabies. The camp only has 80 tents and just five volunteers from Bosnia’s Red Cross Society, it added.

Local Bosnian authorities last week cut the camp’s water supplies to pressure the Bosnian government to relocate the migrants.

Since the start of the year, about 23,000 migrants have arrived in Bosnia and thousands are stuck on its northwestern border with European Union member Croatia which they try to enter illegally on their way to more prosperous EU states further north and west.

Existing migrant reception centers in Bosnia are full and thousands are sleeping on the streets or squatting in empty houses, the Red Cross said.

…

The European Parliament on Thursday awarded the Sakharov Prize for human rights to Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment in China for “separatism”.

The outspoken former professor of economics at a Beijing university was sentenced in 2014 by Chinese courts in a trial that provoked an outcry from foreign governments and human rights organisations.

VOA Q&A With Uighur Scholar Ilham Tohti

VOA interviewed ethnic Uighur scholar and economist Ilham Tohti on Oct. 30, 2013, Tohti’s trial on separatism charges began this week in China

European Parliament head David Sassoli urged China to immediately release Ilham Tohti as he announced the award, which was certain to sow diplomatic tensions with Beijing.

“Despite being a voice of moderation and reconciliation, he was sentenced to life in prison following a show trial in 2014,” Sassoli told a plenary session of parliament.

“By awarding this prize, we strongly urge the Chinese government to release Tohti and we call for the respect of minority rights in China”, added the top MEP from Italy.

22 UN Ambassadors Condemn Chinese Treatment of Uighurs

Concerns were expressed in letter to UN Human Rights Council 

Tohti, who turns 50 on Friday, in September won another of Europe’s top human rights awards, the Vaclav Havel prize, for “giving the entire Uighur people a voice”.

He “has worked for over 20 years on the situation of the Uighur minority and on fostering inter-ethnic dialogue and understanding in China,” the Council of Europe, Europe’s leading rights body, said after nominating Tohti for the Vaclav Havel prize.

Before his arrest in January 2014, Tohti founded and ran the UighurOnline website, which wrote in Uighur and Chinese about social issues.

He gained prominence as a moderate voice drawing attention to ethnic tensions in the region.

Rights groups and experts say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up in internment camps in Xinjiang.

Uighur Woman Recalls Journey from Chinese Camp to US

Authorities in the northwestern region have also rolled out an extensive surveillance system combining methods including high-tech facial recognition cameras, wifi sniffers and home visits, according to Human Rights Watch.

Tohti’s website was shut down when he was arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based watchdog.

Tohti had previously been detained in 2009 amid ethnic violence in Xinjiang, after he wrote about Uighurs detained and killed during the unrest, according to Amnesty International.

Pompeo Calls on China to Stop ‘Abhorrent’ Practice of Interning Uighur Muslims

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is describing as “tragic” and “abhorrent” China’s mass detention of Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups in internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang.“We’ve been very vocal about that publicly, and had long conversations with them privately, as well,” Pompeo said in response to a question Tuesday from VOA. “The numbers are in the, certainly, hundreds of thousands.

China initially denied the existence of the camps, but now says they are “vocational training schools” necessary to combat terrorism.

‘Extreme terrorism’

An AFP investigation of over 1,500 government documents last year found that the camps were run more like jails than schools, with tasers and tear gas among the equipment supplied to the camps.

China had slammed the Council of Europe after it nominated Tohti in August for the Vaclav Havel prize, which was also awarded to a rights group from the Balkans.

US Denounces China’s Justification of Uighur Re-Education Camps

More than a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are forcibly incarcerated in so-called re-education centers in China’s Xinjiang province

China’s foreign ministry called Tohti a “separatist who supports extreme terrorism”.

He has also been nominated by US lawmakers for the Nobel Peace Prize, amid growing scrutiny of China’s treatment of the Uighurs.

The United States announced this month that it was blacklisting 28 Chinese entities connected to repressive policies in Xinjiang, and that it would curb visas for Chinese officials involved in the “detention or abuse” of Uighurs, Kazakhs or members of other minorities in the region.

Prominent Uighur Writer Dies at Chinese Internment Camp

Tohti, a well-known writer in Xinjiang’s Uighur community, was picked up by state authorities last year and taken to the controversial internment camps for ‘re-education’

…

U.S Defense Secretary Mark Esper says Turkey’s offensive against Kurds in northeastern Syria  was “unwarranted” and Ankara is “heading in the wrong direction” after its agreement with Russia to jointly patrol a “safe zone” in the region.

“Turkey put us in a very terrible situation,” Esper said at the German Marshall Fund ahead of a NATO meeting in Brussels.

Turkish forces swept into northern Syria last week following a U.S. decision to withdraw forces from the area.  The U.S. helped broker a ceasefire in the Turkish offensive.

‘Permanent’ ceasefire

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he has been assured by Turkey the ceasefire would become permanent, a development he said would allow the U.S. to lift recently imposed sanctions on Ankara.  He said the responsibility for peace in the region should be left to others.

“We have done them a great service,” Trump said of U.S. efforts to end fighting between Turkey, a NATO ally, and the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who have been a key partner in the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the Islamic State.

“This was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else,” he said. “Now we’re getting out. … Let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand.”

US Done Fighting Over ‘Long-Bloodstained Sand’ in Syria

President Trump claims ‘great outcome’ from US-engineered cease-fire, though Kurdish officials warn the fighting, deaths are far from over

Trump’s announcement came hours after he said Turkey assured the U.S. that the country’s military campaign in northeastern Syria, aimed at clearing the Turkish-Syrian border of Kurdish fighters, which Ankara regards as terrorists, was over.

While Trump on Wednesday hailed the U.S.-brokered cease-fire as a “great outcome,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a separate deal with Russia just a day earlier.

That deal, negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, calls for removing Kurdish forces from an even wider zone along the Syrian-Turkish border and for joint patrols with Turkish and Russian forces.

Video provided by VOA’s Kurdish service showed Russian military vehicles Wednesday entering the Syrian city of Kobani, which is located on the border with Turkey.

Reaction to Trump speech

The initial reaction from Syrian Kurdish officials was to President Trump’s comments Wednesday was muted.

In a statement posted on social media, SDF Commander General Mazloum Abdi thanked Trump “for his tireless efforts that stopped the brutal Turkish attack” and for the promise of continued U.S. support.

GEN.Mazloum:
2. We THANK President Trump for his tireless efforts that stopped the brutal Turkish attack and jihadist groups on our people.

— Mustafa Bali (@mustefabali) October 23, 2019

But Abdi also said he spent time explaining “the Turkish violations” during the initial five-day pause in fighting that ended Tuesday.

As the hours passed, other Kurdish officials expressed increasing displeasure.

“This cannot be called a cease-fire,” Ilhan Ahmed, the executive president of the SDF’s political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council, told U.S. lawmakers late Wednesday.

To date, officials with the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northeast Syria estimate 250 men, women and children have been killed since Turkey launched its incursion following the withdrawal October 6 of U.S. special forces from near the Turkish-Syrian border.

Another 300 have gone missing, and there have been allegations that dozens more have been injured as a result of the use of white phosphorus or chemical weapons – a charge Turkish officials vehemently deny.

National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report

…

Dangerously windy weather sweeping through the state brought power outages to Northern California as the state’s largest utility staged blackouts designed to prevent catastrophic wildfires.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. on Wednesday began rolling blackouts stretching from the Sierra foothills in the northeast to portions of the San Francisco Bay Area. A couple of counties kept their power until after midnight.

The blackouts impact a half-million people – or nearly 180,000 customers – in 15 counties, and PG&E warned that a second round of outages could occur over the weekend when winds return to the region.

In the south, where hot, dry Santa Ana winds were expected to hit Thursday, Southern California Edison warned that it might black out about 308,000 customers, perhaps 750,000 people, depending on the forecast.
 
San Diego Gas & Electric warned of power shutoffs to about 24,000 customers.

The utilities have said the precautionary blackouts are designed to keep winds that could gust to 60 mph (97 kph) or more from knocking branches into power lines or toppling them, sparking wildfires.

Electrical equipment was blamed for setting several fires in recent years that killed scores of people and burned thousands of homes.

“We understand the hardship caused by these shutoffs,” PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said Wednesday. “But we also understand the heartbreak and devastation caused by catastrophic wildfires.”

The latest outage comes two weeks after PG&E shut down the power for several days to about 2 million people in northern and central California.

The current outages will last about 48 hours, the utility said. But its seven-day forecast shows a likelihood of another planned blackout across a much larger area. The timing wasn’t clear but it could start as early as Saturday, when even heavier winds are expected to move through.

“This could be the strongest wind event of the season, unfortunately,” PG&E meteorologist Scott Strenfel said.

Strenfel called the current wind event a “California-wide phenomenon.” Conditions should begin easing in the northern part of the state around midday Thursday, when crews will begin inspecting lines to make sure they’re safe to re-energize.

That’s when Santa Ana winds were expected to begin whipping up in the south.
 
The small city of Calistoga, in the Napa Valley, known for its hot springs and wineries, was among those hit by Wednesday’s outage.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Michael Dunsford, owner of the 18-room Calistoga Inn, which has rented two powerful generators for the month at a cost of $5,000. Like many, he felt the outages need to be better managed, better targeted and less expansive.

“Right now, we have no wind. Zero. I don’t even see a single leaf blowing. Did they really have to cut the power right now?” he said, shortly after the lights went out Wednesday afternoon and he revved up the generators. “When the wind picks up to 40 mph maybe that’s a good time to close the power.”

“They’re not appreciating enough the impact this has on everybody,” he said about PG&E.

Some of the frustration was being taken out on PG&E employees, the company’s CEO said.

Johnson said Wednesday that a PG&E employee was the target of what appeared to be a deliberate attack in Glenn County. He said a projectile that may have come from a pellet gun hit the employee’s front window. The employee wasn’t hurt.

“There is no justification for this sort of violence,” Johnson said. “Wherever you see crews they are there to help you.”

Mandatory evacuations were prompted east of Geyserville after a wildfire sparked in northeastern Sonoma County along the Lake County line late Wednesday.

The Press Democrat reports that according to dispatch reports, the Kincade fire spread to about 1,000 acres by 11 p.m.

Cal Fire spokesman Will Powers said the blaze near the Geysers area was burning at a “dangerous rate.”
 
Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said PG&E was better this time about getting information to people who would be affected, but he was still astonished by the need to resort to largescale blackouts.

“I am a big believer in shutdowns to prevent fires. But the thing that erodes public trust is when it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You say, `God, I know if we can put a man on the moon … we can manage a (power) grid.”     

…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party and its ruling alliance were leading in elections in two Indian states, but the party has done worse than expected after most opinion polls predicted an outright win.

According to preliminary results Thursday, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and its regional ally were leading in the 288-seat assembly in the western state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital Mumbai.

The elections were held on Monday.

The party was expecting to cross the majority mark of 145 seats but results showed it will have to rely on its ally, Shiv Sena, to form the government for a second consecutive term.

The elections were characterized by large-scale defections with at least a dozen legislators of the opposition Congress and other parties switching sides to BJP and Shiv Sena.

Sharad Pawar, a key opposition leader in Maharashtra, saw the initial results as a vindication.
 
“People who left us have not been accepted. Defections have not worked in favor of those who left,” said Pawar, whose Nationalist Congress Party is set to better its 2014 poll performance.

In the northern state of Haryana, Modi’s party was faring well below expectations.

The BJP was ahead of the opposition Congress-led alliance but may fall well short of a majority with the regional Jannayak Janata Party emerging as a kingmaker.

The Congress, India’s oldest political party, has staged a comeback after facing a major defeat in national elections earlier this year and could end up doubling the number of seats in Haryana, the results showed.

The party has already sent feelers to the JJP to form a coalition government and keep its archival BJP at bay after Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a top Congress leader, appealed to other parties in Haryana to come together to form a strong government.

“I assure that each one will be respected and given a respectable position,” Hooda told reporters.

Opinion surveys had predicted a BJP romp in the elections as the opposition campaigns were lackluster due to infighting and desertions in the run-up to the vote.

The elections in the two states are the first since Modi was reelected in May and will be a test for his party, which is looking to tighten its grip on power across India.

…

Two small helicopters collided Wednesday over a ranch in South Texas, and two men were killed, authorities said. 

Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Nathan Brandley said the helicopters struck in midair near Hebbronville, a community about 160 miles (260 kilometers) south of San Antonio. 
 
Brandley said one helicopter was able to land but the other crashed after the collision, killing both people aboard. One was pronounced dead at the scene and the other was pronounced dead at a hospital. 
 
He said one of the two people in the other helicopter was injured. 
 
Brandley said he didn’t know the cause of the crash or the identities of those involved. 
 
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety board were investigating. The FAA said the helicopters were Robinson R22 aircraft.

…

A second U.S. resident has pleaded guilty this week to federal charges stemming from an elaborate visa fraud scheme to bring Armenians to the United States under the guise of being folk dance performers.

Armenian national and California resident Hrachya Atoyan, 32, took part in an illegal transnational network that told U.S. immigration authorities the supposed dancers were coming to America to perform and therefore qualified for “Culturally Unique Artist” visas, according to the Department of Justice.

Atoyan and others in the network are said to have charged Armenian nationals between $3,000 and $10,000 to come to the U.S. as part of a fake dance troupe.

Stella Boyadjian, a New York resident accused of leading the fraud ring, pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges in March, but has not been sentenced. A third defendant, Diana Grigoryan, also has been charged in the case.

Investigators said Boyadjian used the Big Apple Music Awards Foundation, a nonprofit organization she created, as a front for the scheme, according to a 2018 indictment.

Boyadjian and others had fake “dance certificates” made, arranged photo shoots “to make it appear as though they were traditional Armenian musicians, singers and performers,” and created flyers about fake concerts to justify a performance “tour” for the visa applicants, according to the indictment.

“Exploiting the P-3 nonimmigrant visa classification system for culturally unique artists and entertainers makes a mockery out of the legitimate performers for whom that visa was intended,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  

Cultural visas are intended to allow people to “temporarily travel to the United States to perform, teach or coach as artists or entertainers,” according to the DOJ.

Atoyan is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 20, 2020.

…

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sought to allay lawmakers’ concerns Wednesday about the planned launch of a global digital currency, House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters renewed her call to halt the launch and even suggested the company should be broken up.

During testimony before the committee, Zuckerberg acknowledged the planned 2020 rollout is a “risky project,” but said the cryptocurrency would provide a secure method for millions of Americans who don’t have bank accounts to make low-cost fund transfers.

“People pay far too high a cost, and have to wait too long, to send money home to their families abroad. The current system is failing them,”

said in his prepared remarks.

Top financial regulators and lawmakers from both parties have voiced concerns the cryptocurrency could be used for illicit activity such as money laundering and drug trafficking.   

Some regulators are also concerned the enormous reserve created with money used to purchase the digital currency could supplant the U.S. central banking system and weaken the global financial system.

Zuckerberg addressed those concerns with an assurance the cryptocurrency, known as Libra, would not be introduced anywhere in the world “unless all U.S. regulators approve it.”

Waters, however, demanded that Zuckerberg stop plans to launch Libra until the company addresses numerous issues confronting its effect on consumers and the U.S. political system.

Waters called Libra “a new Swiss-based financial system” that could require a tax bailout. She also suggested Facebook has become too large and powerful.

“You have opened up a serious discussion about whether Facebook should be broken up,” Waters said as she listed a series of problems confronting the company in her opening remarks.

Waters also said after she scrutinized the company’s problems, “I have come to the conclusion that it would be beneficial for all if Facebook concentrates on addressing its many existing deficiencies and failures before proceeding any further on the Libra project.”

While the hearing’s focus was on the digital currency, Facebook’s policies and conduct also attracted congressional attention.

Committee members cited issues such as the company’s ad platform that has enabled housing discrimination, the dearth of employees with little civil rights experience, the company’s facilitation of foreign election interference and its treatment of political ads.

The embattled CEO last testified before Congress in April 2018, when he faced 10 hours of questioning over two days in the House and Senate on political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of Facebook customer data to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Zuckerberg Appears in Congress as Facebook Faces Scrutiny

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is appearing before Congress to defend the tech giant’s global ambitions as scrutiny tightens over its massive market power, privacy lapses and tolerance of speech deemed false or hateful

The scandal hurt Facebook’s reputation in Washington and fueled lawmakers’ concerns the company cannot be trusted to launch the digital currency to its 2.4 billion users.

Facebook responded to the increased scrutiny in Washington by bolstering its lobbying operation. Public filings show Facebook is on track to spend $12.3 million to influence the federal government during the first nine months of this year, compared to $12.6 million for all of 2018.

Facebook and other technology giants are being investigated by the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee on allegations of abusing their market power to suppress competition.

…

A top U.S. Census Bureau official says the agency has pivoted away from verifying addresses and is now kicking off a campaign to recruit and hire as many as a half million temporary workers to help with the largest head count in U.S. history next spring.

Timothy Olson, the agency’s associate director for field operations, said Tuesday that 32,000 workers verified 50 million addresses over an almost two-month period that ended more than a week ago.

Olson called the address verification process a success.

The agency already has 900,000 people who have applied for 2020 Census jobs, but the bureau wants a potential pool of 2.7 million applicants to choose from.

The 2020 Census head count will be the first decennial census when respondents are encouraged to answer questions online.
 

…