| Twitter removes 130 accounts disrupting public conversation during Trump-Biden debate Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:53 PM PDT |
| Nigeria turns 60: Can Africa's most populous nation remain united? Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:04 PM PDT  Nigeria's greatest challenge on its 60th anniversary remains its diversity, writes Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.
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| Trump Proud Boys remark echoes Charlottesville Posted: 30 Sep 2020 02:59 PM PDT  President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to walk back his refusal to outright condemn a far right fascist group during his debate with Democrat Joe Biden, but the inflammatory moment was far from the first time the president has failed to denounce white supremacists or has advanced racist ideas. Trump's initial refusal to criticize the Proud Boys — instead saying the group should "stand back and stand by" — drew fierce blowback before he altered his message in a day-later effort to quell the firestorm. The new flareup over Trump's messaging on race was playing out just weeks before the election, leaving the president to play defense on yet another issue when he's already facing criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and under new scrutiny over his taxes.
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| Trump set to miss required deadline for 2021 refugee quota Posted: 30 Sep 2020 02:33 PM PDT  President Donald Trump appears to be ignoring a deadline to establish how many refugees will be allowed into the United States next year, raising uncertainty about the future of the 40-year-old resettlement program that has been dwindling under his administration. With only hours to go Wednesday, the Trump administration had not scheduled consultations with Congress that are required before setting the annual figure. There was no immediate comment from the White House, which usually announces the target numbers, or the departments of State or Homeland Security, which are involved in making the determination.
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| 6 missiles intercepted targeting airport in northern Iraq Posted: 30 Sep 2020 02:26 PM PDT |
| Father, son from U.S. charged with joining Islamic State Posted: 30 Sep 2020 01:59 PM PDT |
| Venezuela receives gasoline from Iran amid surge in protests Posted: 30 Sep 2020 01:58 PM PDT  The second of three ships loaded with gasoline from Iran approached fuel-starved Venezuela on Wednesday amid simmering social unrest over a lack of goods and services that's sparked protests across the South American nation. More than 100 street demonstrations have flared up in remote towns over the last week. Despite each being relatively small, they have raised concern among Venezuelan authorities, who have responded forcefully, sending in soldiers and local police, activists and residents told The Associated Press.
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| Hospitals feel squeeze as coronavirus spikes in Midwest Posted: 30 Sep 2020 01:49 PM PDT  The coronavirus tightened its grip on the American heartland, with infections surging in the Midwest, some hospitals in Wisconsin and North Dakota running low on space and the NFL postponing a game over an outbreak that's hit the Tennessee Titans football team. Midwestern states are seeing some of the nation's highest per capita rates of infection, and while federal health officials again urged some governors in the region to require masks statewide, many Republicans have resisted. Like other states, health officials in Wisconsin had warned since the pandemic began that COVID-19 patients could overwhelm hospitals.
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| Getting warmer: Trump concedes human role in climate change Posted: 30 Sep 2020 01:33 PM PDT  President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged that humans bear some blame for climate change, but scientists say the president still isn't dealing with the reality of our primary role. Pressed repeatedly in Tuesday night's debate, Trump gave one of his fullest accountings yet of what scientists say is an escalating climate crisis threatening every aspect of life. Pushed by moderator Chris Wallace, and at one point by rival Joe Biden, Trump also pushed back on scientific findings that his environmental rollbacks would increase climate-damaging pollution.
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| Trump's Helsinki summit with Putin was 'soul crushing' for Mueller's team and showed them Russia had won a 'servile' American president, new book says Posted: 30 Sep 2020 01:31 PM PDT  After the summit, Mueller voiced a suspicion that if Trump was "in the tank with Putin," it was likely for financial reasons, Andrew Weissmann wrote.
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| Census takers: We're being told to finish early, cut corners Posted: 30 Sep 2020 01:01 PM PDT  As a federal judge considers whether the Trump administration violated her order for the 2020 census to continue through October by setting an Oct. 5 end date, her court has been flooded with messages from census takers who say they are being asked to cut corners and finish their work early. Josh Harkin, a census taker in northern California, said in an email Tuesday to the court that he had been instructed to finish up by Wednesday, even though his region in the Santa Rosa area still had 17,000 homes to count. Paul Costa, a census taker in California currently working in Las Vegas, said in an email to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday that census takers were being pressured to close cases quickly, "if not at all accurately."
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| After Xi's climate surprise, no biodiversity announcement Posted: 30 Sep 2020 12:50 PM PDT  Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday urged global cooperation to protect the Earth's biodiversity but stopped short of making a major environmental commitment at a UN summit notable for the absence of his US counterpart Donald Trump.
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| Editorial Roundup: US Posted: 30 Sep 2020 12:48 PM PDT |
| Trump-Biden Debate Prompts Shock, Despair and, in China, Glee Posted: 30 Sep 2020 12:04 PM PDT  BRUSSELS -- The unedifying spectacle of Tuesday night's presidential debate produced some shock, some sadness and some weariness among U.S. allies and rivals alike Wednesday.As President Donald Trump bellowed, blustered and shouted down both the moderator, Chris Wallace, and his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, and as Biden responded by calling Trump a "clown," many wondered if the chaos and tenor of the event said something more fundamental about the state of American democracy."Of course, the ultimate arbiter will be the American voter," said Ulrich Speck, an analyst with the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. "But there is a consensus in Europe that this is getting out of hand, and this debate is an indicator of the bad shape of the American democracy."There was always a sense among allies that in America, despite political disagreement, "there is one republic, and conflict will be solved by debate and compromise," and "that power was married to some kind of morality," Speck said.But that view is now being questioned, he said."The debate was really no debate at all, but two people pursuing their strategies," Speck said.Many, if not most, European analysts blamed Trump for the mess."The debate was a joke, a low point, a shame for the country," Markus Feldenkirchen of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel posted on Twitter. "Roaring, insults, two over-70s who interrupt each other like 5-year-olds -- and a moderator who loses all control. The trigger, of course: Trump's uncouth, undignified behavior."John Sawers, a former British diplomat and head of a risk analysis firm, said simply: "My own response is that it makes me despondent about America. The country we have looked to for leadership has descended into an ugly brawl."Jeremy Shapiro, a former U.S. diplomat who is now research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that foreigners would probably view the debate "as another sign of the degradation of American democracy," as some Americans do. The debate will not change foreign opinions of Trump or Biden, he said, but underneath the spectacle is something more troubling.Both allies and rivals "see Trump and the political culture that created him heralding the decline of American democracy and American culture," Shapiro said. That judgment, he added, is "only heightened by the coronavirus response, not just American absence in global leadership but the striking incompetence in dealing with it at home."The coarseness of the debate will resonate abroad, Shapiro said."Biden on that stage calling the president of the United States a clown and a liar is not something Biden would have done four years ago under any circumstances," he said. "That he felt he has to do it is a sign to outsiders that American culture is in a cycle of decline."Thomas Gomart, director of the French Institute of International Relations, said that the debate strengthened the impression "that the United States has retreated from the global stage and withdrawn into itself." Trump, he said, "has explicitly walked away from the position of a global leader, and Joe Biden may be implicitly doing so, too."Gomart said the debate showed the deep partisanship of today's America, even in the face of the pandemic."Those two men are from the same generation, from the same world," he said. "And yet they are the two faces of a deeply polarized society."That view was shared by Nicole Bacharan, a French-American historian and political analyst who lives in France. She said she was "dismayed," by what she saw in the debate, adding: "It sent a depressing image of the United States, of the American democracy and its role in the world."The events seem bound to heighten European anxieties, Bacharan said."European leaders must have woken up this morning thinking, 'The American leadership is over, and for a while, even if Biden is elected and tried to rebuild what Trump has destroyed,'" she said.The damage that has been done to trans-Atlantic relations, will at best take years to repair, she added."The truth is, the European leaders feel alone because they know that what Trump has dismantled cannot be rebuilt so quickly and so easily," she said. "As for the others, Putin, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, they must be telling themselves what we already knew: They can do everything, because the U.S. isn't a leader anymore."That was certainly the quick view in China, where official reaction was careful but that of the Global Times, a Communist Party propaganda sheet, was gleeful.Hu Xijin, the paper's editor, said that Trump and Biden "obviously did not show an exemplary role to American people on how to engage in debates." He added: "Such a chaos at the top of U.S. politics reflects division, anxiety of U.S. society and the accelerating loss of advantages of the U.S. political system."Foreign policy was barely mentioned in the debate, but China has been a regular target during the campaign on topics as varied as the coronavirus pandemic and trade. Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said Wednesday that the government "resolutely opposes" efforts to involve China in the U.S. election and that accusations leveled against Beijing during the debate were "groundless and untenable."Others weighed in on Chinese social media platforms, saying that the debate had left them puzzled and amused. One user said that Trump's frequent interruptions of Biden lent a "comedic feel" to what should have been a serious discussion, while another compared the debate to a quarrel at a vegetable market.In Singapore, which prides itself on technocratic governance and a careful form of democracy, Bilahari Kausikan, a former ambassador, dismissed the presidential debate as political theater."Debate? What debate?" he asked. "The event was not intended to change minds or elucidate issues. It was only a form of entertainment which did credit to neither the incumbent nor the challenger. It encapsulates all that has gone wrong with American politics."In Japan, a debate earlier this month among three candidates seeking the job of prime minister was a staid -- if not downright sleepy -- contrast to the fireworks of the Trump-Biden face-off.The Japanese are sophisticated viewers of U.S. politics, and Trump is a known quantity, but the tone of this debate still came as something of a shock. Many were taken aback when Biden told Trump at one point to "shut up, man," said Ichiro Fujisaki, a former Japanese ambassador to the United States. "If the president says that, everyone takes it as natural," he added, "but for a decent man like Biden to say that is a bit of a surprise."Trump has fans in Japan. A tweet about the debate proclaiming that it "looks like Trump will get reelected, almost certainly" was liked about 9,000 times and retweeted 1,000 times. Another social media post questioned NHK, the public broadcaster, for cutting out "the bad scenes of Biden" and said the editors "intentionally mistranslated Trump's remarks."Yujin Yaguchi, a professor of American Studies at the University of Tokyo, said that English-language students in Japan often watched presidential debates to study speech technique."What we saw today is just not usable," Yaguchi said politely. "Most people in Japan would be dismayed by the mudslinging style of the debate."Fujisaki said that the reaction of Japanese people would have to wait for the results. Invoking a diplomatic joke, he compared the election to a Christmas gift."You don't say anything until Christmas Day, and when you open the box you cry out, 'This is just what I wanted!'" he said. "If Mr. Trump is reelected, we say, 'We are looking forward to working with you for four more years,' and if it's Mr. Biden we say, 'Oh, we were waiting for you.'"This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Voting lawsuits pile up across US as election approaches Posted: 30 Sep 2020 12:03 PM PDT  They've been fighting in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania over the cutoff date for counting mailed ballots, and in North Carolina over witness requirements. Ohio is grappling with drop boxes for ballots as Texas faces a court challenge over extra days of early voting. Measuring the anxiety over the November election is as simple as tallying the hundreds of voting-related lawsuits filed across the country in recent months.
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| Sadly, it’s not a joke: Cuba, China, Russia about to join U.N. Human Rights Council | Opinion Posted: 30 Sep 2020 12:01 PM PDT  It sounds totally insane, but the ongoing session of the United Nations General Assembly is about to elect Cuba, Russia and China to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.N.'s top human-rights body.
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| US defense chief visits North Africa, World War II cemetery Posted: 30 Sep 2020 10:45 AM PDT  U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper met with Tunisia's president Wednesday, kicking off a North African tour amid growing concern about lawlessness in Libya. Esper is expected to travel to Algeria on Thursday and Morocco on Friday, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Tunis. It is his first trip to Africa as defense secretary.
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| Asylum seekers who enter the UK via Europe will have claims rejected Posted: 30 Sep 2020 10:35 AM PDT  Asylum seekers who enter the UK from Europe face being rejected after Brexit under a shake-up planned by Priti Patel. The Home Secretary is proposing legal changes that would mean asylum claims by migrants who come through the EU and enter the UK illegally will be deemed "inadmissible" once the UK finally leaves the EU at the end of this year. The move follows the surge in migrants crossing the Channel on small boats and concern that the immigration and asylum system is "not fit for purpose" with lawful attempts to return applicants to other EU nations "frustrated by repeated legal claims" on human rights or other grounds. The new legal post-Brexit framework would replace the Dublin agreement under which the EU country through which an asylum-seeker first enters the EU is judged responsible for examining their claim. "If you come through the EU, an asylum claim would be inadmissible because you should have claimed it in the first country you entered," said a source. Extending similar rules to migrants who have illegally entered the UK from non EU countries is also understood to be "on the table," although final decisions on the proposed shake-up have not been taken.
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| Man charged in shooting of 2 Los Angeles County deputies Posted: 30 Sep 2020 10:20 AM PDT  Prosecutors charged a 36-year-old man Wednesday with a brazen ambush of two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies earlier this month, an apparently unprovoked shooting as they sat in a squad car outside a rail station. The deputies suffered head wounds in the Sept. 12 attack and have since been released from the hospital. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said their recoveries will be a long process and include further reconstructive surgeries.
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| The Latest: Commission to make changes in wake of 1st debate Posted: 30 Sep 2020 10:07 AM PDT  The Commission on Presidential Debates says it's adding new "tools to maintain order" to the upcoming debates after a chaotic first debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump's frequent interruptions of the Democratic presidential nominee defined Tuesday night's debate, with Biden frequently unable to complete a sentence. Moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News pleaded with Trump several times to allow Biden to speak uninterrupted, to no avail.
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| Woke Activists Won’t Fix Latin America’s Broken Politics Posted: 30 Sep 2020 09:59 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- When wildfire ripped through Bolivia's Chiquitania region last year, razing a swath of forest the size of Belgium, the official response was tepid. Then-President Evo Morales had encouraged the blazes with a decree making it easier for farmers — a key constituency for any leader seeking reelection — to clear their land with fire. Nor was there much fuss from abroad, where all the handwringing was over the burning Brazilian Amazon. So Jhanisse Vaca Daza and her band of fellow human rights activists got creative. Waiting for nightfall, they beamed images of the blaze on the side of the environment ministry building in La Paz, converting the conflagration into a national spectacle. The guerilla theater provoked public outrage and ultimately shamed Bolivia's new government into rescinding the incendiary executive decree — a rare win for civil society inured to slash-and-burn partisan politics and government by fiat. Latin Americans should take note. In a hemisphere prey to populists and institutional capture, democracy and the rule of law too often seem like damaged goods. While the region boasts the highest level of voter participation in the world, corruption is rife and income inequality is second to none. In a recent survey, Latinobarometro found that support for democracy had sunk to a dismal 48%, while those professing indifference to authoritarianism had more than doubled to 28% since 2009. "Never in the last four decades has the future of democracy been as threatened as it is today," the Brookings Institution's Daniel Zovatto concluded.The funk filled the streets with demonstrators and mutineers last year. Coronavirus dampened the protests, but only compounded the frustrations. As growth plunged, the burden fell disproportionately on the poor, especially those who work hand to mouth in what Manuel Orozco, an economist at Creative Associates International, called the world's largest informal economy. And since felony loves misery, Latin America's violent crime epidemic — with 8% of the world's population but 37% of its homicides — is unlikely to abate. So aspiring young adults could be forgiven for seeing organized politics as Latin America's preexisting condition. It's far more energizing to hit the streets in a Guy Fawkes mask than to stump for votes in parties run by fossils in suits. "If you are a young idealist in Latin America, you don't join a political party but a movement. Parties are seen as the homes of opportunists and crooks. That's bad, because this way parties remain what they are today," says Moises Naim, a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. Bolivian politics is dominated by caciques — party bosses —who leverage divisions of class, race and culture for electoral advantage. That toxic combination helped to poison last year's election, which ended in cries of vote rigging, insurrection and an ostensible coup d'etat. Morales, a leftwing populist turned authoritarian, was replaced by populist rightwinger Jeanine Anez, who turned her seat as caretaker into a throne. While neither will be on the ballot (Morales is in exile and Anez was pressured to drop her candidacy), next month's thrice-delayed election threatens to deliver more of the same. "There's still a big risk the elections could be unsuccessful, with no smooth path to transition," said Rodrigo Riaza, of the Economist Intelligence Unit. Hence, Riaza added, the next government could face not only an economy ravaged by Covid-19 and worsening fiscal and current account deficits, but a crisis of governability.Daza, aged 27, knows the drill. As a rising voice of dissent, she was a catch for struggling party elders searching for viable candidates. Daza demurred, turned off by Bolivia's corrosive politics. Nor was she convinced by the Andean nation's tired trope of dissent, with marches, roadblocks, takeovers of public buildings and strikes accounting for some 90% of all public protests."We realized these protests were repetitive and easy for authorities to ignore," Daza told me. She founded Standing Rivers, a civic group, to reboot activism, through non-violence and civil disobedience. Daza's inspiration came from the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Greta Thunberg, North Korea's Park Yeonmi and native daughter and feminist Domitila Chungara. "Political parties have a very vertical structure and a militant mindset," she said. "Movements are more agile, can grow quickly and have shared leadership, making us less predictable."Whether movements are better at effecting change is an open question. What the region needs is not only rage but renovation. Renan Ferreirinha made the leap. As a kid in Sao Goncalo, a mostly poor, crime-ridden city across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, he knew a lot about life at the losing end of Brazil's lopsided democracy. He landed a scholarship to Harvard, studied politics under democracy scholar Steven Levitsky, and came back intent on rebelling from within, winning a seat in the Rio state legislature in 2018. Why slog into politics when his peers were marching? "The only way to change Brazil is through education, and the only way to strengthen education is through political decisions."Rio was a critical case, where bottom-feeding politicians had done their worst. Four of the preceding five state governors have been jailed or implicated in crimes. A sixth, Wilson Witzel, is on the edge of impeachment for his alleged ties to a scheme to pillage the public health system amid the coronavirus pandemic. A 26-year-old freshman lawmaker, Ferreirinha helped make the case. His report flagged seven projected field hospitals approved on Witzel's watch in varying states of disrepair, with only around 200 of the 1,300 beds promised for treating Covid-19 patients in operation. On September 23, the state assembly voted 69 to 0 to send Witzel to an impeachment tribunal. Ferreirinha called it a victory for politics."When I first saw the Brazilian congress, my friends called it a zoo. I thought it was fascinating. It's the place where decisions are made about spending billions that change lives," he told me. "Young people have energy and idealism, but we need to channel it. We can't fix democracy if we don't strengthen institutions and become part of the process."It's no mystery what ails the Latin America. "Why does the region lag in global competitiveness? Why do we lead the world in violent crime, inequality and the informal economy?" said Naim. "We know the list. The way forward is through reform, and that is a political process."For the young and frustrated, that may seem like the low road to a better world. Yet Latin Americans need to be both woke and effective, and that means finding the way from the barricades to the ballot box.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of "The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| ‘Putin’s Piglet’: Russian Media Admits Trump Lost the Debate Posted: 30 Sep 2020 09:52 AM PDT  The first debate between the U.S. President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was devoured with eager anticipation all over the world. But top Kremlin propagandists and state media experts came away disappointed, reluctantly acknowledging that Biden managed to wipe the floor with his loudmouth opponent.Russian state media TV show 60 Minutes played a compilation of what they seemingly considered to be Trump's greatest hits of the night, consisting of the incumbent's tasteless insults of his opponent. The hosts and some of the experts heartily laughed along in an attempt to support Trump's cringeworthy performance, resembling a squad of miscreants gathered at Dr. Evil's lair. Their exaggerated cackling came off as forced and unnatural, falling short of the desired effect.In spite of their best efforts, Moscow's mouthpieces had to concede that the debate was nowhere near the finest hour for their preferred candidate. The host of Russia's 60 Minutes Evgeny Popov conceded, "All the while we've been thinking that Biden is feeble, but it turns out he isn't. He was able to handle the debate well and acted in an absolutely normal way."Russian Media Is Rooting for Civil War in America: 'The Worse, the Better'After months of promoting the conspiracy that the former vice president suffers from dementia, the Kremlin's bullhorns half-heartedly repeated Trump's wild claim that Biden's superior performance was drug-induced. In a gimmicky smear, 60 Minutes claimed to have discovered Biden's secret supply of intravenous drugs, seizing on a moment when the former VP was simply adjusting his shirt. "They found a catheter, it's absolutely true!" Popov exclaimed, but the far-fetched allegation fell flat even among his show's panelists.Dmitry Abzalov, Director of the Center for Strategic Communications, noted, "Importantly, this was Trump's chance to show that Biden is weak. Trump needed the debate more than Biden, he wanted to show that he [Biden] couldn't handle the 90-minute format without a break requested by Biden's representatives. Trump wanted to obliterate Biden, but so far failed to do so."Alexei Naumov from the Russian International Affairs Council concurred: "Trump was supposed to destroy Biden. Biden simply had to withstand his force without breaking and managed to do so. That's why Biden won the debate. There was no need to continually portray Biden as a demented oldster." Naumov disagreed with Biden's description of Trump as "Putin's puppy," suggesting that the better term would have been "Putin's piglet."To cheer up Russian viewers, Popov pointed out that not all is lost for Trump's fans in Russia and beyond: "In 2016, Hillary also allegedly outperformed Trump… but still didn't end up in the Oval Office." In the run-up to the debate, Russian state media attempted to undercut its importance. Hosting his weekly show Vesti Nedeli, top Kremlin propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov claimed that Trump no longer needs to win the majority of votes in order to get re-elected, because he is rigging the Supreme Court to decide the outcome of the presidential election in his favor.Kiselyov smugly theorized, "Trump is in a hurry, because in case of a disputed outcome, the question of who will become president will be decided by the Supreme Court. The new appointment will provide Trump with a clear majority in the Supreme Court. This is a huge scandal. But the funniest thing is that no one expects the justices of the Supreme Court to act in a just manner. A priori, it is clear to everyone that the judges will vote in accordance with their party affiliation."This perspective fully encompassed the Kremlin's goal of presenting the U.S. elections as a meaningless, undemocratic process. Moscow's top propagandist surmised, "This situation devalues the very vote of hundreds of millions of Americans, because the outcome will be decided not by them, but by the nine justices, among whom the Republicans have the advantage. That is, Trump does not necessarily need a majority to win; he only needs to create a conflict, a controversial situation, which will be resolved by the Supreme Court. The structure that has emerged can hardly be called democratic even now. Yes, it seems to be correct from the point of view of procedures and formalities, but nevertheless, the opinion of the people means absolutely nothing."Pro-Kremlin propagandists reveled in Trump's attempts to portray the U.S. elections as fraudulent and mail voting as inevitably rigged. Reporting for Vesti Nedeli, Russian correspondent Denis Davydov eagerly repeated President Trump's baseless claims that the ballots sent by mail are disappearing. Davydov added, "The FBI and Pennsylvania State Police are investigating fraud with mail-in ballots and guess for whom most of them were? For Donald Trump."By continually chipping away at the faith in American elections—from the mail-in ballots to his rushed Supreme Court nomination—Trump has handed none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin a decisive victory in his decades-long fight to accomplish the same goal.Through his failure to condemn the white supremacists or the growing violence, Trump also deepened the darkness of unrest and turmoil descending upon the United States. The growing threat of civil war in the United States is a highly coveted prize for the Kremlin and Putin's propagandists are already rubbing their hands together with joyous anticipation. Appearing on the state TV show The Evening with Vladimir Soloviev, panelist Karen Shakhnazarov asserted that Americans no longer believe in the fairness of their own elections and civil war is inevitable. He concluded, "America as we knew it is over. Most importantly, the American dream is dead."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Pelosi and Mnuchin have 'extensive' talks on COVID relief Posted: 30 Sep 2020 09:50 AM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held an "extensive conversation" Wednesday on a huge COVID-19 rescue package, meeting face to face for the first time in more than a month in a last-ditch effort to seal a tentative accord on an additional round of coronavirus relief. After a 90-minute meeting in the Capitol, Pelosi issued a statement saying the two would continue to talk. At the very least, the positive tone set by Pelosi and Mnuchin represented an improvement over earlier statements.
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| US slaps new sanctions on Syrian entities and individuals Posted: 30 Sep 2020 09:28 AM PDT  The Trump Administration imposed sanctions Wednesday on entities and individuals in Syria as part of Washington's pressure campaign against President Bashar Assad and his inner circle. The sanctions came a day after intense clashes in southern Syria broke out between Russia-backed Syrian troops and local fighters who belong to the minority Druze sect, killing and wounding dozens. The sanctions were not related to the fighting in southern Syria.
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| Vatican official accuses Trump administration of exploiting pope Posted: 30 Sep 2020 08:49 AM PDT  Pope Francis reportedly declined to meet Mike Pompeo during his visit this week, citing closeness of US presidential electionA top Vatican official has accused Donald Trump's administration of exploiting Pope Francis in the final stages of the US presidential election campaign.The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, spoke at a conference on religious freedom on Wednesday organised by the US embassy to the Holy See during his visit to Italy.When the Italian news agency Ansa asked Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican's secretary for relations with states, if the US unilaterally organising the event amounted to exploitation of the pope in the run-up to the elections, he replied: "Yes, that is precisely why the pope will not meet American secretary of state Mike Pompeo."Pope Francis reportedly declined to meet Pompeo during his visit this week, citing the closeness of the US election. But the move was also likely to be linked to Pompeo's recent attacks on the Vatican's perceived soft-pedalling on China's human rights record as the two sides prepare to extend a historic agreement signed two years ago.The details of the deal have never been made public, but it gave the Vatican a say in the appointment of Catholic bishops in China. Pope Francis also recognised eight bishops that had been appointed by Beijing without his approval.China was also a theme during Pompeo's meeting with the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, in Rome on Wednesday. Pompeo said he asked Conte to "consider network security carefully".During a press conference with Italy's foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, Pompeo said he was concerned about China's plans to extend its influence on Italy's economy."The foreign minister and I had a long conversation about the United States' concerns at the Chinese Communist party trying to leverage its economic presence in Italy to serve its own strategic purposes," Pompeo said, adding that "the Chinese are not here for sincere partnerships with reciprocal benefits".He also urged the Italian government to consider the risks to the privacy of its citizens presented by technology companies with links to the Chinese Communist party.In March 2019, Italy became the first G7 country to endorse a contentious plan by China to build a Silk Road-style global trade network, irking its EU and US allies.The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, was given a state visit, during which the two countries signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) that could lead to Italy's participation in China's Belt and Road initiative (BRI), an ambitious project that envisages Chinese investment in a network of infrastructure projects connecting Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. A host of other commercial deals in a variety of areas, including tourism, food and football, were also signed.
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| Biden, Trump snipe from road and rails after debate chaos Posted: 30 Sep 2020 08:16 AM PDT  President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden kept up their debate-stage sniping from the road and the rails on Wednesday, fighting for working-class voters in the Midwest while both parties — and the debate commission, too — sought to deal with the most chaotic presidential faceoff in memory. The debate raised fresh questions about Trump's continued reluctance to condemn white supremacy, his questioning the legitimacy of the election and his unwillingness to respect debate ground rules his campaign had agreed to. Biden's campaign confirmed he would participate in the subsequent meetings, as did Trump's. But the Commission on Presidential Debates promised "additional structure ... to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues."
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| An apology ricochets in the Koreas Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:48 AM PDT |
| Portland mayor spars with US on deputized police officers Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:29 AM PDT  The top U.S. prosecutor in Oregon on Wednesday rejected a request from Portland's mayor to end the federal deputation of dozens of police officers as part of the response to ongoing protests, saying it was the only way to end "lawlessness." In a joint statement, U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy J. Williams and Russ Berger, the U.S. Marshal in the state, swatted down Mayor Ted Wheeler's request and called him out for a "lack of leadership" that they said has allowed acts of violence to overshadow more than four months of nearly nightly protests since the death of George Floyd.
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| Vision 2020: How does early voting work in the US election? Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:15 AM PDT  All states allow some form of early voting, be it by casting votes in person at polling places, voting by mail, or both. Just as there are 50 different timelines for early voting, there are 50 different ones for how the votes are counted.
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| Félicien Kabuga: French court backs extradition of Rwanda genocide suspect Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:12 AM PDT  Félicien Kabuga was arrested in Paris in May after 26 years on the run - police say he used 28 aliases.
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| As Brazil's wetlands burned, government did little to help Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:12 AM PDT  After hours navigating Brazil's Pantanal wetlands in search of jaguars earlier this month, Daniel Moura beached his boat to survey the fire damage. "We used to see jaguars here all the time; I once saw 16 jaguars in a single day," Moura, a guide who owns an eco-tourism outfit, said on the riverbank in the Encontro das Aguas state park, which this year saw 84% of its vegetation destroyed. The world's largest tropical wetlands, the Pantanal is popular for viewing the furtive felines, along with caiman, capybara and more.
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| Trump is urged to intervene in trial of US-Saudi national Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:03 AM PDT  The trial of a U.S. citizen who is also a Saudi national began Wednesday in Saudi Arabia in a counter-terrorism court that has been used to imprison rights activists in a case that could spark further tensions in already uneasy U.S.-Saudi relations. The case of Salah al-Haidar, who has been detained since April 2019 in Saudi Arabia, has caught the attention of members of Congress who are urging President Donald Trump to personally seek his immediate and unconditional release. Al-Haidar, who has a family home in Vienna, Virginia, is facing between eight and 33 years in prison for alleged Twitter posts criticizing the Saudi government, according to people with knowledge of his case, including a U.S. official familiar with the case who insisted on anonymity to discuss it with The Associated Press.
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| UK strikes fishing deal with Norway and offers fisheries 'transition period' to EU Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:01 AM PDT  Britain offered Brussels a three-year transition period on fishing during trade negotiations with the EU, it emerged on Wednesday as the Government hailed a historic fisheries treaty with Norway. UK negotiators submitted plans to gradually scale down EU fishermen's share of the catch in British waters from 2021 to 2024 in a bid to soothe fears over the impact of Brexit on European coastal communities. In London, it was announced the UK had signed its first fishing agreement since leaving the EU, and its first as an independent coastal state in 40 years. The Framework Fisheries Agreement with Norway provides a legal basis for annual negotiations on access to waters and quotas after the Brexit transition period ends on December 31. In a tweet David Frost, the UK's chief Brexit negotiator said he was "delighted".
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| Breonna Taylor grand jury recordings to be released Friday Posted: 30 Sep 2020 06:51 AM PDT  A Kentucky judge has delayed until Friday the release of secret grand jury proceedings in Breonna Taylor's killing by police, so that prosecutors can edit out witnesses' names and personal information. Audio recordings of the proceedings were originally supposed to be made public Wednesday, but Attorney General Daniel Cameron's office asked a Louisville court for a week's delay to remove details such as witnesses' addresses and phone numbers. On Wednesday, Judge Ann Bailey Smith granted a shorter delay, giving the attorney general until noon on Friday.
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| GAVI urges more countries to join COVAX, "enormous consolidated market" Posted: 30 Sep 2020 06:38 AM PDT |
| Iraq hopes US reconsiders embassy closure, warns of danger Posted: 30 Sep 2020 06:08 AM PDT |
| UN atomic watchdog inspects disputed Iranian nuclear site Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:51 AM PDT |
| Apache Corporation Releases 2020 Sustainability Report Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:50 AM PDT |
| GOP lawmakers grill Comey on leadership of Russia probe Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:48 AM PDT  Republican lawmakers on Wednesday confronted former FBI Director James Comey about his oversight of the Trump-Russia investigation during a politically charged hearing that focused attention on problems with the probe that have become a rallying cry for President Donald Trump's supporters. Comey, making his first appearance before Congress since a harshly critical inspector general report on the investigation, acknowledged under questioning that the FBI's process for conducting surveillance on a former Trump campaign adviser was "sloppy" and "embarrassing."
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| Spain rebuffs Turkey's 'unilateral' gas search, backs Cyprus Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:47 AM PDT  Spain's foreign minister on Wednesday said her country rejects Turkey's unilateral search for energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean, adding that such actions hinder a negotiated way out of a territorial dispute that has ratcheted up regional tensions. Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya expressed support for fellow European Union member Cyprus as Turkey continues to prospect for gas in waters where the Mediterranean island nation claims exclusive economic rights.
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| U.N. chief: time to fund global COVID-19 vaccine effort with money from national plans Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:39 AM PDT |
| Village cleaner sends Kremlin candidate packing in provincial vote Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:38 AM PDT  A week ago, Marina Udgodskaya used to clean the office of the leading village official. On Wednesday, he was packing up for the cleaner to take his place. Ms Udgodskaya, who cleans at the administration building in the village of Povalikhino, about 380 kilometres east of Moscow, was running as a spoiler candidate against incumbent Nikolai Loktev, a Kremlin party candidate, at last week's elections for the district encompassing about two dozen sparsely populated villages in the Kostroma region. With 84 out of 130 votes cast in the district of just 400 people, the 35-year-old cleaner won the race and literally sent Mr Loktev packing. "I needed an opponent, and she was the only one who agreed to run," Mr Loktev told the Telegraph by phone when asked why his cleaner was in the competition in the first place. The outgoing village chief, who was packing up his office when reached by the Telegraph on Wednesday afternoon, described her as "an energetic young woman" who will "manage." "People simply wanted something new," Mr Loktev said, explaining his defeat. Ella Pamfilova, the Russian election chief, in an interview on the Govorit Moskva radio station insisted that Ms Udgodskaya won in a fair race and that "there was no fraud." The cleaner, who is due to start her new job on Thursday, avoids journalists but in her only interview with Russian journalists she admitted to being shell-shocked by her win and initially wanting to relinquish her new role. "First, I wanted to give it all up but then all residents supported me," the young woman with her hair in a ponytail told Komsomolskaya Pravda in a video interview filmed on a dirt path in Povalikhino. Ms Udgodskaya is raising two children while her husband is away most of the year working on construction sites around Moscow. Asked about her immediate plans for the office, the mother of two said: "First, we need to deal with the pond for children to swim in." She also said she wants to upgrade playgrounds and improve street lighting. Ms Udgodskaya insisted that her lack of qualification is not an impediment and said she is proud of the work she did before: "It's a normal job. There was no other work. I had to make money somehow." Mr Loktev has promised to help the cleaner with the new job. Ms Udgodskaya's win reflects a growing frustration among voters across Russia with candidates from Vladimir Putin's United Russia party who are increasingly perceived as corrupt and inefficient. Just a few weeks earlier, several regional legislatures got a major overhaul as candidates endorsed by opposition leader Alexei Navalny won a sizable number of seats. Kremlin-connected political analyst Sergei Markov has described the cleaner's surprise win as a kind of payback from residents of Russia's heartland for the federal government largely abandoning those areas which have suffered from a chronic brain drain and under-funding for decades. "Those regions have grown depopulated, impoverished and neglected to the point that there are no people, no roads and no work left," Mr Markov said in a Facebook post. "And no one even wants to run them. You can't have a black hole in the middle of the country."
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| Timothy Ray Brown, 1st person cured of HIV, dies of cancer Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:30 AM PDT  Timothy Ray Brown, who made history as "the Berlin patient," the first person known to be cured of HIV infection, has died. Brown died Tuesday at his home in Palm Springs, California, according to a social media post by his partner, Tim Hoeffgen. The cause was a return of the cancer that originally prompted the unusual bone marrow and stem cell transplants Brown received in 2007 and 2008, which for years seemed to have eliminated both his leukemia and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
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| Study: Neanderthal genes may be liability for COVID patients Posted: 30 Sep 2020 05:04 AM PDT  Scientists say genes that some people have inherited from their Neanderthal ancestors may increase their likelihood of suffering severe forms of COVID-19. A study by European scientists published Wednesday by the journal Nature examined a cluster of genes that have been linked to a higher risk of hospitalization and respiratory failure in patients who are infected with the new coronavirus. Researchers Hugo Zeberg and Svante Paabo determined that the genes belong to a group, or haplotype, which likely came from Neanderthals.
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| European report finds waning of democracy in Poland, Hungary Posted: 30 Sep 2020 04:36 AM PDT  Democratic standards are facing "important challenges" in some European Union countries, particularly in Hungary and Poland, where the judicial systems are under threat, the EU's executive commission said Wednesday in its first report on adherence to the rule of law. The European Commission depicted a bleak situation in the two countries. Its wide-ranging audit found that prosecution of high-level corruption in Hungary "remains very limited," and deemed Poland deficient in the four main areas reviewed: national justice systems, anti-corruption frameworks, media freedom and checks and balances.
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| France's Macron condemns Turkey for backing Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh Posted: 30 Sep 2020 04:29 AM PDT  The French president accused Turkey of unacceptable "warlike" rhetoric encouraging Azerbaijan to reconquer Nagorno-Karabakh, as fighting with ethnic Armenian forces in the breakaway territory entered its fourth day on Wednesday. France "remains extremely concerned about the warlike messages from Turkey in the past few hours, which amount to giving Azerbaijan the go-ahead for what would be a reconquest of Nagorno-Karabakh," Emmanuel Macron told a news conference in Latvia. However, he said he had no proof of any direct Turkish involvement. "At this stage, we have no evidence that would allow us to talk about a regionalisation of the conflict," he said. But he described Turkey's statements in favour of Azerbaijan as "inconsiderate and dangerous." Mr Macron said he would discuss the issue in telephone calls with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, on Wednesday evening and with Donald Trump on Thursday. France, Russia and the United States co-chair the Minsk Group of 13 countries, which aims to broker a peaceful negotiated solution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
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| Worldwide Lice Treatment Industry to 2025 - North America Dominates the Market Posted: 30 Sep 2020 04:29 AM PDT |
| UK's Johnson says internal market bill protects jobs, growth and trade Posted: 30 Sep 2020 04:24 AM PDT |
| Political dispute deepens over anti-outbreak plan for Madrid Posted: 30 Sep 2020 04:23 AM PDT  The government of Madrid, the region in Europe where a second coronavirus wave is expanding at the fastest rate, rejected a Spanish government plan Wednesday that imposes stricter mobility curbs and limits on social gatherings in the capital and its suburbs, deepening a domestic confrontation over the response to the pandemic. Madrid's refusal to adopt national standards approved by 13 of Spain's 19 regions and autonomous cities represented a new setback for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's left-wing coalition, which is trying to push for a stricter response in the opposition-ruled Spanish capital. The deadlock also exposed some of the pitfalls of the country's highly decentralized political system, irritating many Spaniards and undermining their trust in politicians' handling of a worrying surge in virus cases more than six months after the pandemic first overwhelmed Spain.
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