Author: Ohart

Israel’s former military chief Benny Gantz is set to receive an official mandate to form the country’s next government but has few options after last month’s elections left him in a near tie with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu was given the first opportunity to form a government after assembling a large right-wing bloc but announced this week that he failed to build a 61-seat majority. Gantz faces similarly steep odds, raising the possibility that Israel will hold a third election in less than a year.

President Reuven Rivlin is to formally grant the mandate later Wednesday to Gantz, who will have 28 days to form a coalition. It will mark the first time in over a decade that anyone besides Netanyahu has been given the task.

Still, Gantz faces steep odds in every possible path to forming a government. He has been endorsed by just 54 lawmakers representing an array of parties that are unlikely to sit together in a coalition.

Both Gantz and Netanyahu say they favor a national unity government. Together, Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Blue and White control a solid 65-seat majority. But the two men are divided over who should lead any new government.

Netanyahu has insisted he head the government, at least for the first two years, and that it include his right-wing allies, conditions that Gantz has repeatedly rejected.
 
Netanyahu is likely to be indicted on corruption charges in the coming weeks, and Gantz has said Netanyahu should resolve his legal troubles before returning to the top post.

Gantz could potentially break up the right-wing alliance and recruit some of the smaller parties to his coalition. But that might be seen as a major betrayal by those parties’ voters.

Another option would be to form a minority government with Avigdor Lieberman, who emerged as kingmaker after his party won eight seats and has refused to endorse either Gantz or Netanyahu. Gantz might be able to convince the Arab Joint List, which won 13 seats, to support the coalition from the outside.

That would bring down Netanyahu but result in a highly unstable government. It’s also far from clear that Lieberman, a nationalist with a history of harsh rhetoric toward the Arab minority, would support such a scheme. No Arab party has ever sat in an Israeli government.

The political deadlock dates back to April, when Lieberman refused to join a right-wing coalition under Netanyahu. In response, parliament voted to dissolve itself, leading to an unprecedented repeated election in September. A similar scenario could play out again.

The political deadlock has delayed the Trump administration’s release of its long-awaited peace plan. The Palestinians have already rejected the plan, accusing the administration of extreme and unfair bias toward Israel.

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President Donald Trump says there is “big success” on the Turkey-Syria border following the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from northeast Syria and the end of a Turkish offensive against them.

Turkey Says ‘No Need’ to Resume Offensive Against Kurds

Statement comes as 5-day cease-fire ends in northern Syria as US reports ‘complete’ Kurdish withdrawal

The Syrian Kurds fought alongside U.S. forces against Islamic State terrorists. But Turkey considers them to be linked with Kurdish separatists who have long fought for autonomy inside Turkey. Turkey calls the Kurds terrorists.

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Mark Esper arrived in Baghdad Wednesday for talks with Iraqi officials about the arrival of U.S. troops recently withdrawn from northern Syria.

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The U.S. has postponed a resumption of refugee arrivals by at least another week, a State Department spokesperson confirmed to VOA on Tuesday, as the Trump administration pushes for further reductions in the number of refugees America takes in each year.

The postponement follows last month’s announcement that a pause in refugee arrivals would be in effect until Oct. 22 while the White House and Congress engaged in legally required discussions to determine how many refugees will be admitted for the 2020 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

The State Department now says refugee arrivals likely will resume next week “on or after October 29.”

Refugees who had been expected to travel to the U.S. in the interim will be rescheduled, according to an agency statement.

The U.S. reached its self-imposed cap of 30,000 refugee arrivals in FY2019, one of the lowest admissions levels since the program started in 1980. For FY2020, U.S President Donald Trump and the State Department have proposed a cap of 18,000 refugees.

US Hits Lowered Refugee Cap for 2019 as Another Decrease Looms

Last year, White House set admissions ceiling at 45,000, of which less than half — 22,491 refugees — were resettled in the US

While the president issues the “determination” that sets the upper limit of how many refugees will be admitted in a year, that ceiling requires consultations with Capitol Hill lawmakers. A determination has not yet been announced, and no refugees have arrived in the new fiscal year to date.

For decades, the United States had been a global leader in third-country resettlement. The administration’s proposed refugee cap would be the lowest in the program’s history and would restructure the categories under which refugees would be admitted, including people fleeing religious persecution.
 

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Aid workers in northern Iraq say they are seeing increasing numbers of Syrians fleeing over the border into the mainly Kurdish region as the cease-fire in northeastern Syria is about to expire.

In the past day alone, the Norwegian Refugee Council reports that 1,736 Syrians crossed into Iraq, the highest number to cross in one day since the beginning of Turkey’s military operation.

They say that many have escaped with just the clothes on their backs. 

Ibrahim Barsoum is a program officer working with Syrian refugees for the Christian Aid Program Northern Iraq, run by a Catholic priest, Father Emanuel Youkhana. The group has been helping Iraqis displaced by Islamic State militants. Barsoum says the KRI, or Iraq’s Kurdistan Region authority, facilitates their transfer into the country.

“Usually the families come through the night because they are not allowed, for some reason, to cross the borders over there, Barsoum said. “They come with smugglers or just cross the borders through the night. The security forces for KRI receive them. “

Barsoum said that the U.N. refugee agency is taking the lead in providing shelter in a number of northern Iraq’s existing camps, some already hosting Yazidis, victims of Islamic State attacks in 2014. He said that many have escaped Turkish bombardment and attacks from Syrian militias allied with Turkey with just the clothes on their backs.

“Many of them need immediate and urgent support,” Barsoum said. “Food and basic needs for winter time — blankets and clothes, even.  They don’t have it. They just ran to save their lives and their kids’ lives. It is a tragedy. “

The Norwegian Refugee Council believes that more than 7,140 Syrians have crossed into Iraq since Turkey started its military operation, which has displaced around 165,000 Syrians.

A refugee from Qamishli named Rifaa told the NRC that she escaped into northern Iraq with her husband and three daughters. She says there were dead bodies on the street.  They managed to find a smuggler to bring them to northern Iraq, paying the man 2,000 U.S. dollars for five people. She said, “We saved our lives, but we suffered.”

NRC’s Tom Peyre-Costa urges for more to be done to facilitate the safe passage of Syrians escaping violence in their homeland.

“Most of them are children, women and elderly people in a huge state of physical and psychological distress,” Peyre-Costa said.  “We call on all fighters and authorities to guarantee safe passage for Syrian refugees for them to them to seek refuge and protection in Iraq.”

The United Nations and aid agencies are planning for up to 50,000 Syrian refugees expected to cross into northern Iraq in the coming months.

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A court established by Russia-backed separatists who hold parts of eastern Ukraine has sentenced journalist Stanislav Aseyev, an RFE/RL contributor, to 15 years in a penal colony.

In a ruling condemned as “reprehensible” by RFE/RL’s president, separatist news outlet DAN reported on Tuesday that the court had found Aseyev guilty of espionage, extremism, and public calls to violate the territory’s integrity.

Aseyev, who wrote under the pen name Stanislav Vasin, disappeared in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on June 2, 2017, and has been held in detention since by the separatists.

“The conviction against Stanislav Aseyev, which dates from August but was made public only today, is reprehensible,” said RFE/RL President Jamie Fly.

“Stas is a journalist and was only trying to raise awareness about the situation in eastern Ukraine. The ruling is an attempt by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk to silence his powerful, independent voice. Stas should be released immediately,” Fly added.

The 30-year-old journalist was one of the few reporters in Donetsk who continued to work in the city after it came under the control of the separatists.

Representatives of the separatists accused Aseyev of observing the deployment sites of their paramilitary groups and passing on the information to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), according to the news outlet Hromadske.

In August 2018, the bipartisan U.S. Congressional Press Freedom Caucus called for Aseyev’s immediate release, describing him as “one of the few independent journalists to remain in the region under separatist control to provide objective reporting.”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida) also called for Aseyev’s release in July.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders has also voiced concern about Aseyev’s treatment, which it has called “increasingly disturbing.”

RFE/RL has also urged the release of Ukrainian Service contributor Oleh Halaziuk, who has been held by Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk since August 2017.

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Associate Justice Elena Kagan said Monday that it “behooves” the U.S. Supreme Court to realize in these polarized times that there’s a danger of the public seeing it as just a political institution — and to strive to counter that perception.

Speaking at the University of Minnesota, Kagan said the high court’s legitimacy depends on public trust and confidence since nobody elected the justices.

“We have to be seen as doing law, which is distinct from politics or public policy, and to be doing it in a good faith way, trying to find the right answers,” she said.

Kagan acknowledged that the justices can be “pretty divided” on how to interpret the Constitution. But she said the view that politics guides their decisions is an oversimplification. The justices decide most of their cases unanimously or by lopsided margins, she said.

The justice didn’t mention a Marquette University Law School poll released earlier Monday in which 64% of respondents said they believe the law, rather than politics, mostly motivates the high court’s decisions. But the findings dovetailed with her remarks.

“It behooves us on the court to realize that this is a danger and make sure it isn’t so,” she said.

Kagan, 59, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 and is a member of the court’s liberal wing, said she believes none of the justices decide cases for partisan political reasons, but they do have different legal philosophies and approaches to constitutional issues.

Sometimes there’s no way to decide some cases without the results seeming political, she said, “but I think especially in these polarized times, I think we have an obligation to make sure that that happens only when we truly, truly can’t help it.”

Gerrymandering case

Kagan said she took the unusual step, for her, of reading part of her dissent from the bench in a gerrymandering case this summer because it was such an important issue and that she strongly disagreed with the 5-4 decision.

The conservative majority ruled that partisan gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts was none of its business. The decision freed state officials from federal court challenges to their plans to reshape districts to help their parties.

“I thought that the court had gotten it deeply wrong,” she said.
 
Kagan appeared as part of a lecture series sponsored by the University of Minnesota Law School that, in past years, has brought Justices John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to campus.
 

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Two members of Iraq’s security forces were killed and three wounded when Islamic State militants attacked checkpoints in the Allas oil fields area of the northern Salahuddin province on Monday, the military said in a statement.

The Allas oil field, 35 km (20 miles) south of Hawija, was one of the main sources of revenue for Islamic State, which in 2014 declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.

Iraq declared victory over the hardline Sunni militants in late 2017 after pushing them out of all territory it held in the country. They have since reverted to hit-and-run insurgency tactics aimed at destabilizing the government in Baghdad.

“Elements of the terrorist Daesh gangs attacked two security checkpoints in the Alas oil fields area of Salahuddin province, and an improvised explosive device blew up a vehicle belonging to security forces stationed there, leading to the martyrdom of two of them,” the statement said.

Militants also opened fire on the security forces who attempted to evacuate the bodies, injuring three more.

A joint force consisting of regular troops and mostly Iran-backed Shi’ite paramilitary groups known as the Popular Mobilization Forces is pursuing the attackers, the statement said.
 

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United Parcel Service Inc’s new Flight Forward drone unit will soon start home prescription delivery from CVS Health Corp.

The service, which will debut in one or two U.S. cities in the coming weeks, shows how the world’s biggest parcel delivery company is expanding the reach of its upstart drone delivery service beyond hospital campuses.

UPS Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer Scott Price said the Atlanta-based company, which owns 251 aircraft and charters nearly 300 more, said, “Flight Forward will work with new customers in other industries to design additional solutions for a wide array of last-mile and urgent delivery challenges.”

UPS this month won the U.S. government’s first approval to operate a drone airline, taking a lead over rivals like Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Wing.

Regulators are still hammering out rules for how the unmanned winged vehicles will operate in U.S. airspace and guidelines are expected in 2021.

On Monday, Flight Forward and partner Matternet also announced a deal to deliver biological samples and other cargo on University of Utah Health hospital campuses. That program is similar to the program at WakeMed Hospital in North Carolina, Flight Forward’s first client.

Flight Forward has also inked a hospital campus deal with health care provider Kaiser Permanente, UPS said.

In addition, the company said pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen Corp will use Flight Forward drones to move pharmaceuticals, supplies and records to select U.S. medical campuses it serves.

UPS rival FedEx Corp last week delivered a residential package to a home in Christiansburg, Virginia, as part of a trial service with Alphabet’s Wing Aviation.
 

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President Evo Morales led in early returns from the first round of Sunday’s presidential election, but he appeared to have failed to get enough votes to avoid a runoff in the tightest political race of his life.

The Andean country’s top electoral authority said Sunday night that a preliminary count of 84% of the votes showed Morales on top with 45.3%, followed by 38.2% for his closest rival, former President Carlos Mesa. If the results hold, the two men will face off in December and Morales could be vulnerable to a united opposition in the first runoff in his nearly 14 years in power.

Mesa told supporters shortly after the first results were announced that his coalition had scored “an unquestionable triumph,” and he urged others parties to join him for a “definitive triumph” in the second round.

Morales claimed a victory for himself, saying that “the people have again imposed their will.”

“We are not alone. That is why we have won again,” he told supporters at the presidential palace.

To avoid a runoff and win outright, Morales would have needed to get 50% of the votes plus one or have 40% and finish 10 percentage points ahead of the nearest challenger.

Morales came to prominence leading social protests in the landlocked country of 11 million people and rose to power as Bolivia’s first indigenous president in 2006. The 59-year-old leftist is South America’s longest-serving leader.

Mesa is a 66-year-old historian who as vice president rose to Bolivia’s top office when his predecessor resigned the presidency in 2003 amid widespread protests. Mesa then stepped aside himself in 2005 amid renewed demonstrations led by Morales, who was then leader of the coca growers union.

Voting, which was mandatory, was mostly calm, though police said they arrested more than 100 people for violating the country’s rigid election-day rules against drinking, large gatherings or casual driving. In a surprise result, Chi Hyun Chung, a physician and evangelical pastor of South Korean ancestry, was in third with 8.8% of the vote.

Bolivians also elected all 166 congressional seats. Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party lost seats although it retained a majority in Congress.

Morales voted early in the coca-growing region of El Chapare, where residents threw flower petals at him and he said he remained confident of his chances.

In his years in office, he allied himself with a leftist bloc of Latin American leaders and used revenues from the Andean country’s natural gas and minerals to redistribute wealth among the masses and lift millions out of poverty in the region’s poorest country. The economy has grown by an annual average of about 4.5%, well above the regional average.

Morales, the son of Aymara Indian shepherds, has also been credited for battling racial inequalities.

Many Bolivians, such as vendor Celestino Aguirre still identify with “Evo,” as he’s widely known, saying people shouldn’t criticize him so much. “It’s not against Evo, it’s against me, against the poor people, against the humble.”

But Morales also has faced growing dissatisfaction even among his indigenous supporters. Some are frustrated by corruption scandals linked to his administration – though not Morales himself – and many by his refusal to accept a referendum on limiting presidential terms. While Bolivians voted to maintain term limits in 2016, the country’s top court, which is seen by critics as friendly to the president, ruled that limits would violate Morales’ political rights as a citizen.

“I’m thinking of a real change because I think that Evo Morales has done what he had to do and should leave by the front door,” said Nicolas Choque, a car washer.

Mauricio Parra, who administers a building in downtown La Paz, said he voted for Morales in 2006 as a reaction against previous center-right governments, but this time, he voted for Mesa.

Morales “did very well those four years. … (But) in his second term there were problems of corruption, drug trafficking, nepotism and other strange things,” Parra said, saying that led him to vote against repealing term limits in the 2016 referendum. “He hasn’t respected that. That is the principle reason that I’m not going to vote for Evo Morales.”

“A runoff will be a heart-stopping finish,” Bolivian political analyst Franklin Pareja said ahead of the results. “It would break with the myth that it’s hard to beat Evo Morales.”

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Mark Esper sought a firsthand assessment Sunday of the U.S. military’s future role in America’s longest war as he made his initial visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief. Stalled peace talks with the Taliban and unrelenting attacks by the insurgent group and Islamic State militants have complicated the Trump administration’s pledge to withdraw more than 5,000 American troops.

Esper told reporters traveling with him that he believes the U.S. can reduce its force in Afghanistan to 8,600 without hurting the counterterrorism fight against al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. But he said any withdrawal would happen as part of a peace agreement with the Taliban.

The U.S. has about 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan as part of the American-led coalition. U.S. forces are training and advising Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations against extremists. President Donald Trump had ordered a troop withdrawal in conjunction with the peace talks that would have left about 8,600 American forces in the country.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban, but a surge in Taliban violence and the death of an American soldier last month prompted Trump to cancel a secret Camp David meeting where the peace deal would have been finalized. He declared the tentative agreement dead.

‘The aim is to still get a peace agreement at some point, that’s the best way forward,” said Esper. He visited Afghanistan in his previous job as U.S. Army secretary.

He would not say how long he believes it may be before a new peace accord could be achieved.

A month after the peace agreement collapsed, Khalilzad met with Taliban in early October in Islamabad, Pakistan, but it was not clear what progress, if any, was being made.

Esper’s arrival in Kabul came as Afghan government leaders delayed the planned announcement of preliminary results of last month’s presidential election. Esper met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other government officials.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was visiting Afghanistan with a congressional delegation at the same time.

Her office said in a statement Sunday night the bipartisan delegation met with top Afghan leaders, civil society representatives and U.S. military chiefs and troops serving there. Pelosi says the delegation emphasized the importance of combating corruption and ensuring women are at the table in reconciliation talks.

Both Ghani and his current partner in the unity government, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, have said they believe they had enough votes to win. The Sept. 28 vote was marred by widespread misconduct and accusations of fraud.

Officials said the announcement of preliminary results has been delayed due to problems with the transparency of the process, delays in transferring ballot papers and delays in transferring data from a biometric system into the main server.

Esper planned to meet with his top commanders in Afghanistan as the U.S. works to determine the way ahead in the 18-year war.

Trump, since his 2016 presidential campaign, has spoken of a need to withdraw U.S. troops from the “endless war” in Afghanistan. He has complained that the U.S. has been serving as policemen in Afghanistan, and says that’s not the American military’s job.

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Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who rose from poverty and pledged to champion democracy, fight entrenched corruption and modernize the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, was sworn in Sunday for his second and final five-year term with a pledge to take bolder actions.

Army troops and police, along with armored vehicles, firetrucks and ambulances, were deployed across Jakarta, the vast capital, and major roads were closed in a departure from the more relaxed atmosphere of the popular Widodo’s 2014 inauguration. An Oct. 10 knife attack by an Islamic militant couple that wounded the country’s security minister set off a security crackdown.

Known for his down-to-earth style, Widodo, 58, opted for an austere ceremony at the heavily guarded Parliament without the festive parade that transported him after his inauguration five years ago on a horse-drawn carriage in downtown Jakarta, where he was then cheered on by thousands of waving supporters.

On his way to the ceremony Sunday, Widodo got out of his convoy with some of his security escorts and shook the hands of supporters, who yelled his name, waved Indonesia’s red-and-white flag and called him “bapak,” or father.

After taking his oath before the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in front of hundreds of lawmakers and foreign dignitaries in the heavily guarded Parliament, Widodo laid out ambitious targets to help Indonesia join the ranks of the world’s developed nations by the time it marks a century of independence in 2045.

He said in his inauguration speech that he expects poverty – which afflicts close to 10 percent of Indonesia’s nearly 270 million people – to be just about wiped out and the country’s annual GDP to reach $7 trillion by then.

“For those who are not serious, I’ll be merciless. I would definitely fire people,” Widodo warned.

Western and Asian leaders and special envoys, including Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, flew in for the inauguration. President Donald Trump sent Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao for the ceremony in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and a member of the G-20 bloc of nations.

Indonesia is a bastion of democracy in Southeast Asia, a diverse and economically bustling region of authoritarian regimes, police states and nascent democracies.

After decades of dictatorship under President Suharto, the country was convulsed by political, ethnic and religious unrest in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, it has consolidated its democratic transition. While most of the country remains poor and inequality is rising, it is home to a rapidly expanding middle class.

Popularly known as Jokowi, Widodo is the son of a furniture maker who grew up with his family in a rented bamboo shack on the banks of a flood-prone river in Solo city on Java island. He is the first president from outside the country’s super rich, and often corrupt, political, business and military elite.

Widodo presents himself as a man of the people, often emphasizing his humble roots. His popular appeal, including his pioneering use of social media, helped him win elections over the past 14 years for mayor of Solo, governor of Jakarta and twice for president. In a reflection of his popularity, he has nearly 26 million followers on Instagram and more than 12 million on Twitter.

He has been likened to Barack Obama, but since taking office he has been perceived as unwilling to press for accountability that threatens powerful institutions such as the military. Instead, he has emphasized nationalism while also fending off attacks that he is not devout enough as a Muslim.

Widodo was sworn in with his new vice president, Ma’ruf Amin, one of the most important religious figures in Indonesia. He chose Amin as his running mate to shore up his support among pious Muslims. Amin was chairman of Majelis Ulama Indonesia, the country’s council of Islamic leaders, and supreme leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization.

But Amin, 76, has been criticized for being a vocal supporter and drafter of fatwas against religious minorities and the LGBT community. Human Rights Watch says the fatwas, or edicts, have legitimized increasingly hateful rhetoric by government officials against LGBT people, and in some cases fueled deadly violence by Islamic militants against religious minorities.

Widodo has been widely praised for his efforts to improve Indonesia’s inadequate infrastructure and reduce poverty. He inaugurated the nation’s first subway system, which was financed by Japan, in chronically congested Jakarta in March after years of delay under past leaders.

Pressing on is the biggest challenge, however, in his final years in office given the global economic slowdown, major trade conflicts, falling exports and other hurdles that impede funding.

In an interview with The Associated Press in July, Widodo said he would push ahead with sweeping and potentially unpopular economic reforms, including more business-friendly labor laws, because he’ll no longer be constrained by politics in his final term.

“Things that were impossible before, I will make a lot of decisions on that in the next five years,” he said then.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of American lawmakers on a surprise visit to Jordan to discuss “the deepening crisis” in Syria amid a shaky U.S.-brokered cease-fire.
 
The visit came after bipartisan criticism in Washington has slammed President Donald Trump for his decision to withdraw the bulk of U.S. troops from northern Syria — clearing the way for Turkey’s wide-ranging offensive against the Kurdish groups, who had been key U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State group.
 
Turkey agreed on Thursday to suspend its offensive for five days, demanding the Kurdish forces withdraw from a designated strip of the border about 30 kilometers deep (19 miles).  
 
Pelosi, along with the nine-member Congressional delegation, met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the capital of Amman late Saturday for talks focusing on security and “regional stability,” according to a statement from her office.
 
Jordan is a key U.S. ally in the region and has been greatly affected by the eight-year-long civil war in neighboring Syria. Jordanian officials say the kingdom hosts some 1 million Syrians who have fled the fighting.
 
 “With the deepening crisis in Syria after Turkey’s incursion, our delegation has engaged in vital discussions about the impact to regional stability, increased flow of refugees, and the dangerous opening that has been provided to ISIS, Iran and Russia,” said the statement, using the Islamic State group’s acronym.
 
Jordan’s state news agency Petra said Abdullah stressed the importance of safeguarding Syria’s territorial integrity and guarantees for the “safe and voluntary” return of refugees.
 
 “The meeting also covered regional and international efforts to counter terrorism within a comprehensive approach,” the agency said.
 
The Congressional delegation included Democrats Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who is leading the impeachment probe into President Trump; Eliot Engel, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. There was one GOP member of the group, Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.
 
The U.S. Embassy in Amman said the delegation left Jordan early Sunday but gave no further details on where it was heading.
 
Many Democrat and Republican lawmakers say that the U.S. pullout could make way for rivals like Iran and Russia, who back Syrian President Bashar Assad.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan amid efforts to restart peace talks with the Taliban.

“The aim is to still get a peace agreement at some point, a political agreement, that is the best way forward,” Esper told reporters traveling with him Sunday.

Last month, President Donald Trump abruptly called off yearlong U.S.-Taliban talks just when the two adversaries had come close to signing a peace agreement that could have ended the 18-year-old Afghan war, America’s longest overseas military intervention.  

Trump declared the peace process process “dead,” citing continued insurgent deadly attacks on Afghan civilians and American troops in Afghanistan.

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Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) confirmed Saturday it had delayed the planned release of preliminary results of the Sept. 28 presidential polls. 
 
The commission’s chief, Hawa Alam Nuristani, made the widely anticipated announcement at a late evening news conference in Kabul on the day the commission was supposed to officially deliver first results. 
 
Nuristani apologized to Afghans for not being able to meet the deadline, but she defended the decision to delay the results, saying it would “further ensure the transparency of the [electoral] process” and restore the people’s confidence in it. 
 
The chief election commissioner promised to release preliminary results as soon as possible but did not say exactly when that would happen. 
 
Two senior IEC members, while speaking to VOA on Friday, predicted results would be delayed by at least one week. 

Problems from the start
 
Election officials said they had from the outset faced issues in collecting and transferring massive amounts of data to the main IEC computer server from biometric devices used to record voter fingerprints and pictures. A time-consuming exercise of identifying fraudulent votes was cited as another major factor for the slow data entry. 
 
The fourth Afghan presidential election was already under scrutiny for a record-low turnout of about 26 percent and allegations of fraud. The final turnout was expected to drop further as the IEC was expected to disqualify an estimated 700,000 of the 2.7 million votes cast last month for not meeting anti-fraud rules. 
 

All previous elections held in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban government in 2001 were marred by allegations of widespread fraud and rigging, prompting the IEC to use biometric devices for the first time in the just concluded presidential polls. 
 
While security concerns stemming from violent Taliban attacks on the election process were mainly blamed for the low turnout, the polling was marred by widespread irregularities and allegations of fraud. 
 
The United Nations, in a report released this week, noted that election-related attacks had killed 85 Afghan civilians and injured 373 others. 
 
Both front-runners, President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, have already claimed victories, raising fears of a repeat of what happened in the 2014 fraud-marred presidential election. The United States at the time had to intervene to help the two men negotiate a power-sharing deal, ending months of nationwide chaos. 

Accuracy paramount
 
On Wednesday, U.S. acting Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells underscored the need for a credible outcome of the election and called on all candidates to avoid declaring victory before official results were released. 
 
“We welcome the IEC’s intention to conduct all necessary anti-fraud measures before it announces the preliminary result. An accurate result is more important than a rushed one,” Wells told reporters in Kabul after her meetings with Ghani, Abdullah and election commission officials. 
 
Abdullah and Ghani have both pledged support for the IEC to take as much time as needed to deliver a transparent outcome. 
 
“The Afghan people yearn to hear about the results of the presidential elections, but we respect the Independent Election Commission’s decision to postpone announcing the results to ensure fairness, transparency and accountability of the final vote,” Ghani tweeted shortly after the delay was announced. 

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Turkish-backed Syrian fighters clashed with Kurdish-led forces in several parts of northeastern Syria on Saturday, with some crossing the border from Turkey to attack a village, a war monitor said. Both sides blamed each other for fighting that has rattled the U.S.-brokered cease-fire.

Nearly two days into the five-day halt in fighting, the two sides were still trading fire around the key border town of Ras al-Ayn. There has also been no sign of a withdrawal of Kurdish-led forces from positions along the Syrian-Turkish border as called for under the agreement, reached between Turkey and the United States.

Turkey’s Defense Ministry said it was “completely abiding” by the accord and that it was in “instantaneous coordination” with Washington to ensure the continuity of calm. The ministry accused Kurdish-led fighters of carrying out 14 “attacks and harassments” the past 36 hours, most in the town of Ras al-Ayn, which is besieged by allied fighters before the cease-fire. It said the Syrian Kurdish fighters used mortars, rockets, anti-aircraft and anti-tank heavy machine guns.

Turkey also said Saturday said it has recaptured 41 suspected Islamic State members who had fled a detention camp amid the chaos caused by the fighting earlier this week.

Syrian Locals Grieve as Turkey-Syria Cease-Fire Collapses

‘We have already paid with too many lives,’ those affected by the fighting say

The Kurds, meanwhile, appealed to Vice President Mike Pence to enforce the deal saying Turkey has failed to abide by its provisions and has continued the siege of Ras al-Ayn.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said there were still clashes inside Ras al-Ayn and medical personnel could not enter to help the wounded.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Turkish-backed fighters entered Syria and advanced into Kurdish-held Shakariya, a village east of Ras al-Ayn that saw clashes and a Turkish strike a day earlier.

Video posted online showed the fighters driving alongside the wall Turkey has erected along the border and boasting that they were headed on “an assault” into Syria. The video did not show them crossing the border.

Syrian state media said Turkish-backed fighters also made an “infiltration attempt” south of Ras al-Ayn but were repelled in clashes with the Syrian government military that had just moved into the area. The reports gave no further details.

The Observatory said Saturday that Turkey-backed Syrian fighters have prevented a medical convoy from reaching Ras al-Ayn. It said a medical convoy arrived outside the town Friday but Turkey-backed factions closed the road ahead and behind, leaving it stuck outside Ras al-Ayn.

The agreement — reached in negotiations between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence — would virtually hand Turkey its aims in the invasion, requiring Kurdish fighters to vacate a swath of territory in Syria along the Turkish border during the cease-fire.

The Kurdish-led force, which said it was in contact with the Americans during the negotiations, said it will abide by the halt in fighting but has not committed to any pull-out. Erdogan warned Friday that Turkey will relaunch its assault on Tuesday when the deal runs out if the Kurdish fighters don’t pull out of a zone 30 kilometers (20-miles) deep running the entire length of the border.

On Saturday, the Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 41 suspected Islamic State members were re-captured after fleeing a detention camp amid fighting earlier this week in Syria. He said 195 other suspected IS members had already been recaptured. He said the captured IS suspects would be relocated to areas controlled by Turkey in northern Syria, including Afrin and al-Bab.

Last week, there were reports that after a Turkish shell landed near Ein Issa camp that holds members of IS families, more than 700 managed to flee amid the chaos.

Turkey’s state-run English language broadcaster TRT World said the IS members and families were captured by Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces.

Erdogan has accused Syrian Kurdish forces of releasing some 750 IS members and families, amid Turkey’s offensive. The Kurds say they broke out of their camp a week ago, attacking guards, amid heavy clashes and Turkish airstrikes nearby.

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Washington is drowning in red ink again, yet the mounting fiscal problem is prompting collective yawns from the Trump Administration and Democrats alike.

It wasn’t so long ago that an announcement that the United States annual budget deficit was approaching $1 trillion — in a time of record low unemployment and steady economic growth, no less — would have set off alarm bells in the nation’s capital and sent politicians running to the television cameras to demand action to rein in federal spending. But a recent report from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic analysis that shows the deficit ballooning to a seven-year high of $984 billion in fiscal 2019 was greeted with near silence from U.S. lawmakers, the administration and other policy makers.

Instead, as the 2020 presidential campaign heats up, Republicans and Democrats are promoting ambitious new spending and tax relief measures that would add many trillions of dollars to the cumulative federal debt – the sum total of past deficits — which is now approaching a staggering $23 trillion.

After forcing a $1.5 trillion tax cut through Congress in 2017 and demanding sharp increases in military spending, both of which have contributed to a 48% increase in the federal deficit since he took office, President Trump and others in his administration have floated the idea of further tax reductions heading into 2020.

Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidates including liberal Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont are pushing for additional federal spending on social programs, including a controversial “Medicare for All” proposal. A study by the Urban Institute found that the most expansive version of that program, which extends healthcare coverage to every American and eliminates virtually all out-of-pocket spending on health care, would cost an average of $3.4 trillion per year, or $34 trillion over a decade.

Warren, who is surging in the polls ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden and Sanders, is also advocating expanded Social Security benefits, free college tuition, student debt relief and environmental initiatives with hefty price tags.

The current U.S. federal debt, now approaching $23 trillion  is equal to more than 100% of the estimated $21.3 trillion 2019 Gross Domestic Product. The country has not seen a debt-to-GDP ratio this high since World War II. But still, the primary policy proposals coming from voices on both sides of the political spectrum are in favor of measures that would likely exacerbate the deficit and add to the federal debt.

It’s a state of affairs that leaves Washington budget watchdogs frustrated and worried about the future.

“Certainly, interest in fiscal responsibility seems to be an all-time low,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

“It should be frustrating for everyone, because the deficit is at an all-time high…for this point in the economic cycle,” he said. “It’s really dangerous. And what we need to be doing is getting our debt under control now, understanding that it will have to expand during a recession, not making it even worse.”

That’s a message that neither the Trump administration nor the Democrats running for president appear to have acknowledged.

There are multiple reasons why demands for spending cuts and deficit reduction have been muted in recent years. For one, the seemingly constant state of crisis in Washington, made even more profound by the ongoing effort to impeach President Trump, leaves little room in the headlines for more complex issues like fiscal policy.

However, one key reason that deficit hawks’ collective voice does not command the attention in Washington that it once did is that they have been demonstrably wrong about the effects of rising federal borrowing.

For years, the twin terrors of rising interest rates and inflation were key arguments against allowing the deficit and debt to continue to mount. Expansive federal spending was supposed to goose demand and drive up prices. At the same time, lenders — in the form of the bond market — were expected to demand ever-higher interest rates from a federal government that kept driving itself further into debt.

Additionally, as the government borrowed more and at higher interest rates, the borrowing was supposed to “crowd out” more productive investment in the private sector.

But for the past decade, inflation has remained stubbornly low, even in the years immediately following the Great Recession, when the government was pouring money into the economy to increase demand.

At the same time, the federal government is still able to borrow at historically low rates, making the cost of servicing new debt much lower than budget hawks predicted it would be at this point. And the absence of any evidence that government borrowing is “crowding out” private sector investment has been sparse enough that the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation has declared it to be a concern of “minimal importance.”

Additionally, while much is made of the fact that the federal debt is now higher than annual GDP, that hardly makes the U.S. an outlier among developed nations. Other advanced economies carrying comparable levels of debt include Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, and France. Japan’s debt load is equal to more than twice its GDP.

In fact, there is a rising consensus among economists worldwide that, especially given the low interest rate environment that is expected to persist indefinitely, high debt levels among advanced economies simply are not that big a deal. Among the loudest voices making this point has been Olivier Blanchard, the former head of the International Monetary Fund — an organization that has spent decades trying to convince developing economies to avoid high debt loads.

“The right attitude…is not to pretend that debt is catastrophic if it is not,” he wrote in a recent paper with economist Ángel Ubide. “Sooner or later, a government will test that proposition and discover that it is false. The right approach is to tailor the advice to the situation of each country.”

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he thought a trade deal between the United States and China would be signed by the time the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings take place in Chile on Nov. 16-17. 

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will provide Beijing’s perspective on the progress of the talks in a speech Saturday, according to a tweet from the editor in chief of the Global Times, a tabloid published under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper.

“I think it will get signed quite easily, hopefully by the summit in Chile, where [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] and I will both be,” Trump told reporters at the White House, without providing details. 

“We’re working with China very well,” Trump also said. 

The White House has announced that China agreed to buy up to $50 billion worth of U.S. farm products annually, as part of the first phase of a trade deal, although China seems slow to follow through. 

The phase-one deal was unveiled at the White House last week during a visit by Liu as part of a bid to end a tit-for-tat trade war between Beijing and Washington that has roiled markets and hammered global growth.  

U.S. officials said a second phase of negotiations could address thornier issues such as forced technology transfer and nonfinancial services issues. 

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The United States is imposing new sanctions on Cuba over its human rights record and its support for Venezuela’s government, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday.

In a statement, the department said it will restrict Cuba’s access to commercial aircraft by revoking existing licenses for aircraft leases to Cuban state-owned airlines and denying future applications for aircraft leases.

The United States will also expand sanctions to include more foreign goods containing U.S. content and impose additional restrictions on exports to the Cuban government, the statement said.

“This action by the Commerce Department sends another clear message to the Cuban regime” that they must immediately cease their destructive behavior at home and abroad,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in the statement.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez responded in a post on Twitter, denouncing the move as “additional economic blockade measures evidencing moral bankruptcy of an internationally isolated policy promoted by a corrupted government.”

In a separate statement, the U.S. State Department criticized Cuba for its detention of dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer, calling on Havana to disclose his whereabouts, treat him humanely and release him without condition.

Ferrer, a prominent figure who leads the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), was detained in Santiago de Cuba Oct. 1 after a police raid on his home, which is also the group’s headquarters.

Cuba’s government does not typically discuss police activity, including the detention of dissidents, who Havana dismisses as provocateurs funded by the United States.

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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will not turn over documents to congressional Democrats who had subpoenaed them concerning his role in Ukraine as part of their impeachment probe into President Donald Trump, according to U.S. media reports Friday.

Three U.S. House of Representatives committees subpoenaed Perry on Oct. 10 for any role he played in Trump’s push to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate his political rival, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
 

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Every October, for the past 48 years, hot air balloons have been filling the skies over Albuquerque, New Mexico, giving spectators both on and off the ground a visual feast of rare beauty. VOA’s Julie Taboh visited the southwestern state’s largest city to see how a modest launch of 13 balloons almost five decades ago has evolved into the largest ballooning event in the world.
 

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Official Washington finds itself consumed by the twin crises of impeachment and Syria this week.  President Donald Trump is trying to fend off congressional Democrats moving toward impeachment, even as he faces a fierce backlash from some Republicans over his decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria. Trump is used to weathering political storms, but this one is particularly intense, as we hear from VOA National correspondent Jim Malone.
 

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The lights are back on through most of the state of California, where 2 million people saw their power cut during the past week in a precautionary effort to prevent wildfires.  As VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports, a heightened fire risk has left power companies racing to upgrade transmission systems, which sometimes spark the blazes. 

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Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians agreed on Thursday to establish a joint economic committee and a business council, as the Palestinian Authority faces a financing gap that could top $1.8 billion.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s PA has been in deep financial crisis since February when Israel froze transfers of VAT and customs duties it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.

His administration had to impose austerity measures, cutting almost half the salaries of its employees.

Abbas, who arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday, met with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

It added that the leaders reached “an agreement on the establishment of a joint economic committee and on a Saudi-Palestinian business council”.

The report did not elaborate further.

The announcement came days after Saudi Arabia’s football team played Palestine in the occupied West Bank for the first time on Tuesday, with the Saudi side having previously refused to enter the territory as part of its boycott of Israel.

Israel’s cuts have hit hard on the Palestinian territories, already suffering unemployment of around 26 percent in the second quarter of 2019, the World Bank said last month in a report.

Israel collects around $190 million a month in customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through its ports, and it is supposed to transfer the money to the PA.

In February, Israel decided to deduct around $10 million a month from the revenues — the sum the PA paid inmates in Israeli jails or their families — prompting the Palestinians to refuse to take any funds at all.

US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner during a conference in Bahrain dangled the prospect of $50 billion of investment into a stagnant Palestinian economy.

But the plan so far fails to address key issues such as an independent Palestinian state, Israeli occupation and the Palestinians’ right to return to homes from which they fled or were expelled after Israel’s creation in 1948.

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Russia’s Foreign Ministry says it will issue a formal note of protest to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow after Russian authorities caught three U.S. diplomats in a restricted area near a secret test site in northern Russia, state-run news agency TASS has reported.

The trio, which included the U.S. military and naval attachés, was removed from a train on October 14 and briefly questioned by Russian authorities in the sensitive Arctic shipyard city of Severodvinsk, near the site of a mysterious explosion in August that killed five nuclear workers.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said the diplomats had been on an official trip and that they had notified Russian authorities in advance of their travel plans. The reason for the diplomats’ travel was not disclosed.

But Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the diplomats had been found in a restricted area more than 40 kilometers from Arkhangelsk, the city they had said they planned to visit.

Interfax said the authorities checked the documents of the three before releasing them.
TASS quoted a source as saying law enforcement authorities suspected the three of breaching rules on foreigners visiting controlled zones.

Interfax quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry as confirming that the diplomats gave notice of their travels, although it said it was for a different destination and that they “probably lost their way.”

Severodvinsk is considered to be in a sensitive military region, and foreigners are allowed to visit only under certain conditions — normally with advanced permission from the authorities.
An explosion on August 8 at the Nyonoksa missile-testing site on the coast of the White Sea, about 50 kilometers from Severodvinsk, killed five people working for Russia’s nuclear agency.

A State Department official on October 10 said the United States concluded that the explosion occurred amid an operation to recover a nuclear powered missile that had apparently crashed during a test.

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Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorism unit went on a busy 24-hour spree to root out suspected Islamic militants ahead of a presidential inauguration this weekend that will be attended by Asian leaders and Western envoys.

At least 40 suspects have been detained by the counterterrorism squad, known as Densus 88, in eight provinces, including four who were captured on Thursday, national police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said. The sweep followed a tipoff about possible attacks against police and places of worship in several areas.

Six of the arrested militants, including a woman, were presented in a news conference Thursday in orange detainee shirts and under heavy guard at the police headquarters. They were not identified by police, who also displayed explosive chemicals for bomb-making, knives, jihadi books, airsoft guns and rifles with silencers and sniper scopes they said were seized from the suspects.

Another police spokesman, Muhammad Iqbal, said Wednesday among the arrested suspects were two female police officers who have been radicalized and were willing to be suicide bombers.

The arrests follow an attack last week in which a militant stabbed Indonesia’s top security minister, Wiranto, who is recovering from his wounds. A husband and wife were arrested in that attack. President Joko Widodo, who will take the oath of the office on Sunday at a ceremony in the capital, Jakarta, ordered government forces to hunt down the militant networks responsible for the attack.

Wiranto, a local police chief and a third man were wounded in the broad daylight attack in Banten province last Thursday by suspected militant Syahril Alamsyah and his wife, Fitria Andriana. Both are believed to be members of a local affiliate of the Islamic State group known as the Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, or JAD.

Prasetyo said the arrested husband, known as Abu Rara, would face heavier sanctions for handing a knife to his 15-year-old daughter to help assault the police. The child declined out of fear.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has been battling militants since bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. Attacks aimed at foreigners have been largely replaced in recent years by smaller, less deadly strikes targeting the government, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces and local “infidels.”

In May last year, two families carried out suicide bombings at churches in Indonesia’s second-largest city, Surabaya, killing a dozen people and two young girls whose parents had involved them in one of the attacks. Police said the father of the two girls was the leader of a cell in a larger militant network that claimed allegiance to IS.

The inauguration of Widodo, who won a second term with 55.5% of the vote in the April 17 election, will be attended by Southeast Asian leaders and Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Several envoys, including China’s Vice President Wang Qishan and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao, are also scheduled to attend.

Prasetyo said 31,000 security personnel were being deployed to secure the capital during the inauguration, though there has been no warning of a possible attack.

“The arrested suspects planned to attack police and worship places instead,” Prasetyo said.

He said police were hunting down other suspected militants, mostly participants in a social media chat group who are believed to be linked to JAD.

Police have seized 10 homemade pipe bombs believed to be intended for suicide attacks, chemicals for use in explosives, airsoft guns, knives, documents on planned attacks, jihadi books, laptops and cellphones in separate raids.

In West Java’s Cirebon district, investigators found that three of the suspects had been working on a chemical bomb containing methanol, urea fertilizer and rosary pea seeds, which are the main ingredient of abrin, an extremely toxic poison, Prasetyo said.

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed a law clearing away legal hurdles that could have prevented state prosecutions of people pardoned by President Donald Trump for federal crimes.

The law signed Wednesday by the Democrat revises exceptions to the state’s double jeopardy law.

New York Democrats say it will ensure that the state’s ongoing investigations into associates of the Republican president can’t be derailed by a White House pardon.

Republicans have decried the law as a partisan attack.

The law was passed this year amid speculation that Trump might pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort or former lawyer Michael Cohen.

Both have been convicted of federal crimes.

Manafort is also awaiting trial on a New York state mortgage fraud charge that closely mirrors part of his federal case.
 

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