U.S. Defense Mark Esper arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit Wednesday for talks with Iraqi officials about the arrival of U.S. troops recently withdrawn from northern Syria.
Seven hundred or more troops have moved into western Iraq, where 5,000 military personnel are already deployed. Esper has said the additional troops would help defend Iraq and be available to conduct anti-terrorism operations against Islamic State insurgents inside Syria.
But the Iraqi government says the troops do not have permission to stay in the country.
During his visit to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. defense chief said that “eventually their destination is home” back in the United States.
President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to pull nearly all U.S. forces out of northern Syria two weeks ago led to an offensive against Kurdish forces by Turkish troops and Turkish-backed Syrian fighters.
Ankara announced Tuesday that it had ended its offensive, saying U.S. told them that all Kurdish fighters had withdrawn from the area, which had been a safe zone. Turkey had agreed last week to observe a five-day long cease-fire after talks with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reached an agreement Tuesday on joint control of the Syrian border region.
Kurdish fighters would be kept 30 kilometers from the entire 440-kilometer Turkish-Syrian border, and also withdraw from the towns of Manbij and Tel Rifaat.
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.
Angry Kurds screamed obscenities and pelted a U.S. convoy with rotten potatoes as the convoy headed through the streets of Duhok in the Iraqi/Kurdistan region on the way to Iraq.
The first thing one experiences when landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at an elevation of about 1,600 meters, is the vastness of open space around the quiet southwestern town.
The 360-degree vistas extend as far as the eye can see on the arid high plateau, interrupted only by the Sandia Mountains to the east. In this town, the film industry is thriving and growing by leaps and bounds. Locals affectionately call it “Tamalewood” — melding the name of a beloved dish in New Mexico with that of California’s better-known Hollywood.
The TV and film industry here has gained ground since garnering tax incentives for filming in the state, leading to billion-dollar deals between leading production companies and Albuquerque Studios. But what started it all was the Albuquerque based Emmy-winning TV series “Breaking Bad,” about a struggling chemistry teacher turned meth drug lord. The show became a hit domestically and internationally.
Over a beer bet with a friend, Frank Sandoval, an extra on the show, came up with the idea of creating a company called “Breaking Bad RV tours.” He would buy an exact replica of the RV shown in the show and drive people around.
“Part of the deal was, if we got people to ride, he [Frank’s friend] would actually help us gut the RV and set it up just like the original. We did our first tour in May of 2014,” Sandoval said. It worked. He now drives two tours a day.
“’Breaking Bad’ really did put Albuquerque on the map in terms of the film industry,” he added.
Breaking Bad RV Tours features a 1986 Fleetwood Bounder RV, identical to the one in the TV series “Breaking Bad.”
Here, in an open landscape where sunshine reigns supreme for 310 days a year, and the longest traffic commute is 20 minutes, Netflix has put down roots.
The entertainment giant purchased Albuquerque Studios, a 100,000-square-foot compound, and signed a billion-dollar deal to produce TV series and movies over the next 10 years. NBC Universal followed with a $500 million deal. Its highly touted TV show “Briarpatch” is one of a dozen TV series filmed in one of the studios’ imposing stages in complete secrecy.
“Briarpatch” producers Keith Raskin and Linda Morel say New Mexico offers a great filming alternative to congested and expensive Los Angeles. The varied landscape, and local crew availability don’t hurt either. And the advantages don’t end there.
“Space! Space! We’ve been working in L.A. for a long time, obviously. I’m from there. It is very, very difficult to find stage space in Los Angeles right now. It’s always booked,“ Morel, Raskin’s longtime partner, said.
Raskin said all these benefits have become the talk of the town among L.A. producers gearing up to take their businesses to Albuquerque.
“I think we are at the beginning of a tidal wave. There’s been a big interest in shooting here,” he added.
Hollywood’s interest peaked after New Mexico further sweetened tax incentives last July, said Amber Dodson, film liaison for the city of Albuquerque.
“The rebate cap was previously at $50 million. It is now raised to $110 million,” she said.
The larger the amount a production company invests here, the larger the rebate. New Mexico wins as well, Dodson said. To get the incentive, production companies have to hire local talent.
“They are here for 10 years no matter what. And the amount of jobs! And it’s a conservative estimate, that, just that deal alone, will create is 1,000,” she said.
1,000 jobs a year, that is.
New Mexico’s film industry is also benefiting from political battles elsewhere in the country. Many Hollywood studios and production companies are pulling out of Georgia in reaction to the state’s enactment of an anti-abortion law, Dodson said.
“We have been busier than ever!” she added, calling TV and film production “a clean, creative industry” that benefits the entire city.
“When a production comes to a place like Albuquerque, they’re not just paying their casting crew,” she said. “They are using all kinds of vendors from dry cleaners to gas stations to car rentals to art galleries, lumber yards, hotels, restaurants. The list goes on and on.”
Sandoval, of the “Breaking Bad” RV tours, said he couldn’t agree more. His tour company, operating twice a day, is fully booked, drawing visitors from all over the world.
“What I see coming down the pike is where we’re going to become the next Hollywood. Some people call it Tamalewood,” he said.
Weaving through the crowd, Temple Gonzalez and her family enjoyed the scenes and fried snacks at the Texas State Fair in Dallas.
“Then we get on the rides and cross our fingers,” she laughed. Gonzalez, a mother from a town called The Colony, just outside of Dallas, professed love for Texas and its diversity.
“I’m proud that we love everybody,” she said. “Lots of people from everywhere. And we want more!”
Gonzalez had less welcoming words for U.S. President Donald Trump, who campaigned in Dallas recently.
Temple Gonzalez and other suburban women uneasy with Trump’s demeanor is a factor in Republicans losing support in Texas.
“I don’t think he’s a kind person,” Gonzalez said. “I just don’t like how he treats people. He needs to be modeling that from the top down, and I don’t see that happening.”
Polls indicate suburban women like Gonzalez are a reason Texas – a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976 – may no longer be a sure bet for Trump in 2020, despite the fact that he is giving it a lot of campaign time.
“Texas is not in play,” Trump said to a cheering crowd at his October 17 rally at the American Airlines Center in down town Dallas. “Donald Trump is not going to lose Texas, I can tell you that.”
The October rally was Trump’s third in the state in the past year and his sixth visit.
Texas Republicans welcome the attention. “It’s good to see that the president is reaching out and not taking Texas for granted,” said Rodney Anderson, chairman of the Dallas County Republican party.
Red with a purple tint
In 2016, Trump won Texas by only nine points, down from Mitt Romney’s 16-point margin in 2012. Analysts see this as evidence of the state shifting left as well as the fact that incumbent Republican senator Ted Cruz only narrowly defeated Democratic newcomer Beto O’Rourke in the 2018 Senate race.
Although it’s premature to call Texas a swing state, it will probably “go red with a very strong purple tint”, said Shannon Bow O’Brien, professor of politics at the University of Texas in Austin.
“Texas is a growing state and it’s growing in the cities, and a lot of the growth is Democratic voters,” said O’Brien. She pointed out that Trump is struggling in the suburbs in Texas, and said the Texas GOP is “worried.”
Rodney Anderson dismissed the notion but admitted that Republicans “have got a real ball game” in 2020.
Democrats gearing up
Democrats in Texas welcome the demographic shift and aim to build on their growth by wooing independents.
“There are a lot of people that just are not happy with the things that Trump has done and these are the people that actually voted for Trump in the last election,” said Tramon Arnold, political director of the Dallas County Democratic Party.
One of them is Larry Strauss, a life-long Republican, who co-founded the North Texas Jewish Democratic Council in 2017. The council recently hosted a gathering in a Dallas community center to discuss election politics with Harvey Kronberg, publisher of the political newsletter Quorum Report.
“The population is no longer reliably Republican,” said Kronberg. “Particularly the suburbs, which is the richest source of votes out there.”
Kronberg said this is partially because Texas demographics have shifted towards a larger population of Hispanic, Asian and Middle Eastern, as well as “Millennials who are antithetical to social conservatives” and what he calls “an abandonment of Republicans by women”.
But Trump can still rely on his base, who are fired up by his “ad hominem attacks, belittling and making fun of his opponents,” said Kronberg.
Larry Strauss, sitting in the front row, nodded. Strauss was a life-long Republican, until he heard the president’s remarks about the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned violent.
Larry Strauss turned in his Republican membership card and co-founded the North Texas Jewish Democratic Council in 2017 after he heard President Trump’s remarks about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA.
“When Donald Trump made that comment that there are good people marching on both sides, I went ballistic. I turned in my Republican membership card.”
Strauss, a retiree in his sixties was so distraught he reached out to the Dallas County Democratic Party and established the council, the first of its kind in the state, with co-founder Janice Schwartz.
Strauss supports the House impeachment inquiry against Trump. “We’re lacking integrity in the White House,” he said. “He’s not the type of president that gives a good example to my children and my grandchildren.”
Republicans dismiss the suggestion that Trump is hurting their party’s chances of winning.
“He’s absolutely helping us, 100%,” Rodney Anderson said, adding that the impeachment inquiry is energizing the Republican base even more.
Analysts point out that with strong support from rural areas, Trump may still win Texas, though with an even slimmer margin than 2016. But they say a lot can happen in a year particularly with an ongoing impeachment inquiry.
The latest poll from Quinnipiac University indicates 45% of registered voters in Texas approve of Trump. The same poll indicates 48% would not vote for him in 2020.
Voter suppression
Texas is one of the most diverse states in the country, and one of the four “majority-minority” states in the United States — together with California, Hawaii, and New Mexico — where the population of racial and ethnic minorities combined is larger than the white population.
Activist groups say that because of “voter suppression tactics used by the state and other entities,” the diversity of Texas is not reflected in state legislature and minority communities’ interests are not reflected in state policy.
“Our state legislators are generally a lot whiter and a lot wealthier than Texans,” said Hani Mirza, senior attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit organization based in Austin.
Voting rights groups have long accused Texas of extreme gerrymandering and restrictive voter registration rules, that in effect have rigged the state’s election rules in ways that disempower black and brown voters.
“The tactics used in gerrymandering can dilute minority votes to where they can’t have their voice heard in elections,” said Mirza. He added that when drawing electoral lines, state legislature has broken up minority communities to dilute their votes, or packed minority groups into as few districts as possible to suppress their voice.
Texas is due for a federal census in 2020 and redistricting process in 2021 where electoral maps may be redrawn.
Presidency not the only prize
The presidency is not the only coveted prize in 2020 as Democrats make inroads in state legislature seats with an eye on redistricting.
“Honestly, it’s not flipping Texas it’s flipping the state legislature seats,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien. “And the Democrats have a shot.”
“The way that things are gerrymandered, we need to make sure that everything is the way that it’s supposed to be, and not favoring the Republican Party,” said Tramon Arnold of the Dallas County Democratic Party.
If in 2020 Democrats win nine seats that they need to control the Texas House, for the first time in decades they would have control over the redrawing of the electoral map.
Future elections based on that map may mean more Democratic lawmakers being sent to Washington, out of the 36 currently representing Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives.
For the first time, U.S. health regulators have judged a type of smokeless tobacco to be less harmful than cigarettes, a decision that could open the door to other less risky options for smokers.
The milestone announcement on Tuesday makes Swedish Match tobacco pouches the first so-called reduced-risk tobacco product ever sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration.
FDA regulators stressed that their decision does not mean the pouches are safe, just less harmful, and that all tobacco products pose risks. The pouches will still bear mandatory government warnings that they can cause mouth cancer, gum disease and tooth loss.
But the company will be able to advertise its tobacco pouches as posing a lower risk of lung cancer, bronchitis, heart disease and other diseases than cigarettes.
The pouches of ground tobacco, called snus — Swedish for snuff and pronounced “snoose” — have been popular in Scandinavian countries for decades but are a tiny part of the U.S. tobacco market.
Users stick the teabag-like pouches between their cheek and gum to absorb nicotine. Unlike regular chewing tobacco, the liquid from snus is generally swallowed, rather than spit out. Chewing tobacco is fermented; snus goes through a steamed pasteurization process.
FILE – A woman shows portions of snus, a moist powder tobacco product that is consumed by placing it under the lip, in Stockholm, Aug. 6, 2009.
Long-term data
FDA acting commissioner Ned Sharpless said the agency based its decision on long-term, population-level data showing lower levels of lung cancer, emphysema and other smoking-related disease with the use of snus.
Sharpless added that the agency will closely monitor Swedish Match’s marketing efforts to ensure they target adult tobacco users.
“Anyone who does not currently use tobacco products, especially youth, should refrain from doing so,” he said in a statement.
Stockholm-based Swedish Match sells its snus under the brand name General in mint, wintergreen and other flavors. They compete against pouches from rivals Altria and R.J. Reynolds. But pouches account for just 5% of the $9.1 billion U.S. market for chew and other smokeless tobacco products, according to Euromonitor market research firm.
And public health experts questioned whether U.S. smokers would be willing to switch to the niche product.
“Snus products have a bit of a challenge” among smokers who are used to inhaling their nicotine, said Vaugh Rees, director of Harvard University’s Center for Global Tobacco Control.
U.S. smoking rate
The U.S. smoking rate has fallen to an all-time low of 14% of adults, or roughly 34 million Americans. But smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., responsible for some 480,000 deaths annually.
The FDA’s decision has been closely watched by both public health experts and tobacco companies.
Public health experts have long hoped that alternatives like the pouches could benefit Americans who are unable or unwilling to quit cigarettes and other traditional tobacco products. Tobacco companies are looking for new products to sell as they face declining cigarette demand due to tax increases, health concerns, smoking bans and social stigma.
The FDA itself also has much at stake in the review of snus and similar tobacco alternatives.
Congress gave the FDA the power to regulate key aspects of the tobacco industry in 2009, including designating new tobacco products as “modified risk,” compared with traditional cigarettes, chew and other products.
But until Tuesday, the FDA had never granted permission for any product to make such claims.
The FDA is reviewing several other products vying for “reduced risk” status, including a heat-not-burn cigarette alternative made by Philip Morris International. While electronic cigarettes are generally considered less harmful than the tobacco-and-paper variety, they have not been scientifically reviewed as posing a lower risk.
The Kurds are one of the indigenous people of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands, areas that today are contained within southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southwestern Armenia.
Estimated at between 25 million and 35 million people, the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East. They form a distinctive community, united through race, culture and language. While most of them are Sunni Muslims, there are also Christians, Jews, Yazidis and Zoroastrians among them.
They are considered one of the largest ethnic group in the world without a state.
Here’s a brief look at their political history in the four countries where they largely live:
Iraq
Iraqi Kurds, estimated to make up 15 to 20 percent of Iraq’s population of 38 million people, populate a mountainous region in northern Iraq and enjoy more national rights than Kurds in the neighboring three countries.
The Iraqi Kurds have gained substantial political recognition since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
In 2005, the Iraq constitution accepted Kurdish as an official language, along with Arabic, and recognized the predominantly Kurdish provinces of Irbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok as a federal entity known as the Kurdistan Region, which has its own military, known as the peshmerga.
Iraqi Kurds search for their names on polling center lists during parliamentary elections in Irbil, Iraq, Sept. 30, 2018.
The relationship between the Kurds and the Iraqi government, however, has a history of bloody confrontations and often brutal crackdowns by the central government, particularly during Hussein’s reign.
Feeling pressured by the Kurdish resistance movement, Hussein’s forces in late 1980s unleashed the Anfal campaign, which reportedly left 180,000 Kurds killed or missing, and about 4,500 villages destroyed. The Iraqi government campaign also used chemical weapons, particularly in the 1998 gas attack on the town of Halabja, which left nearly 5,000 residents dead.
Rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, said the Anfal campaign was a systematic ethnic-cleansing program that amounted to genocide. Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and South Korea officially recognize the campaign as genocide.
In March 1991, after their uprising was crushed by the Iraq government, about 1.5 million Iraqi Kurds fled into Iran and Turkey, leading to a refugee crisis. In response, an anti-Hussein international coalition established a partial no-fly zone in northern Iraq to allow the return of refugees and protect them from a future aggression. For years afterward, the zone allowed the Kurds to establish their regional government and parliament.
WATCH: Facts about the Kurds
THE KURDS video player.
The rise of the Islamic State (IS) terror group in 2014 weakened the Iraqi government. The Kurdish peshmerga moved into areas from which Iraqi forces retreated as IS took control.
The Kurds announced they had no intention of withdrawing from these areas, which the Iraqi constitution labels as disputed territories between the Kurdistan Region and the Central Government, and requires a referendum vote on their status.
As IS started losing territory, and the Kurdish peshmergas gained international support for their role in defeating the militants, the Kurdistan Region said it intended to hold a referendum for independence. The vote in September 2017 received 93.25% support, but it was later crushed in an Iraqi government operation, allegedly backed by Iran. It was the most recent attempt by Kurds to establish a state of their own.
Syria
In Syria, Kurds make up nearly 15 percent of Syria’s 22 million prewar population. They primarily live in north and northeastern parts of Syria, with significant Kurdish communities in major Syrian cities, such as Damascus and Aleppo.
Since the establishment of a modern state in Syria in the 1920s, Syrian Kurds have been deprived of political and linguistic rights.
Kurdish women flash victory signs and shout slogans as they protest against possible Turkish military operation on their areas, at the Syrian-Turkish border, in Ras al-Ayn, Syria, Oct. 7, 2019.
The first Kurdish political party in Syria was founded in 1957, influenced by Iraqi Kurds. The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria called for political and cultural rights for the Kurdish minority in the Arab-majority country, but its leading members were faced with imprisonment and persecution.
With the eruption of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Syrian Kurds were able to be in charge of their regions for the first time.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) took control of the area after Syrian government troops withdrew to focus on fighting rebel groups elsewhere in the war-ravaged country.
With the rise of IS in Syria, the YPG proved to be an effective force in the fight against IS. Consequently, the U.S.-led coalition provided assistance to the Kurdish group to remove IS from other territories in Syria.
In 2015, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was established to include non-Kurdish fighters as well.
With U.S. support, the SDF captured most areas from IS control, including Raqqa, the capital of its so-called caliphate. In March 2019, the SDF declared the territorial defeat of IS after pushing out the terror group from its last pocket of control in eastern Syria.
The Kurdish-led SDF now controls nearly one-third of Syria’s territory, which has effectively become a semiautonomous region.
But Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as terrorists by Turkey, the European Union and United States.
This month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced American forces would withdraw from northeast Syria, allowing the Turkish military to launch its long-planned offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters.
Days after the U.S. announcement, Turkey began its operation on two Kurdish-held cities along the Syria-Turkey border. Rights groups, including Amnesty International, said the Turkish-led campaign has killed hundreds of civilians and displaced thousands of others.
Despite a cease-fire that was brokered by the U.S. last week and Turkey’s assurances that it would not resume its military offensive, fighting could resume as both Kurdish forces have not agreed to all the terms of the deal.
Turkey
The Kurds are the largest non-Turkish ethnic group in Turkey. They constitute up to 20 percent of Turkey’s population.
Thousands of supporters of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, gather to celebrate the Kurdish New Year and to attend a campaign rally for local elections that will test the Turkish president’s popularity, in Istanbul, March 24, 2019.
For decades, the Kurds were subjected to the so-called “Turkification policies” of the state, and their ethnic identity was denied. Their language was restricted, and naming their children in Kurdish was banned. For decades, they were referred to as “mountain Turks.”
The question of an independent Kurdistan has a long history that dates back to the Ottoman Empire. In the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the Western allies promised an autonomous Kurdistan. However, that was never fulfilled because the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 following the Treaty of Lausanne.
As a unitary nation state, Turkey considered the Kurds a threat to its national unity and pushed back on demands for equal citizenship rights.
PKK
In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) with the aim of establishing a united, independent Kurdistan within Turkey, but also including parts of Iraq, Iran and Syria. The group started its armed insurgency inside Turkey in 1984, and since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as a result of the conflict between the Turkish government and PKK.
In 1999, Ocalan was arrested in Kenya by Turkish intelligence forces. He is serving a life sentence at an island prison near Istanbul.
In March 2013, during the Kurdish “Nowruz,” or new year, celebrations, Ocalan sent a letter to supporters. He called for a cease-fire, as well as setps to disarm and withdraw from Turkey, and an end to armed struggle. The Turkish government praised the letter.
In July 2015, a two-and-a-half-year cease-fire broke down, and the conflict resumed.
According to International Crisis Group, more than 4,500 people have been killed in clashes or terror attacks since 2015.
Iran
Ethnic Kurds make up nearly 9% of Iran’s 80 million population. They are largely Sunni Muslims, but there are some Shiite and Zoroastrian Kurds as well.
The Kurdish political movement in Iran started with the establishment of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1946. Under the leadership of Qazi Mohammad, the group declared a Kurdish republic in the city of Mahabad that same year. Nearly 11 months later, however, Iranian government forces entered Mahabad to crush the new Kurdish entity. Mohammad was executed immediately.
In 1979, after the Islamic revolution toppled the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the new Islamist government carried on the subjugation of the Kurds. The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began targeting Kurdish activists at home and abroad.
In 1989, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, an influential Iranian Kurdish leader, was assassinated in Vienna, Austria. The operation was reportedly carried out by the IRGC.
Influenced by the Turkish-based PKK, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) was founded 2003 in Iran. Ever since, the group has been engaged in occasional clashes with Iranian security forces.
