A committee guiding OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy has suggested other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains use Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the national opioid crisis.
The committee of unsecured creditors said in a letter sent Sunday to the parties and obtained by The Associated Press that the country “is in the grips of a crisis that must be addressed, and that doing so may require creative approaches.”
It’s calling for all the companies to put money into a fund in exchange for having all their lawsuits resolved.
The committee includes victims of the opioid crisis plus a medical center, a health insurer, a prescription benefit management company, the manufacturer of an addiction treatment drug and a pension insurer. It says that the concept may not be feasible but invited further discussion. It does not give a size of contributions from the company.
The same committee has been aggressive in Purdue’s bankruptcy, saying it would support pausing litigation against members of the Sackler family who own Purdue in exchange for a $200 million fund from the company to help fight the opioid crisis.
Paul Hanly, a lead lawyer for local governments in the lawsuits, said in a text message Sunday evening that he’d heard about the mass settlement idea, calling it “most unlikely.”
The proposal comes as narrower talks have not resulted in a settlement. Opening statements are to be held Monday in the first federal trial over the crisis. The lawsuit deals with claims from the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga and Summit against a half-dozen companies. More than 2,000 other state and local governments plus Native American tribes, hospitals and other groups have made similar claims.
There have been talks aimed at settling all claims against the drugmakers Johnson & Johnson and Teva and the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson ahead of the trial. One proposal called for resolving claims against them nationally in exchange for cash and addiction treatment drugs valued at a total of $48 billion over time.
The committee’s proposal went to those five companies plus nine others that face lawsuits.
Opioids, including both prescription painkillers and illegal drugs such as heroin and illicitly made fentanyl, have been linked to more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000.
The still popular former mayor of Baltimore and brother of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Thomas D’Alesandro III, died Sunday at 90.
The family said he had been suffering from complications from a stroke.
Pelosi, who is leading a congressional delegation in Jordan, issued a statement calling her brother “the finest public servant I have ever known…a leader of dignity, compassion, and extraordinary courage.”
D’Alesandro was known around Baltimore as “Young Tommy,” because his father, “Big Tommy,” was also mayor and a U.S. congressman.
“Young Tommy” was president of the Baltimore City Council and was elected mayor in 1967, leading Baltimore through four of the most tumultuous years in the city’s history. His challenges included a number of labor strikes that paralyzed city services, the push for urban renewal, and the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 from which Baltimore has never fully recovered.
D’Alesandro was also the first Baltimore mayor to appoint African-Americans to important city positions.
After deciding not to run for a second term in 1971, D’Alesandro went into private law practice and could still be seen dining in Italian restaurants and attending Baltimore Oriole baseball games until just before his death.
Protests and violence in Chile spilled over into a new day Sunday even after the president cancelled a subway fare hike that prompted massive and violent demonstrations.
Officials in the Santiago region said three people died in a fire at a looted supermarket early Sunday — one of 60 Walmart-owned outlets that have been vandalized, and the company said many stores did not open during the day.
At least two airlines cancelled or rescheduled flights into the capital, affecting more than 1,400 passengers Sunday and Monday.
President Sebastián Piñera, facing the worst crisis of his second term as head of the South American country, announced Saturday night he was cancelling a subway fare hike imposed two weeks ago. It had led to major protests that included rioting that caused millions of dollars in damage to burned buses and vandalized subway stops, office buildings and stores.
Troops patrolled the streets and a state of emergency and curfew remained in effect for six Chilean cities, but renewed protests continued after daybreak. Security forces used tear gas and jets of water to try disperse crowds.
Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick reported that 62 police and 11 civilians were injured in the latest disturbances and prosecutors said nearly 1,500 people had been arrested.
With transportation frozen, Cynthia Cordero said she had walked 20 blocks to reach a pharmacy to buy diapers, only to find it had been burned.
“They don’t have the right to do this,” she said, adding it was right to protest “against the abuses, the increases in fares, against bad education and an undignified pension, but not to destroy.”
Long lines formed at gas stations as people tried to fill up for a coming workweek with a public transport system depleted by the destructive protests.
Subway system chief Louis De Grange said workers would try to have at least one line running Monday, but he said it could take weeks or months to have the four others back in service.
One of the first stops for a tourist in Los Angeles is the TCL Chinese Theatre next to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Originally called Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, it opened in 1927 and is a remnant of Hollywood’s fascination with the Orient in the early days of the U.S. film industry.
“When film was first invented — and we’re talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s — it expanded the visual minds of its audiences,” said Chinese American filmmaker and author Arthur Dong. He added, “Audiences were given this exotic glimpse of a land unknown to them, and I think that it started there.”
Dong curated old photos of Chinese American actors for the newly restored Formosa Café, an iconic Hollywood nightclub and bar that opened in 1939. With red leather booth chairs and tables surrounded by old photos on the walls, the back room of the Formosa Café looks like a museum commemorating the work of Chinese Americans and their role in Hollywood.
The Formosa Cafe in Los Angeles first opened its doors in 1939 and was a frequent watering hole for people in the movie industry. It was renovated, restored and opened on June 28, 2019 serving Chinese food. (E. Lee/VOA)
“I was always curious about the Chinese or Asian actress I saw on screen, whether films from the early part of cinema history up to today,” Dong said, “especially the ’20s and ’30s and ’40s, where I saw Chinese characters on screen. But they were always playing servants, coolies, laundry man. And if they were women, they were prostitutes or servants.”
Chinese stereotypes
In his new book, “Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films,” Dong looked at Hollywood’s portrayal of Chinese characters and the Chinese culture. Stereotypes of the Chinese in America were perpetuated by the otherness of U.S. Chinatowns in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where people had different customs.
During that time in history, political tensions between the West and China climaxed with the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, an uprising against the spread of Western influences in China.
WATCH: Hollywood Movies Reflecting Changes in How Asians are Portrayed
Hollywood Movies Reflecting Changes in How Asians are Portrayed video player.
“With all of this history came a perception of the Chinese as the ‘yellow peril,’ the sinister Chinese, the Chinese that you couldn’t trust. And that resulted in the character called Fu Manchu,” Dong explained.
Fu Manchu, a villain who wanted to destroy the Western world, ended up on the big screen and in a television series.
In 1926, Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective from Hawaii, appeared on the big screen. It was a role that created a different, yet still problematic Asian stereotype.
Filmmaker, curator and author Arthur Dong wrote the book, “Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films.” (E. Lee/VOA)
“He was smart and wise, but he was also very Oriental in the worst sense in that he was passive,” Dong said. “He was quiet. He was smart — smarter than anybody else, which is a good attribute, yes — but it was used in a stereotyped way. He spoke in broken English.” Dong said.
‘Yellow face’ actors
Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu may have been Chinese characters, but they were largely played by Caucasian actors made up to look Asian. Actors Sidney Toler, Roland Winters, Peter Ustinov and Ross Martin all portrayed Charlie Chan.
“Yellow face — meaning they actually, literally yellowed up their skin,” said Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociology professor at Biola University and author of “Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism.” “They usually slanted their eyes with prosthetics. They did it in a way that was to make fun of, that was to make Chinese and Asians look as sinister or as buffoonish as possible, and that kind of portrayal reproduced the stereotypes that were existent in society. But I would say also exacerbated the nativism and xenophobia that people had.”
Caucasian actors also played the lead roles in the 1937 film about rural Chinese farmers, “The Good Earth.” Though Asian actors received parts in the film, “it’s overshadowed by this yellow-face casting of the main actors,” Dong said. “In the ‘30s, that was a norm. That’s what Hollywood was doing. Part of it was because they needed bankable actors, and there were no Asian American bankable actors.”
Chinese American actress Anna Mae Wong wanted to play the female lead in “The Good Earth,” but she did not get the role.
“The reason why Anna Mae Wong wasn’t cast was because of this production law that was part of Hollywood. The industry itself put up a production law, and part of the clause was this anti-miscegenation clause that said that you could not have interracial romances on-screen,” said Yuen.
FILE – Author Kevin Kwan, right, and cast members Henry Golding and Constance Wu pose at the premiere for “Crazy Rich Asians” in Los Angeles, Aug. 7, 2018.
Asian actors in modern-day Hollywood
Over the decades, Asian and Chinese Americans did find work in Hollywood, and a few earned a star on the Hollywood Walk for Fame, such as Anna Mae Wong, Keye Luke, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu.
However, some movie fans have recently been critical on social media about movies where white actors are cast in leading roles that they believe should have gone to Asian actors. The movies include “Aloha,” the 2015 film where Emma Stone played Allison Ng, a character of Asian descent, and the 2017 film “Ghost in the Shell,” where Scarlett Johansson played a leading role based on a Japanese anime character.
The 2018 movie “Crazy Rich Asians” hit the big screen with a majority Asian cast, an Asian American director and an Asian as one of the writers. The movie became a milestone for many Asian Americans.
“The sensation of “Crazy Rich Asians,” both in its critical and box office success, is a sign that things are changing,” Dong said. “What is different is that the Asian American community won’t sit back. Filmmakers are being nurtured. Attitudes are being nurtured and strengthened where we won’t take that yellow-face casting anymore, where we won’t take that kind of whitewashing attitude of making an Asian character white.”
People on social media are not only holding Hollywood accountable for its portrayal of Asians, technology is also opening doors for Asian Americans to tell stories on their own terms.
“We have so many more platforms. There’s the Netflix. There is the Amazon Primes and the Hulus. And we have streaming platforms. We have YouTube,” Yuen said.
With Asian Americans being the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S., a new generation of Asian American artists can use the different digital platforms to tell stories without being boxed in a stereotype.
The Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opened in 1927 in Hollywood. It has also been named Mann’s Chinese Theatre and in 2013, it was renamed the TCL Chinese Theatre after a Chinese electronics manufacturer who has 10-year naming rights to the building.
The China factor
Hollywood is also changing its portrayal of Chinese and the Chinese culture because of the China factor.
As the biggest consumer market outside the U.S., Hollywood has been making movies that would not offend Chinese audiences. The industry has been careful not to portray the Chinese as villains.
Joint productions between Hollywood and Chinese production companies, such as the animated feature film “Abominable,” put Chinese characters and China in a favorable light.
“That’s where I would like to see the future of Chinese-U.S. collaborations, is that there is more space for both. So that both countries can feel like there’s something familiar to them. And I think that would open up more roles for Chinese Americans and Asian Americans, in general,” Yuen said.
India said Sunday two soldiers and a civilian were killed in cross-border shelling with Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region, while Islamabad said six died on its side, making it one of the deadliest days since New Delhi revoked Kashmir’s special status in August.
Three Indian civilians were injured and some buildings and vehicles destroyed because of several hours of heavy shelling by both sides in the Tanghdar region in northern Kashmir late Saturday night, a senior police official said.
Pakistan said six of its civilians were killed and eight wounded in the clash.
The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.
There was an unprovoked cease-fire violation by Pakistan in Tanghdar sector, said Indian defense spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia.
“Our troops retaliated strongly causing heavy damage and casualties to the enemy,” Kalia said.
Indian forces in occupied Kashmir have gone “berserk,” Raja Farooq Haider, prime minister of Pakistan’s Azad Kashmir region, said in a tweet, adding that the civilian casualties and injuries were in the Muzaffarabad and Neelum districts.
“This is the height of savagery. The world must not stay silent over it,” he said in his tweet with the hashtag #KashmirNeedsAttention.
Tensions between the two countries have flared and there has been intermittent cross-border firing since Aug. 5 when New Delhi flooded Indian Kashmir with troops to quell unrest after it revoked the region’s special autonomous status.
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the U.S., and numerous events are organized throughout the country to attract attention to the seriousness and scale of the issue. In the nation’s capital, the best restaurant chefs gathered to cook and eat for a cause. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
While the internet has definitely made our lives easier, it has come at a cost. Studies show that internet addiction is on the rise, specifically among young people. In Turkey, a recent study shows that internet addiction has risen over the last two decades. For VOA, Yildiz Yazicioglu and Murat Karabulut report from Ankara, Turkey, in this story narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
The future of green energy just finished a 25-country tour. It moves as quietly as a whisper, uses the sun, wind and hydrogen for fuel, and emits zero greenhouse gases. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi sails us through this story.
Chinese coast guard vessels spent 70% of the past year patrolling in a tract of the South China Sea claimed by Malaysia, an American think tank says. Malaysia did little to push back.
The coast guard presence, especially long-term for a Chinese mission in the widely disputed South China Sea, followed by Malaysia’s muted response gives China an ever-stronger upper hand over the Southeast Asian country and more clout in a broader six-way maritime dispute that has grabbed attention as far away as Washington. China already has a military and technological edge in the dispute.
In Malaysia, “they do monitor, but I don’t think they do the shooing them away kind of thing, because China is simply too powerful for doing so,” said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
FILE – China Coast Guard vessels patrol past a Chinese fishing vessel at the disputed Scarborough Shoal, April 5, 2017.
Chinese coast guard
At least one Chinese coast guard vessel was broadcasting from Luconia Shoals on 258 of the past 365 days, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report September 26.
Most of the shoals are under water, but a reef called Luconia Breakers may include a small sandbar that protrudes above water at high tide, the think tank initiative says.
The Chinese coast guard also patrolled around the disputed sea’s Scarborough Shoal for 162 of the past 365 days and Second Thomas Shoal for 215 days, the initiative report says. China disputes both with the Philippines and controls Scarborough. China started patrolling around Luconia Shoals in 2013, according to the report.
Other countries see China’s coast guard as a paramilitary force just short of its navy.
China and Malaysia
The mission to Luconia Shoals appears aimed at proving China’s heft over Malaysia and at locking in Chinese claims to about 90% of the sea, scholars say. Malaysia is the most active developer of undersea oil and gas among the governments with claims in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. But the country lacks China’s coastal patrol hardware.
FILE – This photo from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency shows the Japan Coast Guard ship Tsugaru and helicopters of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency during a joint exercise off Kuantan, Malaysia, Jan. 29, 2018.
“Most of the MMEA (Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency) craft were pretty small,” said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “They could not actually go that far out to Luconia Shoals, because when you are further out there, the sea state, the weather wouldn’t have been conducive for those craft anyway.
“And furthermore, it’s not just the size,” he said. “The maintainability and the operational readiness of a number of these craft are actually suspect.”
According to think tank initiative data, two Royal Malaysian Navy warships each patrolled near the Chinese coast guard vessel Haijing 3306 at Luconia Shoals for at least two days in September and October 2018. But in May this year, a Chinese coast guard vessel engaged in intimidation of a Malaysian drilling rig near Luconia Breakers, the think tank initiative’s report says.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad reacts during a news conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Sept. 18, 2019.
Malaysia seldom spoke out before Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took office in 2018 with calls to review Chinese investment in his country and avoid use of warships in the disputed sea. Malaysia also laid plans in 2017 to modernize its navy, but its forces haven’t matched those of China.
The Philippines and fellow South China Sea claimant Vietnam often use formal diplomacy to challenge China’s past decade of island-building and militarization in the waterway. Brunei also claims part of the sea, and Taiwan claims nearly all of it. The sea stretches from Borneo to Hong Kong.
China has amassed more manpower over the past few years to patrol around the clock, Koh said. The government in the Malaysian state of Sarawak is pushing now for its own marine police unit, he noted.
Show of sovereignty
China might be using its coast guard as pressure on Malaysia to negotiate but almost certainly as a way to remind the outer world of its maritime claims, said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
South China Sea Territorial Claims
“I think it’s still all about stretching a claim to sovereignty,” Huang said. “I wouldn’t dare say there’s no possibility of cooperation, but that location would appear to lean toward ‘claim my sovereignty.’”
The U.S. think tank initiative calls Luconia Shoals “a symbolically important series of reefs … which China seems determined to control without physically occupying.”
Chinese leaders feel they should show strength at sea to keep the United States and its allies away, experts have said since 2017 when U.S. President Donald Trump stepped up naval voyages into the South China Sea. The U.S. helps train Philippine troops and moved in 2016 to resume sales of lethal arms to Vietnam.
If Malaysia acknowledges China’s claim to sovereignty, the two sides could work together on joint energy exploration, Oh said. “It’s a “delicate dance going on between China and Malaysia in this respect.”
Lebanon braced for a third day of unrest on Saturday after anti-government protests fueled by rising fury over an economic crisis erupted across the country and descended into riots on the streets of Beirut.
Small groups of demonstrators gathered in central Beirut in an effort to keep the protests going, with storefronts of banks and upmarket retailers in the capital’s commercial district smashed in and fires still smoldering from the night before.
Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri gave his government partners a 72-hour deadline on Friday to agree on reforms that could ward off economic crisis, hinting he may otherwise resign.
The latest unrest erupted out of anger over the rising cost of living and new tax plans, including a fee on WhatsApp calls, which was quickly retracted after protests – the biggest in decades – broke out.
In a televised speech addressing the protests on Saturday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the group opposed the government’s resignation, and that the country did not have enough time for such a move given the acute financial crisis.
“Everyone should take responsibility rather than being preoccupied with settling political scores while leaving the fate of the country unknown,” said Nasrallah, adding that Lebanon could face “financial collapse”.
“All of us have to shoulder the responsibility of the current situation that we arrived at in Lebanon. Everyone should take part in finding a solution,” added Nasrallah, whose Iranian-backed Shi’ite group is Lebanon’s most influential.
The protests that swept villages and towns across the country on Friday recalled the 2011 Arab revolts that toppled four presidents. Lebanese from all sects and walks of life waved banners and chanted for Hariri’s government to go.
“People will definitely go back out today because they’re in pain,” said Ramzi Ismail, a 60-year-old engineer. “But we are against clashes with the army or security forces and vandalism.”
‘Two big dangers’
In the speech, Nasarallah predicted that imposing more taxes would lead to an “explosion” of unrest.
He said Lebanon was facing two big dangers – financial and economic meltdown and popular unrest.
“If we don’t work towards a solution we’re heading towards a collapse of the country, it will be bankrupt and our currency will not have any value.”
“The second danger is a popular explosion as a result of wrong handling of the situation,” Nasrallah said.
The unusually wide geographic reach of protests has highlighted the deepening anger of the Lebanese. The government, which includes nearly all Lebanon’s main parties, has repeatedly failed to implement reforms needed to fix the national finances.
“The protests must continue because this is a matter of our dignity. We’ll be left humiliated otherwise,” said Miriam Keserwan, 28.
Riot police in vehicles and on foot rounded up protesters late on Friday, firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters to disperse riots in Beirut that grew violent as the night wore on, leaving streets strewn with glass and burning debris.
Lebanon’s internal security apparatus said 52 police were injured on Friday and its forces arrested 70 people.
“I can’t blame the people who are doing this,” said 26-year-old Charbel Abyad, referring to the city’s damage. “Some have no jobs, no health care and no education. They are being mistreated and they can’t help but express it this way.”
South Sudan opposition leader Riek Machar returned to the country on Saturday to meet with President Salva Kiir less than a month before their deadline to form a unity government after a five-year civil war.
Machar last met face-to-face with Kiir in September, when they discussed outstanding issues in a fragile peace deal. His two-day visit includes a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who arrives Sunday with a U.N. Security Council delegation.
The delegation is expected to encourage progress in the peace deal signed a year ago but fraught with delays.
The opposition has said Machar won’t return to form the government by the Nov. 12 deadline unless security arrangements are in place.
The U.S. has said it will reevaluate its relationship with South Sudan if that deadline is missed.
The civil war killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions.
Before Machar’s return a unified army of 41,500 opposition and government soldiers needs to be ready along with a 3,000-person VIP protection force.
But so far there are only 1,000 unified soldiers and security arrangements won’t meet the deadline, deputy opposition spokesman Manawa Peter Gatkuoth said.
The previous Machar-Kiir meeting focused on speeding up the screening and reunification of forces, but parties left the talks with differing views.
Deputy chairman for the opposition Henry Odwar called the meeting “lukewarm,” while government spokesman Michael Makuei called it “highly successful” and said everything was on track for next month’s deadline.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said Saturday the murder suspect whose case was the spark that started the fire of the Hong Kong protests — an extradition proposal to allow Hong Kong to transfer suspects to Taiwan, as well as mainland China, among other places, that Lam has announced will be withdrawn — is ready to turn himself in to Taiwanese authorities.
Lam said Chan Tong-kai wrote to her, saying he would “surrender himself to Taiwan” in connection with his alleged involvement in a murder case.
Chang is accused of murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan. When he fled back to Hong Kong, he was arrested on money laundering charges but is expected to be released soon.
Hong Kong is facing the 20th straight weekend of anti-government protests, after both sides revealed this week that they are digging in.
Protesters say they won’t back down from their “five demands” on Hong Kong’s government, and Lam said she would make no concessions to protesters.
Lam’s hardline position was echoed earlier this week by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who went a step further and warned that anyone advocating Hong Kong’s independence from China risked “crushed bodies and shattered bones.”
But protesters say they’re not giving up. On Friday, more than 1,000 people flooded the city’s financial center, marching past banks and luxury stores, drawing hordes of curious onlookers and bringing traffic to a halt.
The protesters’ main demands include universal suffrage, an investigation of police violence, amnesty for protesters and the full, official withdrawal of the extradition bill, which would allow mainland China to try people arrested in Hong Kong.
Protests have been a near-constant presence in the city since June, even though police have outlawed unauthorized protests and the wearing of face coverings during public gatherings.
Police have not granted permission for protests planned for this weekend.
Protests are also planned for every weekend for the rest of the year — or until one side gives in.
At least 15 gold miners were killed on Saturday when a dam collapsed, flooding an artisanal mining encampment in a remote part of Siberia, officials said.
Heavy rains had weakened the dam and water broke through, sweeping away several cabins where the artisan miners lived, about 160 km (100 miles) south of the city of Krasnoyarsk.
President Vladimir Putin ordered all necessary measures to be taken to help those affected, to identify the cause of the disaster and prevent any impact on a nearby residential area, Interfax quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Russia is one of the world’s top gold producers with most of its output coming from large professional industrial mines.
However, alluvial production, which is usually operated by small firms, still contributes some of the country’s gold.
Alluvial or artisanal gold mining in Russia is usually small-scale, but is still conducted by officially registered firms which are supposed to abide by health and safety rules.
Krasnoyarsk officials said in a statement that water released by the dam partially flooded two dormitories of the rotational camp in which 74 people lived, adding that 13 people were still missing.
A Russian investigative committee said it had launched a criminal probe into violation of safety rules at the gold mining spot, while local authorities said the collapsed dam was not registered by official bodies.
Interfax said the miners were part of Siberian privately-held Sibzoloto, which unites several artisanal mining teams.
Sibzoloto was not immediately available for comment.
Sibzoloto produced about 3 tons of gold in 2018, Sergei Kashuba, the head of Russia’s Gold Industrialists’ Union, a non-government producers’ lobby group, told Reuters. Sibzoloto is not a member of the union, he added.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson appealed to lawmakers to back his last-minute Brexit deal in an extraordinary session of the British parliament on Saturday after his plans were plunged into chaos by his opponents’ moves to derail the legislation.
More than three years since the United Kingdom voted 52-48% to leave the European project, Johnson sought parliament’s approval for the divorce treaty he struck in Brussels on Thursday.
He said he was confident he had secured the best possible deal and there was little appetite for further delay.
“If there is one feeling that unites the British public with a growing number of officials in the EU it is a burning desire to get Brexit done,” Johnson said. “Further delay is pointless, expensive and deeply corrosive of public trust.”
On a day of high drama, lawmakers held the first Saturday sitting since the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falklands, while thousands of people gathered to march on parliament demanding another referendum on EU membership.
Protesters waving EU flags and carrying signs calling for Brexit to be halted were making their way towards parliament.
In the chamber, meanwhile, Johnson’s opponents have laid a booby trap that could frustrate his plans, forcing him to send members of parliament home without voting on his deal on Saturday, and imposing a further delay in achieving Brexit.
Former Conservative lawmaker Oliver Letwin, expelled from the party by Johnson, has proposed that the decision on whether to back a deal be deferred until all the legislation needed to implement it has been passed through parliament.
Even though Johnson believes this can be achieved by Oct. 31, others think it would need a short ‘technical’ delay.
A law passed by Johnson’s opponents obliges him to ask the EU for a Brexit delay until Jan. 31, 2020, unless he has secured approval for his deal by the end of Saturday.
Brexit Breakthrough, but British MPs Could Torpedo EU Deal video player.
Watch: Brexit Breakthrough, but British MPs Could Torpedo EU Deal
Cross-party support
Letwin’s proposal, which has cross-party support, will be put to a vote on Saturday. If the amendment is approved by parliament, Johnson’s deal would not then be put to a vote on Saturday. The government would then seek to hold a vote on the deal on Tuesday, officials said.
“My aim is to ensure that Boris’ deal succeeds,” said Letwin, kicked out of the Conservative Party for refusing to back Johnson’s plans to leave the EU with or without a deal.
But Letwin wanted “an insurance policy which prevents the UK from crashing out on 31 October by mistake if something goes wrong during the passage of the implementing legislation”.
Outside parliament, many Britons say they are bored with the whole Brexit argument and just want the process to end. But others demonstrating on Saturday remain angry that Britain is leaving the EU and want that reversed.
Hannah Barton, 56, a cider maker from Derbyshire in central England, was draped in the EU flag. “I am incensed that we are not being listened to,” she said.
“We feel that we are voiceless. This is a national disaster waiting to happen and it is going to destroy the economy.”
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, backed a second referendum.
“Voting for a deal today won’t end Brexit. It won’t deliver certainty and the people should have the final say,” Corbyn told parliament.
Brexit “Super Saturday” tops a frenetic week which saw Johnson confound his opponents by clinching a new Brexit deal.
In a divided parliament where he has no majority, Johnson must win the support of 320 lawmakers to pass his deal.
If he wins, Johnson will go down in history as the leader who delivered a Brexit – for good or bad – that pulls the United Kingdom far out of the EU’s orbit.
‘Do or die’
Should he fail, Johnson will face the humiliation of Brexit unraveling after repeatedly promising that he would get it done – “do or die” – by Oct. 31.
Johnson won the top job by staking his career on getting Brexit done by the latest deadline of Oct. 31 after his predecessor, Theresa May, was forced to delay the departure date. Parliament rejected her deal three times, by margins of between 58 and 230 votes earlier this year.
He said lawmakers faced the option of either approving the deal or propelling the United Kingdom to a disorderly no-deal exit that could divide the West, hurt global growth and bring renewed violence to Northern Ireland.
To win, Johnson must persuade enough Brexit-supporting rebels in both his Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party to back his deal. His Northern Irish allies and the three main opposition parties oppose it.
In a boost for Johnson, some influential hardline Brexit supporters such as Mark Francois and Iain Duncan Smith said they would support the deal.
Steve Baker, the head of a hardline Brexit faction in the Conservative Party, has told his European Research Group allies they should vote for Johnson’s deal.
Netflix has released a movie based on the so-called Panama Papers despite an attempt by two lawyers to stop the streaming premiere.
“The Laundromat,” starring Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas and Meryl Streep, debuted Friday on Netflix after a limited release in theaters.
Two Panamanian lawyers, Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca, sued Netflix in federal court in Connecticut this week, saying the movie defamed them and could prejudice criminal cases against them. Netflix asked a judge to dismiss the suit but did not address the allegations.
The Panama Papers were more than 11 million documents leaked from the two lawyers’ firm that shed light on how the rich hide their money.
A judge ruled there was no valid reason to file the case in Connecticut and ordered it transferred to the Los Angeles-area federal court district.
John McAnear, a 77-year-old Air Force veteran, stood in an audience of hundreds in suburban Des Moines with an oxygen tank at his side, wheezing as he implored Pete Buttigieg to protect the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Democratic presidential hopeful skipped any attempt to bond over their mutual military service. Instead, Buttigieg offered a list of proposals to fix the VA.
Of the many ways the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is different from his better-known rivals, there is this: his ingrained emotional restraint in a show-all-tell-all era.
“You don’t really get the warm fuzzies from him,” said Lisa Ann Spilman, a retired Air Force officer who attended Buttigieg’s event. “But I really like how intelligent and down-to-earth he is.”
Personal connection
As Buttigieg, whose campaign appears better positioned organizationally in Iowa and financially overall than former Vice President Joe Biden’s, attempts to climb into the top tier of Democrats, voters will be taking a measure of him in all ways, including whether he can make the kind of personal connection they have come to expect, at least since Bill Clinton showed he could feel their pain.
Buttigieg chafes at being labeled an emotionless technocrat, and his supporters cite his intellectual agility as his main draw, particularly against someone like President Donald Trump, whose strained relationship with the truth is so frequently on display.
FILE – Pete Buttigieg speaks during a Democratic presidential candidates debate at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, Oct. 15, 2019.
In a candidate debate Tuesday, Buttigieg showed rare outward fire, pointedly challenging Senator Elizabeth Warren on her health care plan and former Representative Beto O’Rourke on gun control. “I don’t need lessons from you on courage, political or personal,” Buttigieg said to O’Rourke.
“I don’t mind being a little professorial at times,” Buttigieg acknowledged in a conversation with reporters last month. He added, “Sometimes I think I’m misread because I’m laid back. I’m misread as being bloodless.”
But to describe him as wooden or mechanical gets it wrong. Upbeat in his trademark white shirt with sleeves half-rolled, Buttigieg projects energy and youthful diligence.
He’s not a fiery podium speaker like Senator Bernie Sanders. He isn’t given to big hugs or open self-reflection, like Biden and Warren.
In interactions with voters, Buttigieg’s style is evolving. During a late-summer stop in southeast Iowa, he noted his mother-in-law “is alive because of the Affordable Care Act,” but he moved on without describing her illness or asking if his audience had similar experiences.
It’s notable because Buttigieg is trying to frame his message around empathy in what he calls the nation’s “crisis of belonging.”
Misfiring
And it does not always work. When the question turned to cancer at the Iowa State Fair, he said before discussing his plans, “Cancer took my father earlier this year, so this is personal,” skipping over any elaboration of the pillar Joe Buttigieg was to his only child.
When the questioner noted her family’s loss, he said politely, “I’m sorry. So, we’re in the same boat,” and then turned to a discussion of research.
Buttigieg’s mother, Anne Montgomery, said that in boyhood her son was fun, curious, literate and multitalented but “a reserved person.”
“It’s been a part of his life for a long time,” she said in an Associated Press interview.
What Buttigieg suggests is his tendency to “compartmentalize” has been a liability for some other candidates, most notably for the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, Michael Dukakis.
FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks with local residents at the Hawkeye Area Labor Council Labor Day Picnic, Sept. 2, 2019, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
He offered an almost programmatic answer when asked during a nationally televised debate if he would support the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered.
Dukakis, who lost in a landslide, acknowledges today that he “botched it” and that his answer fed the narrative that the pragmatic, policy-oriented Massachusetts governor was emotionless.
Buttigieg, Dukakis told the AP, is warm and thoughtful, “but he also happens to be very, very bright, and that, I think, is the biggest part of his appeal.” Dukakis has endorsed his home state senator, Warren.
“He’s not a typical politician,” said Kelsie Goodman, an associate principal for a Des Moines area high school who first saw Buttigieg at an event last month. “And he’s an intellectual judo master.”
As the campaign progresses, there are signs Buttigieg is becoming more comfortable opening up.
At an outdoor event at Des Moines’ Theodore Roosevelt High School last Saturday, he ignited laughter and cheers for his answer to a question about how he would approach debating Trump.
“We know what he’s going to do, and it just doesn’t get to me. Look, I can deal with bullies. I’m gay and I grew up in Indiana. I’ll be fine,” he deadpanned.
Concern for husband
In a rare personal revelation, he told reporters on a bus ride across northern Iowa that he dreaded the thought of his husband, Chasten, being subjected to the cruelties of modern politics.
“Another agonizing feeling is to watch that happening to someone you love,” he said. “At least if it’s happening to me, I can go out there and fight back.”
Still, what Buttigieg’s most vocal advocates praise as his coolness so far seems to be doing little to dampen views of him in Iowa, where he has invested heavily in time and money in hopes of a breakthrough finish. In a September CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll, 69% of likely Iowa caucus participants said they viewed Buttigieg favorably, second only to Warren.
Where Buttigieg clearly connects personally is along the rope line with supporters and when the merely curious meet him after he leaves the stage.
FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg meets with people at a campaign event Aug. 15, 2019, in Fairfield, Iowa.
In these moments, he has met people who describe their own stories of stepping out of the shadows, as Buttigieg did coming out as a gay man in 2015. Buttigieg regularly mentions Iowa teenager Bridgette Bissell, who described the courage she took from meeting him to announce she was autistic.
Similar moments, Buttigieg said, prompted him to build his campaign around repairing Americans’ sense of connectedness.
In Waterloo recently, local organizer Caitlin Reedy introduced Buttigieg to hundreds at a riverside rally, explaining that she was drawn to him by having experienced the uneasiness of sharing her diagnosis with diabetes.
Picturing ‘unification’
Leaning forward in his chair on the bus the next day, Buttigieg said the campaign was teaching him how people — feeling left out racially, ethnically, culturally, economically — yearn to connect.
“Where it comes from is going through the process of understanding that you’re different,” he said, “and then understanding that that’s part of what you have to offer.”
“Join me in picturing that kind of presidency,” he told more than 600 in Waterloo, “not for the glorification of the president, but for the unification of the people.”
Joe Biden is confronting growing anxiety among would-be allies in the Democratic establishment about his ability to win the presidential nomination following underwhelming debate performances, lagging fundraising and withering attacks from rivals in his own party and from President Donald Trump.
The former vice president’s bank account is better suited for a city council race than a presidential election, warns Terry McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor and top Democratic fundraiser.
Democratic donor Robert Zimmerman describes group “therapy sessions” with some party financiers haranguing the direction of the race. And in New Hampshire, state House Speaker Steve Shurtleff is leaning toward backing Biden, but says “people wish he’d be a little more forceful.”
Their concern is heightened by the rise of Elizabeth Warren, a progressive long viewed by current and former elected officials, big donors and veteran strategists as too liberal to beat Trump in the general election. Warren and Biden are essentially tied at the top of the race with the rest of the field lagging behind.
With first votes in the Democratic primary fast approaching, the new dynamic is sparking widespread frustration among establishment Democrats who have increasingly begun to speak out about the direction of the 2020 contest as they implore Democratic donors sitting on millions of dollars to get off the sidelines to bolster Biden’s candidacy.
“Every dinner party and cocktail party becomes a therapy session,” said Zimmerman, a member of the Democratic National Committee based in New York.
West Coast alarms
The same alarms are going off on the West Coast.
“Why are they are not being more supportive of the vice president, who is a centrist?” said Michael S. Smith, a major Democratic donor and Biden supporter in Los Angeles. “If you’re worried about a flood, don’t you start piling up sandbags? I don’t understand the lack of support.”
Others direct their concerns at Biden.
McAuliffe, long a top fundraiser for the Clintons, seized on Biden’s fundraising and his pace of spending to raise questions about the campaign. In an interview, he said it might be time to fire some campaign consultants.
“I don’t think anybody likes to read about $1 million spent on private jets,” McAuliffe said, referring to Biden’s preferred mode of travel. “If I were advising the vice president I’d say, `Fly commercial, get a bag of peanuts or pretzels, go up and down the aisle handing them out. It’ll do wonders for you.’”
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was more subtle, praising Biden as the safest political bet against Trump and the best potential president among Democrats. But he suggested the candidate’s performance so far falls short in some areas.
“I hear concerns about gaffes on this and that” and the campaign trajectory, Rendell said, recalling donor calls he’s made on Biden’s behalf. “Donors are always worried in any campaign,” Rendell quipped, but said he nonetheless must spend time “reassuring them.”
Nervous supporters
The former governor invokes the threat of Warren as the nominee to bolster Biden to nervous supporters.
“We know Joe Biden can win Pennsylvania,” Rendell tells prospective donors. “If Elizabeth is the nominee, we have to fight tooth-and-nail for every last vote.”
Despite the worries, Biden’s support among primary voters shows no sign of cratering — even with Trump and his allies trying to dig up dirt on Biden’s son’s work in Ukraine. While Warren has gained on Biden in many polls and fundraising, the former vice president has remained roughly steady in polls of national Democratic voters.
And perhaps most importantly, he is still the strong favorite among black voters whose support is decisive in a Democratic primary.
Still, anxious donors, party officials and strategists see the need for a stronger national organization. That means competing more aggressively with Warren’s ground game in the four early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, while building out an expansive operation for the Super Tuesday calendar and other states that follow.
Risky approach
Biden’s strategy leans heavily on that kind of sustainable, long-term campaign, because his coalition is anchored by non-white voters and white moderates who have much stronger sway in states that come after the initial Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. His campaign acknowledges as much, with aides insisting that Biden doesn’t have to win either of the first two states to win the nomination.
But there’s considerable risk in that approach, with a worst-case scenario for Biden coming if he falls short of expectations in Iowa and New Hampshire, then doesn’t have enough money to counter negative perceptions with his own advertising and outreach, setting him up to lose support from nonwhite voters and white moderates that he’d need in Nevada, South Carolina and diverse Super Tuesday states.
“A lot of people are with Biden because they think he can win. He’s got to make people continue to believe that,” said Carol Fowler, a former South Carolina party chairwoman who remains uncommitted. Holding that “soft” support would become harder if another candidate, particularly one of the female candidates, gathers momentum ahead of South Carolina, Fowler argued.
Weak fundraising
Up in New Hampshire, which will host the nation’s first presidential primary in February, House Speaker Shurtleff is concerned about Biden’s weak fundraising performance and stagnant polling.
“Nothing’s changed,” said Shurtleff, who describes himself as a centrist leaning toward Biden.
Biden’s most recent disclosures reveal that he spent about $2 million more than the $15 million he took in over the last three months and has a massive overhead, including a staff payroll that topped $4.5 million — plus the private jet travel that rankled some donors. He reported $9 million in the bank at the end of September compared to Bernie Sanders’ $33.7 million, Warren’s $25.7 million and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s $23.4 million.
“You got $9 million? You could be running a city council race,” an incredulous McAuliffe said of Biden’s relatively weak fundraising. “That has to be fixed.”
‘Most Electable’
Still, some Democrats still see a Biden upside in the dynamics.
“People still view Biden as the most electable,” said Robert Wolf, a top donor for President Barack Obama and former chairman and CEO of UBS Americas, pointing to Warren and Sanders supporting a single-payer health insurance overhaul that would eliminate private coverage. “That makes me nervous,” Wolf said.
John Morgan, a Florida attorney who has helped Biden raise almost $2 million for his presidential bid, sees such nervousness stoking Biden’s fourth-quarter money collections. But he insisted that Biden would have plenty of money for the first four nominating contests.
A Russian journalist who was detained for a week during a private visit to Iran this month says she believes her detention was intended to punish her for her Iran-related journalism.
Yulia Yuzik has worked as a reporter for Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and Russky Newsweek, a former publication that was the Russian version of U.S. magazine Newsweek. She also has authored two books based on her investigative journalism since 2003, including Brides of Allah about female suicide bombers and Requiem For Beslan about her interviews with survivors of the 2004 Beslan school massacre in Russia’s North Ossetia.
In a series of interviews since she returned to Moscow from Iran on Oct.10, Yuzik has accused Iranian authorities of luring her to the country to retaliate against her for negative Iran-related news and analysis that she had posted to her Facebook page. The interviews appeared on VOA’s Russian Service, VOA’s sister networks RFE/RL and Radio Farda, and Russia’s MK newspaper.
“I think my whole story of being guided into Iran was a planned operation, but anyone behind that decision did not think that my arrest would produce such a noise,” Yuzik told Radio Farda, referring to Russian diplomatic protests that led to her release. Those protests included Russian foreign ministry statements calling on Iran to grant consular access to Yuzik and quickly resolve her case.
Yuzik, a mother of four who previously lived and worked as a journalist in Iran, arrived in Tehran on Sept. 29 on what she said was a private trip at the invitation of her former boss at the Iranian state-run network PressTV. Yuzik said she had worked for Bahram Hanlar, the head of PressTV’s IranToday program, for several months in 2017 before returning to Russia.
She said Hanlar, a man she had trusted, invited her back to the Iranian capital to clear up “misunderstandings” from an October 2018 visit that had ended unpleasantly, with authorities at Tehran’s airport delaying her departure for almost a day as they questioned her and searched her belongings. She said the security personnel found nothing wrong and apologized for the hassle.
Yuzik said she paid for and was granted a visa on her arrival in Tehran last month, but was stopped at a customs checkpoint and had her passport taken away for what authorities said were “technical reasons.” She said security personnel refused to let her return immediately to Russia, while Hanlar, who had arrived at the airport to meet her, also refused to escort her from the airport to the Russian Embassy in Tehran, at which point she felt that she was in a “hostage” situation.
She said Hanlar, who insisted on accompanying her from the airport, took her to a hotel and the next day to an hours-long interrogation by Iranian agents, while repeatedly assuring her that she would get her passport back shortly. She said her former boss also took her souvenir shopping in Tehran on Oct. 1, the second full day of her visit, before security agents entered her hotel room and arrested her the next day.
Yuzik said she had communicated privately with her mother in Russia about her predicament in the two days before her arrest but did not say anything publicly about her concerns for fear of making the situation worse. She said she later realized that her public silence was a mistake.
After being detained at her hotel, Yuzik said she was taken blindfolded to a prison and a courtroom in unknown locations, where authorities accused her of being a spy for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. She said they demanded that she confess to espionage but provided no evidence of wrongdoing besides telling her that her last name “Yuzik” sounded like the word for “Jewish” in Farsi, which it does.
‘Every day turned into hell’
In her media interviews, Yuzik said she is neither Jewish nor Israeli and never worked for Israeli intelligence. She said she told that to her interrogators, who warned her that she could face the death penalty for spying.
“Every day (in custody) turned into hell. They psychologically toyed with me,” Yuzik told VOA Russian. “The interrogations were sophisticated – they scare you to death and then show your passport and say, if you give us information now, we don’t need to keep you anymore, you’ll go home, and we will buy you a (plane) ticket today. And so it went on, day after day. They made me hysterical,” she said.
Despite her mental anguish, Yuzik said she was not physically abused or harmed in prison.
Yuzik said she suspected that her interrogators, who had seized and accessed her phone, were angered by her recent Facebook postings about Iran and Israel-related news developments. She cited one particular post in April, when she reported claims by Iranian opposition activists that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps General Ali Nasiri had defected and fled the country.
The IRGC denied those claims, while announcing Nasiri had been reassigned from his position as head of an IRGC “protection” unit that oversees security for senior Iranian officials.
“I was one of the first in Russia to write that the head of Iranian counterintelligence fled either to Israel or to America,” Yuzik told RFE/RL, referring to Nasiri. “When I ended up in this (prison) cell, I started thinking that perhaps he hadn’t fled, maybe it was all some kind of propaganda fabrication … (and) perhaps they were seeking revenge by accusing me of working for Israel.”
Yuzik said she believed her Iranian interrogators thought they could get away with detaining her because they knew she was a Russian opposition figure whom they assumed Russia’s government would be unwilling to help. She had staged an unsuccessful run for a parliamentary seat in 2016 with a Russian opposition party.
During Yuzik’s detention, Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Iran’s ambassador to Moscow to seek “clarifications” over her arrest and to ensure that her rights were respected.
“I’m sure the decision (to intervene in my case) was made at the highest level, and maybe because of good relations with Russia, Iran agreed to do something it usually doesn’t,” Yuzik said to Radio Farda. She said Iranian authorities released her on Oct. 9, taking her blindfolded from prison to Tehran’s airport, where a Russian diplomat met her before she boarded a flight home. Iran has jailed other foreigners accused of security offenses for years.
In an Oct. 10 Facebook post (her Facebook account currently appears to be inactive) after she arrived back in Moscow, Yuzik specifically thanked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for working toward her release.
In a radio interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on the same day, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declined to discuss the steps taken by Russia to secure Yuzik’s release. “The fact that she is free is all that is important to us,” Zakharova said.
Never going back
In her media interviews, Yuzik vowed never to return to Iran. She said she may have been naive in believing that the love she developed toward the country by visiting multiple times in recent years would be reciprocated by her Iranian hosts.
Iranian officials have not commented on Yuzik’s case since her post-release interviews were published. While she was in detention, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said she had been arrested for allegedly violating visa rules rather than for engaging in espionage.
Media rights groups have not commented on Yuzik’s allegation that her detention was intended to punish her for posting negative news about Iran online.
Prior to the publication of Yuzik’s interviews, the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists welcomed her release and called on Iranian authorities to “clarify” the reasons for her arrest.
The Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists told VOA Persian that it determined Yuzik’s arrest was “not directly connected to her journalism” and does not fall under CPJ’s mandate.
The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had issued a call for Yuzik’s release on Oct. 8, a day before she was set free. But RSF did not respond to a VOA Persian request for comment about her allegation that Iran detained her because of her journalistic activities online.
