The USS Constitution has sailed in Boston Harbor to celebrate its 222nd birthday and the U.S. Navy’s birthday.
The ship left Charlestown Navy Yard Friday morning and headed to Fort Independence on Castle Island to fire a 21-gun salute.
The event celebrates the birthday of Old Ironsides, the world’s oldest commissioned warship still afloat, and the Navy’s 244th birthday.
Cmdr. Nathaniel Shick, the Constitution’s commanding officer, says the ship has served the country with distinction and he’s honored to celebrate its legacy.
On its return back to the yard, the ship was scheduled to fire another salute as it passed Coast Guard Sector Boston, the former site of the shipyard where the Constitution was built and launched in October 1797.
A United Nations mission in Afghanistan said more civilians have been killed or injured in the past quarter than in any three-month period in the last decade.
A report released Thursday said the 1,174 civilian deaths and 3,139 injuries in the third quarter of this year marked a 42% increase compared with the same period last year.
In the previous quarter, 785 civilians were killed and 1,254 were wounded.
The latest figures brings to more than 8,000 the number of casualties in the first nine months of 2019. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said most of those were caused buy anti-government insurgents.
The report said women and children accounted for more than 41% of casualties this month, with 631 children being killed and 1,830 injured.
“The harm caused to civilians by the fighting in Afghanistan signals the importance of peace talks leading to a cease-fire and a permanent political settlement to the conflict; there is no other way forward,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan. “Civilian casualties are totally unacceptable, especially in the context of the widespread recognition that there can be no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.”
Not only do women already earn 82 cents for every dollar a man makes, but they also pay more for personal products and services like razors, shampoo, haircuts and clothes.
This so-called “pink tax” follows a woman from the cradle to the grave, over her entire life span, according to the research, including a 2015 report from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA).
The New York City DCA analyzed almost 800 items in 35 product categories and found that items for female consumers cost more than products for men across 30 of those categories.
Overall, women’s products cost 7% more than similar products for men. Women pay more than men for comparable personal care products 56% of the time.
Image from “From Cradle to Cane: The Cost of being a Female Consumer” study conducted by New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.
The report found women pay:
— 7% more for toys and accessories
— 4% more for children’s clothing
— 8% more for adult clothing
— 13% more for personal care
— 8% more for senior/home health care products
Baby clothes specifically for girls cost more than clothes for boys. Girls’ shirts can cost up to 13% more than boys’ clothes. Toys marketed to girls cost up to 11% more than toys for boys, even when it’s the exact same item in different colors.
“I have no doubt that it’s real,” says Surina Khan, CEO of the Women’s Foundation of California. “We just have to go to any store, and you can see that, let’s say, a pink razor blade versus a blue one that men use, the pink one costs more. Haircuts cost more. Women’s clothing cost more. It’s definitely present and part of our reality.”
It even costs more for women to get old.
The report found that braces and supports for women cost 15% more; canes cost 12% more; and personal urinals 21% more for female senior citizens.
At a Washington-area store on Oct. 17, 2019, comparable adult diapers are the same price except that the women’s packet contains one less diaper than the men’s packet.
The price differences suggest women pay a yearly “gender tax” of about $1,351, despite buying the same products and services as men.
“I absolutely think it’s gender discrimination,” Khan says. “Some people will say that it’s more expensive to cut women’s hair, but that is clear gender discrimination, because really it depends on whether you have long hair or short hair, about the amount of time that it takes to cut your hair. Many women have short hair. They shouldn’t have to pay more than a man for a short haircut.”
The National Retail Federation, which calls itself the world’s largest retail trade association, declined to comment for this article. However, Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at Ball State University, says the price differences are similar to discounts for senior citizens.
“Senior citizens aren’t as fussy about when they see the movie, but they are fussier about what price they’re willing to pay for it, so we give them discounts,” Horwitz says. “Sellers engage in this behavior all the time. What bothers us about this one is that the way they’re dividing up groups is by gender.”
At a Washington-area store on Oct. 17, 2019, a 2.7 oz. bottle of men’s deodorant cost 20 cents less than a comparable women’s deodorant in a smaller 2.6 oz. size.
Horwitz also says the real problem is that girls and women are socialized to want the pink items.
“There is no reason why women shouldn’t be able to walk into the drugstore and buy the men’s razors. Right?” he says. “And if they did, and if they were clear that they didn’t care, there wouldn’t be a more expensive women’s version.”
Congress is making a move to end the pink tax. In April, Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California, and Republican Congressman Tom Reed of New York, introduced a bipartisan bill with 50 co-sponsors. The Pink Tax Repeal Act would require that comparable products marketed toward men and women be priced equally.
“I think that if you’re charging women more and people are paying it, then there’s motivation to do that. But it’s discriminatory, and it needs to stop,” Khan says. “It has a cumulative effect over our lifetime because if we’re paying more for products, and earning and owning less, then it’s basically contributing to gender inequality.”
Crude oil contaminating the northeastern coast of Brazil has reached the town of Maragogi, one of the region’s main tourist beaches, its mayor said Thursday.
Images on local television showed dozens of people in Maragogi, known for its natural pools of crystalline water, shoveling and raking the sand in an attempt to remove the sludge from the coast. The region is known as the “Brazilian Caribbean.”
As a truck from Brazil’s environmental agency loaded up with oil-stained sand, some volunteers, apparently without supervision from authorities, joined the work with small shovels.
Environmental regulator Ibama reported there are at least 178 locations in nine Brazilian states that have been affected by the oil. In terms of expanse, it is Brazil’s largest-ever environmental disaster, according to David Zee, an oceanographer at Rio de Janeiro’s state university.
Workers remove oil from Viral Beach, in Aracaju, Brazil, Oct. 8, 2019. The oil that has been polluting Brazil’s northeastern beaches since early September is likely coming from Venezuela, according to a report by Brazil’s state oil company.
The government’s response has been questioned by ocean experts and environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace. As in Maragogi, in recent weeks many Brazilians have worked to remove oil from the contaminated beaches without proper equipment or instruction from authorities.
“Just like with the spread of fires in the Amazon, the government again was late to respond,” Ricardo Baitelo, coordinator of Greenpeace Brazil, said to The Associated Press.
The Brazilian Environment Minister, Ricardo Salles, rebuffed the criticism Wednesday and told local press all necessary means had been adopted for the crude’s identification and collection.
Ibama did not respond to The Associated Press’s phone and email requests for information regarding the number of people and equipment working on the operation.
The origin of the oil remains a mystery. Salles said it likely originated in Venezuela, which Venezuela’s government denies, and that the circumstances of the spill are unknown.
Authorities’ primary hypothesis is that the crude spilled into the water from a boat navigating near Brazil’s coast.
Workers from Ibama, state-run oil company Petrobras and other volunteers have collected hundreds of tons of crude, but the mysterious oil slicks could continue to wash ashore.
A sign reads “Nature at Risk: Against the Abrolhos Threatening Oil Auction” during protest against the opening of the area near the Abrolhos National Park for oil exploration. Brazil’s environment minister Ricardo Salles speaks, in Brasilia, Brazil.
A month and a half after oil began appearing on the coast, Salles said he did not know how much oil was still at sea and could reach the mainland in coming days.
Zee expressed concern the oil spill could advance toward the south of Bahia state and damage the Abrolhos region that contains one of the nation’s largest coral reefs.
“The more time that passes with new oil appearing, it’s confirmed that the ocean is absorbing ever more toxic substances, some of which are carcinogenic. The contaminated zones will take at least 25 years to recover,” said Zee. “Brazil has no emergency plan, equipment, nor trained personnel to intervene in a disaster situation like this.”
Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday defended the social media company’s light regulation of speech and lack of fact checking on political advertising, while citing China’s censorship as a roadblock to operating in the country.
Facebook has been under fire in recent years for its lax approach to fake news reports, state-backed disinformation campaigns and violent content spread on its services, prompting calls for new regulations around the world.
In a speech at Georgetown University filled with references to the First Amendment and the fight for democracy, Zuckerberg stood his ground, saying social media had introduced transformative avenues for speech that should not be shut down.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Georgetown University in Washington, Oct. 17, 2019.
“People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world. It is a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society,” he said.
Zuckerberg framed the company’s decisions around that concept, including its recent retreat from years of aggressive courtship of China, an obstacle to his vision of connecting the world’s population.
He attacked the rapidly growing Chinese-owned app TikTok, saying the short video platform censored political protest, including in the United States — a charge the company denies.
In leaked audio of an address to Facebook employees weeks earlier, Zuckerberg spoke about TikTok as a formidable competitor, calling it the first consumer internet product built by a Chinese tech giant to find global success, but did not mention its approach to speech.
FILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, talks with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg at Microsoft’s main campus in Redmond, Wash., Sept. 23, 2015.
Over the course of Facebook’s charm offensive, Zuckerberg met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, learned Mandarin and posted a photo of himself running through Tiananmen Square.
Facebook briefly won a license to open an “innovation hub” in Hangzhou last year, but it was later revoked.
Zuckerberg effectively closed the door to China in March, when he announced his plan to pivot Facebook toward more private forms of communication and pledged not to build data centers in countries with “a track record of violating human rights like privacy or freedom of expression.”
He repeated his concern about data centers on Thursday, this time specifically naming China.
“I wanted our services in China because I believe in connecting the whole world and I thought we might help create a more open society,” Zuckerberg said. “I worked hard to make this happen. But we could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they never let us in.”
He received a question from the audience about what conditions or assurances he would need to enter the Chinese market, but did not address them in his response.
‘Feigned concern for free expression’
Zuckerberg also defended the company’s political advertising policies on similar grounds, saying Facebook had at one time considered banning all political ads but decided against it, erring on the side of greater expression.
That assertion was immediately panned by critics, among them candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination who have asserted the company should do more to address disinformation and abuse ahead of the November 2020 election.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign quickly accused Zuckerberg of using “the Constitution as a shield” for Facebook’s bottom line.
“His choice to cloak Facebook’s policy in a feigned concern for free expression demonstrates how unprepared his company is for this unique moment in our history and how little it has learned over the past few years,” said spokesman Bill Russo.
FILE – Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks during the fourth U.S. Democratic presidential candidates 2020 election debate in Westerville, Ohio, Oct. 15, 2019.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, another leading contender for the Democratic nomination, has been especially vocal about her critiques of Facebook, bashing its advertising policy and calling for the company to be broken up on antitrust grounds.
She recently challenged Facebook’s policy that exempts politicians’ ads from fact-checking, running ads on the social media platform containing the false claim that Zuckerberg endorsed Trump’s re-election bid.
But the focus on free speech is likely to win Zuckerberg some friends on the right, whom he has been courting aggressively in a recent visit to Washington and dinners at his home in California.
Republican lawmakers routinely accuse the company of showing “anti-conservative bias” in its content moderation, without offering evidence. The company denies any favoritism.
Facebook has been under scrutiny after finding Russian propaganda on its platform which many believe affected the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, won by Donald Trump.
Trump has disputed claims that Russia has attempted to interfere in U.S. elections. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied it.
“Get out of here!” shouts a woman draped in black, sitting on cardboard in the dusty camp market.
She juts her elbow at a Brazilian cameraman as he bends over to take a picture. She is carrying a hammer and an angled metal rod.
We are the first reporters inside the al-Hol Camp since Turkish military operations began in northeastern Syria last week. Officials say since the conflict began, the camp, which houses 71,000 people, has become “out of control.”
Camp officials say in the past week there have been attacks, escape attempts and open calls for a violent uprising in al-Hol Camp in Syria, Oct. 16, 2019. (Y. Boechat/VOA)
There have been escapes, threats, attacks and open calls for uprising in the past week after most of the forces securing the camp moved to the front lines.
The women, many from among the most hard-core IS families, are openly hostile.
“Who are you to take pictures of us?” the woman in the market barks.
“Goddamn you,” mutters another woman as she walks by me and my Kurdish translator. We cannot see their faces, but we feel we are not welcome.
This is my third visit to al-Hol Camp since last winter, when tens of thousands of women and children poured out of the last IS stronghold as it fell. They are mostly families of IS fighters who retreated with the militant group for years as Syrian, U.S. led-coalition and Iraqi forces drove them out of the lands they once held.
In the al-Hol Camp in Syria, 71,000 people are detained, mostly the wives and children of Islamic State militants, and the camp has grown increasingly violent since Turkish military operations began last week. Oct. 17, 2019. (Y. Boechat/VOA)
Many fighters ended up in jail, dead or in hiding. Some are now believed to be part of “sleeper cells” that still conduct frequent attacks. Their wives and children ended up here, where they are essentially imprisoned, relying on rapidly declining amounts of humanitarian aid.
More than 10,000 of the women and children are foreigners from 58 different countries, and many are extremists among the extremists. It is called a camp, but the people are not allowed to leave. Inside al-Hol, nearly all the residents follow the strict rules set by IS, facing whippings, beatings or death for breaking the IS version of religious law.
“Our only job now is to keep the people from escaping,” says Layla Rezgar, 30, who heads the camp’s foreign section. She is a soft-spoken woman in jeans and a flannel shirt. She speaks to us plainly: “We cannot control what goes on inside.”
Riots, escape attempts, calls for revolution
When Turkey began its military operations last Thursday, Rezgar tells us, she received reports that women were flying black IS flags made with their traditional robes and toothpaste.
Then on Friday, hundreds of women attacked a camp office, ripping padlocks off the doors and threatening to burn it down. Women shouted, “Long live Islamic State!” and “We will chop your heads off!” as they advanced, rioting for hours.
Others rushed through the camp, calling for an uprising.
“They threw rocks and tried to get security officers’ weapons,” says Nadal, a member of the civilian administration of the camp, who sits with us in a cozy office at the edge of the camp. “Some carried knives.”
Early this week, 13 foreign women ripped open a fence and tried to escape with their children, likely with help from IS sleeper cells in the area, Rezgar adds. Those women were caught. But in another camp in the region, nearly 800 family members of IS foreign fighters ran away, as security forces there moved to the border to fight with Turkey.
In September, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on IS fighters hiding in northeastern Syria to help the families inside al-Hol escape, energizing calls within the camp to rebuild IS. But the chaos of this new war could be the spark that reunites sleeper cells on the outside with extremists on the inside, Rezgar tells us.
“We’ve been telling foreign journalists from all of the world that this crisis was coming,” Rezgar says. “Why is no one listening?”
Many women in the al-Hol camp are hostile to foreign journalists and security guards, while others fear the extremists’ wrath, Oct. 16, 2019. (Y. Boechat/VOA)
How IS rules came to al-Hol
Only a month ago, there was talk of rehabilitation and reintegration in al-Hol, with some children going to school and some families being sent back to their villages.
In early March, as families streamed out of the last battles, many women told us they prayed their “caliphate” would be victorious and that the “infidels” would die. At the time, however, most had more pressing matters on their minds.
“My sons will grow up to be jihadis,” one woman told me a few days after she fled the still ongoing battle in Baghouz, the last town IS held before it lost its geographical territories. At that moment, however, she was struggling to provide the boys with enough food and water. In the first months IS families moved into al-Hol, hundreds of children died.
Even then, camp officials in al-Hol and other camps detaining IS families warned us that this humanitarian crisis could quickly turn into a security disaster.
In the more than six months since Baghouz fell, some women in al-Hol have established an IS-styled religious police known as the Hisba.
The Hisba enforces rules such as required full-body and face veils and a ban on smoking. The gravest punishments, including death, are reserved for people who are believed to be sharing information with security forces or journalists.
As we wait in the market for the cameraman to finish his work, two veiled women approach, demanding to know who we are.
“We know they are journalists,” says one, before our host roughly tells them to leave.
On Monday, we passed by the camp as black smoke streamed out of a burning tent — another typical Hisba punishment, says Rezgar. Other women have been beaten, killed and dismembered, she says.
“There are women that are trained fighters here,” she says. “We’ve found weapons and homemade bombs.”
Fear inside and out
Not everyone in the camp supports IS, adds Nadal, the civilian administrator.
“Before the last battles, this was a camp full of victims who fled IS,” he tells us. “But then, everything changed.”
Even among the women who joined IS, many believe it was a mistake and just want to go home, according to Rezgar. In the past, some women in the camp have been quick to ask us if we can help them get out and get to their home countries or villages. Other women were happy to declare their loyalty to IS and calmly declare that infidels should die.
Some residents at al-Hol Camp arrived before Islamic State militants lost their last stronghold in Syria in March. Pictured Oct. 17, 2019. (Y. Boechat VOA)
Now, all fear the Hisba and their militant contacts outside. And as humanitarian aid dwindles, supplies are scarce, and half of the doctors in the area have left to treat war victims. Harsh conditions feed anger in the camp, aid workers say, empowering the Hisba and their supporters.
Our hosts tell us it is far too dangerous to wander around al-Hol, as journalists used to do regularly.
In Hasseka city, about 40 minutes from al-Hol by car, locals tell us they fear camp security will fail.
Samer Ahmed, a 41-year-old father of three, works in a kebab restaurant and drives a motorcycle taxi. Two of his uncles died fighting IS, and one of his cousins was killed by a coalition airstrike.
“I am more scared now than I was when IS had power,” he tells us in the back room of the restaurant where he works. “If they come here, we will all have to run.”
U.S. President Donald Trump faced a strong rebuke from lawmakers of both parties Wednesday over his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northeastern Syria. The withdrawal was quickly followed by Turkey’s assault on Syrian Kurds, who were a key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State terrorists. The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday in favor of a resolution condemning Trump’s decision. Trump says he is demanding a halt to Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his 27 counterparts from across the European Union are converging on Brussels Thursday for a summit they hope will finally lay to rest the acrimony and frustration of a three-year divorce fight.
Yet even before dawn, Johnson had a serious setback when his Northern Irish government allies said they would not back his compromise proposals. The prime minister needs all the support he can get to push any deal past a deeply divided parliament.
It only added to the high anxiety that reigned Thursday morning, with the last outstanding issues of the divorce papers still unclear.
Technical negotiators again went into the night Wednesday to fine tune customs and sales tax regulations that will have to regulate trade in goods between the Northern Ireland and Ireland, where the U.K. and the EU share their only land border.
European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier attends the weekly EU College of Commissioners meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, Oct. 16, 2019. EU and British negotiators have so far failed to get a breakthrough in the Brexit talks.
And they were set to continue right up to the summit’s midafternoon opening. If a deal is agreed on during the two-day summit, Johnson hopes to present it to Britain’s Parliament at a special sitting Saturday.
After months of gloom over the stalled Brexit process, European leaders have sounded upbeat this week. French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that “I want to believe that a deal is being finalized,” while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said negotiations were “in the final stretch.”
Johnson, who took office in July vowing Britain would finally leave the EU on Oct. 31, come what may, was slightly more cautious. He likened Brexit to climbing Mount Everest, saying the summit was in sight, though still shrouded in cloud.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party added to those clouds early Thursday. DUP leader Arlen Foster and the party’s parliamentary chief Nigel Dodds said they “could not support what is being suggested on customs and consent issues,” referring to a say the Northern Irish authorities might have in future developments.
Both the customs and consent arrangements are key to guaranteeing an open border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland — the main obstacle to a Brexit deal.
Foster and Dodds said they would continue to work with the U.K. government to get a “sensible” deal. The problem is that the closer Johnson aligns himself with the DUP, the further he removes himself from the EU, leaving him walking a political tightrope.
Brexit negotiations have been here before, seemingly closing in on a deal that is dashed at the last moment. But hopes have risen that this time may be different. Though with Britain’s Oct. 31 departure date looming and just hours to go before the EU summit, focus was on getting a broad political commitment, with the full legal details to be hammered out later. That could mean another EU summit on Brexit before the end of the month.
So far, all plans to keep an open and near-invisible border between the two have hit a brick wall of opposition from the DUP.
A warming planet is triggering extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, and loss of wildlife habitats. An American art exhibit is delving into the effects of climate change, which include melting glaciers and the destruction of coral reefs. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to the University of Rhode Island to see how art is used to fight climate change.
The future was here at a recent marquee tech show in Japan. The Consumer Exhibition of Advanced Technology, or CEATEC, showcased technologies that may simplify our lives … or rapidly bring them to an end. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us back to the future!
Scientists worry about feeding 2 billion more people in the future as climate change hampers farmers and fishing fleet catches disappoint. To produce more protein more efficiently, startup companies are creating new kinds of farms that use artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced industrial techniques to raise tens of thousands of tons of insects to feed farmed fish and livestock. VOA’s Jim Randle reports that insects efficiently turn waste food into protein at a fraction of the environmental impact of other farm animals.
When hundreds of video cameras with the power to identify and track individuals started appearing in the streets of Belgrade, some protesters began having second thoughts about joining anti-government demonstrations in the Serbian capital.
Local authorities assert the system, created by Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, helps reduce crime. Critics contend it erodes personal freedoms and exposes citizens to snooping by the Chinese government.
The cameras, equipped with facial recognition technology, are being rolled out across cities around the world, particularly in poorer countries with weak track records on human rights where Beijing has increased its influence through big business deals. With the United States claiming that Chinese state can get backdoor access to Huawei data, the rollout is raising concerns about the privacy of millions of people.
The Iranian government has been holding a second French researcher in custody for the past four months, according to his colleagues.
Roland Marchal, a sub-Saharan Africa specialist at Paris university Sciences Po, was arrested in June when he traveled to Iran to visit his partner, Fariba Adelkhah, according to Sciences Po professor Richard Banegas.
Iranian authorities disclosed in July that they had arrested Adelkhah, a prominent anthropologist who holds dual French-Iranian nationality, on charges that have not been made public.
There was no immediate acknowledgement of Marchal’s arrest in Iranian state media.
It’s unclear exactly what charges Marchal faces, but Banegas told The Associated Press that he and his colleagues consider him “an academic prisoner.”
The French Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren don’t just lead the Democratic presidential primary in fundraising. They’ve stockpiled millions more than their rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who burned through money at a fast clip over the past three months while posting an anemic fundraising haul.
Sanders held $33.7 million cash on hand on his third-quarter fundraising report. Warren had $25.7 million during the same period, while South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg came next $23.3 million.
Biden, meanwhile, held just $8.9 million, a small fraction of what his leading rivals have at their disposal.
With the first votes of the Democratic contest just months away, the candidates are entering a critical and expensive period where having an ample supply of cash can make or break a campaign. Biden’s total raises questions about his durability as a front-runner.
“Can he do better at fundraising? Absolutely. And I think he will,” said Biden donor and fundraiser Steve Westly.
While many contenders in the crowded field will be triaging resources and making difficult spending decisions in the coming months, the advantage enjoyed by the Vermont and Massachusetts senators means they will have the luxury of spending when and where they want. That will allow them to buy large amounts of advertising, respond to attacks and boost their ground games in early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
“If you are sitting at fourth, fifth or even seventh place and you don’t have the money to have a real paid media campaign, the future for you is probably pretty bleak. You will get drowned out by the rest of the noise,” said Grant Woodard, a Des Moines attorney who is a veteran of John Kerry’s and Hillary Clinton’s Iowa campaigns. “It’s still a fluid race. But to be competitive in this thing you are going to have to be on TV, digital and you are going to have to be on direct mail. The fundamentals still matter.”
Biden has built a formidable campaign, but it’s come at a cost. The $17.6 million he spent over the past three months was more than the $15.7 million he took in, according to his fundraising figures that were submitted to the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday’s reporting deadline.
Despite his lackluster totals, he still remains a favored candidate in recent public opinion polls, along with Warren. And in recent weeks, both Biden and his wife, Jill, have kept up a busier fundraising schedule.
“People focused on the minutia and the details,” said Westly, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. “The reality is this is quickly boiling down to a two-person race _ and that’s between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.”
Still, Biden is not alone in the sprawling field.
California Sen. Kamala Harris had $10.5 million cash on hand but deferred paying consultants including her pollster nearly $1 million, records show. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker held $4.2 million, disclosures show.
And the situation was far more dismal for others. Former Obama housing secretary Julian Castro had just $672,000 cash on hand, while Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan had even less, $158,000, records show.
The advantage Warren and Sanders have was evident in the way they have been able to spend.
Sanders’ $21.5 million in spending between July and the end of September topped the list. It enabled him to spend $3.8 million on advertising and online fundraising, drop nearly $1 million on campaign merchandise and pay his staff a combined $5.6 million, records show.
Warren’s $18.6 million in spending during that period allowed her to fund a sprawling staff operation that includes well over 500 people on the payroll, in addition to financing a more than $3.2 million digital operation, records show.
Buttigieg, too, has hired roughly 100 staffers in Iowa, where his campaign is betting on a strong performance.
But just because they have a massive cash advantage doesn’t mean the other candidates are doomed. Even though time is running out, candidates could still see their financial picture improve, particularly if they have a viral online moment to boost their online fundraising.
“The question is: Do you have enough money to run a strong campaign? North of $5 million and you have the ability to get through the fourth quarter,” said Democratic donor and Wall Street financier Robert Wolf, who was an economic adviser to Barack Obama.
Russians officials urged Turkey to limit the duration and scale of its cross-border military incursion into northeast Syria, stressing Turkish troops must at all costs avoid clashing with Syrian government forces, which have moved north and are racing to take over Kurdish border towns ahead of the Turks.
The Kremlin’s special envoy to Syria Tuesday appeared to toughen Russia’s language about the offensive, dubbing it for the first time as “unacceptable.” Previously the Kremlin appeared to endorse the incursion, with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin saying Russia would go along with Turkey as it acknowledged Ankara had legitimate border security concerns.
But Russian officials had from the start detailed red lines — including that the offensive wouldn’t lead to any permanent Turkish occupation.
FILE – A checkpoint, abandoned by Syrian Democratic Forces after Turkish military operations began, pictured on Oct. 11, 2019, outside Ras al-Ayn, Syria. (A. Lourie/VOA)
In return for the acceptance of the incursion, which Ankara says is aimed at clearing a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia allied with secessionist Turkish Kurds from the border lands, Russian officials made little pretense of their expectation that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would later acquiesce with Moscow’s plans for Syria’s future, one that will see President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s ally, reassert control across the whole of Syria.
Speaking to reporters in Abu Dhabi during an official visit by Putin to the Gulf emirate, Russian envoy Alexander Lavrentiev indicated Moscow expects Ankara to wrap up its offensive quickly. He said Turkish troops had the right under an agreement struck between Damascus and Ankara in 1998, the Adana pact, to temporarily push up to a maximum of 10 kilometers into Syria to conduct counter-terrorism operations.
“But it doesn’t give them the right to remain on Syrian territory permanently and we are opposed to Turkish troops staying on Syrian territory permanently,” he emphasized. “We don’t approve of their actions,” he added.
Shortly after Lavrentiev briefed reporters, Russian officials said President Putin and his Turkish counterpart spoke on the phone. According to them, Putin told Erdogan that the situation risked becoming unstable, noting that several hundred Islamic State captives being held by Syrian Kurds had exploited the chaos and escaped. Putin invited Erdogan to visit Russia in the next few days for urgent talks, a proposal Ankara had accepted, Kremlin officials say.
FILE – Turkish tanks and troops are stationed near Syrian town of Manbij, Syria, Oct. 15, 2019.
The sharper language may suggest, say analysts, that Ankara has overreached, as far as the Kremlin is concerned and has surprised Moscow by going deeper into Syrian territory than Russian officials had expected. That has prompted Russian worries about Erdogan’s longer term aims and concern that he may intend to prolong the Turkish military presence in Syria, using it as leverage in talks brokered by Moscow about Syria’s political future.
“Maybe Erdogan is proving to be a more difficult partner than the Kremlin had anticipated,” quipped a Western diplomat based in the Russian capital. But he added it was unlikely Erdogan will want to fall out with Putin and disrupt Ankara’s warming ties with Moscow, especially as he comes under pressure from erstwhile NATO allies to withdraw.
On Tuesday, President Erdogan rejected a U.S. call for an immediate ceasefire in northern Syria. Erdogan’s comments come ahead of a visit to Turkey by the U.S. vice-president and U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. “They say ‘declare a ceasefire’. We will never declare a ceasefire, Erdogan told reporters.
Critics of the Trump administration say the withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria effectively gave Turkey a “green light” for the cross-border offensive. Trump officials deny this and on Monday Washington announced sanctions on Turkish ministries and senior government officials as punishment for the incursion. Several of America’s European allies have announced they will stop arms exports to Turkey.
The raft of U.S. sanctions on Turkey include scrapping a proposed $100 billion trade deal and tariffs on Turkish steel up to 50 per cent. In a statement President Donald Trump accused Turkey of creating “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” by “undermining” the campaign against the Islamic State, as well as endangering civilians.
As Western powers sought to gain some traction on Ankara, Russia appears to have been quick to try to fill the vacuum left by the U.S. troop withdrawal and to confirm a role it has earmarked for itself as the regional powerbroker. Local Kurdish sources told VOA over Skype that Russian troops had started to patrol to keep Turkish and Syrian government forces apart.
FILE – Russian and Syrian national flags flutter on military vehicles near Manbij, Syria, Oct. 15, 2019.
Russian envoy Lavrentiev confirmed the on-the-ground activity saying that Moscow had brokered the deal between the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces and the Assad government. He said it was in “no one’s interests” for Assad forces and Turkish troops to clash. “Russia will not allow it,” he said. There have been some reports of scattered clashes between Turkish-backed forces and both Assad troops and the SDF, with at least one Turkish soldier killed.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces has been greeted gleefully by pro-Kremlin media outlets with state-owned RT television giving viewers a guided tour of a former U.S. military base near the town of Manbij. “Good morning, everybody, from Manbij,” the journalist, Oleg Blokhin, said in the report. “I’m at the American base where they still were yesterday, and this morning it’s already ours.”
But even the tub-thumping RT questioned whether Moscow has bitten off more than it can chew by setting itself up as the region’s power broker, pondering in one opinion article whether Putin can please everyone in the Middle East.
Authorities in northwestern Bosnia have rounded up hundreds of migrants and moved them to a refugee center while warning of a looming crisis ahead of upcoming winter.
A video published by local media on Wednesday shows police escorting the migrants in a long column from the town of Bihac toward the Vucjak camp, near the border with Croatia.
The Bihac authorities have faced criticism over the conditions in the tent camp, located on a former landfill and close to a mine-infested area from the 1992-95 war.
The mayor of Bihac, Suhret Fazlic, has warned this week that the city can no longer cope with thousands of people staying there in hopes of moving toward Western Europe. He has threatened to cut migrant aid to draw attention to the problem.
The White House has said that it will not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry being conducted by House Democrats. President Donald Trump went one step further by calling the House committees investigating him a “kangaroo court.” What exactly is a kangaroo court? VOA explains.
The United States says diplomatic efforts are on “high gear” to press for a cease-fire after Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria, as Washington tries to get the situation under control, according to a senior State Department official.
“Goal number one is to carry out diplomacy to try to find a cease fire. Get the situation under control. It’s very, very confusing. It’s dangerous for our troops. It’s placing the fight against ISIS at risk. It’s placing at risk the safe imprisonment of almost 10,000 detainees,” the official said, using an acronym for the Islamic State terror group.
The official noted that there has not been “any major successful breakout so far of detainees,” referring to imprisoned IS fighters and their families. Syrian Kurdish officials have said hundreds of suspected IS prisoners have escaped.
Vice President Mike Pence speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House, Oct. 14, 2019, in Washington.
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced sanctions against Turkish officials over the military operation and he plans to send a delegation led by Vice President Mike Pence to Ankara for talks to resolve the situation.
“I can just tell you that it’s (Pence’s trip) going to be launched very quickly,” the State Department official told reporters Tuesday. “And again our first goal is to basically have a heart to heart talk with the Turks.”
President Donald Trump speaks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, Oct. 12, 2019.
President Trump has faced harsh criticism in the week since the White House announced Turkey was going forward with its long-held plans to try to carve out a buffer zone along its border with Syria free from the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters it accuses of being terrorists linked to separatist Kurds in Turkey. The U.S. military has long said its Kurdish allies have been instrumental in the fight against IS, and the elimination of IS’s caliphate.
“We’re very concerned about their [Turkey’s] actions and the threat that they presented to peace, security, stability, and territorial integrity of Syria, of our overall political plans, and the risk of humanitarian disaster, and human rights violations, some of which we’ve seen not by Turkish troops, but by what we call the TSO-Turkish supported Syrian opposition elements, armed opposition elements, who are responsible for those horrible pictures you saw,” the U.S. official said Tuesday.
Turkey’s incursion pushed the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces to reach an agreement with the Syrian government that has brought Syrian troops back into the northeastern part of the country for the first time in years, including on Monday reaching the town of Manbij.
A U.S. military spokesman said Tuesday American troops left the town of Manbij as part of their withdrawal from the area.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to his ruling party officials, in Ankara, Turkey, Oct. 10, 2019.
Trump spoke Monday with both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and General Mazloum Kobani, the head of the mostly Kurdish SDF that the United States has relied on to battle Islamic State militants in Syria.
In addition to the call to halt the military operation, the United States raised steel tariffs and halted negotiations on a $100-billion trade deal with Turkey.
U.S. Democrats and Republicans have faulted the Trump administration for what is unfolding, saying the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the area cleared the way for the U.S. ally SDF to be put in danger as well as the potential for Islamic State militants under SDF detention to break free and stage a resurgence.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., reads a statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 24, 2019.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Trump’s “erratic decision-making is threatening lives, risking regional security and undermining America’s credibility in the world.”
She said both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate will proceed this week with “action to oppose this irresponsible decision.”
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that while Turkey does have legitimate security concerns linked to the Syrian conflict, the operation against the U.S.-backed Kurds jeopardizes the progress won against IS.
“Abandoning this fight now and withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria would re-create the very conditions that we have worked hard to destroy and invite the resurgence of ISIS,” McConnell said. “And such a withdrawal would also create a broader power vacuum in Syria that will be exploited by Iran and Russia, a catastrophic outcome for the United States’ strategic interests.”
A senior administration official rejected criticisms against Trump in the call with reporters Monday, saying only Erdogan’s actions are to blame.
The official said Turkish President Erdogan “took a very, very rash, ill-calculated action that has had what, for him, were unintended consequences.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper addresses reporters during a media briefing at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Oct. 11, 2019.
Earlier Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Erdogan “bears full responsibility” for what happens.
He called the Turkish offensive “unnecessary and impulsive,” and said it has undermined what he called the successful multinational mission to defeat Islamic State in Syria.
Esper said he plans to go to Brussels next week to press other NATO allies to apply sanctions on Turkey.
