Month: November 2019

Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to gradually move the country to a government-funded health care system has further inflamed the debate over “Medicare for All,” likely ensuring the issue will play a significant role in this week’s Democratic presidential debate.

The Massachusetts senator announced Friday that her administration would immediately build on existing laws, including the Affordable Care Act, to expand access to health care while taking up to three years to fully implement Medicare for All. That attempt to thread the political needle has roiled her more moderate rivals, who say she’s waffling, while worrying some on the left, who see Warren’s commitment to a single-payer system wavering.

The divide could complicate plans by Democrats to turn health care into a winning issue in 2020. The party successfully took back control of the House last year by championing programs that ensure that people with preexisting medical conditions keep their insurance coverage while arguing that Republicans want to weaken such provisions. But the Medicare for All debate is more delicate as advocates including Warren grapple with concerns that a new government-run system won’t provide the same quality of coverage as private insurance – and would be prohibitively expensive.

“The Medicare for All proposal has turned out to be a real deal-breaker in who gets the Democratic nomination,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University School of Public Health professor whose teaching responsibilities include courses on political strategy in health policy and public opinion polling. “This is not just another issue.’’

Warren’s transition plan indicates she’d use her first 100 days as president to expand existing public health insurance options. That is closer to what has been supported by former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. Both Democratic presidential candidates have criticized Medicare for All for wiping out private insurance – something they say many Americans aren’t ready for.

Warren insists she’s simply working to expand health insurance in the short term to people who don’t have it while remaining committed to the full plan in the long run.

“My commitment to Medicare for All is all the way,” Warren said while campaigning in Iowa over the weekend.

Still, the transition signified a step toward pragmatism and an acknowledgement that the government has ways to expand health insurance coverage before embracing a universal system – something that would be difficult for any president to get through Congress. Consider that current entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, were phased in over years, not all at once.

“If she’s looked at it and decides the sensible thing to do in order to not cause too much disruption in employment situations and within the medical system is to gear up over three years, she’s probably right,” said Cindy Wolf, a customer service and shipping manager who attended the California state Democratic Convention on Saturday in Long Beach.

Still, the move may prove politically problematic for a candidate who has long decried others settling for consultant-driven campaigns seeking incremental changes at the expense of big ideas.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is the original architect of Medicare for All and has made fighting for it the centerpiece of his 2020 White House bid. He tweeted following the release of Warren’s transition plan: “In my first week as president, we will introduce Medicare for All legislation.’’

Campaigning in Nevada on Monday, California Sen. Kamala Harris said, “I believe that government should not be in a position of taking away people’s choice.”

“Especially on one of the most intimate and personal decisions people can make,” Harris said, “which is about how to address their health care needs.’’

The criticism from others was far sharper. Top Biden adviser Kate Bedingfield dismissed Warren’s plan as “trying to muddy the waters” by offering “a full program of flips and twists.” Buttigieg spokeswoman Lis Smith said it was a “transparently political attempt to paper over a very serious policy problem.’’

It’s easy to see the issue spilling into Wednesday’s debate because Warren rode a steady summer climb in the polls to become one of the primary field’s front-runners – but no longer seems to be rising. Polls recently show her support stabilizing, though not dipping, as focus on her Medicare for All ideas intensifies.

The last two debates featured Warren failing to answer direct questions on whether she would be forced to raise middle class taxes to pay for the universal health care system she envisions. That set up a plan released two-plus weeks ago in which Warren vowed to generate $20-plus trillion in new government revenue without increasing taxes on the middle class – but that’s been decried by critics who accuse Warren of underestimating how much Medicare for All would really cost.

And, though Warren never promised to begin working toward Medicare for All on Day 1 of her administration, the release of the transition plan, which spelled out that the process will take years, has unsettled some.

Una Lee Jost, a lawyer who was holding “Bernie” signs in Chinese and English at the California Democratic Convention, called any lengthy transition to Medicare for All “a serious concern.’’

“We should have implemented this decades ago,” she said.

…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday the U.S. is changing its position on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, dismissing the State Department’s 1978 legal opinion that civilian settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are “inconsistent with international law.”  The announcement is the latest in the Trump administration’s moves that weaken Palestinian claims to statehood. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

…

 Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited President Donald Trump to testify in front of investigators in the House impeachment inquiry ahead of a week that will see several key witnesses appear publicly.

Pushing back against accusations from the president that the process has been stacked against him, Pelosi said Trump is welcome to appear or answer questions in writing, if he chooses.

“If he has information that is exculpatory, that means ex, taking away, culpable, blame, then we look forward to seeing it,” she said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Trump “could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants,” she said.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer echoed that suggestion.

“If Donald Trump doesn’t agree with what he’s hearing, doesn’t like what he’s hearing, he shouldn’t tweet. He should come to the committee and testify under oath. And he should allow all those around him to come to the committee and testify under oath,” Schumer told reporters. He said the White House’s insistence on blocking witnesses from cooperating begs the question: “What is he hiding?”

The comments come as the House Intelligence Committee prepares for a second week of public hearings as part of its inquiry, including with the man who is arguably the most important witness. Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, is among the only people interviewed to date who had direct conversations with the Republican president about the situation because the White House has blocked others from cooperating with what it dismisses as a sham investigation. And testimony suggests he was intimately involved in discussions that are at the heart of the investigation into whether Trump held up U.S. military aid to Ukraine to try to pressure the country’s president to announce an investigation into Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading 2020 candidate, and Biden’s son Hunter.

Multiple witnesses overheard a phone call in which Trump and Sondland reportedly discussed efforts to push for the investigations. In private testimony to impeachment investigators made public Saturday, Tim Morrison, a former National Security Council aide and longtime Republican defense hawk, said Sondland told him he was discussing Ukraine matters directly with Trump.

Morrison said Sondland and Trump had spoken approximately five times between July 15 and Sept. 11 – the weeks that $391 million in U.S. assistance was withheld from Ukraine before it was released.

And he recounted that Sondland told a top Ukrainian official in a meeting that the vital U.S. military assistance might be freed up if the country’s top prosecutor “would go to the mike and announce that he was opening the Burisma investigation.” Burisma is the gas company that hired Hunter Biden.

Morrison’s testimony contradicted much of what Sondland told congressional investigators during his own closed-door deposition, which the ambassador later amended.

Trump has said he has no recollection of the overheard call and has suggested he barely knew Sondland, a wealthy donor to his 2016 campaign. But Democrats are hoping he sheds new light on the discussions.

“I’m not going to try to prejudge his testimony,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said on “Fox News Sunday.” But he suggested, “it was not lost on Ambassador Sondland what happened to the president’s close associate Roger Stone for lying to Congress, to Michael Cohen for lying to Congress. My guess is that Ambassador Sondland is going to do his level best to tell the truth, because otherwise he may have a very unpleasant legal future in front of him.”

The committee also will be interviewing a long list of others. On Tuesday, it’ll hear from Morrison along with Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Alexander Vindman, the director for European affairs at the National Security Council, and Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine.

On Wednesday the committee will hear from Sondland in addition to Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, and David Hale, a State Department official. And on Thursday, Fiona Hill, a former top NSC staffer for Europe and Russia, will appear.

Trump, meanwhile, continued to tweet and retweet a steady stream of commentary from supporters as he bashed “The Crazed, Do Nothing Democrats” for “turning Impeachment into a routine partisan weapon.”

“That is very bad for our Country, and not what the Founders had in mind!!!!” he wrote.

He also tweeted a doctored video exchange between Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, in which Schiff said he did not know the identity of the whistleblower whose complaint triggered the inquiry. The clip has been altered to show Schiff wearing a referee’s uniform and loudly blowing a whistle.

In her CBS interview, Pelosi vowed to protect the whistleblower, whom Trump has said should be forced to come forward despite longstanding whistleblower protections.

“I will make sure he does not intimidate the whistleblower,” Pelosi said.

Trump has been under fire for his treatment of one of the witnesses, the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, whom Trump criticized by tweet as she was testifying last week.

That attack prompted accusations of witness intimidation from Democrats and even some criticism from Republicans, who have been largely united in their defense of Trump.

“I think, along with most people, I find the president’s tweet generally unfortunate,” said Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Still, he insisted that tweets were “certainly not impeachable and it’s certainly not criminal. And it’s certainly not witness intimidation,” even if Yovanovitch said she felt intimidated by the attacks.

Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, said Trump “communicates in ways that sometimes I wouldn’t,” but dismissed the significance of the attacks.

“If your basis for impeachment is going to include a tweet, that shows how weak the evidence for that impeachment is,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

And the backlash didn’t stop Trump from lashing out at yet another witness, this time Pence aide Williams. He directed her in a Sunday tweet to “meet with the other Never Trumpers, who I don’t know & mostly never even heard of, & work out a better presidential attack!”

…

An airstrike slammed into a biscuit factory in the capital, Tripoli, on Monday killing at least seven workers including five foreign nationals and two Libyans, health authorities said.

Tripoli has been the scene of fighting since April between the self-styled Libyan National Army, led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, and an array of militias loosely allied with the U.N.-supported but weak government which holds the capital.

The Tripoli-based health ministry said the airstrike took place in the capital’s Wadi el-Rabie neighborhood, the south of the city center where fighting has been raging for months.

Malek Merset, a spokesman with the ministry, told The Associated Press that the dead included five workers from Bangladesh, and two Libyan nationals.

The airstrike also wounded at least 15 foreign workers, mostly from Niger and Bangladesh, who were taken to nearby hospitals for urgent treatment.

Footage shared online showed wounded people with bandages and blood on their legs on stretchers before being taken by ambulances to hospitals.

Fighting for Tripoli has stalled in recent months, with both sides dug in and shelling one another along the city’s southern reaches. The months of combat have killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands.

The fighting threatens to plunge Libya into another bout of violence on the scale of the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Libya has been divided into rival governments, with Tripoli controlling parts of the country’s west, and a rival government in the east aligned with Hifter’s force. Each side is backed by an array of militias and armed groups fighting over resources and territory.

…

Hundreds of students from a New Delhi university faced off Monday with police, who stopped their march toward Parliament to protest increased student housing fees.
                   
The students from Jawaharlal Nehru University chanted slogans and attempted to cross police barricades. Police detained several students during the march.
                   
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union said in a statement that the students were attacked by the police during the protest.
                   
“The police used brutal force to disrupt our peaceful march and several students have been injured,” the statement said.
                   
The students wanted to appeal to lawmakers to intervene in their university’s decision to hike the fees, which they have been protesting for more than two weeks. Last week, hundreds of protesting students clashed with the police during the university’s graduation ceremony.
                   
Rent for a single-bedroom was increased to the equivalent of more than $8 per month from less than $1 per month. The security deposit more than doubled to more than $160.
                   
Many students said they fear the fee structure would make education inaccessible to underprivileged students.
                   
“I am the first from my family to study at a university. By raising housing fees, the university administration is putting a price on affordable education,” said Jyoti Sharma, a student at the march.
                   
Students held signs at the march reading “Save public education” and “Ensure affordable hostels for all.”
                   
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury offered his support to the protesting students.
                   
“A peaceful protest march to Parliament against the unprecedented fee hikes is being forcibly stopped by the police. Strongly condemn this denial of basic democratic right to protest,” he tweeted.
                   
The students marched despite the university saying it would partially roll back the fees.
                   
“The students will not pay the increased fee,” said Ashutosh Verma, a student.

…

China on Monday called on the U.S. military to stop flexing its muscles in the South China Sea
and to avoid adding “new uncertainties” over Taiwan, during high-level talks that underscored tension between the world’s two largest economies.

The remarks by Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe to U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, recounted by a Chinese spokesman, came just two weeks after a top White House official denounced Chinese “intimidation” in the busy waterway.

It also came a day after Esper publicly accused Beijing of “increasingly resorting to coercion and intimidation to advance its strategic objectives” in the region.

During closed-door talks on the sidelines of a gathering of defense ministers in Bangkok, Wei urged Esper to “stop flexing muscles in the South China Sea and to not provoke and escalate
tensions in the South China Sea”, the spokesman, Wu Qian, said.

China claims almost all the energy-rich waters of the South China Sea, where it has established military outposts on artificial islands. However, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to parts of the sea.

The United States accuses China of militarizing the South China Sea and trying to intimidate Asian neighbors who might want to exploit its extensive oil and gas reserves.

The U.S. Navy regularly vexes China by conducting what it calls “freedom of navigation” operations by ships close to some of the islands China occupies, asserting freedom of access to international waterways.

Asked specifically what Wei sought for the United States to do differently, and whether that included halting such freedom of navigation operations, Wu said: “We (call on) the U.S. side
to stop intervening in the South China Sea and stop military provocation in the South China Sea.”

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Esper, in his meeting with Wei, noted China’s “perpetual reluctance” to adhere to international norms.

“Secretary Esper pointedly reiterated that the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows – and we will encourage and protect the rights of other sovereign nations to do the same,” Hoffman said.

Chinese carrier transit

Despite warm words exchanged in front of reporters, Wei and Esper also discussed thorny issues, including Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, which has seen months of anti-government protests.
They also talked about democratic Taiwan, which is claimed by China as a wayward province and is the Communist Party’s most sensitive and important territorial issue.

Fenghe underscored to Esper China’s position that it would “not tolerate any Taiwan independence incident”, Wu said, adding that it opposed any official or military contact with Taiwan. China has in the past threatened to attack if Taiwan, set to hold a presidential election next year, moves towards independence.

“The Chinese side also requires the U.S. side to carefully handle the Taiwan related-issue and to not add new uncertainties to the Strait,” Wu said.

The exchange came a day after news that China sailed a carrier group into the sensitive Taiwan Strait, led by its first domestically built aircraft carrier.

…

Nigeria’s Oscar Committee is urging the country’s filmmakers to use more native languages in their productions.  This, after the U.S. Academy Awards disqualified a Nigerian entry in the International Feature Film category because the movie used too much English.  While some in Nigeria’s Hollywood – known as Nollywood – support the idea of more native languages in films, others argue that non-English films limit their audience reach. 

Nollywood filmmaker Desmond Utomwen is aiming for a U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award, popularly known as an Oscar, by producing a film in a native Nigerian language.

“It’s actually a Hausa-based film, so it’s a language film, it’s not English.  I’ve done a couple of them in English but, that’s actually my first film in Hausa,’ he says.

Most Nigerian filmmakers make English-language movies to reach a larger audience globally but also inside Nigeria, where the former British colony made English the official language.

Filmmaker Darlington Abuda has been in the industry for years.

“In Nigeria, if I do a purely language film, I have made my film a regional film,” Abuda says.  “It will not get the appeal and audience traction that it needs in the other parts of the country.”

But that tide may be slowly turning after the Academy Awards this month disqualified Nigeria’s first entry in the International Feature Film category.

Only 11 minutes of Genevieve Nnaji’s “Lion Heart” – the first Nollywood film by Netflix – was in the native Igbo language.  To qualify for the international feature award, at least 50 percent of a film’s dialogue must be in a language other than English.

While the rejection was roundly criticized in Nigeria, C.J. Obasi, a member of a Nigerian Oscar committee which was set up five years ago, is optimistic.

“If you look at the bigger picture you realize that it’s a victory in that we made a submission for the first time ever,” Obasi says.  “What that does is that it re-positions the hearts and minds of filmmakers as to how we are going to tell our stories moving forward.”

Nigeria’s Oscar Selection Committee says the rejection should motivate Nollywood filmmakers to create more movies in the country’s over 500 native languages.

But convincing Nigerian filmmakers to turn away from English – the language that ties the country together and with the world – will remain a challenge.

And, for some Nollywood filmmakers like Jim Iyke, the language used is not the point.

“If someone sits in their living room and decide where my movie should be, and what platform or what awards I should get, that is on them,” Iyke says. ” I’ve done my job.  I’ve fed the artist in me.”

While Lion Heart won’t make the February Academy Awards, being rejected and having the backing of Netflix are already drawing more international attention to Nollywood — and what Nigerian filmmakers will produce next.

…

Over the past five months, millions have marched through Hong Kong, demanding democratic reform in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. Next Sunday (November 24), Hong Kongers will finally get a chance to express their opinion, albeit in a limited way, by casting votes. If the vote goes ahead as planned, pro-democracy forces are hoping for a big win, as VOA’s William Gallo reports.

…

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg holds a clear lead among Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa, the state that will hold the first nominating contest in February, a new Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom opinion poll showed on Saturday.

Buttigieg’s support climbed to 25%, a 16-point increase since the previous survey in September, CNN reported.

It said there was a close three-way battle for second with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at 16%, and former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders each at 15%.

Since September, Warren dropped six percentage points and Biden slipped five points, while Sanders gained four points, CNN said.

Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told the network the news was encouraging and his campaign felt growing momentum in the farm state, but there was “still a lot of work to do” in increasing his name recognition there.

Buttigieg also led Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa in a Monmouth University poll released on Tuesday.

A New York Times/Sienna poll released earlier this month also showed Buttigieg’s support surging in Iowa, but still behind Warren and Sanders. Nationally, he does not fare nearly as well, averaging around 8% in polls.

Buttigieg’s campaign is betting a strong finish in the Iowa caucus on Feb. 3 will help quell questions about whether he is ready for the big stage, and persuade reluctant black and Hispanic voters to give him a second look.

Buttigieg, 37, has invested heavily in Iowa from the start.

His campaign has more than 100 staffers and 20 offices in the state, among the most of any candidate.

Buttigieg finished the third quarter with $23.4 million in campaign cash on hand, ranking third behind Warren and Sanders at $25.7 million and $33.7 million, respectively. Biden had $8.9 million, forcing his campaign to abandon a promise to reject support from political action committees.

…

Impeachment hearings targeting U.S. President Donald Trump are heading into a second week, with key witnesses set to testify about how he pushed Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, while temporarily withholding military aid Kyiv wanted.

Eight more current and former government officials will appear before the House Intelligence Committee for nationally televised sessions, with a central figure, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, set to appear Wednesday.

In amended behind-closed-doors testimony, Sondland, a million-dollar Trump political donor before being tapped by Trump for the EU posting in Brussels, said that he had warned an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in early September that it would not get the U.S. military assistance it wanted unless the Kyiv leader publicly committed to opening the investigation of Biden.

It was a reciprocal, quid pro quo deal that Trump has denied occurred but is central to the efforts of Democratic lawmakers to impeach the country’s 45th president. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and ridiculed the impeachment effort as a sham proceeding. Trump eventually released the $391 million in military aid on Sept. 11 without Ukraine launching a Biden investigation.

Other figures linked to the impeachment inquiry have corroborated Sondland’s testimony. In a transcript of private testimony released Saturday, Tim Morrison, a White House national security aide, said late last month that Sondland had spoken with Trump about a half dozen times in recent months and had talked with a top Ukraine official about winning release of the military assistance Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country in exchange for investigations that benefited Trump politically.

“His mandate from the president was to go make deals,” Morrison said of Sondland. 

Morrison is set to testify publicly before the impeachment panel on Tuesday, alongside Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine who, as others have, testified that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer named by him to oversee Ukraine affairs, was the driving force to get Kyiv to open the politically tinged investigation to help the U.S. leader.

Late last week, David Holmes, an aide to William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Kyiv, told impeachment investigations in private testimony that he overheard a July 26 cell phone conversation between Trump and Sondland at a Kyiv restaurant in which the president inquired whether Zelenskiy was going to pursue the investigations of Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked theory that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 election that Trump won.  U.S. intelligence community concluded Russia was behind the election meddling. 

Holmes said Sondland in the cell phone call assured Trump that Zelenskiy “loves your ass.”

“So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” Holmes quoted Trump as asking. Sondland, according to Holmes, replied, “He’s gonna do it,” while adding that Zelenskiy will do “anything you ask him to.”

Holmes said he later asked Sondland if Trump cared about Ukraine, with the envoy replying that Trump did not “give a s**t about Ukraine.”

“I asked why not, and Ambassador Sondland stated that the president only cares about ‘big stuff,’” Holmes testified, according to a transcript posted by CNN. “I noted that there was ‘big stuff’ going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia, and Ambassador Sondland replied that he meant ‘big stuff’ that benefits the president, like the ‘Biden investigation.”’

Before Sondland revised his testimony to say there had been a quid pro quo — the military aid for the Biden investigation — Trump had called Sondland a “great American.” But after Sondland changed his testimony, Trump said, “I hardly know the gentleman.”

On Tuesday, the House Intelligence panel is also set to hear from Jennifer Williams, a foreign affairs aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director for European affairs at the National Security Council. Both of them listened in on Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy asking the Ukrainian leader for “a favor,” the investigations of the Bidens.

Both Williams and Vindman have voiced concerns about Trump’s request. It is against U.S. campaign finance law to solicit foreign assistance for help in a U.S. election.

Aside from Sondland, the Intelligence panel is also hearing Wednesday from Laura Cooper, a Defense Department official, and David Hale, the undersecretary of State for political affairs. Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia, is testifying Thursday.

Political analysts in Washington say the Trump impeachment drama could last for several months. If Trump is impeached by a simple majority in the House, perhaps by the end of the year as appears possible, a trial would be held in January in the Republican-majority Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be needed for his conviction and removal from office.

The time frame could bump up against the first Democratic party presidential nominating contests starting in February, when voters will begin casting ballots on who they want to oppose Trump when he seeks a second four-year term in the November 2020 national election. Six Democratic senators are among those running for the party’s presidential nomination, but could be forced to stay in Washington to sit as jurors in the 100-member Senate as it decides Trump’s fate, rather than campaign full-time for the presidency. 

Trump’s removal from office remains unlikely, with at least 20 Republicans needed to turn against him and vote for his conviction. 

To date, while a small number of Republicans have criticized Trump for his actions on Ukraine, no Republican senator has called for his removal from office through impeachment, a drastic action that has never occurred in U.S. history.  

…

Student protesters in Hong Kong engaged in fierce clashes with police at a university campus into the early morning hours of Monday, in what appeared to be some of the worst violence since anti-government protests began five months ago.

Police late Sunday raided the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where a group of student protesters had barricaded themselves for most of the week, stockpiling makeshift weapons, including bricks, slingshots, and Molotov cocktails.

Police advanced in waves throughout the night, firing tear gas and water cannons before retreating, as protesters lobbed petrol bombs and other weapons. At one point, an armored police vehicle appeared to be completely on fire.

Police eventually surrounded the campus and gave several deadlines for the protesters to exit the campus. Just after midnight local time, police warned they may use live rounds on protesters if they kept attacking the police.

There were no immediate reports of deaths. A group of international journalists, including some from VOA, stayed behind on the campus, with many vowing to stay until the situation was resolved.

On the streets outside the campus, police also engaged in clashes with protesters, some of whom appeared to be trying to come to the rescue of the besieged students. Calls on social messaging sites issued calls for Hong Kongers to stream in from all directions to help free the students.

Since June, Hong Kong has seen massive, regular demonstrations, which started in opposition to a proposed bill that would have allowed Hong Kong citizens to be extradited to the mainland. The protests quickly morphed into wider calls for democracy and opposition to growing Chinese influence.

A smaller group of hardcore protesters, many of whom are college students, have also increasingly engaged in more aggressive tactics — clashing with police, destroying public infrastructure, and vandalizing symbols of state power. The students have defended the tactics as a necessary response to police violence and the government’s refusal to accept their demands.

Hong Kong Polytechnic University is one of at least five campuses where students this week barricaded themselves in, blocking roads and collecting makeshift weapons in case of an attack by authorities. Most of the protesters had left the other campuses by Saturday, though a group of hardcore protesters remained at Polytechnic.

The protests escalated in the past week, following the first death of a protester who fell from a building during clashes between protesters and police.

On Saturday, dozens of Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers helped clear protester barricades from a street, emerging from their barracks for the first time since the latest round of protests began.

Pro-democracy lawmakers immediately condemned the move as a violation of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini constitution, which forbids interference by mainland Chinese soldiers unless formally requested by the Hong Kong government.

…

Pope Francis hosted 1,500 poor and needy people for lunch on Sunday at the Vatican. Earlier he celebrated Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica to mark World Day of the Poor.

Some 150 round tables were prepared in the large Vatican hall where the pope normally holds his indoor audiences with the faithful during the winter months.  There he hosted lunch for poor people, including migrants and about 50 volunteers who work with the needy.

Before lunch was served, the pope thanked all those present and asked God to bless them and their families. The menu for all the pope’s guests was lasagne, chicken with cream of mushroom sauce and potatoes, dessert, fruit and espresso coffee. Elsewhere in Rome, another 1,500 needy people were also served lunch and in many parishes.

Earlier on Sunday the pope celebrated a special mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica to raise awareness about the poor in the world. The mass was attended by the poor and the volunteers who later lunched with the pope. During the service, Pope Francis said the poor “facilitate our access to heaven” and described them as “the treasure of the Church.”

Francis encouraged the faithful not to feel annoyed when the poor knock on our doors, but to welcome them and help them as much as possible.

“How many elderly, babies, disabled and poor people are considered useless”, the pope said in his homily adding that “we go our way in haste, without worrying that gaps are increasing, that the greed of a few is adding to the poverty of many others.”

The pope told the faithful to ask themselves the questions: “Do I help someone who has nothing to give me in return? Do I, as Christian, have at least one poor person as a friend?”

The pope, who chose the name Francis after the saint of the poor, has focused his attention on the world’s marginalized since the start of his papacy.

…

The House Intelligence Committee overseeing the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump released transcripts of depositions Saturday from two officials who will be questioned in public hearings next week.

Congressional investigators also met Saturday in a closed-door session with Mark Sandy, a longtime career official with the Office of Management and Budget, who could provide valuable information about the U.S. delay of about $400 million in aid to Ukraine last summer.

The transcripts released Saturday were from previous closed-door depositions with former National Security Council official Tim Morrison and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence. Morrison and Williams are scheduled to be questioned in public Tuesday by the House panel.

At the heart of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against the president is whether Trump withheld needed military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential opponent of Trump’s in the 2020 presidential election, and his son, Hunter Biden. No wrongdoing by either Biden has been substantiated.

Morrison’s deposition largely confirmed testimony offered by other officials so far in the inquiry, but he also answered questions regarding a shadow diplomacy in Ukraine being waged by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer.

‘Tried to stay away’

In the transcript, Morrison said he “tried to stay away from” discussions in which U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Giuliani and others tried to persuade Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens and Burisma Holdings, a Ukraine gas producer.

He also used the term the Burisma “bucket,” which included investigations into the Bidens, and the role of Democrats in the 2016 election. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma.

Morrison also described witnessing an exchange between Sondland and Andriy Yermak, an aide to the Ukraine president, at a summit in Warsaw.

He testified that Sondland told him Yermak?: “What could help them move the aid was if the prosecutor general would go to the mike and announce that he was opening the Burisma investigation.” The prosecutor general is Ukraine’s top legal official.

“It was the first time something like this had been injected as a condition on the release of the assistance,” Morrison? said in his deposition, adding he “did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly appointed Chief of Mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.”

The transcript also describes a Sept. 11 meeting, which Morrison said he did not attend but was briefed about, in which Vice President Pence and Ohio Senator Rob Portman “convinced the president that the aid should be disbursed immediately,” and that it was “the appropriate and prudent thing to do.”

In her testimony, Williams described her role, as a national security adviser to Pence on European and Russian issues, as keeping “the vice president aware and abreast of all foreign policy issues going on in that region,” which includes Ukraine.

Williams, who listened in on the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, was asked if she had any concerns after listening to the conversation.

“I certainly noted that the mention of those specific investigations seemed unusual as compared to other discussions with foreign leaders,” she said according to her deposition. When asked why they were unusual, she said, “I believed those references to be more political in nature and … struck me as unusual and inappropriate.”

Closed-door hearing

On Saturday, Sandy, a senior White House official, was the first agency employee to be deposed in the inquiry after three employees appointed by Trump defied congressional subpoenas to testify. He had received a subpoena to appear.

Sandy was among the career employees who questioned the holdup of the aid to Ukraine, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

His signature is on at least one document that prevented the provision of the aid to Ukraine, according to copies of documents investigators discussed during an earlier deposition. A transcript of the discussion has been publicly disclosed.

Sandy appeared before the House foreign affairs, intelligence, and oversight and reform committees.

In a statement, the three Democratic-led committees said they are investigating “the extent to which President Trump jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election and by withholding security assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression, as well as any efforts to cover up these matters.”

Sandy’s deposition comes one day after the ousted former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified at the congressional impeachment inquiry into President Trump that she was “shocked and devastated” over remarks Trump made about her during a call with Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president.

“I didn’t know what to think, but I was very concerned,” she told the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. “It felt like a threat.”

Her testimony was consistent with her closed-door testimony last month when she said she felt threatened and worried about her safety after Trump said “she’s going to go through some things.”

Phone call

Late Friday, after Yovanovitch’s testimony, House impeachment investigators met in closed session with David Holmes, a State Department official. Holmes told lawmakers he was having lunch with Sondland and overheard a phone call between Sondland and Trump, in which the president inquired about the Ukraine president’s willingness to investigate the Bidens.

The phone call occurred one day after the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy, which is the focus of the impeachment probe.

According to a transcript of his opening statement to investigators, [[ https://www.lawfareblog.com/opening-statement-david-holmes-impeachment-inquiry ]] Holmes said: “I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the president and explain that he was calling from Kyiv. I heard President Trump then clarify that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine, and went on to state that President Zelenskiy “loves” Trump.

“I then heard President Trump ask, ‘So, he’s gonna do the investigation?’ Ambassador Sondland replied that ‘he’s gonna do it,’ adding that President Zelenskiy will do ‘anything you ask him to.’ Even though I did not take notes of these statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made,” said Holmes, who is an aide to acting U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine William Taylor.

He said that after the phone call ended, he asked Sondland about Trump’s “views on Ukraine. In particular, I asked Ambassador Sondland if it was true that the President did not ‘give a s—t about Ukraine.’ Ambassador Sondland agreed that the President did not ‘give a s—t about Ukraine.’ I asked why not, and Ambassador Sondland stated that the President only cares about ‘big stuff.’

“I noted that there was ‘big stuff’ going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia, and Ambassador Sondland replied that he meant ‘big stuff’ that benefits the President, like the ‘Biden investigation’ that Mr. Giuliani was pushing,” he said, according to this statement.

Next week, the House panel will hold public hearings again. The schedule for testimony includes:

Tuesday: Williams; Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, former director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, Ambassador Kurt Volker, former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine; and Morrison.

Wednesday: Sondland; Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian Affairs; and David Hale, under secretary of state for political affairs.

Thursday: Fiona Hill, former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia.

…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says all Conservative Party candidates in the upcoming election have pledged to back his Brexit deal. 

“All 635 Conservative candidates standing at this election — every single one of them — has pledged to me that if elected they will vote in Parliament to pass my Brexit deal so we can end the uncertainty and finally leave the EU,” Johnson told London’s Telegraph newspaper in an interview published late on Saturday. 

“I am offering a pact with the people: If you vote Conservative you can be 100% sure a majority Conservative government will unblock Parliament and get Brexit done,” he said. 

The December 12 election was called to end three years of disagreement over Brexit that has sapped investors’ faith in the stability of the world’s fifth-largest economy and damaged Britain’s standing since it voted in a 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. 

Johnson, 55, hopes to win a majority to push through the last-minute Brexit deal he struck with the EU last month after the bloc granted a third delay to the divorce that was originally supposed to take place March 29. Voters in a 2016 referendum narrowly voted in favor of leaving the EU. 

Johnson’s Conservatives lead Labour by sizable margins, four polls published Saturday show. 

A YouGov poll showed support for the Conservatives at 45%, the highest level since 2017, compared with Labour at 28%, unchanged. The pro-European Union Liberal Democrats were at 15%, and the Brexit Party was at 4%, unchanged. 

A separate poll for SavantaComRes also said support for the Conservatives was the highest since 2017, at 41%. Labour’s support was at 33%. 

The Conservatives have a 16-point lead over Labour, according to an opinion poll published by Opinium Research, and a poll by the Mail on Sunday said Johnson’s party had a 15-point lead over Labour. 

…

A federal judge on Saturday ordered that a German citizen arrested on her return to the country on suspicion of being a member of Islamic State should remain in custody, prosecutors said. 
 
Authorities said the suspect, identified only as Nasim A., left Germany for Syria in 2014, married a fighter and moved with him to Iraq. There she was paid to maintain an IS-controlled house and carried a weapon. 
 
She and her husband later moved to Syria, where she also maintained a house, prosecutors said. Kurdish security forces arrested her in early 2019. 
 
The woman was arrested Friday evening in Frankfurt upon her return to Germany. 
 
The judge determined Saturday that she remain in detention because of “suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organization in a foreign country,” prosecutors said. 

…

A recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has upended a long-standing legal roadblock that has given the gun industry far-reaching immunity from lawsuits in the aftermath of mass killings. 
 
The court this week allowed families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre to sue the maker of the AR-15 used in the attack. The case against Remington will now proceed in the Connecticut courts. 
 
Remington is widely expected to win the case, but critics of the gun industry are eyeing what they see as a significant outcome even in the face of defeat: getting the gunmaker to open its books about how it markets firearms. 
 
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are certain to request that Remington turn over volumes of documents as part of the discovery phase. Those materials might include company emails, memos, business plans and corporate strategies, or anything that might suggest the company purposely marketed the firearm that may have compelled the shooter to use the weapon to carry out the slaughter. 

Message to gun companies
 
The plaintiffs also believe the ruling will put gun companies on notice about how they conduct business, knowing they could wind up in the courts in similar fashion. 
 
“If the industry wakes up and understands their conduct behind closed doors is not protected, then the industry itself … will take steps to try to help the massive problem we have instead of do nothing and sit by and cash the checks,” said Joshua Koskoff, the Connecticut attorney who represents a survivor and relatives of nine victims who died at the Newtown, Connecticut, school on December 14, 2012.  

The case hinges on Connecticut state consumer law that challenges how the firearm used by the Newtown shooter — a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle — was marketed, with plaintiffs alleging Remington purposely used advertisements that targeted younger, at-risk males. One of Remington’s ads features the rifle against a plain backdrop and the phrase: “Consider Your Man Card Reissued.” 
 
Remington did not respond to requests for comment after the U.S. Supreme Court denied its efforts to quash the lawsuit. 
 
Larry Keane, senior vice president and legal counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gunmakers, said he expected Remington to  ultimately prevail and that it was unfair to blame the gunmaker for Adam Lanza’s crime. 
 
“Adam Lanza alone is the responsible person. Not Remington,” he said. 
 
2005 law

Suing the firearms industry has never been easy, and it was made even harder after Congress enacted the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005. The law backed by the National Rifle Association gave broad immunity to the gun industry. 
 
The plaintiffs’ chances of succeeding in this case are slim — a sentiment shared by the Connecticut Supreme Court, which said they face a “Herculean task” to prevail. 

Judges and juries generally have a tough time blaming anyone but the shooter for the crime, said Timothy D. Lytton, professor at Georgia State University’s College of Law and author of “Suing the Gun Industry: A Battle at the Crossroads of Gun Control and Mass Torts.”  

Add into the mix that Lanza himself didn’t own the firearm; he stole it from his mother after killing her in the home they shared, then went to the elementary school in Newtown, where he killed 20 children and six adults. 
 
“It makes it harder for juries to connect the dots. It’s a significant hurdle in all of these cases. It’s very rare that you have a very close time frame between the marketing of a weapon and a mass shooting,” Lytton said. 
 
Lanza’s mother purchased the Bushmaster AR-platform rifle in 2010 from a Connecticut gun shop. It’s unclear if she or her son were influenced by or had seen Remington’s advertising. 

Tough times for industry
 
Still, it’s been a tough few years for the industry. Sales plummeted with the election of President Donald Trump, and gun-control advocates have outspent perhaps his most loyal supporter: the NRA. With slumping sales, some companies, including Remington, have faced bankruptcy. And in the wake of high-profile mass shootings, corporate America has begun pushing back against the industry. 
 
AR-platform long guns have been a particular bone of contention for gun-control advocates who believe the firearms — once banned for a decade in the U.S. — are especially attractive to mass shooters for their ease of use and their ability to carry large-capacity magazines. 
 
While handguns remain used more often in mass shootings, ARs have been involved in some of the deadliest shootings, including when a gunman fired on a crowd of concertgoers outside his hotel room in Las Vegas in 2017, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds. 
 
The AR-15, its design based on the military M-16, has become one of the most popular firearms in the U.S. in recent decades. It’s lightweight, easy to customize and able to carry extended magazines, and its sales took off once the ban expired in 2004. There are now an estimated 16 million AR-platform long guns in the U.S. 

‘Embarrassing’ information
 
Robert J. Spitzer, chairman of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland and a longtime watcher of gun politics, said a case against Remington could cause “pretty embarrassing information” to come out. 

“And it is certainly possible [plaintiffs] will find memos or other documents that may significantly support their case that Remington was manifestly irresponsible in the way they marketed their guns,” he said. 

Even if embarrassing information isn’t uncovered, he said, it could have a long-lasting impact on the industry and, more specifically, Remington. Considered the oldest gunmaker in the United States, Remington — founded in New York in 1816 and now based in Madison, North Carolina — only emerged from bankruptcy in 2018. 
 
“They’re obviously in a precarious financial situation and this suit is certainly not helpful to them trying to restore their financial health,” Spitzer said. 

…

The United Nations warned Saturday that violence in Bolivia could “spin out of control,” following a night of skirmishes between security forces and coca farmers loyal to ousted President Evo Morales that left at least eight dead. 

Morales resigned under pressure from Bolivia’s police and military last Sunday after evidence of vote rigging tainted his October 20 election victory. He fled to Mexico. 

The leftist and charismatic former coca farmer has since called his ouster a “coup” and decried growing allegations of heavy-handed repression by security forces under interim President Jeanine Anez, a former conservative lawmaker. 

“The coup leaders massacre indigenous and humble people for asking for democracy,” Morales said on Twitter late Friday, following reports of mounting deaths.  

Anez has blamed Morales for stoking violence from abroad, and has said her government wishes to hold elections and meet with the opposition to mend fences.  

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned escalating violence could usurp the democratic process. 

“I am concerned that the situation in Bolivia could spin out of control if the authorities do not handle it … with full respect for human rights,” Bachelet said in a statement. 

“Repressive actions by the authorities … are likely to jeopardize any possible avenue for dialogue,” she added. 

The violence in Bolivia adds to growing unrest in the region, including in neighbor Chile, where protests over social inequalities boiled over into riots that left at least 20 dead. 

Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina have also seen widespread strikes, protests and riots in recent months.

Bullet wounds 

Cochabamba regional ombudsman Nelson Cox said hospital records in the coca farming region showed the “vast majority” of Friday’s deaths and injuries were caused by bullet wounds. 

“We are working with the national ombudsman’s office to conduct autopsies … and seek justice for these victims,” Cox told Reuters. 

Supporters continue to agitate for Morales, blocking major highways, cutting oil pipelines and launching mass protests in the streets of La Paz, El Alto and in coca farming regions long loyal to him. 

Though the capital, La Paz, was calm Saturday, highway blockades prompted panic on the streets, with many rushing to hoard groceries as supplies ran low and prices rose. 

Bolivia’s national ombudsman said Friday that total deaths had hit 19 since the October 20 election, a number that has accelerated over the last week. 

The rising body count prompted Morales to strike a more conciliatory tone with the government of Anez in recent days. 

“For the sake of democracy … I have no problem not taking part in new elections,” Morales told Reuters in an interview in Mexico City. 

Morales’ party, now the opposition, has asked for a session of both chambers of Bolivia’s legislature this Tuesday to discuss a plan for holding the elections to replace the interim government. 

Anez, meanwhile, has moved quickly away from Morales’ leftist rule. 

On Friday, Bolivia asked Venezuelan officials to leave the country. The Andean nation also accused Cuba, once a close ally, of stoking unrest following Morales’ resignation. 

Anez spoke with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guiado on Saturday. She said she was pleased to establish relations with a 
“democratic Venezuela.” 

“We have the same objectives, and I hope soon we can cry freedom for Venezuela, as it so rightly deserves,” she said in the televised meeting. 

…

Five supporters of former president Evo Morales were killed Friday in violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Bolivia, according to an AFP correspondent who saw the bodies at a hospital.

Authorities did not report any deaths in the riots outside Cochabamba, though it said 100 people were detained. Media reports said eight were wounded.

Clashes had broken out Friday in the suburbs of Cochabamba, where thousands of coca growers were trying to reach the city center 11 miles (18 kilometers) away to join a protest against interim leader Jeanine Anez.

But they were blocked by police, who stopped them from crossing a bridge.

The protesters carried “weapons, guns, Molotov cocktails, homemade bazookas and explosive devices,” Cochabamba police commander Colonel Jamie Zurita said.

“They used dynamite and deadly weapons like the Mauser 765 (rifle). Neither the armed forces nor the police are equipped with such a caliber, I am worried,” he said.

The crowd was dispersed after dark by riot police, who were supported by the army and a helicopter.

Morales resigned and fled to Mexico after losing the support of Bolivia’s security forces following weeks of protests over his disputed Oct. 20 reelection.

With the five protesters killed Friday, the death toll from the unrest rises to 15 with more than 400 wounded.

…