Month: December 2019

As he stood amid the thick old-growth forests in the coastal range of Oregon, Dave Wiens was nervous. Before he trained to shoot his first barred owl, he had never fired a gun.

He eyed the big female owl, her feathers streaked brown and white, perched on a branch at just the right distance. Then he squeezed the trigger and the owl fell to the forest floor, adding to a running tally of more than 2,400 barred owls killed so far in a controversial experiment by the U.S. government to test whether the northern spotted owl’s rapid decline in the Pacific Northwest can be stopped by killing its aggressive East Coast cousin.

Wiens grew up fascinated by birds, and his graduate research in owl interactions helped lay the groundwork for this tense moment.

“It’s a little distasteful, I think, to go out killing owls to save another owl species,” said Wiens, a biologist who still views each shooting as “gut-wrenching” as the first. “Nonetheless, I also feel like from a conservation standpoint, our back was up against the wall. We knew that barred owls were outcompeting spotted owls and their populations were going haywire.”

The federal government has been trying for decades to save the northern spotted owl, a native bird that sparked an intense battle over logging across Washington, Oregon and California decades ago.

After the owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, earning it a cover on Time Magazine, federal officials halted logging on millions of acres of old-growth forests on federal lands to protect the bird’s habitat. But the birds’ population continued to decline.

Meanwhile, researchers, including Wiens, began documenting another threat — larger, more aggressive barred owls competing with spotted owls for food and space and displacing them in some areas.

In almost all ways, the barred owl is the spotted owl’s worst enemy: They reproduce more often, have more babies per year and eat the same prey, like squirrels and wood rats. And they now outnumber spotted owls in many areas of the native bird’s historic range.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s experiment, which began in 2015, has raised thorny questions: To what extent can we reverse declines that have unfolded over decades, often partially due to actions by humans? And as climate change continues to shake up the landscape, how should we intervene?

The experimental killing of barred owls raised such moral dilemmas when it first was proposed in 2012 that the Fish and Wildlife Service took the unusual step of hiring an ethicist to help work through whether it was acceptable and could be done humanely.

The owl experiment is unusual because it involves killing one species of owl to save another owl species. But federal and state officials already have intervened with other species.

 — They have broken the necks of thousands of cowbirds to save the warbler, a songbird once on the brink of extinction.

— To preserve salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest and perch and other fish in the Midwest, agencies kill thousands of large seabirds called double-crested cormorants.

— And last year, Congress passed a law making it easier for Oregon, Washington, Idaho and American Indian tribes to kill sea lions that gobble imperiled salmon runs in the Columbia River.

In four small study areas in Washington, Oregon and northern California, Wiens and his trained team have been picking off invasive barred owls with 12-gauge shotguns to see whether the native birds return to their nesting habitat once their competitors are gone. Small efforts to remove barred owls in British Columbia and northern California already showed promising results.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has a permit to kill up to 3,600 owls and, if the $5 million program works, could decide to expand its efforts.

Wiens, who works for the U.S. Geological Survey, now views his gun as “a research tool” in humankind’s attempts to maintain biodiversity and rebalance the forest ecosystem. Because the barred owl has few predators in Northwest forests, he sees his team’s role as apex predator, acting as a cap on a population that doesn’t have one.

“Humans, by stepping in and taking that role in nature, we may be able to achieve more biodiversity in the environment, rather than just having barred owls take over and wipe out all the prey species,” he said.

Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, finds the practice abhorrent and said humans should find another way to help owl.

“There’s no way to couch it as a good thing if you’re killing one species to save another,” Bekoff said.

And Michael Harris, who directs the wildlife law program for Friends of Animals, thinks the government should focus on what humans are doing to the environment and protect habitats rather than scapegoating barred owls.

“We really have to let these things work themselves out,” Harris said. ”It’s going to be very common with climate change. What are we going to do — pick and choose the winners?”

Some see a responsibility to intervene, however, noting that humans are partly to blame for the underlying conditions with activities like logging, which helped lead to the spotted owl’s decline. And others just see a no-win situation.

“A decision not to kill the barred owl is a decision to let the spotted owl go extinct,” said Bob Sallinger, conservation director with the Audubon Society of Portland. “That’s what we have to wrestle with.”

If the experimental removal of barred owls improves the spotted owl populations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife may consider killing more owls as part of a larger, long-term management strategy. Enough success has been noted that the experiment already has been extended to August 2021.

“I certainly don’t see northern spotted owls going extinct completely,” Wiens said, adding that “extinction in this case will be much longer process and from what we’ve seen from doing these removal experiments, we may be able to slow some of those declines.”

This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Heroic efforts to revive ecosystems and save species are being waged worldwide, aimed at reversing some of humankind’s most destructive effects on the planet. “What Can Be Saved?,” a weekly AP series, chronicles the ordinary people and scientists fighting for change against enormous odds — and forging paths that others may follow.

…

NASA’s sun-skimming spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe, is surprising scientists with its unprecedented close views of our star. 

Scientists released the first results from the mission Wednesday. They observed bursts of energetic particles never seen before on such a small scale as well as switchback-like reversals in the out-flowing solar magnetic field that seem to whip up the solar wind. 

NASA’s Nicola Fox compared this unexpected switchback phenomenon to the cracking of a whip. 

They're striking and it's hard to not think that they're somehow important in the whole problem, said Stuart Bale of the University of California-Berkeley, who was part of the team. 

Dust-free area

Researchers said they also finally have evidence of a dust-free zone encircling the sun. Farther out, there’s so much dust from vaporizing comets and asteroids that one of 80 small viewfinders on one instrument was pierced by a grain earlier this year. 

I can't say that we don't worry about the spacecraft. I mean, the spacecraft is going through an environment that we've never been before, Fox said. 

Launched in 2018, Parker has come within 15 million miles (25 million kilometers) of the sun and will get increasingly closer — within 4 million miles (6 million kilometers) — over the next six years. It’s completed three of 24 orbits of the sun, dipping well into the corona, or upper atmosphere. The goal of the mission is to shed light on some of the mysteries surrounding the sun. 

Parker will sweep past Venus on December 26 for the second gravity assist of the $1.5 billion mission and make its fourth close solar encounter in January. 

The findings in the journal Nature were made during a relatively quiet phase of solar activity. 

We're just starting to scratch the surface of this fascinating physics, said Princeton University’s David McComas, the chief scientist of one of the spacecraft’s instruments. 

Active phase ahead

As Parker gets even closer to its target, the sun will go through an active phase “so we can expect even more exciting results soon,” University College London’s Daniel Verscharen wrote in an accompanying editorial. Verscharen was not part of the mission. 

Over the summer, Fox shared these early results with solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker, 92, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, for whom the spacecraft is named. He expressed excitement — wow — and was keen to be involved. 

It’s the first NASA spacecraft to be named after a person still alive. Parker attended its launch last year from Cape Canaveral. 

…

A U.K-based correspondent for Dawn, Pakistan’s main English language newspaper, filed a story on the terror attack last Friday in London and her choice of words triggered criticism by several Pakistani government authorities.

The attacker, Usman Khan, 28, a British citizen whose family originates from Pakistan, put on a fake suicide vest on Friday and started attacking people with knives before he was confronted by bystanders and shot dead by police officers near London Bridge. He stabbed five people, two of whom died later of the wounds sustained in the attack.

The reporter’s identification of the attacker as a British citizen of Pakistani origin was deemed as unpatriotic and defamatory because of the usage of the phrase “Pakistani origin” and the linkage to Pakistan.  

Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Science & Technology, took to his official Twitter page and criticized Dawn’s writers and editors for the story.

“Dawn walas [people] please have some mercy on this Nation, shocked on your cheap attempt to link a British terrorist to Pakistan, Anwar Al Awlaki and Anjem ch[Chaudhary] both are brit origin nothing to do with Kashmir or Pak, Britain should handle its problem within—irresponsible n cheap attitude,” Hussain wrote in a tweet on Sunday.

Dawn walas please have some mercy on this Nation, shocked on your cheap attempt to link a British terroist to Pakistan, Anwar Al Awlaki and Anjem ch both are brit origin nothing to do with Kashmir or Pak, Britain should handle its problem within—irresponsible n cheap attitude pic.twitter.com/tvldBCNMUd

— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) December 1, 2019

Hussain’s tweet was retweeted by Shireen Mazari, Pakistan’s Minister for Human Rights and she accused Dawn of pursuing an agenda.

“Dawn has its own agenda – read The News where their UK based reporter has given details of the man’s life incl the fact he was born in UK!,” she said.

Following these tweets, social media in Pakistan has been trending the hashtag #BoycottIndianDawn, accusing the media network of being anti-Pakistan and pro Indian.

Riots in Islamabad

On Monday evening, angry rioters surrounded Dawn’s Islamabad office, and called for staffers to be hanged.

The crowd reportedly shouted, “Long Live Pakistan Army, Death to Dawn” and harassed employees for several hours until police arrived to dispel the crowd.

An employee of the newspaper, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said he was physically assaulted.

“They pushed me around and cornered me; they said they wouldn’t let me pass through until I shouted “Long Live Pakistan Army-Death to Dawn,” the employee said.  

The newspaper has not issued a statement on the attack against its office. However, they did publish an article, giving the accounts of what transpired over the weekend. The original story that sparked the controversy has not been removed from the newspaper’s website as of Tuesday evening.

Rights Groups Reactions

Several international and local rights groups and organizations advocating for the freedom of press voiced concerns over the incident and urged Pakistani authorities to ensure the safety of Dawn’s reporters in the country.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) issued a statement Tuesday calling on Pakistan’s Ministry of Human Rights and Information Ministry to address the situation.

“HRCP has received alarming reports that access to @dawn_com’s office in Islamabad is being blocked by protestors shouting pro-army slogans. We are seriously concerned about the security of Dawn’s personnel and urge @mohrpakistan and @MoIB_Official to take immediate action.” HRCP said in a tweet.  

Paris-based Reporter Without Borders, a global watchdog monitoring press freedom around the world, also issued a statement Tuesday urging authorities to take immediate measures.

“Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Pakistani authorities to issue a public and unequivocal condemnation of last night’s siege of the Islamabad headquarters of Pakistan’s oldest English-language daily, Dawn, by an angry crowd of demonstrators calling for it to be banned on completely spurious grounds,” the statement said.

In statement sent to VOA, New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international organization defending reporters around the world, expressed concerns and urged Pakistan to investigate reports of death threats against journalists.  

“Pakistan authorities must prevent demonstrations against the Dawn newspaper from turning violent, and should investigate death threats made against its staffers,” CPJ said.

Local reaction

Some opposition figures also took issue with the threats made against Dawn.

Senator Usman Kakar, a member of Pakistan’s Senate’s Standing Committee on Human Rights and a member of the opposition party Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami (PMAP) party, deemed the incident as a serious threat to press freedom and urged the senate to discuss it.

“This issue needs to be brought up and discussed in the Senate. Media [in Pakistan] is scrutinized and under a lot of pressure…they are afraid of the establishment,” the senator told VOA.

Bilawal Bhutto–Zardari, the leader of Pakistan’s People’s Party, PPP, one of the main opposition parties in the country, criticized the government for tolerating attack against the media.

 “Visited the offices of @dawn_com today in Islamabad. Outrageous that a major media house can be attacked by a mob in our capital city right under the government’s nose. Senate Human rights committee has already taken notice of this latest attack on freedom of the press,” Zardari tweeted on Tuesday.

Government involvement

Some journalists in Pakistan allege that the Pakistani government organized the mob in an effort to silence an independent and credible news outlet in the country.  

Iqbal Khattak, the head of Freedom Network, a watchdog organization that monitors press freedom in the country, told VOA that the incident seemed pre-planned.  

“This incident was really dangerous. Journalists in Pakistan need to ask the government to investigate the matter and ask, ‘who these people were’ and ‘what their issue is’. It seems like the mob was staged,” Khattak said.

The ruling Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has not immediately reacted to the riot incident and threats against Dawn.

VOA’s Aurangzeb Khan contributed to this report from Islamabad. Some of the information used in this report came from Reuters.

…

The Organization of American States (OAS) should avoid “extreme” positions when confronting regional crises like Venezuela’s social and economic collapse and instead promote dialogue, a challenger for the body’s top job said on Tuesday.

Hugo de Zela, a longtime Peruvian diplomat and his country’s ambassador to the United States, is running to unseat the organization’s secretary-general, Luis Almagro, who is seeking a second five-year term. Almagro’s current term is set to end next May.

The OAS must push for problems to be solved within its member countries by facilitating dialogue between different factions, de Zela told Reuters on the sidelines of a diplomatic meeting in Bogota.

“If the organization puts itself on one of the extremes, it stops being effective at solving problems, it stops being present in the solution and it becomes part of the problem,” said de Zela. “That cannot happen.”

Venezuela’s economic and political crisis – which has led to widespread shortages of food and medicine and an exodus of people – has dominated recent OAS meetings, with some member states denouncing President Nicolas Maduro as a dictator, while others back him.

Member states have also tussled over the admittance to meetings of a representative sent by Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaido, who argues Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate. Guaido this year invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency.

Almagro, a Uruguayan whose re-election bid is backed by the United States, Colombia and Brazil, has sought to ramp up pressure on Maduro, including refusing to rule out the use of force against his government last year.

“It’s evident that in Venezuela, there is an interruption of the democratic process, it’s evident that the Maduro regime lacks legitimacy, that’s not under discussion. But at the same time, to actively promote the use of force to solve the case of Venezuela is unreal and doesn’t help,” said de Zela.

“That is putting ourselves on an extreme. Talking constantly about the use of force to solve the issue of Venezuela is not an effective contribution or a realistic contribution.”

Venezuelans must solve their own problems through dialogue, de Zela added, saying free and fair elections must be held urgently in the oil-producing country.

“The OAS is not having, as it once did, an active role in cooperation to solve these things,” de Zela said. “There is a lack of dialogue between the member countries and the general secretariat.”

…

Representatives from over a dozen nations that are signatories to a Cold War-era defense treaty for the Americas moved Tuesday to further isolate close allies of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with economic sanctions.

The 1947 Rio Treaty signatories concluded a meeting in Bogota by vowing to cooperate in pursuing sanctions and travel restrictions for Maduro government associates accused of corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering or human rights violations.

“The political, economic and social crisis in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela represents a threat for the peace and security of the continent,” Colombian Foreign Minister Claudia Blum said in the meeting’s final remarks.

While the United States and the European Union have targeted Maduro associates with economic sanctions, Latin American nations who are supporting opposition leader Juan Guaido have largely resorted to diplomatic pressure – and it will be up to each individual nation to decide how to move forward.

The promise of enhanced economic pressure against Maduro comes at a time when Venezuela’s opposition is faltering. Guaido has struggled to mobilize supporters onto the streets and dipped in popularity. Meanwhile, fissures within the opposition are coming to light amidst recent controversies involving alleged abuses of power.

David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, said the Rio Treaty’s resolution Tuesday marks a “small victory” for the opposition but “not enough to really put them in a different place.”

“Their strategy of maximum pressure seems to be stalling,” he said.

The 19 Rio Treaty member nations have been treading cautiously in pursuing economic restrictions against Venezuela while vowing not to invoke a provision in the accord that authorizes them to pursue a military intervention. The accord instructs signatories to consider a threat against any one of them a danger to all.

Colombian President Ivan Duque contends that Maduro is offering a safe haven to rebel factions of the National Liberation Army and dissidents with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, an assertion the Venezuelan leader denies. Duque urged that nations embark on tougher sanctions going forward.

“Here there’s no invitation for use of force,” he said.

Despite repeated remarks from Rio Treaty members indicating they will not pursue a military response, Venezuelan leaders contend the signatories are plotting to overthrow Maduro and warning citizens that an intervention could be imminent.

“The people should be prepared and alert on the streets,” Diosdado Cabello, head of Venezuela’s all-powerful National Constitutional Assembly, said Tuesday.

…

Argentina’s incoming cabinet has already been chosen and will be revealed on Friday, President-elect Alberto Fernandez said on Tuesday, while his team confirmed a few major picks, including the incoming foreign minister and chief of staff.

As the country and markets watch closely for the make-up of the Peronist’s core leadership team, the key economic roles are still under wraps, with talks ongoing about how those will be structured, a spokesman for the leftist leader said.

“The cabinet is defined. Everything is already chosen and we are all working. We will present it on Friday at 6 pm (2100 GMT),” Fernandez said a post on an official Twitter account.

This followed comments made on local radio station Metro 95.1.

The incoming center-left leader gave little detail away, though he downplayed the influence of his vice president-elect, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Argentina’s creditors, energy investors and grains traders are watching Fernandez’s picks closely, worried that Latin America’s No. 3 economy could shift toward populism after four-years under market-friendly conservative Mauricio Macri.

The spokesman told Reuters that young political scientist Santiago Cafiero, heir to a historic Peronist family, will likely be Cabinet chief, and that former Buenos Aires governor Felipe Solá will take on the role of foreign minister.

Eduardo de Pedro, a “Kirchnerist” farther to the left in the Peronist political movement, will also be part of the cabinet, the spokesman said, without revealing his role.

“The aim is to make a cabinet that represents all sectors of Frente de Todos,” he said, referring to Fernandez’s coalition, which translates as “Front for All.” “The delay (naming the cabinet) is due to negotiations between the different sectors.”

Economy Roles Still Uncertain

Fernandez’s team has kept a tight lid on picks for the top economy role, though a few key people are likely to play at least some role either in the formal cabinet or as advisers.

In recent weeks so many names have been touted to head the economy that a running joke is that the candidates are so numerous they could fill a soccer stadium.

Heterodox economists Matías Kulfas and Cecilia Todesca, debt expert Guillermo Nielsen, and academic Martín Guzmán are highly likely to take on some form of economic roles.

One source with knowledge of the matter and some domestic media have also said that Miguel Angel Pesce, an economist, is in line to take the central bank presidency.

Fernandez’s spokesman said that the structure of the economic roles has not yet been defined, which could include a powerful ministry with many secretariats or several ministries.

Fernandez said on Tuesday that Fernandez de Kirchner, a divisive former president who clashed with creditors and the farm sector during her two-term administration, had given advice on the cabinet but denied she had installed her own people.

“Cristina influenced the make-up of the cabinet in the way a person whose opinion I value would but did not fill the cabinet with her own names. We are a united front. What I am looking for is that everyone is represented,” he said.

Veep

Fernandez, who will come into office on Dec. 10 after winning an October election against incumbent Macri, faces a string of challenges including reviving stalled growth and renegotiating a painful debt pile with global creditors.

The country’s economy has been mired in recession for much of the last year, with annual inflation above 50%, sky-high benchmark interest rates and the central bank forced to drain dollar reserves to prop up a tumbling peso currency.

The economic crisis hammered Macri, who lost by a landslide in an August primary election ahead of the Oct. 27 vote, which sparked a market crash as investors feared political uncertainty with the return of the Peronist left.

Argentina is in talks with creditors and the International Monetary Fund to ease the burden of the country’s sovereign debt, with restructuring talks involving a total of around $100 billion.

According to the outgoing government, about $28 billion worth of debt with private holders and international organizations is due to mature in 2020.

Argentine bonds, already trading at historic lows, were hit again on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump announced surprise tariffs on Monday targeting steel and aluminum imports from Argentina and Brazil.

In a tongue-in-cheek comment about his higher-profile running mate, Fernandez said he enjoyed U.S. series “Veep,” where former senator Selina Meyer rises to become president, but that it did not mirror the situation in Argentina.

“To clear up any doubts, I have no plans to resign or leave my position until the last day,” Fernandez said.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, often spoke to Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, as Giuliani peddled unproven allegations at the heart of the Trump impeachment inquiry, a congressional report said on Tuesday.

Previously undisclosed telephone records appended to a 300-page report by the Democratic-led committee showed that Nunes also contacted Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-American businessman who was helping Giuliani and has been indicted on charges of violating campaign finance law. Parnas has pleaded not guilty.

Others with whom Giuliani had phone calls included current and former Nunes staffers, the White House budget office, and a journalist who promoted conspiracy theories involving Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden and the 2016 U.S. election.

Giuliani’s numerous calls with Nunes and aides are significant because, as the top Republican on the committee, the California lawmaker cited those same theories as he led the fight against impeaching Trump.

Bennett Gershman, a Pace Law School professor who specializes in government ethics, said the disclosures raised “ethics questions with respect to Nunes.”

“Just on the face of it, I would say Nunes has a lot of explaining to do,” Gershman said. “At the very least he should have recused himself and being as aggressive as he was with this lurking in the background, I would say it’s pretty shocking.”

Nunes’ office did not respond to a request for comment on the phone records.

Neither Giuliani nor his attorney, Robert Costello, responded to a request for comment on the report and on Nunes in particular.

The intelligence panel report, which will form the basis of any impeachment charges, accused Trump of using his power to push Ukraine to investigate Biden in return for a White House meeting for its newly elected president and $391 million in withheld security aid approved by Congress for Ukraine’s defense against Russia-backed separatists.

Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the committee, declined to comment specifically on Nunes.

But, he said that it was “deeply concerning that at a time when the president of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity.”

The phone records were obtained from AT&T, the report said. The company acknowledged it complied with a request.

Biden is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to run against Republican Trump in the November 2020 election.

Parnas’ lawyer Joseph Bondy said his client was prepared to testify to Congress about the substance of the phone calls.

In an Oct. 5 interview with Reuters, Giuliani said he had been in contact with Nunes about Ukraine, but “not a lot” and that the lawmaker and his staff obtained information on their own.

“We’ve talked about some of it, yes, Giuliani said. “But we haven’t investigated it together.”

The call records showed that Giuliani maintained more frequent contacts with Washington officials than were disclosed in some two months of private and public testimony by current and former U.S. officials to House committees conducting the impeachment review.

In the hearings, Nunes cited the same unproven allegations supported by Giuliani that Biden tried to curb an investigation into a Ukrainian energy firm on whose board his son was a member. He and other Republicans also referred to the debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

The call records showed that over the course of four days in April, Giuliani had calls with Nunes, John Solomon, a conservative columnist whose articles for the Hill newspaper promoted the allegations, and Parnas.

On April 12, the records showed that Parnas called Nunes in the late afternoon. The call lasted for one minute. Less than an hour later, Nunes placed two calls to Parnas that appear to have gone unanswered. Parnas later called Nunes and the two spoke for more than eight minutes, according to the records.

During that same period, Giuliani received three calls from someone at the White House budget office, which in July held up the security aid to Ukraine.

On May 8, Giuliani spoke with Derek Harvey, a member of Nunes’ staff and a former White House official, and on May 10 with Kashyap Patel, a former Nunes staff member who is now a senior counterterrorism official at the White House’s National Security Council.

…

France is threatening a “strong European riposte” if the Trump administration follows through on a proposal to hit French cheese, Champagne, handbags and other products with tariffs of up to 100%.
                   
The U.S. Trade Representative proposed the tariffs on $2.4 billion in goods Monday in retaliation for a French tax on global tech giants including Google, Amazon and Facebook.
                   
“I’m not in love with those (tech) companies, but they’re our companies,” Trump said Tuesday ahead of a sure-to-be-tense meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in London.
                   
The move is likely to increase trade tensions between the U.S. and Europe. Trump said the European Union should “shape up, otherwise things are going to get very tough.”
                   
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the U.S. tariff threat is “simply unacceptable. It’s not the behavior we expect from the United States toward one of its main allies.”
                   
Le Maire said the French tech tax is aimed at “establishing tax justice.” France wants digital companies to pay their fair share of taxes in countries where they make money instead of using tax havens, and is pushing for an international agreement on the issue.
                   
“If (the world) wants solid tax revenue in the 21stcentury, we have to be able to tax the digital economy,” he said. “This French taxation is not directed at any country, or against any company.”
                   
He also noted that France will reimburse the tax if the U.S. agrees to the international tax plan.
                   
Le Maire said France talked this week with the European Commission about EU-wide retaliatory measures if Washington follows through with the tariffs next month.
                   
EU Commission spokesman Daniel Rosario said the EU will seek “immediate discussions with the U.S. on how to solve this issue amicably.”
                   
The U.S tariffs could double the price American consumers pay for French imports and would come on top of a 25% tax on French wine imposed last month over a separate dispute over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing.
                   
French cheese producers expressed concern that the threatened new tariffs would hit small businesses hardest. It would also further squeeze exporters hit by a Russian embargo on European foods.
                   
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative charges that France’s new digital services tax discriminates against U.S. companies.
                   
Le Maire disputes that, saying it targets European and Chinese businesses, too. The tax imposes a 3% annual levy on French revenues of any digital company with yearly global sales worth more than 750 million euros ($830 million) and French revenue exceeding 25 million euros.
                   
“What we want is a plan for international tax that is on the table” at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Le Maire said.
                   
The U.S. investigated the French tax under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the same provision the Trump administration used last year to probe China’s technology policies, leading to tariffs on more than $360 billion worth of Chinese imports in the biggest trade war since the 1930s.

…

Starting this month, China has made it mandatory that new mobile phone users will have to have their faces scanned before completing their real-name registration with telecom operators.

But the latest policy has worried many netizens and rights defenders, some of whom complained that China is moving one step closer to tighten its cyberspace controls and bring to life the world British writer George Orwell imagined in his book 1984.
 
Observers say, until legal regulations and safeguards are in place to protect consumers’ rights to privacy, the aggressive move will no doubt lead to the Communist state’s abuse as a political tool to track dissidents or privacy risks as a result of consumers’ biometric data being leaked or re-sold.

The Big Brother
 
On Weibo, the Twitter-like microblogging site in China, one user wrote “the Big brother is keeping an eye on you – George Orwell’s 1984,” and another described it as “the eye of the hell” while the majority of online comments under an article about the new policy also spoke negatively about it.
 
The collection of citizens’ facial scans will play an important part to widen China’ video surveillance net, which is already vast nationwide, said Zhou Shuguang, a prominent citizen journalist and blogger from China who currently lives in Taiwan.
 
China is projected to more than triple its network of surveillance cameras to 600 million by 2022, or one for every two people.
 
Zhou said that the police are already able to monitor Chinese citizens’ online activities and track them down, using their mobile phone numbers and personal identification.
 
Now with facial scans, the police can easily locate their whereabouts, along with their personal details, once they walk past any of the state’s surveillance cameras, known as sky eyes, and mounted around public places such as streets or train stations.
 
Widening Surveillance Net
 
“It means that China has taken it up a notch on its already massive surveillance [net] and [cyberspace] controls. Hence, Chinese citizens are faced with a more advanced and comprehensive surveillance [system] as described by [British novelist] George Orwell,” the cyber activist, widely known as Zoula, said.
 
The surveillance network will also have a chilling effect to silence outspoken dissents, said Ou Biaofeng, a rights defender from China’s Hunan province.
 
“This type of technology is mainly used by the dictators to tighten social controls. With it, they can easily find those who criticize the government or dissidents who hold different political views,” Ou said, expressing concerns that many may choose to shut up as social controls tighten.
 

The activist added that past cases have shown that the police failed to put the technology into good use such as locating those who went missing, stolen goods or thieves.
 
No Sufficient Safeguards
 
Without any safeguards, no telecom operators will deny the state’s request for users’ biometric data including facial scans or even iris scans, the latter of which boasts a higher accuracy rate, both said.
 
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), in a prior notice, argued that the facial scan policy is meant to “safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens online.”
 
“The ministry will continue to … increase supervision and inspection … and strictly promote the management of real-name registration for phone users,” the notice added.
 
Since 2013, the Chinese government has pushed for real-name registration for phone users by linking identification cards to phone numbers.
 
VOA’s calls and fax to the MIIT on Tuesday for responses to address concerns expressed by netizens and observers went unanswered.  
 
China is speeding up its adoption of facial recognition for everything from supermarket checkouts to security or identification checks for its public transportation system, schools or even rental car operators.

Convenience Not Enough
 
Some find it very convenient.
 
“This has been a national [policy,] which I think we should have faith as it is also for the sake of our convenience. After all, it is not for any [corporate’s] commercial benefits or the interests of others. So, it really depends on how it is used,” a Beijing commuter told VOA, throwing her support behind the technology’s adoption at the city’s subway system.
 
But Zhou noted that Chinese citizens should make sure that their rights to privacy and data protection is safeguarded before embracing the technology, which is adopted by the government.
 
“[One may have to] sacrifice some rights [to privacy] in exchange for convenience. But be aware of this! [Without check and balance], the government will keep expanding its power and self-authorization to an extent that it becomes so powerful and its people so powerless. The people will end up being the slave to the government with their scope of rights being limited,” Zhou said.
 
In lieu of regulation on privacy risks, it has been a rampant practice for companies to re-sell consumers’ personal data including biometric data to illegitimate channels, according to Zhou.
 
It is reported that 5,000 facial scans are sold for 10 yuans in China.
 
The MIIT has long argued that the adoption of facial recognition technology will help stem the resale of sim cards and protect people from unknowingly registering for phone services in the event of their identities being stolen.

VOA’s Allen Ai contributed to this report.

…

A top European human rights official has demanded immediate closure of a migrant camp in Bosnia where hundreds of people have refused food and water to protest a lack of protection in snowy and cold weather.

The Vucjak camp near the northwestern town of Bihac has almost no facilities. International aid organizations have said it is unfit for migrants because it is located on a former landfill and close to a mine field from the 1992-95 war.
                   
Already poor conditions in the camp have worsened further after snow fell on Monday.
                   
Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, on Tuesday visited Vucjak where migrants had spent the night in tents braving freezing temperatures. Mijatovic says migrants must be moved to a warm and safe location.

…

In announcing his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination last week, former New York mayor and media tycoon Mike Bloomberg added a new wrinkle to the ongoing debate about President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, and perhaps further, to the entire relationship between Washington and Beijing.

Bloomberg represents something unique in the Democratic primary field — an unreconstructed free-trader who also takes a far less critical view of China’s repressive internal policies than many of his opponents.

Since well before declaring his candidacy, Bloomberg has been a loud critic of Trump on trade policy, saying the president’s sanctions-heavy approach to negotiation with China and other countries “set new benchmarks of incoherence and irresponsibility.”

During the Obama administration, Bloomberg voiced support for multilateral trade agreements that are now criticized not just by Trump, but also by many of the current Democratic presidential candidates.

Bloomberg, whose international media empire has long-established ties to China and regularly hosts high-profile conferences there, is also an outlier in terms of his thinking about the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.

Defends Xi’s government

In an interview for the PBS television show “Firing Line” in September, Bloomberg drew sharp criticism after seeming to defend Xi’s government as responsive to its people and fundamentally democratic.

“The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China, and they listen to the public,” he said. “Xi Jinping is not a dictator. He has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.”

At the time, mass pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were facing a violent response from the Chinese government, and news reports about the brutal repression of the Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang Province were widespread.

When the host expressed her incredulity at his position, citing Xi’s repressive policies, Bloomberg dug in deeper.

“No, he has a constituency to answer to,” he said. “No government survives without the will of the majority of its people, OK? The Chinese Communist Party looks at Russia, and they look for where the Communist Party is, and they don’t find it anymore. And they don’t want that to happen. So, they really are responsive.”

Avoids China human rights issues

Bloomberg seemed to base his belief in the Chinese government’s responsiveness to its citizens on its willingness to try to ameliorate the choking pollution that blankets many of its major cities. But he did not address the bedrock issues of political freedom and basic human rights.

On trade and the issue of China’s treatment of its own citizens, Bloomberg stands apart from most of the front-runners in the Democratic field.

Up to this point in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, candidates’ positions on relations with China have been complicated by the fact that some of the top contenders want to distance themselves from Trump in every respect, even when they seem to agree with his use of tariffs to force Beijing to reform its trade policies.

Differs from Warren and Sanders

Top contenders like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are explicitly open to protectionist trade policies, though they are quick to claim they would implement them differently.

Warren, in an outline of her trade policies, said that in her view “tariffs are an important tool.” But she criticized Trump’s “haphazard” implementation of them. Unlike Trump, she said, she believes tariffs “are not by themselves a long-term solution to our failed trade agenda and must be part of a broader strategy that this administration clearly lacks.”

Sanders has vowed to undertake a “full review” of Trump’s trade policies to determine “which tariffs are working.” He added, “Tariffs may be part of the answer, but the Trump administration lacks a serious strategy for reducing our trade deficit or bringing back U.S. jobs that have been shipped to low-wage countries. Instead of conducting trade policy by tweet, we need a complete overhaul of our trade policies to increase American jobs, end the race to the bottom, raise wages and lift up living standards in this country and throughout the world.”

Buttigieg far more critical of tariffs

Pete Buttigieg, the outgoing mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is more critical of tariffs in principle, but does not close the door on their use as a tool of trade policy. He has said he would use tariffs as “leverage” in trade talks. However, he told The Washington Post,  “Because tariffs can be de facto domestic taxes, imposing real costs on American workers and farmers, they should be employed only with a clear strategy and endgame, and in coordination with our allies.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads the Democratic field in national polls, has been inconsistent in his public statements about China. Shortly after announcing his candidacy last spring, he seemed to challenge the idea that the world’s most populous country was even a real economic competitor for the United States.

Biden sanguine about China threat

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said at an appearance in Iowa. Arguing that Beijing is too busy with its internal problems to mount a serious economic threat to the U.S., he added, “They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

The statement earned Biden immediate blowback from all sides, and forced him to acknowledge that China is “a serious challenge to us, and in some areas a real threat.”

Since then, Biden has maintained the position that the U.S. has to stand up to China on trade, but he has done so with vague statements such as, “My administration will bring our allies together to challenge China’s abusive behavior and rally more than half the world’s economy to hold China to account for their cheating. We also need to tighten up our economic defenses so that American companies don’t have to keep giving away technology to China, or having it stolen.”

On the question of China’s treatment of its own people, most of the Democrats in the field are far more willing to criticize Beijing than Bloomberg appears to be. All four of the top candidates have loudly condemned the treatment of the Uighurs and the repression of Hong Kong’s pro-Democracy movement.

Bloomberg’s reticence

Bloomberg’s restraint when it comes to criticizing China is not a new thing. In 2013, Bloomberg LP, the company that controls his global media empire, was found to have killed news stories revealing corruption in the Chinese Communist Party, prompting the resignation of a number of editors and reporters.

With U.S.-Chinese relations growing in importance, a Bloomberg candidacy will give Democratic primary voters a very different option than those currently on offer. What remains to be seen is if there will be many takers.

…

After two weeks of public hearings on U.S. President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are moving closer to formally impeaching the president on yet-to-be determined charges.

While a vote to impeach by the full House is not expected until before Christmas, the pace of the impeachment inquiry under way since late September picks up this week with the presentation of a Democratic report on their findings and recommendations.

Committee report

The report, prepared by the House Intelligence Committee which conducted the recent hearings, will outline the Democrats’ allegations that Trump abused his office by pressing Ukraine to investigate Trump’s Democratic political rival, Joe Biden, and a debunked theory about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The report will allege Trump used hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid and a coveted White House meeting between the U.S. and Ukrainian leaders as leverage. The report will also recommend specific articles of impeachment.

The exact charges remain unknown. Under the U.S. Constitution, a president can be impeached for bribery, extortion and “other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

What Are ‘High Crimes & Misdemeanors’? video player.

Embed

Copy

Link

Members of the intelligence committee will review a draft of the report late Monday. They are scheduled to meet behind closed doors Tuesday to adopt the report and incorporate the Republican response before forwarding it to the House Judiciary Committee, which votes on articles of impeachment. The report will then be made public.

A 110-page report prepared by Republicans on the Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees accuses Democrats of carrying out “an orchestrated campaign to upend our political system.”

“House Democrats have been trying to undo the results of President Trump’s historic election since before he was sworn in,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said, adding that Democrats have not found “a single legitimate reason” for impeachment.

“Instead, Democrats have relied on smears, hearsay, and presumption to build their false narrative,” he said.

The Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, reacted to the Republican report by saying the impeachment probe “will not serve as a vehicle to undertake the same sham investigations into the Bidens or 2016 … or to facilitate the president’s effort to threaten, intimidate, and retaliate against the whistleblower who courageously raised the initial alarm.”

Wednesday hearing

The Judiciary Committee has scheduled a public hearing for 10 a.m. Wednesday. It will focus on the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment. Four legal scholars will appear as witnesses. They are law professors Noah Feldman of Harvard University; Pamela Karlan of Stanford University; Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina; and Jonathan Turley of George Washington University.

Last week, Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler sent a letter to Trump, inviting him and his lawyer to attend the Wednesday hearing and to ask questions of witnesses.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone said late Sunday the White House will not participate in the hearing “while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings.”

<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

Trump Says Won’t Send Lawyer to Impeachment Hearing

US president reiterates he did nothing wrong and Democrats’ impeachment probe is a hoax

Moreover, Cipollone criticized Democrats for scheduling the hearing while Trump is attending a NATO summit in London.

Monday, Nadler called the White House’s decision not to attend the Wednesday hearing “unfortunate,” saying “allowing the president to participate has been a priority for the House from the outset.”  

White House opportunity to participate

Nadler has also given the White House until Friday to indicate whether the administration will participate in additional impeachment hearings and what rights Trump wants to exercise at those hearings.

<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

Deadline Set for Trump to Decide on Role in Impeachment Hearings

He has a week to say whether his legal counsel intends to introduce evidence, call witnesses

Cipollone said the White House will respond by the Friday deadline, but indicated the administration will not participate short of major concessions by the Democrats, including allowing witnesses invited by Republicans.

Republican leaders want testimony from Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president Joe Biden, and the unidentified intelligence community whistleblower who alerted the inspector general about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. Democrats have dismissed the demand.

“It is too late to cure the profound procedural deficiencies that have tainted this entire inquiry,” Cipollone wrote.

VOA’s Kenneth Schwartz contributed to this report.
 

…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday accused Cuba and Venezuela of attempting to hijack democratic protests in Latin America, vowing that Washington would support countries trying to prevent unrest in the region from turning into riots.

Amid recent demonstrations in a number of countries in the region, Pompeo stepped up allegations that Cuba and Venezuela had helped stir up unrest but offered few specifics to back his comments.

Pompeo cited recent political protests in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador and said that Colombia had closed its border to Venezuela out of concern that protesters from the neighboring country would enter.

“We in the Trump administration will continue to support countries trying to prevent Cuba and Venezuela from hijacking those protests and we’ll work with legitimate (governments) to prevent protests from morphing into riots and violence that don’t reflect the democratic will of the people,” Pompeo told an audience at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky.

U.S. relations with communist-ruled Havana have deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. His administration has steadily rolled back parts of the historic opening under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.

The tension has focused especially on Havana’s support for Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has overseen an economic collapse and stands accused by the United States of corruption and human rights violations.

The United States and more than 50 other countries have recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president. Guaido invoked the constitution to assume a rival presidency in January, arguing Maduro’s 2018 re-election was a sham.

But Maduro retains the support of the military, runs the government’s day-to-day operations and is backed by Russia, China and Cuba.

In his speech on Monday, Pompeo said Maduro was “hanging on” and would continue to work to suppress the Venezuelan people, but that he was confident the Venezuelan president’s leadership would end.

“The end will come for Maduro as well. We just don’t know what day,” Pompeo said.

…

No other ballet dancer has crossed over into mainstream popular culture quite like Misty Copeland.

That was Copeland at the recent American Music Awards, dancing a passionate duet with partner Craig Hall as Taylor Swift sat at the piano singing her hit “Lover.”

She’s also working on a new silent film with her production company, focusing on homelessness in California. And a Hollywood biopic is in the early stages.

Now Copeland, who leaped to fame in 2015 as the first black female principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, is the latest celebrity to host an online MasterClass, alongside Anna Wintour, Aaron Sorkin, Annie Leibovitz, Ron Howard, Natalie Portman and others.

Copeland sat down with The Associated Press recently to talk about the new series and to look back at her career, including the time spent with one of her favorite mentors: the late rock star Prince, whom she credits with teaching her to embrace her uniqueness rather than worry about blending in. The interview has been condensed for length.

AP: Your class is primarily about ballet technique. But what else do you hope to teach?

Copeland: A lot of people don’t typically look at ballet dancers as athletes, and we are. And so those components, you know, your mental health, your confidence, understanding and being able to use your life experiences to be an artist. All of those … elements are just as important as the technique that we learn since we were children. You know, dancers aren’t just up there twirling around. It looks so effortless, because we work at it for so long to make it look that way. But on top of it, you have to be an incredible actress. You have to have an understanding of adapting in the moment … you have to be very self-aware, present, vulnerable, all these things. And so it was just as important for me to speak about my life, my background, the obstacles that I’ve had.

AP: Not many people can dance ballet. What’s universal about it?

Copeland: At the end of the day, we’re all human beings. It’s always been really important for me to be extremely open … I’ve learned more about myself and grown, and I think other people can benefit. It’s so important, I think, especially for young kids to have an understanding that they’re not alone in that celebrities and principal dancers receive the same type of judgment or criticism.

AP: Some people think that once you danced the lead in “Swan Lake” in 2015 and then became a principal, everything was happily ever after.

Copeland: (laughs) Once I became a principal dancer, a lot of people looked at it like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s done. Like we’ve moved, we’ve grown, there’s no more racism in ballet or in the world.’ We’re SO far from that … and it’s been a tough journey. When the spotlight’s on you and there’s just so much pressure for you to perform at the top every single time you’re out there. So I went through a very difficult time experiencing the criticism that I got (around) “Swan Lake.”

AP: You tell a story about being dissed online at one point for not being able to perform the 32 fouette turns in a performance of “Swan Lake,” and doing a different step instead.

Copeland: Yes, someone filmed it in the theater and then posted it on YouTube. I’ve experienced a lot of ridiculous hate online. But this was another level … I’ve looked back at that clip of that show, and I remember just being devastated. But looking back, I don’t see anything wrong with it, you know? That (32 turns) was not even the original choreography. I love to perform, because it’s telling a story through movements. So whatever it is you’re doing, you want the audience to feel it, not just come to the theater … and wait for 32 fouettes that last, like, 30 seconds.

AP: In the class, you have a chapter on Prince, one of your most valued mentors.

Copeland: When Prince first reached out to me, I just didn’t really understand. I was completely being trusted to go onstage with him, not even knowing what I was going to do. And it empowered me in a way that was shocking. … He used to say to me, ‘Throw on these golden crazy boots.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m a ballerina!’ He’s like, ‘No, you’re a rock star! You’re never going to be this ideal image of what a ballerina is. And that’s amazing. Use your power, your uniqueness, and … if it’s coming from an honest place, people are going to love it.’ I feel like I grew in leaps and bounds from that time we spent together.

AP: When you started dancing principal roles, there were suddenly very diverse crowds coming to ABT performances. Do you think that will last beyond the “Misty effect”?

Copeland: It’s for a bigger purpose. It’s not like, oh, just come see Misty and then when she retires that goes away. For me, it’s (about) bringing in people that have not felt welcomed or accepted in these spaces. And I know once they’re in the door, they’ll fall in love with it. It’s introducing the next generation, showing them that ballet is still alive.

AP: You’re only 37, but ballet is for the young. What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now?

Copeland: Oh my God. There’s no way I could tell you, even (what I’ll be doing) a year from now. Whenever I look back, I’m like, what? How did I end up doing all these amazing things? How is this happening to this little peanut who was sleeping on the floor of a motel at 13? Now I’m traveling the world and dancing on the most unbelievable iconic stages, and just living this unbelievable dream.

…

The woman who says she was a trafficking victim made to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 is asking the British public to support her quest for justice.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre tells BBC Panorama in an interview to be broadcast Monday evening that people “should not accept this as being OK.”

Giuffre’s first UK television interview on the topic describes how she says she was trafficked by notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and made to have sex with Andrew three times, including once in London.

“This is not some sordid sex story. This is a story of being trafficked, this is a story of abuse and this is a story of your guys’ royalty,” Giuffre tells the program.

Andrew, 59, has categorically denied having sex with Giuffre and apologized for his association with Epstein, who died in prison in August in what New York City officials said was a suicide.

He has stepped down from royal duties “for the foreseeable future” because of his friendship with Epstein and the allegations of sexual wrongdoing with an underage girl.

He tried to contain the damage by giving a televised interview on the topic, but it backfired in part because he did not express concern for Epstein’s victims.

In the TV interview, Giuffre says she danced with Andrew at a London nightclub before having sex with him.

“It was horrible and this guy was sweating all over me,” she said. “His sweat was like it was raining basically everywhere, I was just like grossed out from it, but I knew I had to keep him happy because that’s what Jeffrey and Ghislaine (Maxwell) would have expected from me.”

She said that Maxwell told her she would have to do for Andrew what she had done for Epstein, meaning she would have to have sex with the prince.

“That just made me sick,” Giuffre said.

In his recent interview, Andrew said he had never met Giuffre. He said he had a medical condition that prevented him from sweating.

Epstein was a wealthy financier with many powerful friends. He was in prison on sex trafficking charges when he died.

The scandal is one of the worst to grip the royal household in recent decades.

…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed legislation requiring all smartphones, computers and smart TV sets sold in the country to come pre-installed with Russian software.

The law, which will come into force on July 1 next year, has been met with resistance by some electronics retailers, who say the legislation was adopted without consulting them.

The law has been presented as a way to help Russian IT firms compete with foreign companies and spare consumers from having to download software upon purchasing a new device.

The country’s mobile phone market is dominated by foreign companies including Apple, Samsung and Huawei. The legislation signed by Putin said the government would come up with a list of Russian applications that would need to be installed on the different devices.

Russia has introduced tougher internet laws in recent years, requiring search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services and social networks to store user data on servers in the country.
 

…

U.S. President Donald Trump is striking an optimistic tone on reaching a trade deal with China, despite Beijing’s opposition to a law Trump recently signed that expresses support for pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.

“The Chinese want to make a deal. We’ll see what happens,” the president told reporters Monday, as he departed the White House for the NATO summit in London.

The U.S. leader signed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” last week, prompting stern protests from China.

The trade deal between the U.S. and China has stalled as a result, according to the news website Axios.

The news site quotes a source close to Trump’s negotiating team as saying the trade talks were “now stalled” because of the legislation, and time was needed to allow Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “domestic politics to calm.”

China says it is also taking other steps to retaliate against what it sees as U.S. support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.  

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Monday it is slapping sanctions on U.S.-based non-governmental organizations that have acted “badly” during the recent protests in Hong Kong. NGOs affected by the sanctions include Human Rights Watch, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Freedom House.

China also announced Monday that it “has decided to suspend reviewing the applications for U.S. warships to go to Hong Kong for (rest and) recuperation as of today.”

A foreign spokeswoman said, “China urges the United States to correct its mistakes, stop any deeds and acts of interference in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs.”

Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly called on the Chinese government to honor its promises to the Hong Kong people who say they want the freedoms and liberties that they have been promised in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a U.N.-registered treaty.

“The United States stands firmly in support of asking the Chinese leadership to honor that commitment, asking everyone involved in the political process there to do so without violence, and to find a resolution to this that honors the one country two systems policy that the Chinese leadership signed up for,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told an audience Monday at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

In another development, Reuters reports that hundreds of Hong Kong office workers came together during their lunch break Monday, the first in a week of lunchtime protests to show their support for pro-democracy politicians who were handed a resounding victory in district polls last week.

Protests erupted in Hong Kong in June over the local government’s plans to allow some criminal suspects to be extradited to the Chinese mainland.

Hong Kong officials withdrew the bill in September, but the street protests have continued, with the demonstrators fearing Beijing is preparing to water down Hong Kong’s democracy and autonomy nearly 30 years before the former British colony’s “special status” expires.

…

A statue of U.S. civil rights leader Rosa Parks has been unveiled in Montgomery, capital of the southern state of Alabama.

The unveiling Sunday marks the 64th anniversary of the day Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man.

“Today, on the second official Rosa Parks Day, we honor a seamstress and a servant, one whose courage ran counter to her physical stature,” said Mayor Steven Reed, the city’s first African American mayor. “She was a consummate contributor to equality and did so with a quiet humility that is an example for all of us.”

On December 1, 1955, Parks was on her way home when she was asked to vacate her seat for a white man. She refused.

Her subsequent arrest led to the 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system, organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., then pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The statue is located at Montgomery Plaza, about 9 meters from the spot where Parks is believed to have boarded the bus.

Parks’ small act of defiance made her a major symbol of the civil rights movement.

She died in 2005 at age 92.

…