Pacific archipelago votes on independence from France

November 04, 2018

NOUMEA, New Caledonia (AP) — Voters in New Caledonia are deciding whether the French territory in the South Pacific should break free from the European country that claimed it in the mid-19th century.

The polls opened Sunday morning in a referendum that's a milestone in the process of the archipelago's three-decade-long decolonization — one that will help define New Caledonia's future as an independent country or as a continuing part of France.

More than 174,000 registered voters are invited to answer the question: "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent?" Observers expect a majority to favor remaining a part of France, based on opinion polls and previous election results.

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (10 p.m. Saturday in mainland France; 9 p.m. GMT) and close 10 hours later. Results are expected later Sunday. New Caledonia, a cluster of islands, is home to about 270,000 people. They include the native Kanaks, who represent about 40 percent of the population, people of European descent (about 27 percent) and others from Asian countries and Pacific islands.

It relies on France for defense, law enforcement, foreign affairs, justice and education, yet has a large degree of autonomy. New Caledonia receives about 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in French state subsidies every year, and many fear the economy would suffer if ties are severed.

The referendum is the result of a process that started 30 years ago to end years of violence between supporters and opponents of separating from France. The violence, which overall claimed more than 70 lives, prompted a 1988 deal between rival loyalist and pro-independence factions. Another agreement a decade later included plans for an independence referendum.

Most Kanaks have tended to back independence, while most descendants of European settlers have favored keeping the French connection. To ensure security during the vote, additional police were sent to New Caledonia. Authorities also banned the carrying of firearms and alcohol sales immediately before and during the vote.

If voters say no to independence Sunday, the 1998 agreement allows two more self-determination referendums to be held by 2022.

Pacific archipelago to vote on independence from France

November 03, 2018

NOUMEA, New Caledonia (AP) — Voters in New Caledonia are deciding whether the French territory in the South Pacific should break free from the European country that claimed it in the mid-19th century.

A referendum being held on Sunday marks a milestone in the process of the archipelago's decolonization and will help define New Caledonia's future as an independent country or as a continuing extension of France.

More than 174,000 registered voters are invited to answer the question: "Do you want New Caledonia to gain full sovereignty and become independent?" Observers expect a majority to favor remaining a part of France, based on opinion polls and previous election results.

Polling stations open at 8 a.m. (10 p.m. Saturday in mainland France; 9 p.m. GMT) and close 10 hours later. Results are expected later Sunday. New Caledonia, a cluster of islands, is home to about 270,000 people. They include the native Kanaks, who represent about 40 percent of the population, people of European descent (about 27 percent) and others from Asian countries and Pacific islands.

It relies on France for defense, law enforcement, foreign affairs, justice and education, yet has a large degree of autonomy. New Caledonia receives about 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in French state subsidies every year, and many fear the economy would suffer if ties are severed.

The referendum is the result of a process that started 30 years ago to end years of violence between supporters and opponents of separating from France. The violence, which overall claimed more than 70 lives, prompted a 1988 deal between rival loyalist and pro-independence factions. Another agreement a decade later included plans for an independence referendum.

Most Kanaks have tended to back independence, while most descendants of European settlers have favored keeping the French connection. To ensure security during the vote, additional police were sent to New Caledonia. Authorities also banned the carrying of firearms and alcohol sales immediately before and during the vote.

If voters say no to independence Sunday, the 1998 agreement allows two more self-determination referendums to be held by 2022.

WWI centenary to be marked in London and Paris, not Berlin

November 04, 2018

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel will mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I on French soil, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be in London at a ceremony in Westminster Abby with Queen Elizabeth II.

But while the leaders visit the capitals of Germany's wartime enemies, at home there are no national commemorations planned for the centenary of the Nov. 11 armistice that brought an end to the four-year war that killed more than 2 million of its troops and left 4 million wounded.

Next week, German parliament is holding a combined commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the first German republic, the 80th anniversary of the brutal Nazi-era pogrom against Jews known as the Night of Broken Glass, and the 29th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Almost as an afterthought, parliament notes there's also art exhibition in the lobby called "1914/1918 - Not Then, Not Now, Not Ever."

More than just being on the losing side of the World War 1, it's what came next that is really behind Germany's lack of commemorative events. For Germany, the Nov. 11 armistice did not mean peace like it did in France and Britain. The war's end gave rise to revolution and street fighting between far-left and far-right factions. It also brought an end to the monarchy, years of hyperinflation, widespread poverty and hunger, and helped create the conditions that brought the Nazis to power in 1933.

The horrific legacy of the Holocaust and the mass destruction of World War II simply overshadows everything else in Germany, said Daniel Schoenpflug, a historian at Berlin's Free University's Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute. His new book, "A World on Edge," explores the immediate aftermath of the war through individual perspectives.

"One can't reduce it to the simple fact that one country won the war and the other lost," Schoenpflug said. "Germany is a country that draws practically its entire national narrative out of the defeat of 1945" — and not the defeat of 1918.

By contrast in Turkey, which was also on the losing side in World War I, the war's end produced a similar collapse of the Ottoman empire and a war of independence, but also gave rise to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the modern Turkish republic.

In Germany, even though the end of World War I is now viewed through the prism of Hitler and the Holocaust, in the immediate postwar period there actually was a period of utopianism, with movements promoting idealistic visions of peace and democracy, Schoenpflug said.

Yet on the other side of the political spectrum, utopianism on the right also gave birth to fascism, he said. And as initial euphoria over the end of World War I faded, hopes for the future quickly gave way to feelings of resentment at the reparations and conditions imposed on Germany by the victorious axis powers. The Nazis and right-wing nationalists were able to garner support by propagating the "stab-in-the-back" myth, which held that Germany's civilian leaders sold out the army by agreeing to the Nov. 11 surrender.

"There was a war of dreams, a clash of utopias" between the right and the left, Schoenpflug said. Although there aren't any national commemorations in Germany marking the war's end, individual events are planned, including an exhibition at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. A special World War I religious service is also being organized by the German Bishops Conference at the Berliner Dom cathedral.

And in addition to German officials taking part in the events in London and Paris, the Foreign Ministry said they and their British counterparts have worked together to coordinate the ringing of church and secular bells around the world on Nov. 11 to mark the war's centenary.

"The bells will ring at midday to commemorate the more than 17 million victims of World War I and as a call for understanding and reconciliation across borders," the ministry said.

End of austerity? Britain's poor to see little improvement

October 30, 2018

LONDON (AP) — Much of Britain will continue to feel the effects of eight years of spending cuts, even after the government's Treasury chief heralded the end of austerity by splashing out billions of pounds for health, transportation and small business in his latest budget.

As the country prepares for a potential economic hit from leaving the European Union in March, the government is trying to shore up confidence by easing up on the budget cutbacks it has been pushing through since the financial crisis.

Prime Minister Theresa May this month declared the end is nigh for austerity — a broad term for real cuts to spending on public services. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond in Monday's budget presentation gave an additional $20.5 billion pounds a year to the National Health Service, but acknowledged there was little left for other programs.

That means spending on public services, from local government to prisons, is likely to fall, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation, which campaigns for improved living standards. "The chancellor has significantly eased — but not ended — austerity for public services," said the foundation's director, Torsten Bell. "Tough times are far from over."

The budget included some income tax cuts and benefit giveaways, but they will favor the wealthy, the foundation says: the top 10 percent of households get 410 pounds a year from the budget. The poor, 30 pounds. Parts of the government face cuts averaging 3 percent annually for the next four years.

Hammond told the BBC on Tuesday that his budget set out a better future for Britain. "We've turned a very important corner here in putting the public finances right, and that means better news for the British people going forward," he said.

The idea that austerity might be ending makes the volunteers who run a small food bank at the Bridgelink Center in the west London borough of Hounslow shake their heads in disbelief. They see first-hand what it is like to be poor. The food bank here is basically a closet commandeered by Ivybridge Community Chaplain Fi Budden, who realized people would go hungry for want of the bus fare to get to other nearby food banks. It helped 460 people last year, up from 275 in 2015.

"Food banks are really busy, now, aren't they?" said Gemma Flower, a volunteer who noted that changes to welfare benefits are making things worse. "If anything, it's got us busier and busier. We invite Theresa May to come here and see how we live."

The center is just one outpost of those squeezed by the cuts. Last month, thousands of school principals played truant and marched to the prime minister's office to demand increased funding; police are warning that they don't have the resources to fight rising crime; councils nationwide say basic services are being cut.

Further complicating the picture, the government is loath to increase taxes, and it is pushing ahead with plans to roll out a new comprehensive welfare program that critics say will leave the most vulnerable worse off. Though Hammond promised an extra 1 billion pounds over five years for the Universal Credit benefit program, critics continue to press for the program to be scrapped all together.

Nationwide, food banks distributed more than 1.3 million emergency food parcels in the year through March, up 13 percent from the previous year, according to the Trussell Trust, which coordinates such aid. The Resolution Foundation says benefit cuts introduced three years ago have already cost the poorest households in Britain an average of 610 pounds a year.

In order to prevent further cuts to departmental budgets and end austerity, the government would have to increase spending by 23.6 billion pounds a year by 2022-23, in addition to already promised funding for the National Health Service, defense and foreign aid, the Resolution Foundation said in a report published before Monday's budget statement.

The volunteers at the Bridgelink Center don't know the numbers. But they know poverty and the fear of living on the edge. Flower, 37, just about manages to pay the rent and expenses — even though she and her husband both work. But with three teenagers and little to fall back on, one unexpected expense could mean financial trouble. She volunteers at the food bank because they helped her out when she had a rough patch last year, and understands how scary it is.

The public doesn't hear about such people, the volunteers say, because they struggle anonymously, without the fanfare that attracts television cameras. They know people make choices: do we eat or buy our child a birthday present? Can we make do using an electric kettle and not a stove? How can we appease the bailiffs at the door?

Then there's the experience of James Fox, who also helps out at the center. One sunny day last year, Fox was zipping through Hounslow on his wheelchair when a woman approached him from behind and demanded the small bag he carries in his lap.

Fox had just bought a train ticket to travel to his father's funeral. If he lost the ticket, he would be unable to afford another. "I said, 'you're not having my bag,' " he recalled, his shoulders hunching forward as he showed how he protected his chest. The woman slashed him three times with a knife, but he held on.

"That's how desperate people would get," he said. "They'd stab a man in a wheelchair."

Austria says it won't sign UN global migration pact

October 31, 2018

BERLIN (AP) — The Austrian government said Wednesday that it won't sign a global compact to promote safe and orderly migration, citing concerns about national sovereignty as it joined neighboring Hungary in shunning the agreement.

Conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz took office last December in a coalition with the nationalist, anti-migration Freedom Party. Austria currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, and Kurz has made curbing unregulated migration a priority.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which won't be legally binding, was finalized under U.N. auspices in July. It is due to be formally approved at a Dec. 11-12 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco.

Kurz and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said Austria won't sign the document or send an official representative to Marrakech. They cited, among other things, fears about a possible watering-down of the distinction between legal and illegal migration.

"There are some points that we view critically and where we fear a danger to our national sovereignty," Kurz said, the Austria Press Agency reported. "Migration is not and cannot become a human right," added Strache, the Freedom Party's leader. "It cannot be that someone receives a right to migration because of the climate or poverty."

In September 2016, all 193 U.N. member states, including the United States under President Barack Obama, adopted a declaration saying no country can manage international migration on its own, and agreed to launch a process leading to the adoption of a global compact in 2018.

But last December, the United States said it was ending its participation in negotiations on the compact, stating that numerous provisions were "inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies" under President Donald Trump.

In July, Hungary said it would withdraw from the process. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said then that the pact was contrary to his country's interests because while it had some positive aims, like fighting human trafficking, overall it considered migration an unstoppable and positive phenomenon worthy of support.

The compact has 23 objectives that seek to boost cooperation to manage migration and numerous actions ranging from technical issues like the portability of earnings by migrant workers to reducing the detention of migrants.

Austria's interior minister, Herbert Kickl, denounced what he called "an almost irresponsibly naive pro-migration tone." Kickl contended that "it is simply not clear whether this pact, if we were to join it, would not at some point or somehow influence our body of law, even by the back door."

Austria's opposition criticized the decision. In Brussels, Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the EU's executive Commission, said it regrets Austria's decision and is seeking more details from Vienna.

"We continue to believe that migration is a global challenge where only global solutions and global responsibility-sharing will bring results," she said at a regular briefing. EU heavyweight Germany reaffirmed its support for the pact, which foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said is "necessary and important."

Lorne Cook in Brussels and Pablo Gorondi in Budapest contributed to this report.

2nd group of migrants enters Mexico as main caravan resumes

October 30, 2018

TECUN UMAN, Guatemala (AP) — Hundreds of Central Americans following in the footsteps of a thousands-strong migrant caravan making its way toward the U.S. border crossed a river from Guatemala into Mexico on Monday, defying a heavy Federal Police presence deployed to patrol that country's southern frontier.

A low-flying police helicopter hovered overhead as the migrants waded in large groups through the Suchiate River's murky waters, apparently trying to use the downdraft from its rotors to discourage them. Guatemala's Noti7 channel reported that one man drowned and aired video of a man dragging a seemingly lifeless body from the river.

Once on the Mexican side the migrants were surrounded and escorted by dark-uniformed officers as sirens wailed. The standoff at the riverbank followed a more violent confrontation that occurred on the bridge over the river Sunday night, when migrants threw rocks and used sticks against Mexico police. One migrant died from a head wound during the clash, but the cause was unclear.

The group was much smaller than the first caravan. In the Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, they said they hoped to continue onward early Tuesday morning. Far up the road in southern Mexico, the original caravan resumed its advance, still at least 1,000 miles or farther from their goal of reaching the United States as the Pentagon announced it would send 5,200 active-duty troops to "harden" the U.S.-Mexico border. There are already more than 2,000 National Guard troops providing assistance at the border.

The caravan currently has about 4,000 people, but has been dwindling. Earlier this year, only about 200 from a caravan of some 1,000 migrants reached the Tijuana-San Diego frontier. The Pentagon announcement comes as President Donald Trump has been focusing on the caravan to stir up his base a week before midterm elections. On Monday he tweeted: "This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!"

Earlier in the day, members of the caravan strung out along the highway outside the city of Tapanatepec, some waiting for rides while others plodded toward their goal for the day: Niltepec, about 34 road miles (54 kilometers) to the northwest. Federal Police patrols drove slowly alongside encouraging them to stay on the shoulder.

Victor Argueta, 54, of Santa Barbara, Honduras, said he and his wife had spent two nights sleeping on the international bridge between Tecun Uman, Guatemala, and Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, before eventually crossing the river on a raft.

"We came with the goal of wanting to improve our future for ourselves and for our family. We did not come with the intention of finding death on the road," Argueta said, reflecting on the news of the Honduran man's death the previous night. "Maybe that boy came with good intentions, perhaps with a young person's idea of supporting his family."

Sandra Rodriguez, 31, had heard about the incident because her husband's family lives in Tecun Uman. The couple from Guatemala City had joined the caravan in the border town and never considered someone could die on the bridge.

"I think they are risking much to cross to this side," Rodriguez said. While catching rides from passing trucks was a largely impromptu affair in the first week of the caravan, it has now become more organized. On Monday, more than 100 migrants lined up at a gas station parking lot to wait for rides.

Mayor Ramiro Nolasco of the town of Zanatepec said locals had organized a bus and several trucks to carry migrants, mainly women and children. "We are helping our brothers from other countries with food, water, and transportation," Nolasco said. "It is going to be very little, compared to what they need."

At a checkpoint near the town, some migrants gathered to ask for help returning home to Honduras, the origin of the great majority of those in the caravan. Exhausted from many days on the road, and disheartened by the many miles yet to go and misbehavior by some fellow travelers, people have been dropping out from the caravan, which at its peak was estimated at more than 7,000.

The generosity shown by small towns and residents when the migrants first began trekking through southern Mexico has also lessened. At the last stop, few people came out to offer food, clothes and other items, said Hasiel Isamar Hernandez, a 28-year-old Honduran mother of three who has been with the caravan since it started in her hometown of San Pedro Sula.

"Of the friends that I have been with, all want to go back," Hernandez said, adding that many had blistered feet. For her, the last straw was when her husband told her that her 3-year-old daughter back home had stopped eating because she missed her mother.

Another Honduran, Teodozo Melendez, 31, was also waiting for a bus back home after fighting a fever for two days. His body ached. "I thought it would be easier," Melendez said, lying on the ground. Melendez's goal had been to join relatives living in Houston. His experience with the caravan had taught him one thing, he said: "The next time, I'm going to need a 'coyote,'" or smuggler.

The second group back at the Guatemalan frontier has been more unruly than the first that crossed. Guatemala's Interior Ministry said Guatemalan police officers were injured when the migrant group broke through border barriers on Guatemala's side of the bridge.

Mexico authorities said migrants attacked its agents with rocks, glass bottles and fireworks when they broke through a gate on the Mexican end but were pushed back, and some allegedly carried guns and firebombs.

On Monday, Mexican Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida lamented what he called a second "violent attempt" to storm the border, accusing people of placing the elderly, pregnant women and children at the front, putting them at risk of being crushed.

"Fortunately, that did not happen," he said. The governmental National Human Rights Commission opened an investigation into the use of the helicopter at the river, saying it caused "strong winds and waves that put people at risk ... especially girls, boys and women."

The Interior Department said in a statement that two Hondurans ages 17 and 22 were arrested Monday when one of them tried to shoot at police in the town of Ignacio Zaragoza, near the Hidalgo border crossing. It said the Glock failed to fire, and no agents were injured.

Mexico said the previous day that temporary identity numbers had been issued to more than 300 migrants, which would allow them to stay and work in Mexico. Pregnant women, children and the elderly were among those who joined the program and were now being attended at shelters.

At least 1,895 have applied for refugee status in Mexico, and hundreds of others have accepted assisted returns to their country of origin. El Salvador's immigration agency said a group of Salvadorans including several dozen children and adolescents that crossed legally into Guatemala on Sunday numbered about 500. Several Central American nations have a border agreement allowing their citizens to move among the countries with just ID cards. Passports and visas are required for them to legally enter Mexico, however.

Salvadoran Vice Foreign Minister Liduvina Margarin warned against attempting the journey, saying, "This route is not safe, you will not be able to enter the United States like you think." The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said in a statement that a diplomatic official had met with caravan participants in Mexico and explained that illegal entry is risky and can lead to prosecution. The official also told them that those without proper entry documents have a right to request asylum at a border crossing but it could entail up a monthlong wait, as happened with migrants in the caravan that went to Tijuana earlier this year.

Associated Press photojournalist Santiago Billy reported this story from Tecun Uman, Guatemala, and AP writer Christopher Sherman reported from Zanatepec, Mexico. AP writers Julie Watson in Tapanatepec, Mexico, and Sonia Perez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report.

US, British war dead honored at site where Revolution began

November 09, 2018

BOSTON (AP) — The British are coming again — this time in friendship. A memorial honoring fallen soldiers from the U.S. and Britain is being dedicated this month, and the venue couldn't be more ironic: Boston's historic Old North Church, where the American Revolution pitting rebellious colonists against English troops basically began.

"It's the one place in Boston where you wouldn't expect this to happen," said Simon Boyd, a British-born real estate executive and Royal Air Force veteran leading the initiative. On April 18, 1775, two lanterns were displayed from the steeple of the church — a prearranged signal from Paul Revere that the British were heading to Lexington and Concord by sea across the Charles River rather than by land. That event, immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," ignited the war of independence from Britain.

But Old North Church, Boston's oldest surviving house of worship and the city's most-visited historical site, since has become a symbol of Anglo-American affection. Every year on the Sunday closest to Nov. 11 — the date World War I ended in 1918 — the church built in 1723 has held a special remembrance service for Britons living in or near Boston, complete with bagpipes and poppies. This year's commemoration will fall precisely on the 100th anniversary of the bloody Great War's end.

Since 2005, Old North Church also has hosted a touching tribute to American troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the courtyard of the church, jingling like wind chimes, hang nearly 7,000 blank military dog tags — one set of tags for every U.S. life lost.

The new memorial, a bronze wreath, will honor British and other Commonwealth forces who perished alongside U.S. forces in both campaigns. And a bronze plaque will explain the meaning of the dog tags to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who pause to pay homage each year while walking Boston's Freedom Trail — a 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) route that takes visitors past the church, Revere's house and other historic landmarks.

"We once were enemies, but we've long since gotten over that," said the Rev. Stephen Ayres, vicar of Old North Church. "We're now a go-to church for the British community in Boston. That's part of the improbability and wonder of Old North."

Bruce Brooksbank, the Iraq-Afghanistan memorial's volunteer caretaker, remembers how soldiers in the 1960s and '70s were disrespected when they returned home from Vietnam. "This is my own little chance to make amends," he said.

Fittingly, two top soldiers from both countries will join forces on Nov. 17 to unveil the wreath and plaque, both paid for by The Soldiers Fund, a Boston-based nonprofit that supports U.S. and British soldiers, veterans and their families.

Retired Gen. Martin Dempsey, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under President Barack Obama who now oversees USA Basketball, and retired Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, who held the highest post in the British Army from 2003-2006, will preside over the unveiling. Both will speak at a Soldiers Fund dinner in Boston that evening.

There's another tie that binds, said Boyd, who chairs the board of the Soldiers Fund: In 1917, Massachusetts sent one of the largest U.S. regiments to fight in WWI, naively dubbed "the war to end all wars."

"We're commemorating British and American lives lost, at a church where Paul Revere said with his lanterns that the British were coming," he said. "It's really all kind of come full circle."

Minority candidates see both success and veiled racism

November 08, 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — For all the many successes among candidates of color, the midterm elections also proved to some the enduring power of racism, with minority politicians' intelligence and integrity called into question by their opponents and President Donald Trump in what were widely seen as coded appeals to white voters.

Several Democratic strategists said Wednesday that the outcome showed the need for the party to recalibrate its strategy heading into 2020 and beyond. To win, they said, the party must expand its base of black and brown voters while also calling out racism more directly and doing more to persuade white voters to reject bigotry.

"At some point, voters have to stop rewarding racist behavior," said activist Brittany Packnett. During the campaign cycle, Trump referred to black Tallahassee mayor and Democratic candidate for Florida governor Andrew Gillum as "a thief" because of an undercover FBI investigation into his acceptance of Broadway tickets. Trump also branded Gillum's city "corrupt."

And he framed Yale Law School graduate, veteran lawmaker and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a black woman, as incompetent. Republican Ron DeSantis, who beat Gillum on Tuesday, began the campaign by cautioning Florida voters not to "monkey this up" by voting for the Democrat — a remark that was also decried as racist.

In the end, Gillum came within less than 56,000 votes of DeSantis. In Georgia, the contest for governor was still too close to call on Wednesday. There were also campaigns around the country where allegations of racism were not enough to knock the candidate out of the running. In Iowa, Republican Rep. Steve King won a ninth term despite condemnation from his own party over his ties to white supremacists.

"Progressives have to have a better rebuttal to Trump's tribalism than they have right now," said Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher. "We have to give moderate white voters who are bothered by a sense of division some skin in this racism game. That's not pivoting to health care. That's talking about how this tribalism will affect them and their children. You don't fix racism by not taking it on."

In an often-combative morning-after news conference Wednesday, Trump rejected any suggestion that he emboldened white nationalists recently by describing himself as a "nationalist." The president repeatedly said the question, posed by a black journalist, was itself racist.

On the plus side of the ledger for minorities Tuesday, a lot of the organizing during the midterm cycle was focused on minority voters, and record early turnout and long lines on Election Day suggested those efforts paid off.

Organizers pointed to the election to Congress of blacks and Latinos such as Massachusetts' Ayanna Pressley, Connecticut's Jahana Hayes, New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Texas' Veronica Escobar, and the passage of a constitutional amendment in Florida that will restore the right to vote to more than a million former felons.

They also cited the defeat of GOP conservatives like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Kansas Gov. Kris Kobach as evidence that coalitions with liberal and centrist whites can work. Likewise, congressional candidates such as Illinois' Lauren Underwood and New York's Antonio Delgado showed that blacks can win in majority-white districts.

Packnett said there was a lot to be hopeful for going into 2020. "I'm saddened that the white women who also possess a marginalized identity are not voting in their interests more," she said. "But just because we didn't get all the wins in our column that we wanted doesn't mean that there were not people who learned better and did better this election."

Pressley, elected from a liberal, diverse Boston district as Massachusetts' first black congresswoman, said candidates of color ignited and expanded the electorate in this year's midterms. But she said America is not yet at the point where candidates of color are assumed to be capable or experienced.

"When we're characterized as a fad or a trend or a fluke, that's a disservice to our leadership," she said.

Historic voter turnout drives Democrats' win in House, governor's races

NOV. 7, 2018
By Clyde Hughes

Nov. 7 (UPI) -- For the first time in nearly a decade, the House of Representatives will be controlled by Democrats -- after the party made substantial gains in the lower chamber in a number of key midterm races, many marked by record voter turnout.

With several races still unsettled Wednesday, Democrats had surpassed the 219-seat threshold it needed to wrest control from Republicans -- a gain of 26 seats. Key additions in Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida races helped push the Democrats over the top.

The new majority will formally begin when lawmakers take office in January.

Democrats also performed well in gubernatorial races across the country, gaining at least six governorships in Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico and Nevada. Republicans have picked up no gubernatorial races so far.

Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is also projected to lose, which would total seven Democratic pickups. Races in Georgia and Connecticut have not yet been settled.

Republicans fared better in the Senate, winning three new seats.

Mike Braun convincingly beat Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly in Indiana; Kevin Cramer defeated Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in South Dakota; and Josh Hawley knocked off incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is expected to unseat incumbent Bill Nelson, though Nelson had not yet conceded.

The vote tallies follow what appears to be historic voter turnout nationwide.

The U.S. Election Project, run by Michael McDonald from the University of Florida, estimated that 111.56 million Americans cast votes in the midterms this year, easily making it the most participated midterms this century. The next highest total came in 2010 when 90.91 million ballots were counted around the country.

Eight million ballots were cast in Florida, an increase from 6 million for the last midterm in 2014, Time magazine reported. In 2010, 5.5 million voted in the state.

Every county in central Florida experienced higher voter turnout, and in Orange County, 59.7 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, an increase of 15 percent.

Many of the ballots, about 5 million, were early or mail-in ballots.

Arizona saw record turnout, as well. About 2.18 million voters participated, or 58.6 percent of all registered voters -- the most in state history for midterms.

More than 2.6 million voters in Wisconsin topped the turnout for the hotly contested 2012 recall against Walker, and amounted to more ballots than some states recorded in the 2016 presidential election.

In Maryland, WUSA-TV reported turnout was so strong in Prince George's County that at least four polling places ran out of ballots.

Buoyed by the Senate race between Democratic incumbent Tim Kaine and GOP challenger Corey Stewart, Virginians cast almost 3.3 million ballots, an increase of more than 1 million over 2014.

Almost 2.8 million votes were cast in New Jersey, beating its 2014 midterm total of fewer than 2 million, and Kentucky narrowly topped its 2014 turnout.

Texas saw its 2014 midterm totals beaten during early voting. The Houston Chronicle reported the state, which had ranked last in the United States in voter participation, saw 4.8 million early voters -- higher than any of its last four midterms.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/11/07/Historic-voter-turnout-drives-Democrats-win-in-House-governors-races/6081541599925/.

Democrats gain governors' seats, but GOP holds some states

November 07, 2018

Democrats tried Tuesday to fight their way back to power in state capitols across the country by reclaiming governor's seats in several key states, marking significant steps in their nationwide strategy to reverse years of Republican gains in state capitols.

Still, their victories in Kansas, Illinois, Michigan, Maine and New Mexico were balanced by Republicans holding on to one of the top prizes, Florida, and the governor's offices in Ohio and Arizona. All three states will figure prominently in the presidential map in two years.

Other closely watched governors' races in Georgia and Wisconsin remained too close to call Tuesday night. In Michigan, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer defeated Republican Bill Schuette, upending years of Republican control in the state. The former legislative leader will become the second female governor in a state where Democrats heavily targeted other statewide and legislative offices.

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in Illinois lost his bid for a second term to Democrat J.B. Pritzker. The billionaire appears to have capitalized not only on Rauner's lack of popularity but broader dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump. In Kansas, Democratic state lawmaker Laura Kelly defeated Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a close ally of Trump.

New Mexico also tipped into the Democratic column, with voters choosing Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham to succeed two-term Republican Gov. Susana Martinez. The campaign had been defined by conflicts over struggling public schools and high poverty rates.

In Maine, Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills won the race to succeed combative Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who was term-limited after eight years in office. Democrats Andrew Cuomo in New York and Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania easily won re-election, as did two Republicans in Democratic-leaning states — Larry Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts.

In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds broke the Democrats' run of Midwest success by being elected to a full term. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a former Republican presidential candidate and Trump ally, was seeking a third term in a race that remained too close to call.

In all, voters were choosing 36 governors and 6,089 state legislators in general and special elections that have attracted record amounts of spending from national Democratic and Republican groups. Republicans are in control more often than not in state capitols across the country, but Democrats were trying to pull a little closer in Tuesday's elections.

The political parties are trying not only to win now, but also to put themselves in strong position for the elections two years from now that will determine which party will have the upper hand in redrawing congressional and state legislative districts.

Voters in Colorado, Michigan and Missouri approved ballot measures Tuesday overhauling the redistricting process in ways that are intended to reduce the likelihood of partisan gerrymandering by either major party. A redistricting ballot measure also was on the ballot in Utah.

Republicans entered Tuesday's election with a sizable advantage, controlling two-thirds of the 99 state legislative chambers and 33 governors' offices. The GOP held a trifecta of power in 25 states, compared with just eight for Democrats.

Democrats likely will gain full control in Illinois and New Mexico by winning the governor's races. The Democratic victories in Kansas and Michigan will break up Republican trifectas. Republicans were largely on defense but also were angling for gains in a few traditionally Democratic states, such Connecticut.

The governor's races have extra emphasis in 28 states where the winners will serve four-year terms with the potential power to approve or reject district boundaries drawn for Congress or state legislatures.

The Democratic Governors Association had focused on nine swing states — Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — where it believes the governorships could be pivotal in congressional redistricting.

As of mid-October, the Democratic Governors Association and its affiliated entities had raised $122 million during the past two years — a record outdone only by the Republican Governors Association's new high mark of at least $156 million.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and Republican State Leadership Committee, which focus on state races, also set record fundraising targets. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder, has pumped additional money into state races viewed as critical in future redistricting decisions.

Although most state lawmakers responsible for redistricting will be elected in 2020, voters on Tuesday were electing more than 800 state lawmakers in about two dozen states to four-year terms where they could play a role in approving new congressional or state legislative districts.

Right up to Armistice Day, US clout in WWI kept increasing

November 06, 2018

ROMAGNE-SOUS-MONTFAUCON, France (AP) — On the final morning of World War I, U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing was not eager to stop fighting. After all, if one nation had momentum after the first global war's four years of unprecedented slaughter, it was the United States.

U.S. troops would push forward on several fronts in France until the minute a cease-fire took effect at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, six hours after it was negotiated. With more time, the Americans might even have entered Germany soon after, establishing themselves as the world's ascendant military power.

When Pvt. Jose De La Luz Saenz was awoken along the front lines of the Meuse-Argonne offensive in northeastern France on Nov. 11, 1918, the pre-dawn instructions were not only about sealing the imminent cease-fire.

"The orders called for continuing the artillery fire with the same intensity until eleven in the morning," Saenz noted in his published diary. And despite the promise of the armistice, "the day seemed like all others because the artillery duel appeared to be continuing with even greater intensity," he wrote.

In addition to military reasons, there was also a political point to be made, said Nicolas Czubak, a French military historian specializing in northeastern France, where U.S. troops fought. "For the Americans, it really is to show that they have played as important a role in victory as the other armies," Czubak said.

After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, its standing army of 127,500 became an armed force of 2 million within 1½ years. On Nov. 11, 1918, allies like Britain and France were exhausted, Germany was as good as defeated and Pershing had another 2 million troops ready to come over.

"If war had continued into 1919, the No. 1 army in the world fighting at the front would have been the U.S. Army — without a doubt," Czubak said. "It is also why he wanted to continue even after Nov. 11."

Near the place where Saenz heard bombshells explode a century ago now stands the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery at the French town of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon. American soldiers who died on that armistice day — 100 of them — are buried there along with 14,146 fellow U.S. troops. The cemetery holds the largest number of U.S. military dead in Europe.

By the time World War I ended, Americans had been in enough battles that they were interred in a half-dozen cemeteries dotted across northern France. In a war where the dead would be counted in millions — 1.4 million for France, 1.1 million for British imperial forces — the United States had 126,000 dead to mourn.

When U.S. President Donald Trump joins other world leaders at World War I armistice events hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron this weekend, he plans to visit some of the burial sites. And standing among the white crosses, Trump will see that the pre-eminent military force he commands had its roots in French soil, where U.S. troops were instrumental in turning the tide after their nation shed its isolationism and stood by its European allies.

If the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery symbolizes America's coming-of-age in the war, the Aisne-Marne cemetery at the Belleau Wood battleground marks its beginning. When the war started in 1914, most Americans considered it "Europe's war." A hit song in 1915 was titled "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier" and President Woodrow Wilson won re-election in 1916 with the campaign slogan "He kept us out of war."

German belligerence soon had Americans rethinking the wisdom of isolation, said Bruce Malone, a historian and superintendent of the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. "Unrestricted warfare, sinking ships with Americans on them or American ships" and the infamous Zimmermann telegram in which Germany promised to give Mexico some American territory if it kept the U.S. engaged shifted the momentum, he said.

"Even President Wilson, who did not want to be in the war, had no choice," said Malone. On April 6, 1917, the U.S. declared war, much to the relief of its European allies. "It wasn't going well in Europe at the time, and the Germans were actually gaining some momentum. The Allies were essentially running out of men to fight the war," Malone said.

There was one problem though, he added. "We join the war. We've made promises, but we don't have an army. Certainly not of the European standard," he said. Speed was of the essence. Russia left the war in March 1918 and Germany had sent its troops to the Western front for a final full onslaught. Just in time, U.S. soldiers started arriving en masse.

Pershing, disregarding British and French pleas to use U.S. troops to beef up depleted lines under British and French command, always wanted his men to fight as an independent American force. A major breakthrough came at Belleau Wood, when U.S. forces stopped a German advance on Paris against heavy odds. It proved their mettle to the enemy and allies alike.

The Americans kept building on their newly acknowledged grit through the end of the war. Saenz was there to record it. "The bloody fighting and our victory was the decisive blow that finished the Teutonic pride and dispelled forever the Germans' false dream of global conquest," he wrote after a Nov. 2 victory.

Instead, the United States could start dreaming of making the next century its own.

Videojournalist Mark Carlson and photojournalist Virginia Mayo contributed reporting.

Election Day: State, Congress races a referendum on Trump

NOV. 6, 2018
By Clyde Hughes

Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Americans have one last chance to go to the polls on Election Day Tuesday, casting ballots according to their contentment or disgust with how things are going from the White House on down.

Many see Tuesday's congressional and state races as a referendeum on President Donald Trump and his agenda.

The election has already set records for turnout with more than 30 million votes cast during early voting.

Michael McDonald, an associate professor at the University of Florida who researches American elections, said on Twitter 28 states and the District of Columbia have surpassed their 2014 early voting totals.

In two of those states, Nevada and Texas, early voting surpassed all ballots cast in the midterms four years ago.

There's a lot riding on the congressional and gubernatorial races -- leaders who will have the power to reshape district maps after the 2020 Census. Here are some of the highlights of what's at stake o Tuesday.

The Trump referendum

Trump has been active on the campaign trail trying to rally his base to the polls. He has taken a personal interest in the U.S. Senate race in Montana, where he's traveled four times since July.

Democratic incumbent Jon Tester is in a tight race to keep his seat against Republican challenger Matt Rosendale. With Trump's help, Rosendale has closed the gap on Tester, who had led the race by 9 points in a poll last month (47-38).

Trump has also campaigned in recent days in West Virginia and Indiana, where vulnerable Senate Democrats Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly are holding on to slim leads.

Trump vowed to unseat Tester after he led a Democratic effort to block former White House doctor Adm. Ronny Jackson from being appointed to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In most of his rallies, Trump has played up immigration issues, like the caravan of Central American migrants in Mexico headed for the United States -- and the tax cuts from Republicans this year.

In political ads around the country, perhaps no one has been mentioned more than Trump. According to a survey of television and Facebook ads by the Wesleyan Media Project, the president has been mentioned in about 13 percent of all television ads and 17 percent of Facebook ads.

Republicans have targeted Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer in ads. His name has been invoked in 11.3 percent of Republican television ads this season. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has been mentioned in 7.1 percent of GOP ads.

"The economy is so good right now: highest wage increases in a decade, 250,000 new jobs, manufacturing jobs, hospitality, construction," Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement last week.

"We are on a comeback and all Democrats want to do is stop that. ... It's a no-brainer, and we need to close strong and tell voters it is the economy, economy, economy."

Democrats, meanwhile, have mentioned Trump in 10 percent of their ads -- and have made taxes the top issue in their political advertising.

Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, countered McDaniel's positive economic news, arguing that voters feel squeezed by rising prices and are not feeling the economic progress.

"If you get $1 more on your paycheck and the cost of gasoline, the cost of healthcare, the cost of housing goes up by $3, you're not better off," Perez said Sunday. "We created more jobs in the last 21 months of the Obama administration than the first 21 months of the Trump administration. People need to feel that if they work a full-time job, they actually able to feed their families and not tread water."

Historical votes

History might be made in two states. In Florida, voters are deciding if Andrew Gillum will become the first African-American governor -- and in Georgia, Stacey Abrams could be the first black female governor anywhere in the country.

While Gillum, the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, has held a slim lead in the last five state polls, he has consistently led GOP opponent Ron DeSantis.

Trump has hit Florida hard with two campaign trips this past week in an effort rally his base for DeSantis and current Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is trying to unseat incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

In the same StPetePolls.org survey, Scott leads Nelson 49.1 percent to 47.5.

The latest Georgia polls gave Abrams and her opponent, Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, split results.

The Georgia race has been marred by voter suppression charges against Kemp and how he is applying the state's "exact match" voter identification law. A federal judge said Friday the state must change its procedures to make it easier for some people affected by the policy to vote, pointing out how the policy affected minorities disproportionately.

In Vermont, known for its independent streak, Democrat Christine Hallquist is fighting Republican incumbent Phil Scott to become the first openly transgender woman elected as governor. Experts have Scott leading by double-digits.

House in reach of Democrats

The House of Representatives is in play for the first time since President Barack Obama's first term. According to the latest polling, the Democrats have a shot of winning the 23 seats needed to seize the majority in the lower chamber.

Analysis website FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 7-in-8 chance to taking back the House.

"The House playing field is exceptionally broad this year, because of Republican retirements, an influx of Democratic cash and other factors," Nate Silver, the creator, and editor of FiveThirtyEight, said in a statement Saturday.

One of the "must-have" House races for both parties is in Florida's 26th District, where Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo is fighting off a strong challenge from Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Recent polling has them neck-and-neck.

Curbelo had tried to separate himself from Trump's tough immigration rhetoric in recent days, saying in a television interview he believed sending 15,000 U.S. troops to the country's southern border was an "overreaction."

Mucarsel-Powell, in the meantime, charged that Curbelo was trying to burnish his moderate credentials while voting with the Trump administration and Republicans 85 percent of the time.

Republicans feel better about Senate

While the House could flip, many Republicans feel more secure about keeping the Senate when the votes are officially counted Tuesday night.

FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans a 5-in-6 chance of holding the Senate majority, based on changes in several key races.

A KNXV-TV-OH Predictive Insights poll last week showed Arizona Republican Martha McSally with a seven-point lead over Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who held a slim lead in previous polls for the seat to replace U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake.

OH Predictive chief pollster Mike Noble said McSally's support for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his nationally-televised hearing appeared to be the turning point in the race.

"If Kavanaugh didn't happen, I think it'd be an extremely tight race," Noble told KNXV-TV. "If not, I'd actually say the edge would go to Sinema but after seeing the polling - seeing the results -- everything else -- I think that McSally will end up winning coming election night."

While there's been plenty of buzz around Sen. Ted Cruz and challenger Rep. Beto O'Rouke, experts say Cruz is likely to hold onto that seat -- as he leads by an average of 6 to 10 percent.

"O'Rourke is within striking distance, but time is running out," Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement last week.

"Sen. Cruz is ahead due to his winning the 'gender gap.' He wins men 56-39 percent, while Representative O'Rourke can manage only a 52-45 percent edge among women."

Republicans may also be in position to pick off some Democratic seats. In South Dakota, incumbent Sen. Heidi Heitkamp trails GOP challenger Kevin Cramer by double-digits in some polling. In Missouri, Sen. Claire McCaskill was tied with challenger Josh Hawley in recent polling.

Big day for marijuana

The growing U.S. marijuana industry is hoping to expand even more Tuesday, with voters in four states weighing in on various legalization measures.

North Dakota will vote on allowing residents to grow, use and possess as much pot as they want, without government oversight. Michigan will vote on legalizing, taxing and regulating recreational-use pot, along with three other laws to allow medical use.

Missouri will vote on three plans to allow residents to grow, manufacture, sell and use marijuana with varying degrees of taxation and other provisions. Utah will vote whether to approve a medical cannabis measure.

Some 30 states have already legalized marijuana and the District of Columbia has legalized medical-use cannabis.

Other issues

Alabama will decide a constitutional amendment defining "personhood" at conception, in a key abortion rights measure.

Oregon and West Virginia will vote on amending their constitutions to limit Medicaid abortion funding only to cases where the life of the mother is in danger, rape and incest.

Colorado, Michigan and Utah will decide on creating independent commissions for redistricting. Those states currently have legislators draw their own lines, like most states.

Florida will vote on expanding voting rights to felons, which could give an estimated 1.5 million their right to vote back.

Michigan and Nevada will decide on making voter registration automatic, and Maryland will decide on approving same-day registration and voting.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: https://www.upi.com/Election-Day-State-Congress-races-a-referendum-on-Trump/8011541435519/.

Fire kills at least 7 at dormitory-style housing in S. Korea

November 09, 2018

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A fire that likely blocked a crucial exit at a low-cost dormitory-style housing facility in central Seoul killed at least seven people and injured 11 others on Friday, according to fire authorities who were investigating possible safety lapses in the building.

The blaze has been extinguished, but it's possible that the death toll could rise, officials at the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters said. The fire probably started near an exit door on the building's third floor, Kwon Hyeok-min, chief of Seoul's Jongno District Fire Station, told reporters. The facility's residents were mostly manual laborers who made their living on day-to-day jobs, he said.

"It was dawn and the exit door was likely blocked, so it would have been difficult (for the residents) to escape," Kwon said. Another official from the Jongno station said the facility, which was built in 1983, did not have sprinklers because current safety regulations can't be retroactively applied to older structures. The official, who didn't want to be named, citing office rules, said it was unclear whether the building's smoke detector worked.

The facility, called "goshiwon" in Korean, is where poor workers relying on construction jobs or student preparing for bar exams or civil service exams stay in individual rooms with tiny sleep and study spaces. Budget travelers also often stay in such facilities.

South Korean media reported that most of the victims were manual laborers in their 40s to 60s. The fire agency couldn't immediately confirm the reports. It wasn't known whether any young students or travelers were staying there.

The facility was located on the second and third floors of a three-story building, where the fire agency said all the victims were found. Its first floor has restaurants. South Korea, one of Asia's richest economies, has struggled for decades to improve safety standards and change widespread attitudes that treat safety as subservient to economic progress and convenience.

Forty-six people died in January when a fire ripped through a small hospital with no sprinkler systems in the southern city of Miryang. It was the country's worst fire since 2008, when 40 people died at a refrigerated warehouse in Icheon, near Seoul. Twenty-nine people were killed in a building fire in Jecheon in December of last year.

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

China dismisses criticism about mass detentions at UN

November 06, 2018

GENEVA (AP) — China on Tuesday once again rejected criticism of its treatment of ethnic Muslims, telling the United Nations that accusations of rights abuses from some countries were "politically driven."

At a regular U.N. review of the country's human rights record, China characterized the far west region of Xinjiang as a former hotbed of extremism that has been stabilized through "training centers" which help people gain employable skills.

Former detainees of such centers, on the other hand, have described the facilities as political indoctrination camps where ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities are forced to renounce their faith and swear loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.

The U.N. has previously said there are credible reports that as many as 1 million people are being held in this form of extrajudicial detention. At Tuesday's review — part of the Human Rights Council's periodic review process for every member state — the U.S., Canada, Japan and several other countries called on Beijing to address growing concerns over its treatment of Xinjiang Muslims.

U.S. charge d'affaires Mark Cassayre urged China to "immediately release the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of individuals" arbitrarily detained in the region. Representatives from both Canada and the U.K. said the country's human rights situation has "deteriorated."

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng dismissed the censures. "We will not accept the politically-driven accusations from a few countries that are fraught with biases," Le said. Yasim Sadiq, the Uighur mayor of Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi, told the session in Geneva that current policies are in line with the people's wishes. He repeated China's frequently cited claim that no terrorist attacks have occurred in the region for 21 months, and that "trainees" who were previously "controlled by extremist ideology" have since immersed themselves in cultural and athletic activities at the centers.

Sadiq said visitors are always welcome in Xinjiang, but he did not address requests from several countries to allow independent UN observers inside the region. In recent years, Xinjiang has been outfitted with a high-tech security network , making police checkpoints and surveillance cameras ubiquitous throughout the region.

Human Rights Watch said the U.N. review showed the contrast between Beijing's view of its human rights records and "the grim realities." "China's efforts to whitewash its record have failed to convince a growing number of states who recognize China's deliberate and systemic abuses, and suppression of dissenting voices, can no longer be ignored," John Fisher, the organization's Geneva director, said in an emailed statement.

About 500 people, including ethnic Uighurs but also pro-Tibet demonstrators, marched through Geneva before holding a boisterous, colorful rally at Geneva's landmark three-legged chair outside the U.N. offices.

Chanting "Shame on China" and accusing its government of tyranny and "terrorist" repression, the demonstrators waved light-blue flags representing East Turkistan — some Uighurs' preferred name for Xinjiang — and held aloft photos of loved ones who have gone missing or were taken into custody by Chinese authorities.

Wang reported from Beijing.

Israel holds municipal vote, Jerusalem chooses new mayor

October 30, 2018

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israelis are voting in municipal elections across the country. In the closest watched race Tuesday, four candidates are hoping to become the next mayor of Jerusalem — a city with great importance to billions of people around the world.

Ofer Berkovitch, a young secular activist, is running against Moshe Lion, a longtime political activist, Cabinet minister Zeev Elkin, who is supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and ultra-Orthodox candidate Yossi Daitch.

If no one captures 40 percent of the votes, the top two finishers will advance to a runoff. Jerusalem is a diverse city, with a Jewish population divided between secular residents, modern Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox. In addition, about one-third of the population is Palestinian.

Few Palestinians vote, however, seeing participation as recognition of Israeli control over east Jerusalem.

Sri Lanka president summons Parliament after PM turmoil

November 01, 2018

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's president has summoned Parliament to meet next week as pressure grows for him to resolve the turmoil set off when he sacked the Cabinet last week, his chosen prime minister said Thursday.

President Maithripala Sirisena made the decision a day after meeting with Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya who previously warned of possible violence if lawmakers were not summoned immediately. On Friday, Sirisena had dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his Cabinet, later telling reporters he acted in part because Wickremesinghe and a Cabinet colleague were behind an alleged assassination plot against him. Details of the alleged plot have not been disclosed and Wickremesinghe denies the accusation.

Sirisena had replaced him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa and suspended Parliament until Nov.16 in an apparent attempt to give Rajapaksa time to muster enough support to survive any no-confidence vote.

Wickremesinghe had demanded the convening of Parliament, saying he still controls a majority of lawmakers. Sirisena's moves have triggered a power struggle and some observers call it a constitutional crisis.

In remarks broadcast on state television, Rajapaksa told a meeting at his office that Sirisena decided to summon Parliament on Nov. 5. Sirisena was under increasing pressure by his political opponents, rights groups and foreign governments including the United States to summon parliament and end the crisis.

Sirisena's supporters have talked for weeks about an alleged assassination plot, but Sunday was the first time Sirisena commented publicly about it. A police information has said Wickremesinghe and a Cabinet colleague, former army commander Sarath Fonseka, were behind it. Police have made no arrests.

Tensions have been building between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe for some time, as the president did not approve of economic reforms introduced by the prime minister. Sirisena was also critical of investigations into military personnel accused of human rights violations during Sri Lanka's long civil war, which ended in 2009.

A shooting at the Petroleum Minister on Saturday killed two people and wounded one in the first violence related to the political turmoil. On Tuesday, thousands of Sri Lankans protested in the capital demanding Sirisena immediately convene Parliament.

Russia marks anniversary of 1941 military parade

November 07, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of troops in World War II uniform have marched across Moscow's Red Square in a re-enactment of a historic wartime parade. On Nov. 7, 1941, Red Army soldiers marched directly to the front line during the Battle of Moscow to repel the invading Nazi forces closing in on the Soviet capital.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Wednesday the 1941 parade was "a symbol of courage and faith," paving way for "the first difficult step toward victory over the Nazis." The re-enactment featured about 5,000 troops in period uniforms, vintage T-34 tanks and other WW II weapons.

During Soviet times, annual military parades were held on Nov. 7 to commemorate the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The holiday was abolished in 2005, but many older Russians still celebrate it.

Putin praises Russian GRU military intel for its 100 years

November 02, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin congratulated Russia's GRU military intelligence on its centenary Friday, hailing the agency that has been accused by the West of election meddling, nerve agent poisonings and hacking attacks against chemical weapons probes and anti-doping sports bodies.

"I'm confident of your professionalism, courage and determination," the Russian leader said in a speech to GRU officers in Moscow. Putin said he highly appreciates the intelligence information and the analytics produced by the GRU and also praised the agency for its actions in Syria, saying it strongly contributed to the success of Russia's campaign there.

The United States and its allies have accused the GRU of involvement in the March nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy in Britain, hacking the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and disrupting anti-doping efforts in world sports. Russian authorities have rejected the accusations, calling them part of a Western smear campaign.

Putin made no reference to Western accusations against the GRU, but noted rising global tensions. "The conflict potential in the world is growing," Putin said in Friday's speech. "There are provocations and blatant lies, as well as attempts to upset strategic parity."

The GRU has recently faced a series of exposures that revealed its inner workings. In September, British intelligence released surveillance images of GRU agents accused of the March nerve agent attack on former GRU officer and British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury. The investigative group Bellingcat and the Russian site The Insider quickly exposed the agents' real names.

Dutch authorities also have recently identified four alleged GRU agents who tried to hack the world's chemical weapons watchdog from a hotel parking lot. While the GRU counts its history from 1918, when it was created in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution, Putin also mentioned its predecessors in imperial Russia. He noted that some imperial army officers helped the Bolsheviks organize military intelligence after the 1917 revolution.

"They realized that there is no worse shame than to betray the Motherland, betray comrades, and at the time of turmoil and revolutionary upheavals helped preserve the continuity of the service's traditions," he said.

Putin added "military intelligence officers showed the same loyalty to their duty in the early 1990s following the breakup of the Soviet Union, helping preserve the GRU potential."

NATO chief: Both sides expected to behave despite drills

October 30, 2018

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — NATO's secretary-general said Tuesday he is confident that both the Western military alliance and Russia "will act in a respectable way" as the two sides hold drills in the same area in waters off Norway's coast.

Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday as he attended the Trident Juncture war games in his native Norway that "this is not a Cold War situation," stressing it is "purely to prevent, not to provoke." Russia has been briefed by NATO on the exercises and invited to monitor them, but the move has still angered the Russians.

Moscow has warned it could be forced to respond to increased NATO military activities and said its navy plans to test missiles in international waters, close to where the alliance is conducting its largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War.

The Russian missile tests will take place Nov. 1-3 off western Norway. The NATO drill, scheduled to end Nov. 7, takes place in central and eastern Norway, the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. The maneuvers come amid persistent tensions between NATO and Russia, and Moscow believes the alliance is behaving provactively near its borders.

"This is a necessary exercise" to "send a strong signal of unity," Stoltenberg told reporters as he visited the NATO maneuvers that involve around 50,000 personnel from all 29 NATO allies, plus partners Finland and Sweden.

There also are 65 ships, 250 restoring Norway's sovereignty after an aircraft and 10,000 vehicles in a hypothetical scenario that involves attack by a "fictitious aggressor." The U.S. Navy admiral commanding the war games said Russia has been monitoring the drill with "curiosity," judging from recent regional movements of Russian troops in the air and at sea. He did not elaborate.

"I have no issue with that as long as it doesn't interfere with what we do," Adm. James Foggo told reporters in Finland on Friday, adding that he expected Moscow to take a "professional" stance to the drill and dispatch military observers.

"No-one should have an issue of us (NATO) operating on international waters or international airspace," Foggo said. He called Finland and Sweden "very, very capable" NATO partner countries, and said the drills offer a chance for the alliance and the two Nordic nations to test their cooperation.

The countries have been alarmed by neighboring Russia's substantially increased military maneuvers in the region during the past few years. Hundreds of Finnish and Swedish air, infantry and naval troops will be involved with Trident Juncture, prompting Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday to remind the two countries that NATO's drill "fits within the policy of the United States toward making Europe less secure".

Adm. Foggo said it was the first time since the end of the Cold War that a U.S. aircraft carrier is sailing so far north above the Arctic Circle. In conjunction with Trident Juncture, the USS Harry S. Truman, a massive aircraft carrier, was leading a U.S. strike carrier group conducting air, surface and underwater exercises in the rough Arctic seas, he said.

Tanner reported from Tallinn, Estonia.

Georgia heading for presidential runoff by early December

October 29, 2018

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgia is heading for a presidential runoff by early December after no candidate achieved the 50 percent of the vote to win the election on Sunday. The Central Election Commission said Monday that preliminary results showed two former foreign ministers — Salome Zurabishvili and Grigol Vashadze — won 39 and 38 percent of the vote, respectively, in an election with 25 candidates.

A runoff between the two is expected to be held by Dec. 1 in what will be Georgia's last presidential election. Constitutional changes kick in at the end of the next president's term that will leave it to a delegate system to choose the president. The changes will make the prime minister the most powerful political figure in the country.

Zurabishvili served as Georgia's foreign ministry for a little more than a year when she was sacked in 2005 amid disagreements with parliament. She is running as an independent but is backed by the powerful Georgian Dream party which dominates the parliament.

Vashadze has been backed by a coalition that includes the United National Movement that was founded by former president Mikheil Saakashvili who opposes the current government. Election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe in their mission's report released on Monday hailed the vote as "competitive and professionally administered."

"Candidates were able to campaign freely and voters had a genuine choice, although there were instances of misuse of administrative resources, and senior state officials from the ruling party were involved in the campaign," the report said.

Royals Harry and Meghan name kiwi birds 'gift' and 'sneeze'

October 31, 2018

ROTORUA, New Zealand (AP) — Prince Harry and wife Meghan examined the navel, nostrils and whiskers on New Zealand's flightless kiwi bird and got to name two tiny chicks on the final day of their 16-day tour of the South Pacific.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited a kiwi hatchery in the town of Rotorua on Wednesday and learned about the breeding program for the threatened birds, which are considered national icons. They gave the 3-day-old kiwi chicks indigenous Maori names: "Koha" meaning "gift" and "Tihei" meaning "sneeze," from the Maori saying "tihei mauri ora" meaning "the sneeze of life" or the right to speak. The names were gender neutral because their sexes haven't yet been identified.

The couple also visited a Maori meeting grounds or "marae," went for a public walkabout and strolled through a redwood forest as they finally enjoyed sunny weather after their stop in New Zealand had earlier been dampened with rain.

At the Te Papaiouru Marae, the couple attended a formal welcoming ceremony and luncheon and were each given striking Maori cloaks, or "korowai." Harry and Meghan arrived in New Zealand on Sunday after earlier visiting Australia, Fiji and Tonga. During public walkabouts they have been greeted by hundreds of enthusiastic fans.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this week there seems to be little appetite for changing New Zealand from a constitutional monarchy that recognizes Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to a republic. "I do not pick up from the New Zealand public that this is high on their agenda. That this is an issue that they see of such importance that we need to be debating it in the current environment for New Zealand," she said. "And I take my steer from them."

On the trip, Meghan has shown she is prepared to continue speaking out about feminist issues in her new role as a royal. In Wellington, she gave a speech congratulating the country on becoming the first in the world to allow women to vote some 125 years ago.